The Noir Letter: Black France

Who Is the Black Mona Lisa of the Louvre?

Nola Noir — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 20:53:50 GMT

Photo by Dario Mueller on Unsplash - Le Louvre, Paris

YOU ARE THE SYMBOL OF FEMINISM

Soap is the only fragrance you know. Your knees hurt. The endless scrubbing is breaking your back. How nice could it feel to wear soft clothes like the ladies who often visit the house? The bell rings, and your wish might just be granted.

Monsieur calls for you.

“Madeleine, it’s enough for today. You’ll wake earlier tomorrow to finish this.”

“Why can’t I finish it now?”

“My wife’s sister wants you to perform some task.” He gestures toward the spare bedroom upstairs.

You oblige. Up there, you find a white woman unconventionally dressed, wearing an apron with her hair pinned up. She is mixing oil pigments while testing the paint consistency on the edge of the palette.

You stop at the white canvas sitting on the easel in the middle of the room. Your stomach churns and your fingers tremble. Did Monsieur tell this woman you could paint her picture? Or maybe she needs someone to help with her affairs.

The brushes sitting on the stool next to her might need some cleaning. You almost grab one, but she catches you by surprise.

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning, Madame.”

She smiles. “That’s not why you are here. Please, go take a seat.”

The fauteuil behind the easel is covered with a blue fabric. You never get to sit in that kind of bourgeois furniture. The woman’s gaze is still on you, so you avoid the fuss and go sit down. Your weight falls into the padded cushion. A gasp escapes you and you laugh. You could get used to it.

“Now, leave the top out.”

“What?!” You blush, reluctant to obey.

She sighs. “The painting will be shown at an exposition full of men and… well, you know men. They’ll take a better interest if your breast is showing.”

“A better interest… in me?”

“No. In me.”

She moves around the room, hands swirling in the air, seized by a vision.

“You will be a symbol of feminism and women’s wit. With the abolition of slavery, this painting could really propel my career!”

BIG IDEALS AND FRAIL EGOS

Madeleine’s portrait, or the woman who might have been called Madeleine’s portrait, I will explain that in a minute, was painted in 1800.

The date is crucial, but it might not be clear to you because, well, you have not seen the portrait yet.

Portrait de Madeleine de M.-G. Benoist

You get it now?

Paintings were an expensive art form. You had to either be from an aristocratic family or from a very successful merchant house to be able to commission one.

So a Black servant woman? Impossible. Unless it was made at the initiative of the artist and for her own benefit.

I told you the date was important. Why? Because 1800 was in the brief window after the French Revolution when slavery was abolished. If you have read my previous article on the Black Woman Napoleon Couldn’t Stop, you would know slavery was first abolished in the French colonies in 1794. Eight short years of freedom before Napoleon reinstated it in 1802.

It is likely that the woman in the painting came from Guadeloupe. It is almost certain she had endured a life of slavery on the island before being sent to France as a house domestic.

Black people were free a few years after the Revolution, you might say. Even if it did not last long, maybe the artist wanted to showcase republican values to the world. Look, she is the subject of the painting, not a servant. The clothes she is wearing have the tricolor of the French flag, blue, red, and white. Surely that should mean something.

Well, not necessarily. She is the subject, yes, and the painting was presented at one of the most prestigious art exhibitions, the Salon de Paris in 1800. But being the subject and having agency are two separate things.

STILL LIFE BUT STILL A LIFE

Remember when I said the portrait of the woman who might have been called Madeleine?

It is because the original painting was not titled with her name. Weird ask by the way, who would care about a black woman’s name in an elite institution at that time.

Portrait d’une négresse. That was the original title of the painting. It means portrait of a nigger.

Yes, France also had its own N word. It had a male and a female version, both just as despicable. This was the female one.

Now that you know the painting’s original name, do you really believe the artist made it driven by new republican ideals and a wish for freedom for all bodies? If that had been the case, the artist would have titled the painting with the name of the woman who posed for it. The painting would not have had to wait until 2019 to give the model a proper identity.

