01 Work, The Art of War, Albert Ferdinand Le Dru's Félicité & Théophile Fernig - Warrior sisters, with footnotes

Albert Ferdinand LE DRU (1848-?).

Théophile and Félicité de FERNIG, aides-de-camp of Dumouriez, c. 1903

Oil on canvas

112 x 170 cm

Private collection

Sold for  €9,000 EUR in Jan 2013

“Gentlemen, though our sex is accused of weakness and timidity, although we are excused from the honor of the oath, as well as civic inscription, we nevertheless dare to offer our country our arms and our lives; therefore, we beg you gentlemen, my younger sister and I, not only to register us on the volunteer list of the National guard of our city, but also to take the civil oath, to be faithful to our nation, to the law and to the king to hold with all our strength the constitution of the kingdom. We are happy to pay homage to the Homeland and to share the victory with the brave volunteers and our brothers in arms.”

Félicité (1770-1841) and her sister Théophile (1775-1819) Fernig were two sisters who fought in the French army and distinguished themselves during the French Revolutionary Wars.

22 years old Félicité and 17 years old Théophile fought against the intrusions of the Austrian enemy soldiers, preventing pillage and plundering. They first tried to prevent their father from discovering their secret. The masquerade lasted only for a few days. One night, the sisters fought in an ambush against the enemy. Their father saw them with their sabers and firearms, faces smeared with smoke and lips blackened by bullet cartridges that they tore open with their teeth. After recognizing them, he decided that the should be allowed to fight.

The sisters and their father then joined General Dumouriez’s troops. At the battle of Jemappes, on November 6 1792, Théophile shot 2 Hungarian grenadiers and took prisoner their commanding officer. Meanwhile, Félicité was “in the thickest of the mélée”, rallied Dumouriez’s retreating battalions, charging on the battlefield “holding her bridle in her teeth and with a pistol in each hand”. 

In April 1793, Dumouriez betrayed the French Republic and joined the Austrian army. Trusting him and accustomed to obeying, the sisters went with him without realizing what was happening. When they realized what Dumouriez had done, they left his side to keep fighting for the Republic. Ir was too late, they were considered as his accomplices and briefly imprisoned before they could join their family again.

The two sisters then had to leave France. Félicité married Jean-François Vanderwallen, possibly the Belgian officer that she had saved on the battlefield while Théophile chose to stay celibate. The two sisters fought for the right to return to France which they finally obtained in 1801.They nevertheless returned to Brussels where they both died, Théophile in 1819, Félicité in 1841. More on Félicité and her sister Théophile Fernig 

Albert-Ferdinand Le Dru, born in Paris on February 17, 1848, and died in Paris 16th on April 11, 1923, was a French painter and banker.

Pupil of the painter of genre and military subjects Louis-Antoine Tiremois, he is known as a painter of military subjects. He also works with Bonnat and Detaille.

He exhibited at the Salon from 1876 and obtained a third class medal in 1894 for his representation of the Siege of Lille in 1792 (Captain Ovigneur commanding the gunners remains stoic when he is told that his house is on fire). Captain of the territorial infantry, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1907. More on Albert-Ferdinand Le Dru

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