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Étranger Things: The Tricoteuses — When “Knitting” Stops Being Cute (and Starts Being… History)

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This one's dedicated to all the young people I meet who are preserving the art and craft of knitting. 

The Tricoteuses: the French Revolution’s “knitting women” 

I thought tricoter was one of those harmless, cozy French verbs—like flâner but with more yarn and fewer existential crises.

But recently (in the way France loves to do this), I learned about les tricoteuses and suddenly my mental image of “pleasant ladies knitting” got replaced by… politics, crowds, public galleries, and the French Revolution. My little vocabulary flashcard did not warn me it came with guillotine-adjacent lore.

And here’s the revelation I didn’t see coming:
I walked in thinking “tricoteuse” meant cute hobby. I walked out realizing it can also mean symbol—a character in France’s collective imagination that says more about fear, propaganda, and who gets blamed for violence than it does about knitting.

Let’s unpack it—kindly, curiously, and with only a small amount of nervous laughter.

So… who were “les tricoteuses”?

At its simplest, une tricoteuse is “a woman who knits.” Historically, though, “les tricoteuses” became a nickname for women associated with revolutionary political life—women who attended meetings and tribunals, and who were famously depicted as knitting while watching proceedings (including public executions, in some accounts). (Wikipedia)

One of the most famous visual references is a set of revolutionary-era images (including works linked to Jean-Baptiste Lesueur) now associated with the Musée Carnavalet in Paris. The museum’s own catalog record for “Tricoteuses” is fascinating—because it shows how the image itself comes packaged with commentary and accusation. (parismuseescollections.paris.fr)

The part nobody tells you on Duolingo: myth vs. reality

Here’s where it gets very Étranger Things (between “tu” and “vous,” and between story and history).

A lot of what we “know” about the tricoteuses comes through later retellings, caricatures, and political storytelling—sometimes by people who wanted to paint revolutionary women as terrifying. There’s real historical ground (women were present in political spaces; women’s political activism during the Revolution is undeniable), but the stock character of “the bloodthirsty knitting woman” is also something that can be constructed and amplified. (revolution-francaise.net)

In other words: sometimes “les tricoteuses” describes women participating in political life… and sometimes it’s a label used to turn them into a convenient villain.

Which feels uncomfortably modern, doesn’t it?

Why does knitting show up in the story at all?

Because knitting is the ultimate “I’m just here minding my business” activity.

Knitting looks domestic. Quiet. Ordinary. The contrast—ordinary hands doing ordinary work in extraordinary circumstances—is exactly what makes the tricoteuse image so powerful (and so easy to use as a symbol).

And literature grabbed it and ran.

If you ever read A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens’s famous knitting figure (Madame Defarge) taps into this cultural idea—where knitting becomes a kind of bookkeeping, a memory device, even a threat. Scholars have written about how the French word and its associations seep into English through Dickens’s imagery. (OpenEdition Journals)

My tiny Aix moment with a huge historical shadow

The day I learned this word, I had one of those “I live in France now” moments where vocabulary stops being vocabulary and becomes… a trap door.

Because in my head, Aix is all:

  • market baskets,

  • café terraces,

  • and the gentle click of someone’s needles while they wait for their noisette.

And then—boom—tricoteuse pulls up a chair and says:
“Bonjour. I am also the French Revolution, and I brought symbolism.”

I immediately wanted to say something intelligent in French and instead my brain offered:
“Euh… c’est… intense.”
(It was not wrong.)

Mini French kit: talk about tricoteuses at your level

A1 (survival + simple nouns)

  • tricoter = to knit

  • une tricoteuse = a woman who knits

  • la Révolution française = the French Revolution
    Try: “Une tricoteuse tricote.” (A sentence so simple it’s almost smug.)

A2 (simple past + opinion)

  • “J’ai appris un nouveau mot : les tricoteuses.”

  • “Elles sont dans l’histoire de la Révolution française.” (Wikipedia)

  • “Je pensais que c’était un mot calme, mais c’est un mot très historique.”

B1 (context + nuance)

  • “Le mot ‘tricoteuses’ peut désigner des femmes qui assistaient aux réunions politiques.” (L'histoire par l'image)

  • “Mais il y a aussi une image mythique, utilisée pour faire peur.” (revolution-francaise.net)

  • Discussion starter: “Pourquoi cette image a marqué les esprits ?”

B2 (argument + careful framing)

  • “La figure des tricoteuses illustre comment une société fabrique des symboles politiques.” (revolution-francaise.net)

  • “Elle révèle aussi les tensions autour de la présence des femmes dans l’espace public.” (SHS Cairn.info)

Advanced (historiography + sources)

  • Compare iconography vs. archives, and ask what each “proves.”

  • Explore how the tricoteuse becomes a counter-revolutionary trope and why that sticks in cultural memory. (revolution-francaise.net)

  • Literary angle: track how Dickens transforms the term into an English-language cultural shortcut. (OpenEdition Journals)

A small, curated set of “go deeper” links

If you want to wander into the rabbit hole (with snacks):

Your turn (on papote, version: history + language)

Drop a comment with one of these (pick your comfort level!):

  • A1: What’s a French word you thought was “cute” but turned out to be serious?

  • A2: Write one sentence with tricoter / tricoteuse. (Simple is perfect.)

  • B1: Do you think the tricoteuse image is more history or myth—and why?

  • B2: Have you noticed how women are portrayed differently in political stories (then or now)?

  • Advanced: Share a source, a quote (short!), or an argument: how should we talk about tricoteuses without turning them into a cartoon?

And if you are literally a knitter in Aix: I desperately want to know—where do you knit? Café? Park? Waiting room at the préfecture? (If you say “in a line at the préfecture,” you automatically become a living symbol and I will write you into history with full respect.)

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