Brigitte Billaud-Varenne

Brigitte Billaud-Varenne
OccupationConcubine Edit this on Wikidata
Spouse(s)Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne Edit this on Wikidata

Brigitte Billaud-Varenne, also known as Virginie Billaud-Varenne, (?-after 1874) was a Black Guadeloupean slave freed by Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, who took her as his concubine. Brought to Billaud-Varenne by the Swiss slave trader Siéger or Siégert, who supplied him with slaves during his exile, she was only a child at the time. Billaud-Varenne, who called her Virginie, made her his concubine and kept her by his side to serve him. After the revolutionary's death in 1819, who left all his belongings to her, she lived at least until 1874.

She was used as an example, particularly in art, to illustrate the hypocrisy of the revolutionary with whom she shared a part of her life, being both an abolitionist and a slaveholder.