26 10 1079 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Most famously, that of Paris, but “commune” was the name given to every municipal government under French control after 14 July. Although new municipal governments arose throughout France in the summer of 1789, the law establishing the new municipalities was not passed until 14 December 1789. Elected through the forty-eight sections (see section), the Paris Commune emerged as a center of radical thought and action. In command of the National Guard of the city, the Commune came to be dominated by the sans-culottes. The Commune precipitated most of the revolutionary journées (days), most notably 10 August 1792, which overthrew the monarchy, and 31 May–2 June 1793, which led to the expulsion of the Girondins from the National Convention. The Paris Commune was a major factor in pushing the central government toward a policy of Terror. Brought under the control of the Committee of Public Safety in December 1793, it throttled back the popular movement. After the Terror, the Paris Commune was stripped of its political role and disappeared completely under Napoleon Bonaparte. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1072 Title A name given to the resource Commune Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/1072/ Glossary Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document In the case where an entire nation has been wronged and is both prosecutor and judge, it is the opinion of mankind, the opinion of posterity, to which that nation is accountable. It must be able to state that all the general principles of jurisprudence that are recognized by enlightened men everywhere have been respected. It must be able to stand up to the blindest of biases so that not even the smallest rule of equity can be cited as having been violated. Then, when that nation judges a king, kings themselves, in their inmost hearts, must approve of the judgment.It is important for the happiness of mankind that the conduct of France towards the man it too long called its king be the final step in curing other nations of whatever superstitions they may still hold which favor a monarchy. Above all, we should beware lest we increase that superstition among those still ruled by a monarch. . . . Thus, it is to the laws of universal justice, common to all constitutions and unalterable in the midst of clashing opinions and the revolutions of empires, that we must subject our decisions.Can the former King be judged?An action can be grounds for legitimate punishment only if a previous law specifically identified that action as a crime; and it can be punished only with a penalty which likewise was prescribed by a previous law. . . .If, however, the law failed to distinguish in the list of crimes those which aggravating circumstances made even more heinous, it must not be concluded that the law wished to exempt them from punishment, but only that the aggravating circumstances did not seem to require the prescription of a specific penalty. The laws of Solon do not include parricide. Shall we conclude then that the monster who was guilty of this crime was intended to remain unpunished? No, surely he should receive the same punishment as a murderer.If, then, the laws of France say nothing specifically about a king who conspired against the people, even though he is much more guilty than a citizen, it does not follow that he should be spared, but only that those who wrote the laws did not wish to distinguish him from other conspirators. He should be judged then by the usual law, if another law did not specifically exclude him. . . .Two articles make this clear. In one, the person of the King is declared inviolable and sacred. The other states that for all crimes committed after his legal abdication, he shall be judged like other citizens. . . .The person of the King was declared sacred. Either 'sacred' has no meaning, or it has the sense which it is given in the tenets of the various religions. In the case of unjust acts of violence, this is a crime against religion in addition to a crime against society. In legal convictions, the guilty man is stripped of his civil rights before being sentenced so as to inspire a greater respect for what is somewhat supernatural in nature. By this, the constitutional King was likened to a bishop or a priest, persons also considered sacred but who are nevertheless not exempt from the power of the laws.The authors of the Constitution, by instituting a monarchy, created a power outside of nature which they believed required superstitious terrors in order to provide for the security of kings. But the result is merely that if the monarchy had not been abolished, the forfeiture of rights would have had to be decreed in a separate judgment.The word 'inviolable' is not defined by the Constitution as it applies to the King; but it is defined elsewhere, as it applies to the representatives of the people.Their inviolability entails two very distinct conditions, both applicable to the King. The first is that they may not be persecuted for what they did or said as representatives; and as soon as a king was established he must necessarily share in this kind of inviolability.This prerogative, extended to all the King's executive acts, posed dangers which that of the deputies did not. Thus the King was required to have these acts validated by the signature of a minister responsible for their legitimacy. The nation was not without checks, and if it did not have all those which might be demanded by the principles of justice rigorously applied, at least it had all those compatible with the existence of so bizarre an institution as the monarchy. . . .. . . But it is common knowledge that he is accused of crimes outside of his royal duties. It was not as King that he paid for parodies designed to ruin the nation's credibility, or that he bribed France's enemies, or that, in concert with his brothers, he formed a league with the enemies of the nation. It was not as King that, in despite of the laws that he himself had approved, he armed foreign troops against the citizens of France.Another condition of the inviolability of the popularly elected representatives was that they could not be prosecuted except by decree of the legislature. Thus when the Constituent Assembly discussed the question of the King's inviolability this point was rightfully mentioned, for by the very nature and importance of his functions he could not be answerable before a tribunal on the summons of those public officials whose conduct he supervised. It was shown that the man who had the authority to suspend the creation of laws, the head of the executive and commander of the army and the navy, should not be exposed to the risk of being stopped from these great tasks by the will of any particular tribunal. The arguments used to exempt the deputies from the common order of judicial prosecutions were used in the king's favor, and with the same success. . . .Thus, the impunity of the King was not decreed by the Constitution. Yet that document did not set forth the way in which he was to be judged. It did state that if he ceased to be King, he would, for his subsequent crimes, be prosecuted and judged like any other citizen; but it did not decide as to how he might be judged or prosecuted for his prior crimes. . . .Moreover, how could the Constituent Assembly have set down in the Constitution the method by which the King was to be judged? In accordance