Crochet And Beheadings, The ‘True Crime And Wine’ of French Women
Wanna come to the guillotine with me?
Tricoteuses.
French for knitting ladies, the word conjures images of cozy evenings sitting by the fire, crocheting granny squares with a cat on your lap and a cup of tea — or a glass of wine — nearby.
But this word is mainly used to indicate a very different kind of craftswomen: the ones who gleefully knitted away while people’s heads rolled under the guillotine.
Women were active participants of the French revolution from the very beginning — and rowdy ones at that.
On the 5th of October, 1789, three months after the storming of the Bastille, an angry mob of market-women from Paris marched to the royal residence at the Palace of Versailles to protest against the high prices and chronic shortage of food. Their numbers grew and grew while they marched, and they decided to drag along several cannons taken from the Hôtel de Ville (the City Hall in Paris) for good measure.
Seven thousand pissed-off peasant ladies armed with kitchen knives and cannons are a force to be reckoned…