White feminism at the time was not necessarily advocating for Black people’s rights. Historians note that Marie-Guillemine Benoist moved in royalist circles that largely supported the reinstatement of slavery.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman had been published in 1792, and feminist ideas were starting to take hold in elite women’s minds. Some went as far as comparing their condition to being the slaves of men, while being among the biggest slave owners on mainland France.

Uncomfortable, I know. Enslaved people were considered movable property, which made them easier to inherit than land. Women often inherited slaves through dowries or family estates.

As for the portrait’s name, the modern woman in me feels that justice has finally been served by giving Madeleine a name. But this is more a projection of modern ideals than an acknowledgment of historical truth.

First, we are not even sure her name was Madeleine.

Second, giving her a name in retrospect, while it appeases our guilt, erases the power structure of the time. Madeleine did not ask for her portrait to be painted. She never commissioned it. She never benefited from its success.

Madeleine was painted the way other women artists at the time painted still life. Still, arranged, and with the agency of a fruit basket.

Black France Renaissance is an independent media platform. Our mission is to share a decolonial version of French history where Black people are central.

The Noir Letter features exceptional Black people forgotten by French national history. It extends the discussion from Black France and the French Atlantic slave trade to global abolitionism.

References

Who Was the First African Pope?

Nola Noir — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:36:22 GMT

Photo by Call Me Fred on Unsplash - Le Sacré-Cœur, Paris

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

Your lungs are burning. How many times has your mom told you to stop smoking? As you’re pushing your New Balances uphill on the pedals of your bike, you wish you had listened. You’d drop the damn bike right now, right here, but the music rising through the noise cuts your tantrum short.

Accordion. Amélie Poulain. Paris.

You smile. This city has a way of always playing with your nerves, but still there is no other place like her.

The streets are getting narrower and filled with people. You’re forced to stop your bike. Easels fill the pavement. A canvas crashes to the ground and you hear “Putain!” as painters with stained aprons argue with each other for the next tourist.

It’s your turn to swear. The impact on your back wheel throws you onto your backside. You’re ready to jump at the throat of the idiot.

The man on the bike that hit yours also fell on his butt. He walks up to you and asks if you’re hurt. “Maybe I can buy you dinner sometime, since I just ruined your outfit?” He winks. Ugh. What is wrong with this city? You should be mad, but you can’t.

“I’m looking for le Sacré-Cœur,” you say.

“Of course you are.”

He walks you to the stairs and you gently nod for him to go on his way. You want to live this experience by yourself. The stairs are daunting, but on top of them sits a miracle of Byzantine architecture. You’re walking faster now, each step bringing you closer to the white stone basilica.

Two steps away, a hand closes around your wrist.

“Gift, Madame.”

You’re not even done saying thank you when the man is already telling you a price. You’d have a comeback ready. A gift is supposed to be free. But then you notice how passersby look at them with a snarl. African immigrants, probably undocumented, trying to make ends meet. So you smile and give him the coins.

You’re Black too, but you weren’t treated the same. People see American before they see color here in Europe. You never thought this could be a form of discrimination nonetheless.

You’re about to enter the Sacré-Cœur, and as you put holy water behind your neck, you wonder how a city built on the glory of Christianity forgot that the first true pope was African.

WE DON’T SEE COLORS

Have you ever heard of Saint Victor? Probably not. He lived a long time ago, before France was France and before the European borders we know today. Christianity was not yet widespread in the Roman Empire of the second century.

Despite the bishops who preceeded him, Saint Victor is remembered as the first true pope. Why? Because he consolidated the Church’s influence. He chose Latin as the official holy language over Greek and harmonized the celebration of Easter. Some churches were celebrating the day of Jesus’s death, others three days later on the resurrection. This contributed to aligning church practices.

Alright, enough theology talk. You said he was African? Yes, I did. He came from a region clearly marked as Africa on the map.

Map: World History Encyclopedia

Look at the purple legend. It shows the region names as they were around the second century, Saint Victor’s era. There is a region clearly named Africa, with one of its main economic hearts being Carthage. Today, it is a suburb of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. We are not certain Saint Victor lived exactly in Carthage, but it is documented that he was from Africa Proconsularis.

