The Show Must Go On: A Circus Story of Motherhood and Resilience PART 3
The remarkable tale of Blanche Pouche Leon
Before you start reading Part 3, make sure you’re all caught up!
Release Date: March 4, 2025
The spectacle and specter of Paris
Blanche Leon, her husband, Joseph and their four young sons, Willie, Will, Joseph and Harry, said goodbye to the West Indies sometime in 1867, and embarked on yet another circus adventure. Traveling aboard a steamship, the six Leons headed to the French port of Saint-Nazaire, a journey across the North Atlantic that would have taken 15 to 20 days.
From the Port of Saint-Nazaire, the family would have traveled nearly 300 miles by local train to Paris, Joseph’s hometown.
It’s not known if Joseph was still attached to the same circus as the one he’d toured the West Indies with, or if he’d joined a new troupe, or even decided to freelance. All were possibilities. Paris was a great hub of circus activity at the time, thanks in part to Napoleon III’s ambitious plan for transforming Paris into a showcase of beauty, culture, entertainment and modernity.
The crowning jewel of that plan was the Exposition Universelle, the World’s Fair, which opened on the Champ de Mars on April 1, 1867, likely about the time the Leon family arrived in Paris. And what a spectacle it was! Spreading out over more than 200 acres, the exposition featured pavilions, restaurants, double-decker hot air balloons and amusement parks, all under the banner of celebrating industrial, artistic and scientific progress.
During the seven months the Exposition was open to the public, an estimated 10 million people attended, perhaps even Blanche and her sons.
It was also about that time Blanche realized she was pregnant, and once again, she was carrying twins.
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A devastating shock
It’s not known when Thomas and John Leon were born, or when these little ones died. In an 1895 interview, Blanche simply said her sixth and seventh babies had “lived only a few months”.
Their deaths must have been a devastating shock to Blanche and Joseph. After safely ushering Will and Willie, and then Joseph and Harry into the world in Havana, a dangerous and disease-ridden port city with a child mortality rate of nearly 50 percent, to have their babies die in sight of the wide promenades and well-tended gardens of a much more sophisticated, cleaner and less chaotic Paris, may have seemed unthinkable. Yet, it had happened.
It’s likely Blanche turned to the women of her circus family, the seamstresses with whom she spent her days, for support. These women had guided her through her most recent pregnancy, nurtured her through the delivery and delicate postpartum period, and now surrounded Blanche in her grief. Many of them had likely buried children of their own. They knew her pain, and understood both the fragility of life and the necessity of endurance.
Mothers who had suffered their own losses would have shared quiet moments with Blanche, acknowledging her grief without the need for words. Some may have sewn keepsakes from the clothing of Blanche’s lost babies, a small memory for her to hold onto—a token of love that may have found its way into Blanche’s tent.
The older circus women – Italians, French, Romanian, Russian and Spanish—may have shared their own mourning traditions with Blanche. Some might have lit candles, murmuring prayers or spells for the souls of little Thomas and John. Others may have taught Blanche small rituals—tying a ribbon to a tree, whispering the children’s names to the wind, or making a quiet offering of bread and milk—gestures of remembrance meant to ease the passage of grief.
Each kindness extended may have helped Blanche, and Joseph, as well, walk through the unimaginable fog of mourning, but there was nothing to be done about the gathering storm building outside the circus.
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Between the Fair and the Fall
When the Exposition Universelle closed its gates, Paris stood as a glittering symbol of French culture and ambition. But beneath the spectacle, tensions were growing within France and beyond its borders.
Napoleon III’s rule was becoming more and more shaky. His ambitious plan to showcase Paris as Europe’s cultural center had succeeded, but it had also displaced thousands of working-class Parisians, many who saw the emperor's rule as out of touch with the struggles of ordinary people.
At the same time, France’s influence on the world stage was being challenged by Prussia which was uniting German states and threatening France's position as the continent's dominant power.
In the spring of 1870, tensions between France and Prussia reached a breaking point. Eager to provoke a war that would unify Germany under Prussian control, leaders manipulated a diplomatic incident known as the Ems Dispatch to make it seem like the Prussian king had insulted France. Outraged and under pressure from the public, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia on July 19, 1870.
The early days of the war were filled with patriotic fervor. French newspapers were confident in victory, and patriotic performances took place on the streets and in theaters and circuses, celebrating France's strength. But within weeks, it became clear that the French military was not prepared for the might of the Prussian army.
In September, Napoleon III was captured at the Battle of Sedan, and with him, the Second French Empire collapsed. Paris was left vulnerable, and before long, the city was surrounded by Prussian forces.
Paris under Siege
With Paris cut off from the outside world, some of the first signs of hardship came in the form of food shortages.