with the spirit of the Constitution, the legislature could not have the power to accuse him. To whom could that power belong? To the nation alone, and from there to the representatives which it named to the Convention. It would therefore have been necessary for the Constitution to indicate to the National Assemblies precisely the same plan of conduct that the Assembly of 1792 followed on 10 August. And if one recalls the timid circumspection with which the Constituent Assembly spoke of the inalienable right of the people to change its constitutional laws, one will not be astonished to see that the Assembly has not dared facilitate the exercise of this power by placing in the Constitution a means by which, in the case of serious accusations brought against the King by the citizens, the legislature might call a National Convention. . . .It is time to teach kings that the silence of the laws about their crimes is the ill consequence of their power, and not the will of reason or equity.The question, then, has been reduced to an examination of whether the rule of justice, which requires that a prior law determine the offense and the punishment, does not also require a preexisting law in order to establish the procedure of judgment.Now I do not believe that justice demands this. . . .Let me return to the subject of this discussion. Is the existence of Louis XVI favorable or adverse to sincere or feigned supporters, to foreigners or Frenchmen, to constitutional or hereditary monarchy? Does it benefit their plans that the throne which they wish to reinstate may be occupied by a child or must necessarily be occupied by a man made vile by his conduct and odious by his crimes? Is it in the interest of the French Republic to diminish the interval which separates persons living in foreign lands from the throne, lands where they will long be the active and docile instruments of all our enemies?In a word, as the existence of these hereditary pretenders is a necessary evil, can the conservation of our liberty be truly influenced by changes in the order of the claims, in the interest, hopes, and means of the persons called to take part in this absurd substitution?Will our severity frighten or irritate the enemy kings and the devotees of monarchy? Will the still-wavering sentiments of several nations be alienated or encouraged? These are questions to which it is difficult to reply without having been able to observe the effects of our first resolution on France and on Europe. Such questions seem to demand that the National Convention reserve the right to modify the sentence of the tribunal, or to submit it to the people and tell them how to execute it.If the judgment were favorable, would the nation have lost all rights over the man who had been King? Let us suppose that in the exercise of his usurped authority, a hereditary and absolute monarch had committed no injustices, no violent acts. Let us suppose that, blinded by his education, he honestly believed that his authority was legitimate. Let us admit that these are two hypotheses which no king has ever realized. Can it not be said then that the involuntary nature of the error absolves the penalty? But the right to be cautious concerning the effects of this error nonetheless remains. One does not punish a madman, but one takes the steps necessary to assure that he can cause no harm. And if the liberty of Louis XVI, innocent, were dangerous for the safety of the nation, doubtless the nation would retain the right to deprive him of that liberty.Yet how could we, in all fairness, reserve the right to take precautions for our safety in the case of an acquittal, without at the same time reserving for ourselves the right to modify the penalty in the case of a conviction?Thus, by giving political considerations all the weight which they might be expected to have, we see that they are unrelated to the question of the judgement, and that they could only influence the commutation of the pronounced penalty or the precautions which might be required by the nation's interest. To judge an accused king is a duty; to pardon him can be an act of prudence; to retain the possibility of such a course is an act of wisdom for those to whom the political destiny of a nation has been confided.I would therefore propose a postponement of the question of whether and by whom the judgment may be modified until the other questions have been decided, and just before the tribunal is seated.Such are my reflections on a subject that belongs to the order of human things, which philosophy may treat, for once, according to the principles of justice and with a sense of cool impartiality.Kings have long been mere men in the eyes of reason; and the time approaches when they will be so for politics as well. Yet at this moment, when the prejudices which surround a throne have disappeared at last but the influence of kings on the destiny of nations still remains, is it only now that it is possible and useful to expand the people's rights of over these beings beset by error and vileness, and over the ghosts of their superstitions.When Europe has but one king to judge, then his trial, having become an ordinary case, will no longer deserve the world's attention. Sortable Date 1792-12-03 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived M. J. Mavidal and M. E. Laurent, eds., Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860, première série (1787 à 1799), 2d ed., 82 vols. (Paris: Dupont, 1879Ð1913), 53Ð56:146Ð53. Description An account of the resource Jean–Antoine Nicolas Condorcet, formerly a marquis, circulated a pamphlet that was a Girondin response to Saint–Just. Although he too endorsed a trial of the King, he emphasized the necessity of following constitutional procedures, meaning that any trial had to be held in accordance with the constitution and proper legal forms. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 322 Title A name given to the resource Condorcet (3 December 1792) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/322/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 3, 1792 Monarchy Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Habit can familiarize men with the violation of their natural rights to the point that among those who have lost them no one dreams of reclaiming them or believes that he has suffered an injustice. Some of these violations even escaped the philosophers and legislators when with the greatest zeal they turned their attention to establishing the common rights of the individuals of the human race and to making those rights the sole foundation of political institutions. For example, have they not all violated the principle of equality of rights by quietly depriving half of mankind of the right to participate in the formation of the laws, by excluding women from the rights of citizenship? Is there a stronger proof of the power of habit even among enlightened men than seeing the principle of equality of rights invoked in favor of three or four hundred men deprived of their rights by an absurd prejudice [perhaps he is thinking of actors here] and at the same time forgetting those rights when it comes to twelve million women? For this exclusion not to be an act of tyranny one would have to prove that the natural rights of women are not absolutely the same as those of men or show that they are not capable of exercising them. Now the rights of men follow only from the fact that they are feeling beings, capable of