“Well then if it’s Tunisia, he’s not Black. You’re wrong.”

First, there are Black people in Tunisia. It is a fact, and they deal with the same discrimination as Black people all over the world.

Second, I never said Saint Victor was Black. I said he was African. And if you unconsciously made that shortcut, maybe we can drop the identity politics for a minute.

WHY DOES THIS FEEL SO FAMILIAR

Alright, now that we have cleared the air. Why does this matter?

The Sacré-Cœur was built as an ode to Christianity, the same Christianity often invoked by populist parties in France as a symbol of purity of values and tradition. Do you remember I told you in the beginning that its architecture is Byzantine? It is not influenced by medieval European traditions but by the other side of the Mediterranean. The same side Saint Victor was born. The same side Christianity comes from. The same side we repel newcomers.

La France aux Français, which means “France to the French”, is the title of a book written by the historian Pierre Birnbaum. It shows how nationalist movements have used Christianity as a weapon. You are either an ally or an enemy.

Yet they tend to forget that Christianity was born on the other side of the Mediterranean, among the very people they want to send back “where they come from”, even though most of us have only ever known France.

This is obviously anti-immigration rhetoric, but it is also more insidious than that. It implies there are two types of French. Those who fit their fantasy lineage of old French values. They do not say monarchy, but it is very clear where their narrative comes from. And a second kind of French who are racialized, portrayed as too open to other cultures.

But I would argue that between these two groups, who embodies real French values the most? Values of order and tradition belonged to kings and emperors. Republican France’s core value is universalism. You cannot throw universalism at our faces when it fits your arguments about national unity, then conveniently forget it when it is time to think about the future of France.

Black France is still France.

Black France Renaissance is an independent media platform. Our mission is to share a decolonial version of French history where Black people are central.

The Noir Letter features exceptional Black people forgotten by French national history. It extends the discussion from Black France and the French Atlantic slave trade to global abolitionism.

References

Who Was the Black Woman Napoleon Couldn’t Stop?

Nola Noir — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 01:14:27 GMT

Photo by Norbu GYACHUNG on Unsplash - La statue de Marianne, Place de la République, Paris

LIVE FREE OR DIE

Your white dress is damp from the heat of bodies. A force pushes toward the middle of the circle. People scream and whistle. Drums beat loud in your skull. Your soul is pushed to the edges of your being.

Walls of fire. Machetes gleam under the flames. It’s going to end one way or the other.

Your eyes roll back. Your blood races through your veins. You have a message. Two words. Vengeance and liberation.

You are the woman who started the Black revolution. You are the force of your generation and all that will follow.

Your name is Cécile Fatiman.

BREAK A PEOPLE BUT NOT THEIR SPIRIT

Before Haiti was born, Saint-Domingue was the most profitable French colony. On its own, it produced around 40% of the world’s sugar. It made the British and Spanish red with jealousy, and France couldn’t get enough of it. To maintain this level of production, brutal conditions were enforced. A death sentence was a peace offering compared to a life of forced labor in Saint-Domingue.

Despite endless punishment, the people still fought back and rebelled throughout nearly 300 years of slavery on the island. All those attempts were contained.

Until you, Cécile Fatiman, stepped in and engorged a spirit of revenge and freedom into your people. It is then your people who will not only fight for their own freedom, but also for everyone else’s. To make sure no body on earth, whether Black or white, would be legally made a slave again. You are indeed one kind of a woman.

NOT SO HUMAN HUMAN RIGHTS

The Haitian Revolution started in 1791 after the ceremony held at Bois Caïman, mixing political agency and spiritual momentum. If you’ve ever heard a French official speak, you know how proud we French are of the French Revolution. 1789, chopping off the head of the king like we don’t fear shit. Defining human rights and still speaking of it today like we knew what it meant.

If you noticed the timeline, despite French so-called human rights in 1789, you, Cécile Fatiman, still had to be a vessel for Black people’s freedom in 1791.

We said human rights were for humans. Who said you were one?

If we dig down to the legal definition of what you were in the Code Noir, it basically says furniture. You had as many rights as my coffee table. Let that sink in.

