André Léo (1824–1900)

André Léo was the pen name of Victoire Léodile Béra, born in Lusignan, France. In 1851, after the coup d'état of Napoleon III, she moved to Switzerland to join her fiancé Gregoire Champseix, a journalist who had fled there after his participation in the Revoluition of 1848. They married later that year and had twin sons named André and Léo, from whom she took her nom de plume. She became a journalist herself and published her first novel, Une vieille fille (An Old Girl) while living in Switzerland. After her husband's death in 1863, she went to live in Paris. There she published novels, short stories, essays, articles and political texts. She also hosted meetings of a feminist group called the Société pour la Revendication du Droit des Femmes (Society for the Advocacy of Women's Rights), which was focused on improving the education of girls. Members included Paule Minck, Louise Michel, Eliska Vincent, Élie Reclus and Néomie Reclus, Mme Jules Simon, Caroline de Barrau, and Maria Deraismes. During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, André Léo was arrested with her friend Louise Michel during a demonstration in support of the Republic. She founded the newspaper La République des travailleurs (The Workers' Republic) and participated in the Paris Commune in 1871. Escaping the bloody repression of the Commune by the government, she went back to Switzerland and then to Italy. In 1871, she published La Guerre sociale (The Social War), in which she told the story of the Commune. Traveling in Europe, she devoted herself to studying and improving the condition of women. She returned to France after the amnesty of 1880.