Maria Deraismes

Maria Deraismes (born Marie Adélaïde Deraismes; 17 August 1828 – 6 February 1894) was a French author, feminist orator, and Freemason. She was the first woman initiated into Freemasonry in France and co-founded Le Droit Humain, the first mixed-gender Masonic order. A pioneering force for women's rights, she worked alongside Léon Richer, Hubertine Auclert, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to advance the cause of women's civil and political equality.

Biography

Early life

Maria Deraismes was born in Paris on 17 August 1828. She grew up in Pontoise, in the city's northwest outskirts, in a prosperous middle-class family. Her father, a merchandise commissioner, was a Voltairean anticlerical, and her mother was the heiress to an uncle who had developed lighthouse lenses. Deraismes was largely self-taught, learning to read alongside her older sister Anna. She familiarized herself with Greek and Latin classics, Enlightenment writers, the Church Fathers, Eastern religions, the sacred books of India, and German philosophers.

At age twelve, she was already giving speeches from the family garden's bandstand and writing pamphlets and plays that were presented in bourgeois salons. She initially aspired to become a painter, following the example of Rosa Bonheur. She studied with a student of history painter Paul Delaroche and later, after her family moved to Nice, with the court painter of the King of Piedmont. After her father's death in 1852, she returned to Paris and enrolled in Léon Cogniet's workshop for women before turning to writing.

That same year, Deraismes accepted an invitation from Léon Richer to speak at a lodge of the Grand Orient de France in response to Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's misogynistic article "Les bas-bleus" (The Bluestockings). Her lecture on morality was a success, launching her career as a public speaker.

In 1874, with Virginie Griess-Traut (a Fourierist, pacifist, and feminist), Aline Valette (a socialist feminist), and Hubertine Auclert (a suffragist), she created the Société pour l'amélioration du sort de la femme (Society for the Improvement of Women's Condition).

Maria Deraismes was initiated into Freemasonry on 14 January 1882, when it was still rare for a woman to be admitted into that Fraternity. She joined "Les Libres Penseurs" Lodge, of Pecq, a small village to the west of Paris. This initiation caused considerable upheaval in French Freemasonry. The lodge was suspended from its obedience, the Grande Loge Symbolique Écossaise (Scottish Symbolic Grand Lodge), until Deraismes distanced herself from the lodge's work. Negotiations took place with the rebellious brothers, and five months later, the Pecq lodge submitted a membership list to the GLSE from which Deraismes's name was omitted. The incident was closed, and the lodge was reinstated.

Founding of Le Droit Humain Eleven years after her initiation, on 4 April 1893, Deraismes gathered sixteen women from the republican bourgeoisie at her home. Assisted by Georges Martin, she conferred upon them the first symbolic degree of "Apprentice Mason." The first mixed-gender Masonic lodge was thus created in Paris.

Publications Original editions Nos principes et nos mœurs, Paris, Michel Lévy frères, 1868. L’Ancien devant le nouveau, Paris, Librairie nationale, 1869. Lettre au clergé français, Paris, Édouard Dentu, 1879. Les Droits de l’enfant, Paris, Édouard Dentu, 1887. Épidémie naturaliste [Émile Zola et la science, discours prononcé au profit d’une société pour l’enseignement en 1880] par Maria Deraismes, Paris, Édouard Dentu, 1888. Ève dans l’humanité, Paris, L. Sauvaitre, 1891. Le Théâtre de M. Sardou, conference held on 21 January 1875, at the salle des Capucines, Paris, Édouard Dentu, 1875. Ligue populaire contre l'abus de la vivisection : Discours prononcé par Mlle. Maria Deraismes, à la conférence donnée le 23 septembre 1883, au Théâtre des Nations, Paris, A. Ghio, 1884. Œuvres complètes de Maria Deraismes Volume 1 : France et progrès; Conférence sur la noblesse, Paris, Félix Alcan, October 1895. Volume 2 : Eve dans l'Humanité; Le Droits de l'Enfant, Paris, Félix Alcan, January 1896. Volume 3 : Nos Principes et nos Mœurs; L'ancien devant le Nouveau, Paris, Félix Alcan, January 1897. Volume 4 : Lettre au clergé français; Polémique religieuse, 1898.

Modern editions Éve dans l'humanité, articles et conférences de Maria Deraismes, Préface d'Yvette Roudy, éd. Abeille et Castor, Angoulême, 2008. Les Droits de L'enfant : conférence de Maria Deraismes, Lyon, Éd. Mario Mella, 1999. Ce que veulent les femmes, articles et discours de 1869 à 1894, éd. Syros, 1980.