Paris isn't always the city of romance

Posted by avirosemail (northern CA) on 05/08/25 01:03 AM

From today's Writer's Almanac:

May 7 is the birthday of playwright and activist Olympe de Gouges, born in Montauban (1748), who said that if "woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum."

In the 1770s, de Gouges moved to Paris and became interested in politics. She wrote several pamphlets supporting the French Revolution, although she soon became disillusioned when the plights of women were ignored.

In 1791, in response to the new French constitution, she wrote Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, which made the argument that the sexes were equal in nature, deserved equal sharing of property, and if both genders were treated as such, French society would be more stable.

Two years after its publication, de Gouges was arrested for sedition and sent to the guillotine.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/01/feminist-olympe-de-gouges-pantheon

Posted by SCFamily

South Carolina

05/08/25 04:21 PM

121 posts

I think it was more her defense of the Girondins and King Louis in her later writings that did her in rather than the Declaration of the Rights of Women. She was suicidally brave in attacking the Jacobins in 1793 even after they had killed Louis and swept away the Girondin faction.

Posted by Wil

IJzendijke, The Netherlands

05/09/25 07:18 AM

2226 posts

Thanks for the article avirosemail. We must pay more attention to the role of woman in history.

Does me think about Charlotte Corday who ended her life under the quillotine too several months earlier. She was like Gouges against firebrand Marat, with the difference she murdered him (in his bathtub) instead of just criticising him. Her motivation was to avoid more victims caused by Marat's agitation. So not directly a romantic act too, Jacques-Louis David made an iconic painting soon after Marat's death still lying in his bathtub. The original painting is on display in the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, one of the copies in the Louvre.

Btw a few weeks before the execution of Olympe de Gouges Marie-Antoinette died also under the guillotine as everybody knows, a turbulent time it was there in France.

Posted by avirosemail OP

northern CA

05/10/25 01:07 AM

3039 posts

@Wil -- at the Carnavalet Museum last autumn I was able to see Marat's death mask and jaw bone, part of a temporary exhibit about the turbulent year after the revolution.

https://www.carnavalet.paris.fr/en/exhibitions/paris-1793-1794

Posted by Wil

IJzendijke, The Netherlands

05/10/25 12:18 PM

2226 posts

Thanks to your post I get more insight in this turbulent period in history. So put Museum Carnavalet on my list and visit it as soon as going to Paris again

Olympe de Gouges was absolutely right that a society with gender equality is more stable. But in a male dominated society the Ancient Régime obviously was, there was no room for that. I think that for many the revolution started in an idealistic way giving hope for a better life, but the transition caused too much uncertainty. Instead the situation should be improved it went out of control as we know. At the end society remained male dominated and gender equality had despite democracy still a long way to go, even till today, is’nt it?

I have never heard of Olympe de Gouges before, but seen a program on Belgian television lately about this painting of Jacque-Louis David. It was explained so very well that history came alive and watched it with much interest. I was wondering why a woman would kill a political leader (most of the time men do) and thought it was an isolated case. Reading your post I realize that it was part of a much wider movement. Women had to gain most by the revolution as they had to suffer most in this kind of societies, nevertheless their struggle remained under the radar as historiography is still dominated by men. Far from romantic is’nt it?

Think Corday and Gouges must have known eachother as they were both Girondins.