acquiring moral ideas and of reasoning about these ideas. Since women have the same qualities, they necessarily have equal rights. Either no individual in mankind has true rights, or all have the same ones; and whoever votes against the right of another, whatever be his religion, his color, or his sex, has from that moment abjured his own rights. It would be difficult to prove that women are incapable of exercising the rights of citizenship. Why should beings exposed to pregnancies and to passing indispositions not be able to exercise rights that no one ever imagined taking away from people who have gout every winter or who easily catch colds? Even granting a superiority of mind in men that is not the necessary consequence of the difference in education (which is far from being proved and which ought to be if women are to be deprived of a natural right without injustice), this superiority can consist in only two points. It is said that no woman has made an important discovery in the sciences or given proof of genius in the arts, letters, etc. But certainly no one would presume to limit the rights of citizenship exclusively to men of genius. Some add that no woman has the same extent of knowledge or the same power of reasoning as certain men do; but what does this prove except that the class of very enlightened men is small? There is complete equality between women and the rest of men; if this little class of men were set aside, inferiority and superiority would be equally shared between the two sexes. Now since it would be completely absurd to limit the rights of citizenship and the eligibility for public offices to this superior class, why should women be excluded rather than those men who are inferior to a great number of women? . . . It is said that women have never been guided by what is called reason despite much intelligence, wisdom, and a faculty for reasoning developed to the same degree as in subtle dialecticians. This observation is false: they have not conducted themselves, it is true, according to the reason of men but rather according to their own. Their interests not being the same due to the defects of the laws, the same things not having for them at all the same importance as for us, they can, without being unreasonable, determine their course of action according to other principles and work toward a different goal. It is as reasonable for a woman to occupy herself with the embellishment of her person as it was for Demosthenes [a Greek orator] to cultivate his voice and gestures. It is said that women, though better than men in that they are gentler, more sensitive, and less subject to the vices that follow from egotism and hard hearts, do not really possess a sense of justice; that they obey their feelings rather than their consciences. This observation is truer but it proves nothing. It is not nature but rather education and social conditions that cause this difference. Neither the one nor the other has accustomed women to the idea of what is just, only to the idea of what is becoming or proper. Removed from public affairs, from everything that is decided according to the most rigorous idea of justice, or according to positive laws, they concern themselves with and act upon precisely those things which are regulated by natural propriety and by feeling. It is therefore unjust to advance as grounds for continuing to refuse women the enjoyment of their natural rights those reasons that only have some kind of reality because women do not enjoy these rights in the first place. If one admits such arguments against women, it would also be necessary to take away the rights of citizenship from that portion of the people who, having to work without respite, can neither acquire enlightenment nor exercise its reason, and soon little by little the only men who would be permitted to be citizens would be those who had followed a course in public law. . . . It is natural for a woman to nurse her children, to care for them in their infancy; attached to her home by these cares, weaker than a man, it is also natural that she lead a more retiring, more domestic life. Women would therefore be in the same class with men who are obliged by their station or profession to work several hours a day. This may be a reason for not preferring them in elections, but it cannot be the grounds for their legal exclusion. . . . I demand now that these arguments be refuted by other means than pleasantries or ranting; above all that someone show me a natural difference between men and women that can legitimately found [women's] exclusion from a right. Sortable Date 1790-07-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The materials listed below appeared originally in The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History, translated, edited, and with an introduction by Lynn Hunt (Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1996), 119–121. Description An account of the resource Condorcet took the question of political rights to its logical conclusions. He argued that if rights were indeed universal, as the doctrine of natural rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen both seemed to imply, then they must apply to all adults. Condorcet consequently argued in favor of granting political rights to Protestants and Jews and advocated the abolition of the slave trade and slavery itself. He went further than any other leading revolutionary spokesman, however, when he insisted that women, too, should gain political rights. His newspaper article to that effect caused a sensation and stimulated those of like mind to publish articles of their own. But the campaign was relatively short–lived and ultimately unsuccessful; the prejudice against granting political rights to women would prove the most difficult to uproot. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 292 Title A name given to the resource Condorcet, "On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship," July 1790 Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/292/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 1790 Text Women Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Habit can familiarize men with the violation of their natural rights to the point that among those who have lost them no one dreams of reclaiming them or believes that he has suffered an injustice. Some of these violations even escaped the philosophers and legislators when with the greatest zeal they turned their attention to establishing the common rights of the individuals of the human race and to making those rights the sole foundation of political institutions. For example, have they not all violated the principle of equality of rights by quietly depriving half of mankind of the right to participate in the formation of the laws, by excluding women from the rights of citizenship? Is there a stronger proof of the power of habit even among enlightened men than seeing the principle of equality of rights invoked in favor of three or four hundred men deprived of their rights by an absurd prejudice [perhaps he is thinking of actors here] and at the same time forgetting those rights when it comes to twelve million women? For this exclusion not to be an act of tyranny one would have to prove that the natural rights of women are not absolutely the same as those of men or show that they are not capable of exercising them. Now the rights of men follow only from the fact that they are feeling beings, capable of acquiring