Violette Morris

Violette Morris (18 April 1893 – 26 April 1944) was an outstanding and versatile French athlete who won two gold and one silver medal at the Women's World Games in 1921–1922. She was later banned from competing for violating "moral standards". During World War II, she was accused of collaboration with Nazis and the Vichy France regime. She was killed in 1944 in a Resistance-led ambush.

Violette Morris

Morris in 1920
Personal information
Born	18 April 1893
Died	26 April 1944 (aged 51)[1] near Épaignes
Height	166 cm (5 ft 5 in)[2]
Weight	68 kg (150 lb)[2]
Sport
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	Shot put, javelin throw, auto racing
Medal record Representing  France Women's World Games 1921 Monte Carlo Javelin throw 1921 Monte Carlo Shot put 1922 Monte Carlo Shot put 1922 Monte Carlo Javelin throw 1922 Paris Shot put

Early life

The youngest of six sisters, she was born to Baron Pierre Jacques Morris, a retired French Army cavalry captain, and Élisabeth Marie Antoinette "Betsy" Sakakini, of Palestinian Arab origin.[3] Morris spent her adolescence in a convent, L'Assomption de Huy. She married Cyprien Edouard Joseph Gouraud on 22 August 1914 in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. They divorced in May 1923. She served in World War I as a military nurse during the Battle of the Somme and a courier during the Battle of Verdun.[2]

Athletic career

Morris was a gifted athlete, becoming the first French woman to excel at shot put and discus, and playing on two separate women's football teams. She played for Fémina Sports from 1917 until 1919, and for Olympique de Paris from 1920 to 1926. Both teams were based in Paris. She also played on the French women's national team.[2][4]

In addition to her football career, she was an active participant in many other sports. She was selected for the French national water polo team even though there was no women's team at the time. She was an avid boxer, often fighting against, and defeating, men.[5] She became French national champion in 1923. Among the other sports she participated in were road bicycle racing, motorcycle racing, car racing, airplane racing, horseback riding, tennis, archery, diving, swimming,[6] weightlifting, and Greco-Roman wrestling. Her most brilliant athletic years were considered to be from 1921 to 1924, when her slogan was "Ce qu'un homme fait, Violette peut le faire!" (English: "Anything a man can do, Violette can do!"). In 1924 she participated at the 1924 Women's Olympiad again taking the gold medal in discus and shot put. She later won the 1927 Bol d'Or 24 hour car race at the wheel of a B.N.C..[7]

Lifestyle

Morris's lifestyle in the 1920s was quite different from the traditional role of women. In addition to her wide-ranging athletic activities, Morris deviated from traditional behaviours of the time in several other ways. She was homosexual, she dressed in men's attire, was a heavy smoker[2] and swore often.[1][8]

In 1928, the Fédération Féminine Sportive de France (FFSF) [French Women's Sports Federation] refused to renew her licence amid complaints about her lifestyle and she was therefore barred from participating in the 1928 Summer Olympics. The agency cited her lack of morals, in particular, Morris' penchant for wearing men's clothing. She had also punched a football referee.[8] Afterward, Morris decided to undergo an elective mastectomy, which she claimed was in order to fit into racing cars more easily. After 1928, her auto racing license was revoked on similar moral grounds and Morris started a car-parts store in Paris, and, along with her employees, building racing cars. The business went bankrupt.[1][9][10] In 1930, she unsuccessfully sued the FFSF, claiming damages, as she could no longer earn wages competing as an athlete. During the trial, an obscure ordinance from 1800 forbidding women to wear trousers was used against her. Historian Marie-Jo Bonnet claimed that if Morris's homosexuality was not directly targeted in the trial, it was made an issue throughout. Ironically, one of the lawyers acting for the FFSF was the noted campaigner for French women's rights, Yvonne Netter. A quote was attributed to Morris after the trial, but was censored:

"We live in a country made rotten by money and scandals, ruled by speechifiers, schemers and cowards. This country of little people is not worthy of its elders, not worthy of survival. Someday its decay will bring it to the level of a slave, but if I'm still here, I won't be one of the slaves. Believe me, it’s not in my temperament."[3][8][11][12][13]

Morris in front of her Paris automotive store, 1928.

During her athletic career in the 1920s, Morris became friends and associates with many of France's artists and intellectuals. She had longstanding friendships with American-born entertainer Josephine Baker, actor Jean Marais, and poet, author, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau. In 1939, Morris, along with her partner, actress Yvonne de Bray, invited Cocteau to stay with them at their houseboat docked at Pont de Neuilly where he wrote the three-act play Les Monstres sacrés.[14]

Arrest and acquittal for homicide

In January 1933 Morris moved into a houseboat, La Mouette, which was moored on the Seine at Pont de Neuilly in northwest Paris near the Bois de Boulogne. Living off inheritance annuities, she took up lyrical singing and was successful enough in the hobby to be broadcast performing on the wireless.[15]