Thankfully, French audacity didn’t stop you nor your people. You kept fighting.

Royalist colonists threatened to give the city of Port-au-Prince to the English to keep slavery going. Despite all the grand discourse about freedom and unity, the only reason the French Republic sided with you is because your people’s labor was so profitable they’d rather free you, pay you low wages, and give you a fake sense of agency than lose you to the British.

Ugh, the British.

Certainly France couldn’t lose face to a country still keeping a monarch at its head.

I mean, we were enlightened.

So enlightened that we brought back slavery in 1802.

Napoléon couldn’t stand Saint-Domingue’s arrogance, acting like they were equals, and the emperor needed funds for his campaigns. So much for taking pride in being a progressive country that abolished slavery in 1794, when Americans only got the memo in 1865.

It took two more years, and the elements sided with you. Yellow fever decimated the French army.

In 1804, Saint-Domingue named itself Haiti and became the first Black republic.

WHY DOES THIS FEEL SO FAMILIAR?

France’s national motto is “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”. It means “Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood.” We wrote it into our constitution in 1848.

You could tell me slavery was abolished by then, so we really meant it. And I’d say you’re cute, and you probably still believe in fairytales.

You know this feeling when you read a good revenge story, but it always ends on a bitter note? Yep. Exactly that.

We boarded ships in 1825 and threatened to invade Haiti again if they didn’t pay back the money they owed us.

What money?

Aren’t you a cute little pie? The money they owed us for stealing their own bodies from us. Remember, 40% of the world’s sugar production. How are we supposed to sell macarons now?

The debt was a gruesome 150 million francs, sixteen times Haiti’s GDP in 1826.

You ever wondered how a people who had the nerve to free themselves and everybody else still ended up as one of the poorest countries in the world? Now you have the answer.

Our motto will only be valid the day Haiti gets reparations.

Black France Renaissance is an independent media platform. Our mission is to share a decolonial version of French history where Black people are central.

The Noir Letter features exceptional Black people forgotten by French national history. It extends the discussion from Black France and the French Atlantic slave trade to global abolitionism.

References

Who Was the Black Violinist Favored by Marie-Antoinette?

Nola Noir — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:24:49 GMT

Photo by Masood Aslami on Unsplash - L’Opéra Garnier, Paris

A NIGHT AT THE PARIS OPERA

This is your day. You’re living your dream. Your partner flew you overseas and got two tickets to see Black Swan at the Paris Opera. Your eyes shimmer as you see the lights shine one last time on the baroque goldwork.

Cut to darkness.

Violins, flutes, and cellos rise in a melody no streaming app can reproduce. Your skin shivers, amazed by the conductor’s grace.

You brush down a coil of your hair because you must look absolutely perfect even in the dark.

You lean back in your red velvet cushions and you can’t help but wonder. Was there ever an exceptional Black musician on that stage?

BLACK EXCELLENCE, FRENCH EDITION

And the answer is yes, and even greater than you imagine.

Joseph Bologne, aka Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was one of the most gifted men of his time, so much so that Queen Marie-Antoinette personally advocated for him.

A violin virtuoso, some later called him the Black Mozart, but his curriculum only makes us wonder if it is not Mozart who should have been nicknamed the White Saint-Georges.

When Black excellence strikes once, it strikes twice.

Because being one of the best musicians ever born was not enough, he was also the best fencer in Europe. Not only that, but also a musketeer of the King, the first Black franc-maçon, the first Black colonel in the army, and a defender of Black people’s rights during the Revolution.

With such a pedigree, surely French history would have made him a national hero.

Hmm.

Take a seat, because you’re not going to like it.

WHY DOES THIS FEEL SO FAMILIAR?

First, I told you Marie-Antoinette absolutely fangirled him.

He was her music teacher, and she went on a campaign to make him the director of the Paris Opera. It did not happen because of extensive pushback against having a Black man at the head of the most prestigious orchestra in the world.

Now rewind to the part where he became the first Black colonel in the French army.