moral ideas and of reasoning about these ideas. Since women have the same qualities, they necessarily have equal rights. Either no individual in mankind has true rights, or all have the same ones; and whoever votes against the right of another, whatever be his religion, his color, or his sex, has from that moment abjured his own rights. It would be difficult to prove that women are incapable of exercising the rights of citizenship. Why should beings exposed to pregnancies and to passing indispositions not be able to exercise rights that no one ever imagined taking away from people who have gout every winter or who easily catch colds? Even granting a superiority of mind in men that is not the necessary consequence of the difference in education (which is far from being proved and which ought to be if women are to be deprived of a natural right without injustice), this superiority can consist in only two points. It is said that no woman has made an important discovery in the sciences or given proof of genius in the arts, letters, etc. But certainly no one would presume to limit the rights of citizenship exclusively to men of genius. Some add that no woman has the same extent of knowledge or the same power of reasoning as certain men do; but what does this prove except that the class of very enlightened men is small? There is complete equality between women and the rest of men; if this little class of men were set aside, inferiority and superiority would be equally shared between the two sexes. Now since it would be completely absurd to limit the rights of citizenship and the eligibility for public offices to this superior class, why should women be excluded rather than those men who are inferior to a great number of women? . . . It is said that women have never been guided by what is called reason despite much intelligence, wisdom, and a faculty for reasoning developed to the same degree as in subtle dialecticians. Ibis observation is false: they have not conducted themselves, it is true, according to the reason of men but rather according to their own. Their interests not being the same due to the defects of the laws, the same things not having for them at all the same importance as for us, they can, without being unreasonable, determine their course of action according to other principles and work toward a different goal. It is as reasonable for a woman to occupy herself with the embellishment of her person as it was for Demosthenes [a Greek orator] to cultivate his voice and gestures. It is said that women, though better than men in that they are gentler, more sensitive, and less subject to the vices that follow from egotism and hard hearts, do not really possess a sense of justice; that they obey their feelings rather than their consciences. This observation is truer but it proves nothing. It is not nature but rather education and social conditions that cause this difference. Neither the one nor the other has accustomed women to the idea of what is just, only to the idea of what is becoming or proper. Removed from public affairs, from everything that is decided according to the most rigorous idea of justice, or according to positive laws, they concern themselves with and act upon precisely those things which are regulated by natural propriety and by feeling. It is therefore unjust to advance as grounds for continuing to refuse women the enjoyment of their natural rights those reasons that only have some kind of reality because women do not enjoy these rights in the first place. If one admits such arguments against women, it would also be necessary to take away the rights of citizenship from that portion of the people who, having to work without respite, can neither acquire enlightenment nor exercise its reason, and soon little by little the only men who would be permitted to be citizens would be those who had followed a course in public law. . . . It is natural for a woman to nurse her children, to care for them in their infancy; attached to her home by these cares, weaker than a man, it is also natural that she lead a more retiring, more domestic life. Women would therefore be in the same class with men who are obliged by their station or profession to work several hours a day. This may be a reason for not preferring them in elections, but it cannot be the grounds for their legal exclusion. . . . I demand now that these arguments be refuted by other means than pleasantries or ranting; above all that someone show me a natural difference between men and women that can legitimately found [women's] exclusion from a right. . . . Sortable Date 1790-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The materials listed below appeared originally in The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History, translated, edited, and with an introduction by Lynn Hunt (Bedford/St. Martin's: Boston/New York), 1996, 119–121. Description An account of the resource Condorcet took the question of political rights to its logical conclusions. He argued that if rights were indeed universal, as the doctrine of natural rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen both seemed to imply, then they must apply to all adults. Condorcet consequently argued in favor of granting political rights to Protestants and Jews and advocated the abolition of the slave trade and slavery itself. He went further than any other leading revolutionary spokesman, however, when he insisted that women too should gain political rights. His newspaper article to that effect caused a sensation and stimulated those of like mind to publish articles of their own. But the campaign was relatively short–lived and ultimately unsuccessful; the prejudice against granting political rights to women would prove the most difficult to uproot. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 475 Title A name given to the resource Condorcet, "On the Admission of Women to the Rights Of Citizenship" (1790) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/475/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1790 Enlightenment Laws Public Opinion Text Women https://revolution.chnm.org/files/original/118bf8660a03768d926b312b2dc4a39f.jpg 9f2afbc3836f65f7bb462ed6a0dbb0f8 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Cornell 4606.18.J42 Description An account of the resource The treaty in the spring of 1814 had accepted Napoleon’s surrender, but a general meeting of European countries convened to settle broader issues of a postrevolutionary era. While the allies were working on a number of concerns—and as a byproduct, raising French anxieties—Napoleon returned to capitalize on this negative reaction. Within three months he was defeated yet again, and this meeting—the Congress of Vienna—set a framework more hostile to France than before, which endured to a significant degree until midcentury and beyond. