Madeleine Vernet

French libertarian educator, novelist, poet, feminist, peace activist and propagandist. In 1888, Madeleine Vernet's parents moved to Barentin (Seine-Inférieure), where they opened a small business. Around 1900, Madeleine Vernet's then widowed mother moved to Pissy-Pôvilie (Seine-Inferieure) and, in order to survive, took charge of four orphan girls under the old 'enfants de l'Assistance publique' social welfare scheme. This event revealed to the young Vernet her vocation as a popular educator. She wrote a series of articles under the pen name 'Madeleine Vernet' on the "Bureautins" [children raised in the country at the expense of the charity office of Rouen] for Charles Guieysse's 'Pages libres' (Free Pages), denouncing the great misery of these fostered children and the abuses tolerated by the then Administration; in retaliation, the pupils entrusted to his mother were withdrawn. Madeleine Vernet tried to create a working-class orphanage managed by co-operatives in the Rouen region, but she failed. In 1904 Madeleine Vernet participated in founding the Ruche at Rambouillet, a school dedicated to avant-garde education and, at the end of that year, she moved to Paris to try to realise her plans. In order to subsist, Vernet worked as an accountant; whilst at the same time becoming tried to gain support for her plans from unions and cooperatives, journalists and deputies. It was then that she began frequenting libertarian circles, and met Albert Thomas, Marcel Sembat and Georges Yvetot. She also collaborated on 'Libertaire' and 'Temps Nouveaux', often writing about her opposition to the néo-Malthusian movement as well as her criticism of the then feminist movement, which she saw more concerned with their own personal struggles rather that the wider social struggle. Vernet also published a series of pamphlets, including the successful 'L'Amour Libre' [Monthly Pamphlet No. 30, April 1925] in which she denounced marriage, source of hypocrisy and sorrow, and affirmed the value of true love without chains or social obligations. She also published a novel, 'La Torine'.

On May 1, 1906, thanks in part to her mother's savings, and with the help from her sister and her partner Louis Tribier, whom she married on October 12, 1909, she founded the L'Avenir Social orphanage in a small house in Neuilly-Plaisance (Seine-et-Oise). In August, Madeleine Vernet rented a second house, since the orphanage now had twenty-four residents. In 1907 there were thirty: seventeen boys and thirteen girls. The orphanage was able to survive thanks to the donations of friends, the help provided by the cooperative La Bellevilloise, and subscriptions from 'Humanité' and 'Guerre Sociale'.

On April 14, 1908, L'Avenir Social was transferred to Épône (Seine-et-Oise). There, Madeleine Vernet continued her work in spite of the hostility of the clerical population and the harassment of the administration and the primary inspector of Mantes. Attacked for its "unhealthy coeducation", Madeleine was banned from teaching and the school fined and forced to close, but the orphanage survived thanks to the financial support of trade unions, cooperatives and various socialist and anarchist groups. In May 1914, L'Avenir Social officially became the 'l'Orphelinat du mouvement ouvrier français' (Orphanage of the French Labour Movement'.

The war forced Madeleine Vernet to leave Épône for the "colony of children of mobilised troops" in Etretat (Seine-Inferieure) but, as soon as the front was stabilised, she return to Épône. Throughout the war, Madeleine Vernet engaged in pacifist propaganda activities. She published poems, took in Johan, the eldest son of Marie and François Mayoux, who were in prison at the time for their anti-militarist propaganda activities, organised a defence committee for Hélène Brion, a schoolteacher and secretary of the board of Épône, who had been arrested for distributing pacifist propaganda. Madeleine Vernet distributed an underground pamphlet, and two numbers of Les Voix qu’on étrangle, a pacifist sheet. In 1916–17 she contributed to Sébastien Faure's journal 'Ce qu’il faut dire'. In April 1918 she published 'L'École laïque menacée' (The Lay School Threatened), and undertook a lecture tour in Lyon, Saint-Étienne, Firminy and Saint-Chamond. On her return to Épône she was charged with defeatist propaganda, but the charges were dropped with the armistice.

In October 1917 Madeleine Vernet founded 'La Mère Éducatrice', which she published until her death, as a platform to espouse her particular synthesis of feminism, pacifism and maternity, and collaborating with radical feminists such as Nelly Roussel, Louise Bodin and Hélène Brion. In 1921, Madeleine Vernet founded the Ligue des femmes contre la guerre (League of Women against War) in Paris, and continued her educational work in the orphanage at Épône for a while. However, by 1922 the majority of the board of directors of the orphanage were Communist and, disagreeing with their views, in January 1923 she resigned as director. On June 13, 1923, the pupils of Épône left for Mitry-Mory (Seine-et-Marne), new residence of the work. Two years later, L'Avenir Social was taken over by the Union départementale unitaire de la Seine. Transferred to La Villette-aux-Aulnes (Seine-et-Oise), it became L'Orphelinat Ouvrier, which ceased to function in 1938.

Madeleine then lived at 39 rue Chaptal in Levallois-Perret where from July 1923 she managed the bookshop Au Panthéon de la Pensée. In 1928, Madeleine Vernet was secretary-general of the Comité international d'action et propagande pour la paix et le désarmement (International Committee for Action and Propaganda for Peace and Disarmament), whose newspaper, 'La Volonté de Paix' (The Will to Peace) she founded in June 1927. The newspaper was banned in January 1936 following the trial of its manager, her partner Louis Tribier, who had been accused of incitement (of soldiers) to disobedience. In April 1935, Madeleine Vernet was elected to the Governing Board of the Ligue internationale des combattants de la Paix.

Madeleine Vernet died on October 5, 1949 and was buried in the cemetery of Barentin (Seine-Inférieure).