Juliette Marie

Youth and first steps in teaching

Juliette Félicité Marie was born in Trouville-sur-Mer (Calvados) on 6 October 1868. She was the daughter of Théophile Marie, a railroad letter carrier, and Madeleine Boussard, of no formal profession.We have little information about her youth and private life. She probably spent her childhood inNormandy[1]. She had at least one sister, Louise Joséphine, who was born in 1871and with whom she was very close, according toMs Leroy[2], a teacher at the Teacher Training College in Arras: ‘Miss Louise, who is twice your sister, sinceshe is both your sister and your best friend’[3]. She apparentlynever married[4].

His personnel file provides information about her career prior to her arrival in Arras. We learn that Juliette Marie had to travel in mainland France on several occasions for study and work purposes before being posted to Arras, sometimes to departments that were far apart (Calvados, Allier,Haute-Savoie, etc.)[5].

Her service record shows that she chose to become a schoolteacher in the 1880s, enrolling at Rouen TeacherTraining College[6]. She left this college[7] to attend the Teacher Training College in Fontenay-aux-Roses (now in the Hauts-de-Seine department)[8] and become a teacher at a teacher training college in 1888. In 1891, after obtaining her teaching certificate, she joined the Teacher Training College in Caen as a professor of literature. Three years later, in October 1894, she returned to Fontenay-aux-Roses to prepare to become the head of a teacher training college. She would remain there for one year. In the second half of 1895, she returned to her native region, taking up a post in an affiliated school of Rouen Girls’ Teacher Training College[9] before becoming a teacher at the Ecole primaire supérieure (EPS) in Le Havre in 1899. In 1901, Juliette Marie left Normandy to become the head of the EPS in Saint-Étienne, then, in 1903, of the École normale in Rumilly (Haute-Savoie). In September 1906, she left Haute-Savoie to become headmistress of the École normale d’institutrices in Moulins (Allier) until 1914. In February 1914, she moved to Pas-de-Calais to take charge of the Girls’ Teacher Training College in Arras, a position she held until her retirement in 1930. The job soon proved to be a trying one, with the arrival of war at the gates of Arras a few months later.

But the sound of approaching cannonfire made her realise that war was just around the corner. On 5 October, Arras was surrounded by the enemy on three sides. On the night of 5-6 October, the city began to be bombarded, with shells falling near the school. The school was spared, but the neighbourhood was devastated. By 9 October, the neighbourhood was unrecognisable. The school was still standing, but Juliette Marie noticed a great deal of damage (broken windows, etc.). The fighting, and the destruction that came with it, was getting dangerously close.On 21 October, she noted with sadness the disappearance of Arras’ belfry. Throughout this period, she had to live with several people in the institution’s basements. Despite these conditions, Juliette Marie chose to remain at her post to look after her school.

After a few days of relative calm, on 25 October Juliette Marie received an order from the Prefect stating that she was released from all professional obligations and urging her to leave. She decided to go to the ENG (boys’ teacher training college) at the other side of town. The ENG, although located close to French batteries, was spared the fighting. However, the head, Léon Ancel, announced that he would be leaving the institution in three days’ time. At the beginning of November, taking refuge in the crypts of the former Ursuline convent assigned to the girls’ college, she learned that the right wing of the ENF had caught fire after being bombed by a German aeroplane. Arriving on the scene, she could only observe the extent of the damage, and made a point of searching for the accounting ledgers and a few items that had escaped the fire. Nothing was found in the rest of the school, which had been looted as soon as she left on 25 October. Later, the ruins and basements of the school became a refuge and rear base for Allied soldiers.
The Girls’ Teacher Training College in Arras disappeared, but the institution remained. Reading Juliette Marie’s testimony, we sense the desire to maintain training for teachers despite the war: ‘The enemy’s cannonfire may have destroyed our walls, but it has not destroyed our will to live, nor the hope that blossoms in our hearts that our beloved Arras Teacher Training College will soon arise from its ashes once again.

The rebirth of the Girls’ Teacher Training College from Arras to Berck-sur-Mer

At the end of 1914, Juliette Marie took refuge in central France, where she was employed as a temporary teacher at the boys’ secondary school in Saint-Étienne. However, she soon returned to Pas-de-Calais. In February 1915, the school inspectorate was in fact looking for premises to temporarily house the student teachers. The premises need to be large enough to accommodate classes and boarding. This search had been made complicated due to the fact that many buildings in towns in western Pas-de-Calais had been requisitioned by the Allies, as was also the case in Boulogne-sur-Mer and Montreuil-sur-Mer. Finally, premises were found in Berck-sur-Mer. The two relocated teacher training colleges opened their doors on 1 March 1915.

For Juliette Marie and her student teachers, it was a boarding house called ‘La Famille’, on rue de l’Hôpital, which was owned by an insurer, Henri Watissée. The school soon proved difficult to run, and the premises were too small to accommodate the pupils properly. At the Girls’ Teacher Training College, some of the student teachers could not be accommodated on site, so they were housed in two other buildings, the ‘Jeanne d’Arc’ and ‘Les Alcyons’ villas, and some lived with their families in Berck. These multiplepremises meant that the headteacher had to constantly move between the different buildings[10].

There was also a serious lack of equipment and furniture required for proper study. There was no library, no laboratory, no scientific equipment and no annexe school for the student teachers to practise in. They had to undertake their studies using whatever materials were available.In addition to poor study conditions, relations with the owners of the houses where the students lived and the owners of the restaurants where they ate were sometimes strained due to the work going on and alterations to the premises, problems with the lease, etc.

However, despite these difficult conditions, Juliette Marie managed to keep her school running smoothly, and studies gradually resumed as the war progressed, as people tried to make up for lost time. The war occupied the minds of the pupils, but they did not stop working hard, as the college’s inspector noted in June 1915: ‘Discipline didnot suffer as a result of the establishment’s imperfections’[11].

A long wait to return to Arras

On 11 November 1918, after several long years of war, the armistice was finally signed. But Juliette Marie and her pupils were unable to return to Arras immediately. Like the town of Arras, the college’s premises had been devastated and required extensive renovation work.

The decision was taken to build a new college building, and Juliette Marie kept a close eye on the construction process, studying the plans for the new college, visiting the construction site, choosing the furniture, etc. She left nothing to chance, as she wanted to provide students with a pleasant and comfortable environment in which to study. Designed for 200 students, the building was modern and met the standards in place in the 1920s: private rooms or cabins, a gymnasium, etc.