Terry Crowdy - Napoleon’s Women Camp Followers

A ll armies stretching back into antiquity were followed by retinues of non-combatant servants and squires, wives, children, merchants, minstrels, harlots, hawkers and other adventurous itinerants. The subjects of this book are specifically the women authorized to follow Frances armies during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (17921815). Unlike many other camp followers of that period, these Frenchwomen were regulated and officially recognized, and played a highly appreciated part in the armys d aily life.

They were not military personnel paid by the state, but the civilian wives of soldiers, working as sutler-women and laundresses. We should also perhaps stress their non-combatant status. Without doubt, women camp followers did sometimes take up weapons in desperation to defend themselves, whether on the frozen uplands east of Smolensk or in Spanish passes. Many could handle a flintlock musket or pistol, and the hardier types probably kept close-protection weapons somewhere about their baggage or person. Equally, while some may have thrown on a spare greatcoat or riding-mantle in the perishing cold, or sported a soldiers cap during a boozy night of song, it would be a mistake to think of camp followers of this period as uniformed service personnel (see below, Costume). They were simply civilian women who had either been born into a regiment or who had once fallen in love with a soldier, and who ended up sharing the military life, in good times and in bad.

Sutler-women were known initially (and always officially) as vivandires, but also, increasingly from the mid-1790s, as cantinires . The English word closest in meaning to vivandire is victualler a word originating in Old French, and ultimately from the Latin victus (that which sustains life). Vivandier (the male form) is derived from the words vivres (foodstuffs), and viande (fresh meat). Since the term clearly implies a transactional relationship a provider of food and drink it is often translated as sutler, although in fact that word originally had a very different meaning; it comes to us from the Dutch zoetelaar (a person who performs menial tasks). The term cantinire derives from cantine , a French word which only came into use in the mid-18th century, originally from the Latin cantina (wine cellar). Initially meaning a barkeeper in a garrison town, cantinire was applied freely to vivandires , and the two words became synonymous and interchangeable.

Detail from painting of the battle for the bridge at Arcola in 1796, by Louis Albert Guislain Bacler DAlbe (17611824), showing a camp follower tending a wounded hussar. The vivandire is wearing a deep red dress with a matching headscarf, and note the apron characteristically tucked up at her hip. (Fine Art Images/ Heritage Images/ Getty Images)

This scene of the march to Versailles on 5 October 1789, which forced the royal family to return to Paris, reminds us that women played a significant part in the Revolution. Thereafter, however, they were officially permitted neither to pursue political activities nor to bear arms. (API/Gamma-Rapho via Gettu Images)

These vivandires or cantinires have an iconic status in the annals of Napoleons Grande Arme plucky, stoical women who braved shot and shell to sustain the soldiers with tots of brandy, as they fought and marched their way to glory. As the great soldiermemoirist Elzar Blaze said of them:

The cantinires rendered great services to the army, while making their fortune... These women, endowed with an unusual energy, were tireless; braving the cold, the heat, the rain and the snow like old grenadiers People who have never lacked the essential things in life cannot imagine the importance of a bottle of wine or a glass of brandy at certain moments.