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 201 Title A name given to the resource Congress of Vienna Relation A related resource http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/201/ Europe in Revolution Image Monarchy Napoleon Bonaparte The US and Great Britain in Revolution Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Many philosophers have addressed the subject of women. Most of them were content to remind women of their duties, and to set such narrow limits on their minds, their hearts, and their passions that women saw themselves endlessly needing to overcome these limits. Most of these philosophers pretended not to see the eternal equilibrium with which nature has balanced the real force of men with the tacit force of women. They told women, "We are the being par excellence, you are merely incidental." At each instance, they sent women back to what has been called the primitive state of nature, without thinking that men themselves are very far from this possibly illusory state. They forgot that the existence, tastes, and passions of women are directly linked to theirs, and that the impulse, good or bad, that drives one cannot leave the other behind. From these two false premises, the philosophers drew the spurious result that the most just and objective mind can, in no way, be applied to men and women as they are. Some of them have dared, in vain, to raise their voices in our favor. Disapproval, neglect, and that sort of authority that time lends to injustice itself, all combined to leave things in the order that the Law of the Jungle has established, almost always avoided by the skill of the weakest. Under the old government there was a time when one religion, which we were fond of abusing, made it a crime for God's faithful to cast a glance upon His most pleasing work. There was a time when the majority of the laws seemed to still be imbued with traces of barbarity and feudalism. There was a time when it was not thought to be necessary to ensure that half of the human race be protected by half the laws tied to humanity. This is how it appeared. But for ten years now, the words of equality and liberty have been echoing throughout the land, and philosophy, with the help of experience, has ceaselessly taught man about his true rights. That during this time the rights of women have been completely neglected is what is hardest to comprehend, as if the important themes with which our minds have been taken since the Revolution in some way seemed to justify this oversight. Yes, no doubt circumstances justified it. Women are such an essential part of society that it seems incredible that they have counted for nothing in the various schemes which were necessarily designed to achieve happiness for all. Public interest, and the interest of individuals, are equally wronged by this strange and illusory omission. It is certain that by tying women in any way to the State, their opinions would not be set since these opinions are almost always floating between their own passions and those of the men who interest them. It is certain that by doing so, no patriotic spirit is being fostered in their hearts, and consequently in those of their children, and this lack of spirit shall be all the more unalterable in that it will be thought through and based upon their own interests. Finally, it is certain that it is not of the greatest importance to make women love the government under which they live because they are endlessly thinking and discussing with the men, and often on their level, while also subjugating these men through the wiles of their gender. They can thus have more influence over even the most clear-headed of minds than the law could ever achieve. Oh! Success could never allow a virtuous woman, beautiful and enlightened, of whom there have been so many, lacking even the first and most essential of these qualities, from nonetheless subjugating the greatest of men! . . . This reasoning, simple and proven by experience, must have struck the fairest of minds. But unfortunately there are fewer of that sort than of the other. The masses are seduced equally by error and truth provided that one has the art of giving them a distinctive appearance. The masses have easily adopted the opinion that by restricting and eliminating the power of women, men would apparently have consequentially greater latitude. Force was placed on one side, and weakness was assumed to be on the other. In vain, a thousand heroic actions, especially during the Revolution, seemed to lead to this judgment. The judges were men, and the women, forgotten so to speak, were not able to benefit of the laws that favor men, and have remained floating, left to themselves, the winds of fate, their whims, their own company, their still active passions, and their influence which is so often triumphant. It must be admitted, however, that even if these passionate and exclusive minds have managed to establish in the masses an unfavorable opinion of women, Nature, stronger than they, compensates women for it, usually on an individual basis, thereby reestablishing the equilibrium. It is in this way that justice reasserts itself, as when the husband enjoys deferring to his wife's advice. It is there where, upon leaving a gathering which included speeches against women's education, a sensible father seeks to develop the seeds of all talent and knowledge in his daughter. Finally, it is there where this same man, perhaps the author of a law against women's independence, does not consent to give into the arms of a son-in-law the woman who owes him her life. Even though no matter how much he assures her of a life free from the whims of her husband, an inconsistency that alone would suffice to enlighten everyone, if self-love or pride could ever be enlightened by truth. I say it again, it is above all since the Revolution that this inconsistency has become more painful, and which women, following the example of men, have thought the most about their true natures and have consequently acted. It is those women whose fortune has allowed them free time to give in part to teaching, that their former education dedicated to pleasure. Already they are being admitted into scholarly organizations and into art schools, and everyone should already see that merit has no gender, and that rights cannot either. This is therefore the best possible time to call for lawmakers to pay attention to women for a moment. This is doubtless what Citizen Théremin, a man of letters favorably known for several political works, was thinking when he offered the public his new work entitled On the Condition of Women in a Republic. This work, which is the subject of this essay, has already received the praise that it deserves in several newspapers. I should no doubt rush to add mine here, but I would then be a judge in my own defense which could open myself to challenge. So before explaining my opinion of this interesting work, I am going to write a short exposé, and allow the public to decide itself about the merit of the work. By establishing a small number of clear and precise principles taken from nature, and by supporting these principles with facts and historic observations, Citizen Théremin comes out today in favor of women. First he demonstrates that from ancient times, although seemingly enjoying less domestic liberty, women nonetheless had more political liberty than ours in that they took part in government, which was even, on several occasions, placed into their care. He reminds us that under the monarchy women had still maintained a few accidental bits of this power, and, considering that a Republic is the subsequent perfecting of a monarchy, he thinks that it should be even more favorable towards women. According to the author, progress in the civilization of the human race has always brought women a greater amount of happiness. He is not content merely to state this last truth; he proves it, and shows us successively the woman as mistress in civilized France, slave for the stupid Orientals, and servant for the savage barbarians. Moving