Provisions of all kinds are now scarce, and the prices of articles not regulated by the government are beyond the reach of all but those who have plenty of money. Potatoes are no to be obtained at any price. Small heads of cabbage are sold at $1.20 apiece. Lard is very scarce at $1.40 a pound. Ham has been sold at $2.00 a pound. Blood pudding (horse meat) is execrable at 25 cents a pound…Eggs are sold at 20 cents each. 1
Community feeding stations were set up in the neediest parts of the city, yet hunger prevailed. And starvation quickly followed.
Working class Parisians resorted to eating horses and stray cats and dogs, while the wealthy among them purchased kangaroos, antelope and even elephants from the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes, but also local circuses.
On the 18th (December), the flesh of a young elephant and that of two camels was offered for sale at the chief market in the Faubourg St. Honore. The camels were purchased at the Zoological Garden for 1,500 francs, and it is stated that the meat was sold at retail prices for 4,000 francs.
The government gives the butchers full liberty to speculate in the meat of the elephant, the camel, the dog, the cart and the rat: hence the extravagant prices. The laws of the city forbid the sale of any article under a false name and for so doing a heavy fine is imposed. The dog must be called a dog, and the rat must be called a rat. 2
Within the circus community, things were getting even more desperate. Prussian and other German-speaking performers, laborers and family members had been expelled or fled, fearing retribution from French authorities, former neighbors, colleagues and even friends.
Pro-France members of the circus had volunteered to fight the Prussian enemy, and many others had been conscripted to fill the ranks of France’s beleaguered regular army, the Garde Mobile and the civilian francs-tireurs.
As a French national, it’s possible, perhaps even probable, that 25-year-old Joseph Leon was among those men called to the front, and the timing could not have been worse for him and his family. With circuses shut down and their venues repurposed as manufacturing plants and storage facilities, Joseph and Blanche already faced daunting uncertainty regarding their finances, housing, well-being and futures.
Joseph’s absence from the family would have added yet one more burden to their struggles, especially as Blanche was on the eve of delivering yet another set of twins.
Two baby boys were born in the depth of the siege, and they were given the names Antoine and Lazarre. Antoine, perhaps a nod to Saint Antoine, the patron saint of the poor, and Lazarre, the French Lazarus, a symbol of resurrection and endurance.
Together, the prayers of a weary and worried mother.
In the end, however, Blanche’s prayers went unanswered. Whether due to malnourishment, failure to thrive, disease or something else, both Antoine and Lazarus were dead within weeks of their birth, and Blanche was left to carry on. She had four other children to fight for, and the fight was far from over.
Hope for a new life in Russia
The Siege of Paris came to an end on January 28, 1871, and the Leon family was reunited. France, however was not, and, perhaps fearing the coming conflict, Joseph, Blanche and their four surviving children fled France. At some point later, the family was living in Makaryev, Russia, home of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, a food and entertainment extravaganza which had been held there nearly continuously since the 16th century.
It might be that Joseph was there performing with or alongside brothers Dmitri, Akim, and Piotr Nikitin. Known as the Nikitin Brothers, Dmitri was a strongman, Akim an acrobat, clown and juggler and Piotr a sword-swallower and tumbler. And although they’d started out as humble street performers, the three brothers eventually became one of the most successful circuses in Russia. 3
Whether Joseph was working as a solo clown act, had joined the Nikitin Brothers or even another circus troupe, it’s likely he and Blanche were hoping for a happier life than the one they’d left behind in Paris.
Sadly, it was not to be.
While in Makaryev, Blanche gave birth to her fifth set of twins in ten years, and, as had happened in Paris, the little boys, Max and Frank, died in infancy.
Six births. Six babies. Six burials.
Blanche was just 24 and the accumulated grief she’d experienced since leaving Havana must have been all-consuming. Overwhelming. Crushing. Yet, the show must go on.
That it would go on in America, however, may never have crossed Blanche’s mind.
Copyright 2025 Lori Olson White
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End Notes
1 The Siege of Paris by Robert Lowry Sibbet, Myers Printing and Publishing House, USA, P. 329.
2 The Siege of Paris by Robert Lowry Sibbet, Myers Printing and Publishing House, USA, P. 318.
3 Circus Entrepreneurs, by Dominique Jando , Circopedia.com
Beautifully written. I love the way you blend history, relationships, tragedy, emotion and so much more with the circus life.
There's a cemetery in Eau Claire where I like to walk sometimes. I usually pass by a plot with a row of something like 7 or 8 gravestones lined up to mark the lives children from just one family who died before they were school aged. It's a good reminder that the modern world has its great benefits as well as its struggles.