On Christmas Eve 1937, while having dinner with friends and neighbors Robert and Simone de Trobriand at a restaurant in Neuilly, Morris encountered a drunk and aggressive young man named Joseph Le Cam. The unemployed ex-Legionnaire became embroiled in an heated argument with Simone de Trobriand. Morris was able to calm the man after some time. The following evening, after more drinking in Montmartre, Le Cam returned to Morris' houseboat and another argument took place, this time between Morris and Le Cam. Le Cam left the houseboat, but soon returned after seeing Simone de Trobriand, with whom he had been arguing the night before, boarding La Mouette. Le Cam then rushed back to the houseboat, brandishing a knife and threatening both Morris and de Trobriand. Morris pushed Le Cam several times before he lunged at her and she produced a 7.65mm revolver. Morris fired four shots, the first two into the air, the following two at Le Cam.[15] He would later die in hospital. Morris was arrested and charged with homicide and incarcerated for four days at the La Petite Roquette prison in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. She was tried in the cour d'assises in March 1938, but was acquitted when the court accepted her plea of self-defense.[15]

Collaboration and assassination

According to writer Raymond Ruffin, one of her main responsibilities during the war was to foil the operation of the Special Operations Executive, a British-run organisation that helped the Resistance. He also suggested that as well as being a spy for the Nazis she would have been involved in the torture of suspects, and for all of these activities she was sentenced to death in absentia. Although Morris sourced black-market petrol for the Nazis, ran a garage for the Luftwaffe, and drove for the Nazi and Vichy hierarchy, Bonnet states that this appears to be the limit of her collaboration - and was in any case what she did before the fall of France - and that no evidence exists to support Ruffin's claim that she was involved either in spying or torturing, but perhaps that she was a suitable scapegoat, especially considering her comments before the war.[9][10]

On 26 April 1944, while driving in her Citroën Traction Avant on a country road from Lieurey to Épaignes in Normandy with the Bailleul family, who were favourably positioned with the Nazi regime in France, Morris' car sputtered and came to a halt. Earlier in the day, the engine had been tampered with by maquisards of the French Resistance Maquis Surcouf group. Resistance members then emerged from a hiding spot and opened fire on the car. The three adults and two children in the car were killed. Ruffin claimed that Morris was the target but Bonnet states this is not clear, given the influence of the Bailleul family with the Nazis. Her body, riddled with bullets, was taken to a morgue, where it remained for months, unclaimed. She was buried in an unmarked communal grave.[2][3][9][10]

References

1. Bard, Christine. La championne Violette Morris perd son procès en 1930 Archived 13 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine. musea.univ-angers.fr
2. Ruffin, Raymond. Violette Morris. raymond-ruffin.over-blog.com
3. Papirblat, Schlomo (28 January 2019). "Sporting Champion, Feminist Icon, Nazi Spy? The Extraordinary Life of Violette Morris". Haaretz. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
4. L'équipe féminine de football de l'Olympique. Library of France
5. Entraînement de Melle Violette Moriss i.e. Morris, boxant avec un sparing partner. Library of France
6. Mme Violette Gouraud-Morris nageuse, 1er août 1920, Bassin Niclausse à Paris, La Villette. Library of France
7. Krejci, Martin. "Pre-war races 1927". World Sports Racing Prototypes. Archived from the original on 29 January 2009. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
8. Kessler, Martin (24 February 2017). "Violette Morris: Pioneering Female Athlete Turned Nazi Spy". wbur.org. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
9. Bertrand, Mickaël (1 December 2011). "Bonnet Marie-Josèphe, Violette Morris, histoire d'une scandaleuse". Genre, sexualité & société (6). Archived from the original on 15 March 2018.
10. Bonnet, Marie Josèphe (2011). Violette Morris, histoire d'une scandaleuse. Paris: Perrin.
11. "La championne Violette Morris perd son procès en 1930". archive.wikiwix.com. Archived from the original on 19 May 2019. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
12. "Le " DB58 " aux Archives de la Préfecture de Police". journals.openedition.org. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
13. "Femmes au masculin". musea.univ-angers.fr. Retrieved 6 December 2019.
14. Cari, Coline; Pruvost, Geneviève; Bonnet, Marie-Jo (2012). "Violence symbolique, violence fantasmée, l'exemple de la « scandaleuse » Violette Morris (1893-1944)". Penser la violence des femmes (in French). La Découverte. pp. 201–272. ISBN 9782707172969.
15. Angebert, Michel (2014). Eros en chemise brune. Tome 2: Hitler prédateur (in French). Camion Blanc. ISBN 9782357796379.

Sources

• Jean-Emile Neaumet, Violette Morris, la Gestapiste, éd. Fleuve Noir, coll. « Crime Story », 1994
• Jacques Delarue, Histoire de la Gestapo, éd. Fayard, 1996
• Christian Gury, L'Honneur ratatiné d'une athlète lesbienne en 1930, éd. Kimé, 1999 ISBN 2841741699
• Raymond Ruffin, Violette Morris, la hyène de la Gestapo, éd. Le Cherche Midi, 2004 ISBN 2749102243
• Bonnet, Marie-Josèphe (2011), Violette Morris, histoire d'une scandaleuse, éd. Perrin, ISBN 978-2-262-03557-0
• Miroir du Sport, 14 April 1921
• Miroir des Sports, n° 260, 3 June 1925
• Morris is the subject of Francine Prose's historical novel Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 (Harper, 2014): hear Prose interviewed here. Morris' character is called Lou Villars.
• This article incorporates text translated from the corresponding French Wikipedia article as of 13 June 2006.