He created a legion of Black men to fight under the French Revolution, called the Légion Saint-Georges. As a thank you, he was later imprisoned under suspicion of allying with the monarchy.

I do not know when and how they forgot he fought so we could have rights.

And then Napoléon Bonaparte took power as Emperor and brought back slavery.

Stop.

You deserve a pause here.

Yes, France abolished slavery twice. Napoléon, one of France’s most revered historical figures, thought it would be a great idea to put it back in service. Most of Joseph de Bologne’s work was removed from France’s national repertoire and has only been rediscovered recently.

Black people live with this pressure of always having to strive harder.

Chevalier de Saint-Georges’s life is a cautionary tale. Black excellence at its utmost, and still failing to be recognized.

Black France Renaissance is an independent media platform. Our mission is to share a decolonial version of French history where Black people are central.

The Noir Letter features exceptional Black people forgotten by French national history. It extends the discussion from Black France and the French Atlantic slave trade to global abolitionism.

References

Who Was the Black Woman at Louis XIV’s Court?

Nola Noir — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 01:05:57 GMT

Photo by Jessica Kantak Bailey on Unsplash - Le château de Versailles

THE REAL REASON BRIDGERTON WAS A SUCCESS

Why do you think people binged Bridgerton? Because it was the first historical drama on Netflix? I don’t think so. The show became a pop culture statement because it finally showed Black characters in positions of power in European historical settings.

I’m French and I’m Black. How many Black people do you think I’ve seen in French history manuals at school? Close to none.

I know for a lot of you Bridgerton was about the Duke. Yes, he’s cute, I said it. Moving on. But for me, it was always about the Queen.

How many Disney movies did you watch as a kid? How many Black princesses did you see growing up?

None.

That’s why we grew up to be so strong and unapologetic. Since we couldn’t be princesses, we learned to be our own queens.

And the Queen of Bridgerton, she’s the incarnation of Black girl magic.

NOT A WOMAN BUT A PROVOCATION

If there is one king in French history who is impossible to forget, it’s Louis XIV. The Sun King. He got his nickname because of how extravagant he was. If you’ve traveled in France and visited Versailles, you already know the man was big on spectacle.

That looks shallow and foolish, right? Well, behind all the chandeliers and mirrors, there was a real strategist. He knew the nobles’ real power was regional, and he couldn’t stand giving up even an inch of his own power. But instead of being confrontational, he tricked the nobles into giving their power away themselves. He made them believe real power was proximity to power. If you’ve ever had a coworker licking your boss’s boots, you’ve seen for yourself that some people still believe this today.

Louis XIV trapped the nobles in etiquette and ceremony, all smoke and mirrors, while he was effectively centralizing power. But why would the king himself keep a Black woman at court in a racist country, you’ll say?

You’re not asking the right question.

The right question is why wouldn’t he?

The world can hold two truths at once. Black people were exploited like cattle, and at the same time, some Black children were treated as exotic rarities the nobles would show off like pets.

At that point in time, parrots, parakeets, and Black children were all the same.

WHY DOES THIS FEEL SO FAMILIAR?

Louise Marie-Thérèse was a Black girl from the Caribbean who arrived in France young and alone. No family. No lineage. No recorded past. Her godmother was Madame de Maintenon, who was arguably the most powerful woman in France at the time, despite not being an official queen. No matter how powerful women can get, they rarely receive public praise.

Louise Marie-Thérèse received an education in literature, arts, Christianity, and French sophistication. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it mirrors later policies around assimilation. You won’t be a slave, but you still won’t know where you come from, and you’d better conform. It’s tragic how her story is still felt in Black women’s bones today.

She later became a nun at the abbey of Moret-sur-Loing. I keep asking myself why she chose exile. I will never know, but I’m left to wonder how it felt to be protected and live in luxury while other Black women were owned, beaten, raped, and worked to death.

How can you really enjoy a life of pleasure among your enemies?

Black France Renaissance is an independent media platform. Our mission is to share a decolonial version of French history where Black people are central.

The Noir Letter features exceptional Black people forgotten by French national history. It extends the discussion from Black France and the French Atlantic slave trade to global abolitionism.

References