on from these examples to his argument, he successfully refutes an English philosopher by the name of Godwin who claimed that love was lost as the human race achieved a greater degree of perfection. A strange system that nature refutes at every second, and to which the English author himself does not seemingly hold to with conviction since he married Madame Walstooncraft [Mary Wollstonecraft], a woman of letters known primarily by a work on women's rights. But where Citizen Théremin really brings his opinions into the light of day it is when, after having shown that happiness only exists through the free exercise of one's faculties and that women have as much right to this happiness as men, he adds that there are two beings in women, as much as there are in men. The first is the moral being, free by its very nature, knowing only the laws of its own morality and having no gender. And the second, a physical being, dependent upon man in the same manner that man is dependent upon it. . . . First he is surprised that under the current government, which he never ceases to believe to be the most favorable toward women, no extension of their schooling or their sphere of activities has been accorded. He observes that the ability to inherit equal portions, and divorce, are almost the only points that they have won from man's freedom. He speaks against the inconsistency that judges and sentences women as men in criminal court, while they are treated as children who still require a guardian in civil court. It is as if, concurrently, women have been given the ability to distinguish right from wrong for capital crimes, and then been refused this same ability when it comes to cases that are much less important. He makes us feel how in the current state of things, contrary to all intelligence, it is absurd to claim that women should, regardless of their social status, give themselves up solely to those meticulous and servile tasks which men take pleasure in assigning them. Tasks which support a portion of them, and provide a resource without which they would be left in idleness and misery. . . . It is said that one should provide an education to the sons whose fathers died for the country. Yes, no doubt we should. But these sons, do they not have sisters? Their fathers, did they not lavish the same care upon both? Must it be that the luck of being a male or female deprive these unfortunate orphans of the help that a just and beneficent nation should share equally with all of the individuals who compose it? Must it be that so many other women who feel within themselves this competitiveness, this fire that is the source of all the great qualities and of all the great virtues, see, from childhood, these precious seeds which the fortunate development had made the apple of their family's eye and possibly the glory of their country, compromised, smothered in their hearts, by a barbarous prejudice! . . . And please don't object at this point that by educating women, they are being torn from their domestic tasks. An educated and enlightened woman will not spend the time she needs for her household and her family on her studies. This time will come from those hours that so many others spend at balls, strolls, and at idle and extravagant gatherings. Please also don't object here with that eternal refrain, always disproved by experience, that women are not born to be taught, that their eyes are too frail to withstand the light of science and art. A thousand examples handed down over the centuries are proof to the contrary. And when we no longer have to cite this irrefutable fact, the complaints that they never cease to inspire on this subject would be more than a sufficient answer. Let us be honest with ourselves . . . we all carry within us the sense of our own ability. After the turmoil of our youth, there is no reasonable being who does not place themselves in their rightful place. Nature draws the line that everyone must follow and is not content only revealing to the genius the secret of what they should undertake. Nature also sets in mediocre minds the limits of their mediocrity, and when it gives a being, any being, the constant desire to better themselves, one can boldly assume that it has also given them the means. But it is time to return to the work of Citizen Théremin, and to complete the analysis. One point was left for him to address, and that point was important: Should or should not women vote in the nation's assemblies and be allowed to work for the State? That is the question that he seems to ask, and that he resolves easily by his same principles. Recalling that, even though it has been established that women should have a moral existence that is separate and independent from man's, he has always considered that physically and individually they are dependent upon each other. Consequently, their interests are the same, and therefore husband and wife are but one political entity, even though they may be, and should be, two civil entities. The vote and political actions of one are therefore necessarily contained in those of the other. "And note this mothers and wives," he writes, "when your children and your husband deliberate in the sovereign assembly, it is for you as much as for them that they are deliberating. It is your interests as much as theirs that they are addressing. And when they pronounce a 'yes' or a 'no' on where the future of the State lies, it is your voice that echoes in the assembly." The author does not believe it necessary to justify that men have appropriated supreme power for themselves exclusively, and he certainly is right. I am pleased to echo his thoughts. Although more than one woman has exercised this power with glory, and though others, in usurping it, have justified women's audacity by their merit and success, in general women do not cite these instances of authority in order to escape the place that nature has very specially assigned them. As Citizen Théremin says extremely well, and above all most gallantly: "They exercise another kind of supremacy that men do not share with them and that they know better how to maintain, and which is not invaded as often as is men's." However, returning to his first principles, he makes it felt how much it is just and necessary to compensate women for this apparent absence in politics by tying them to the State by other means. He requests that the government employ them in public schooling and when celebrating national holidays. He would like them to be tasked with a host of functions in charity work, peacemaking, and benevolent work which are suitable with the their innate sensitivities. Finally, he ends his work with the observation that fairness requires that women be placed within reach of being able to defend their natural and inalienable rights by seating them on civil courts, where most of the issues that concern them are dealt with. A proposition so fair that it would seem inconceivable that it has not already been adopted. Sortable Date 1800-05-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Le Mois, vol. 5 (Prairial? Year VIII [May/June?, 1800]), 228–40. Description An account of the resource In this review of a book by an author favorable to women’s education, Pipelet argues that republics should demonstrate a different attitude toward women than monarchies. She restates the arguments for more education and more opportunities for women and rejects those positions that keep women in intellectual dependency and passivity. