Sarah Monod

Early years

Alexandrine Elisabeth Sarah Monod was born on 24 June 1836 in Lyon. She was the fourth of seven children of the evangelical church pastor of Lyon Adolphe Monod and his wife Hannah Honyman. She was baptized on 24 July 1836. Her godfather was her uncle Edouard Monod, a merchant at Le Havre, and her godmothers were her paternal aunts Eliza and Betsy Monod.

There are few sources about Sarah Monod's childhood. She would have taken private lessons, including Italian and German in addition to English, her mother's language, which she spoke fluently. She also took care of the education of her younger sister Camille, nine years her junior. In the summer she stayed with her sister Émilie in England or with the family of Pastor Puaux in Normandy. From childhood she was a friend of Louise Puaux and Julie Puaux, future co-workers in the National Council of French women (Conseil national des femmes françaises).

Sarah Monod was very close to her father, who died in 1855 when she was nineteen. After working with him towards the end of his life, she tried to collect his works. She published "The Farewell of Adolphe Monod to his friends and the Church", several volumes of sermons, a collection of letters and a biography of her father. She wrote a short biography of sister Caroline Malvesin, founder of the Diaconesses de Reuilly, a charitable Protestant foundation in Paris.

Her pious education was later very evident in her speeches. She was said by the journalist Jane Misme to be dressed as a Quaker and the "Pope of Protestantism."

Franco-Prussian war

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 was a turning point in the life of Sarah Monod. On the death of her mother in 1868, she approached the Diaconesses de Reuilly in Paris. It is thanks to her involvement with the Diaconesses de Reuilly that she left on 3 August 1870 for the front of Forbach fifteen days after the declaration of war. The "Monod" mobile ambulance set up at the instigation of the Auxiliary Evangelical Committee for Relief of wounded and sick soldiers, treated more than 1,500 wounded between 3 August 1870 and 3 March 1871, including casualties of the battles of Daucourt and Beaumont.

After the defeat of Sedan, Sarah Monod went to London to raise funds and equipment, then returned to France and the ambulance to treat victims of the campaign of the Loire. On 2 July 1871 she was awarded a Bronze Cross for her service and as an Ambulance Inspector. A few months later, she brought aid to more wounded, those of the Paris Commune, regardless of which side they were on.

Abolitionism

At the end of the war, she was appointed lay director of the Diaconesses de Reuilly in Paris, a position she held for 30 years, only resigning when she was appointed head of the National Council of French Women in 1901. His only brother William Monod was chaplain of the institution. Sarah Monod organized the section for correctional education in prison of minor Protestant offenders.

In 1861 her correspondence showed growing concern for the plight of women. The women's prison of Saint-Lazare was the place around which her abolitionist Protestant philanthropy crystallized. His father Adolphe Monod preached there on Sunday, while his mother Hannah Honyma was involved in charity work there. In Saint-Lazare Sarah Monod met Isabelle Bogelot, Director of work of former prisoners of Saint-Lazare, and the abolitionists Josephine Butler, Emilie de Morsier and Aimé Humbert.

The shadow of Sarah Monod hovers over the Christian movements that worked to protect girls, including foster homes and employment offices to prevent prostitution among young girls who came to the city looking for a job. In 1892 she and her sister Camille Vernes created the Young Women's Christian Union (Unions chrétiennes de jeunes filles), the French branch of Young Women's Christian Association.

Sarah Monod worked with her cousin Henri Monod, director of the Higher Council for Public Assistance.

Versailles conference

In Paris in 1889, on the sidelines of the World Expo, the first congress of works and women's institutions was held, organized by Isabelle Bogelot and Emilie de Morsier. Sarah Monod was part of the congress committee chaired by Jules Simon. She decided, so momentum would not be lost, to bring together annually "all women interested in philanthropy". The Versailles conference, chaired by Sarah Monod for 20 years, was born. The meeting was international, inviting women from all over Europe, the United States, and also from Africa (Lesotho and Senegal). Members of the Committee included the great figures of Protestant Philanthropy: Julie Siegfried, Isabelle Bogelot and Emilie de Morsier. The reports on legislation, health, education, and aid were published in the journal La Femme (The Woman).

In 1899 Sarah Monod and Isabelle Bogelot visited the International Congress of Women in London.

National Council of French Women

The National Council of French women (Conseil national des femmes françaises) was established in 1901. The initial committee headed by Isabelle Bogelot included Sarah Monod, Avril de Sainte-Croix and Julie Siegfried from the Congress of works and women's institutions, and Marie Bonnevial, Madame Wiggishoff and Maria Pognon from the International Congress on the condition and rights of women (Congrès international de la condition et des droits de la femme). Although Maria Pognon was concerned that Sarah Monod was for many the "standard-bearer of Protestantism," the choice of the majority was for Sarah Monod as president, due to her high moral and intellectual character. The majority of the members of the council were moderate bourgeois republicans. There was a tiny minority of socialists headed by Louise Saumoneau and Elisabeth Renaud, balanced by the Catholic Right led by Marie Maugeret.

On 11 November 1911 Sarah Monod received the Legion of Honor from the hands of Senator Camille Ferdinand Dreyfus. Among the reforms inspired or recommended by the National Council of French women that she chaired, the French government noted in particular:

Under her presidency the suffrage section of the National Council of French Women was created in 1906.

Sarah Monod was a member of journal L'Avant-Courriere (founded in 1893), and even joined the French Union for Women's Suffrage. But her feminism, a term she disliked was "dignified without stiffness, tenacious without arrogance, persevering without bitterness, warm without passion". She was reluctant to join in actions and campaigns by some suffragists, but ready to "collaborate in all loyalty and all confidence with women from different walks of life, with different religious, philosophical or social views."

She died in Paris on 13 December 1912 at the age of 76, following a stroke aggravated by her presence at a sale organized for the International Union of Friends of young women (Union internationale des Amies de la jeune fille). Her funeral service was held in the temple of Batignolles by Pastor Benjamin Couve in the presence of guests who include Mme Jules Ferry, Marguerite de Witt-Schlumberger, the Puaux and Jules Siegfried families, and Avril de Sainte-Croix. She is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery