linguistic:translation
Paris in the 1890s

Leaving the security of The Chautauquan, Tarbell moved to Paris in 1891 at age 34 to live and work. She shared an apartment on the Rue du Sommerard with three women friends from The Chautauquan. The apartment was within a few blocks of the Panthéon, Notre-Dame de Paris, and the Sorbonne. This was an exciting time in Paris. The Eiffel Tower had been finished recently in 1889, and Tarbell and her friends enjoyed the art produced by Impressionists including Degas, Monet, Manet, and Van Gogh. Tarbell described the color of the art as "the blues and greens fairly howl they are so bright and intense." Tarbell attended the Can-can at the Moulin Rouge and in a letter to her family she advised them to read Mark Twain 's description of it in The Innocents Abroad as she didn't like to write about it.

Tarbell had an active social life in Paris. She and her flatmates hosted a language salon where both English and French speakers could come together and practice their non-native language skills. Her landlady, Madame Bonnet, held weekly dinners for the women and her other tenants. These tenants included young men from Egypt, and among them was Prince Said Toussoum, a cousin of the Egyptian ruler. Tarbell met and had a possible romance with Charles Downer Hazen, a future French historian and professor at Smith College.

Tarbell set about making her career as a writer in Paris. She supported herself by writing for several American newspapers including the Pittsburgh Dispatch, the Cincinnati Times-Star, and the Chicago Tribune. Tarbell published the short story, France Adorée, in the December 1891 issue of Scribner's Magazine. All of this work, along with a tutorship, helped Tarbell as she worked on her first biography, a book on Madame Roland: the leader of an influential salon during the French Revolution. Tarbell already wanted to rescue women from the obscurity of history. Her research led her to an introduction to Leon Marillier, a descendant of Roland who provided access to Roland's letters and family papers. Marillier invited Tarbell to visit the Roland Country estate, Le Clos.

Tarbell continued her education in Paris and also learned investigative and research techniques used by French historians. Tarbell attended lectures at the Sorbonne—including those on the history of the French Revolution, 18th-century literature, and period painting. She learned from French historians how to present evidence in a clear, compelling style.

What Tarbell discovered about Madame Roland changed her own worldview. She began the biography with admiration for Roland but grew disillusioned as she researched and learned more. Tarbell determined that Roland, who followed her husband's lead, was not the independent thinker she had imagined and was complicit in creating an atmosphere where violence led to the Terror and her own execution. She wrote of Roland, "This woman had been one of the steadiest influences to violence, willing, even eager, to use this terrible revolutionary force, so bewildering and terrifying to me, to accomplish her ends, childishly believing herself and her friends strong enough to control it when they needed it no longer. The heaviest blow to my self-confidence so far was my loss of faith in revolution as a divine weapon. Not since I discovered the world not to have been made in six days...had I been so intellectually and spiritually upset."

It was during this time that Tarbell received bad news and then a shock. Franklin Tarbell's business partner had committed suicide, leaving Franklin in debt. Subsequently, a July 1892 newspaper announced that Tarbell's hometown of Titusville had been completely destroyed by flood and fire. Over 150 people died, and she feared her family was among them. Oil Creek had flooded and inflammable material on the water had ignited and exploded. Tarbell was relieved when she received a one-word cablegram that read: "Safe!" Her family and their home had been spared.