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 495 Title A name given to the resource Constance Pipelet, Review of a Book by Théremin, On the Condition of Women in a Republic Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/495/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 1800 Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Public Opinion Text Women Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document The National Assembly took this name on 9 July 1789, to reflect its self-appointed mission to write a constitution for France. The Constituent faced numerous crises until it disbanded at the end of September 1791. Not only did the King attempt to undermine the government, he even sought to flee the country for which he was suspended and eventually reinstated. This body also wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the Constitution of 1791 and tried to face up to the fiscal crisis by issuing new legal tender, the assignats. The results of these important efforts were quite mixed, but the Constituent Assembly was the first real legislature in French history. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1073 Title A name given to the resource Constituent Assembly Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/1073/ Glossary Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1793-06-24 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 812 Title A name given to the resource Constitution of 1793 is accepted by the Convention to be voted on in a national referendum. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/812/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 24, 1793 Timeline Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document EXECUTIVE POWER The Executive Power shall be delegated to a Directory of five members appointed by the Legislative Body, which for such purpose performs the functions of an electoral body, in the name of the nation. The Council of Five-Hundred shall prepare, by secret ballot, a list of ten times the number of members of the Directory to be appointed, and shall present it to the Council of Elders, which shall choose, also by secret ballot, from said list. The members of the Directory must be at least forty years of age. They may be chosen only from among citizens who have been ministers or members of the Legislative Body. The present article shall be observed only dating from the ninth year of the Republic. Dating from the first day of Year V of the Republic [22 September 1796], members of the Legislative Body may not be elected members of the Directory or ministers, either during the continuance of their legislative functions or during the first year after the expiration of same. The Directory shall be renewed in part by the election of one new member annually. During the first four years, the order of retirement of those first elected shall be determined by lot. None of the retiring members may be reelected until after an interval of five years. Ancestors and descendants in direct line, brothers, uncles and nephews, first cousins, and those related by marriage in said several degrees may not be members of the Directory at one and the same time, or succeed one another therein until after an interval of five years. In case of the removal of one of the members of the Directory by death, resignation, or otherwise, his successor shall be elected by the Legislative Body within ten days at the latest. The Council of Five-Hundred shall be required to propose candidates within the first five days, and the Council of Elders shall complete the election within the last five days. The new member shall be elected only for the term of office remaining to the one to be replaced. Nevertheless, if such time does not exceed six months, the person elected shall remain in office until the end of the fifth year following. Each member of the Directory shall preside over it in turn for three months only. The president shall possess the right of signature, and shall have custody of the seal. Laws and acts of the Legislative Body shall be addressed to the Directory in the person of its president. The Executive Directory may not deliberate unless at least three of its members are present. It shall choose for itself, from outside its own membership, a secretary who shall countersign dispatches and record deliberations in a register, in which every member has the right to have his motivated opinion inscribed. When it deems expedient, the Directory may deliberate without the presence of its secretary; in such case, the deliberations shall be recorded in a special register by one of the members of the Directory. The Directory shall provide, according to law, for the external and internal security of the Republic. It may issue proclamations in conformity with the laws, and for the execution thereof. It shall dispose the armed force, but neither the Directory collectively nor any one of its members may, under any circumstances, command same while in office or during the two years immediately following the expiration of his term. If the Directory is informed that a conspiracy is being plotted against the external or internal security of the State, it may issue warrants of apprehension and arrest against those who are presumed to be the authors or accomplices thereof; it may question them; but it shall be required, under the penalties provided for the crime of arbitrary detention, to send them before the police officer within two days, in order to proceed according to law. The Directory shall appoint the generals in chief; it may not choose them from among the blood or marriage relations of its members in the degrees stated in article 139. It shall supervise and ensure the execution of laws in the administrations and courts, through commissioners of its own appointment. It shall appoint the ministers, from outside its own membership, and may dismiss them when it thinks it advisable. It may not select anyone under the age of thirty years, or from among the blood or marriage relations of its members in the degrees stated in article 139. The ministers shall correspond directly with the authorities that are subordinate to them. The Legislative Body shall determine the number of the ministers and their prerogatives. Such number may not be fewer than six or more than eight. The ministers do not constitute a council. The ministers shall be jointly and severally responsible for non-execution of laws, as well as for non-execution of orders of the Directory. The Directory shall appoint the collector of direct taxes in each and every department. It shall appoint the superintendents-in-chief for the administration of indirect taxes and the national domains. Until peace has been made, all public functionaries in the French colonies, except in the departments of the Île de France and the Île de la Réunion, shall be appointed by the Directory. The Legislative Body may authorize the Directory to send to all French colonies, as occasion may require, one or more special agents appointed by it for a limited time. Such special agents shall perform the same duties as the Directory, and shall be subordinate thereto. GENERAL PROVISIONS There shall be no superiority among citizens other than that of public functionaries, and that only in relation to the performance of their duties. The law shall recognize neither religious vows nor any obligation contrary to the natural rights of man. No one may be prevented from speaking, writing, printing, or publishing his ideas. Writings may not be subjected to any censorship before their publication. No one may be held responsible for what he has written or published, except in cases provided for by law. No one may be prevented from performing the worship of his choice, so long as he complies with the laws. No one may be forced to contribute to the expenses of a religion. The Republic does not pay for any. There shall be neither privilege, nor mastership, nor wardenship, nor limitation on the liberty of the press, of commerce, or of the practice of industry or arts of any kind. When circumstances render such prohibitive laws necessary, they shall be essentially provisional, and shall be effective for one year only, unless formally renewed. The law shall watch particularly over the professions which affect public morals and the security and health of citizens; but admission to the practice of such professions may not be made conditional upon any pecuniary payment. The law shall provide for the compensation of inventors, or for the maintenance of the exclusive ownership of their discoveries or productions. The Constitution guarantees the inviolability of all property, or just indemnification for that of which legally established public necessity requires the sacrifice. The house of every citizen is an inviolable asylum; during the night no one shall have the right to enter except in case of fire, flood, or a call proceeding from inside the house. During the day, orders of the constituted authorities may be executed therein. No domiciliary visit may take place except by virtue of a law, and for the person or object expressly designated in the warrant ordering such visit. Corporations and associations which are contrary to public order may not be formed. No assembly of citizens may call itself a popular society. No private society which concerns itself with political questions may correspond with another, or affiliate therewith, or hold public sessions composed of the members of the societies and of associates distinguished from one another, or impose conditions of admission and eligibility, or arrogate to itself rights of exclusion, or cause its members to wear any external insignia of their association. Citizens may exercise their political rights only in the primary or communal assemblies. All citizens shall be free to address petitions to the public authorities, but they must be individual ones; no association may present them collectively, except the constituted authorities, and only for matters within their competence. The petitioners must never forget the respect due the constituted authorities. Every armed gathering is an attack upon the Constitution; it shall be dispersed immediately by force. Every unarmed gathering, likewise, shall be dispersed, at first by verbal command, and, if necessary, by the deployment of armed force. Several constituted authorities may never unite for the purpose of deliberating together; no instrument emanating from such a union may be executed. No one may wear distinctive symbols indicative of duties formerly performed or services rendered. The members of the Legislative Body, and all public functionaries, shall wear, in the performance of their duties, the costume or insignia of the authority with which they are invested; the form thereof shall be determined by law. No citizen may renounce, in whole or in part, the indemnity or salary assigned to him by law because of public duties. There shall be uniformity of weights and measures throughout the Republic. The French era shall date from 22 September 1792, the day of the establishment of the Republic. The French nation declares that under no circumstances will it permit the return of Frenchmen who, having abandoned their homeland since 15 July 1789, are not included in the exceptions provided in the laws against émigrés; and it forbids the Legislative Body to make new exceptions in such connection. The property of émigrés is irrevocably acquired for the benefit of the Republic. The French nation likewise proclaims, as a guarantee of public faith, that after a legally consummated auction of national property, whatever its origin, the lawful acquirer may not be dispossessed thereof; reserving to third claimants, if need be, indemnification by the National Treasury. None of the powers instituted by the Constitution shall have the right to change it in its entirety, or in any of its parts, except for reforms which may be effected by way of revision in conformity with the provisions of Title XIII. The citizens shall always remember that the duration, preservation, and prosperity of the Republic depend principally upon the wisdom of elections in the primary and electoral assemblies. The French people entrust the present Constitution to the fidelity of the Legislative Body, the Executive Directory, the administrators, and the judges; to the vigilance of fathers of families, to wives and mothers, to the affection of young citizens, to the courage of all Frenchmen. Sortable Date 1795-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Hall Stewart, A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution (New York: Macmillan, 1951), 588–91, 610–12. Description An account of the resource By mid–1795, dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, particularly the extra–constitutional nature of the government, had become widespread. The Left demanded "bread and the Constitution of 1793" while those who had suffered under the Terror sought to "end the Revolution" by finishing off popular political activity in the sections that had led to continual uprisings, civil unrest in the provinces (notably revenge being taken on those in power during the Terror), and the ongoing wars abroad that continued to make heavy demands on the domestic economy. To this end, the Convention assigned a committee including Sieyès to draft yet another constitution, which was presented on 22 August. The excerpt below demonstrates how this constitution sought to ensure a moderate continuation of the Revolution, which would reconcile a stable social order based on personal liberty (meaning individual property rights) with juridical equality rather than the direct democracy and guarantees of social and economic equality contained in the Constitution of 1793. To achieve this delicate balance, the framers reduced the authority of the legislature, which would now have two houses so it could not pass legislation as rapidly. By creating an explicit executive body, this constitution concentrated power, but also limited how much any one individual or political faction could exert by sharing executive power among five Directors. Finally, the constitution proscribed political gatherings of any sort to prevent the re–formation of the club movement or the organization of national political parties. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 450 Title A name given to the resource Constitution of the Year III (1795) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/450/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1795 Laws Text Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1795-08-22 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 837 Title A name given to the resource Constitution of the Year III and Two Thirds Law approved. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/837/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 22, 1795 Timeline