25 10 347 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 There have already been troubles about the cockade [the tricolor ribbon decoration used to signify support of the Revolution]; you have decreed that women should wear it. Now they ask for the red cap [of liberty]. They will not rest there; they will soon demand a belt with pistols. These demands will coincide perfectly with the maneuvers behind the mobs clamoring for bread, and you will see lines of women going to get bread as if they were marching to the trenches. It is very adroit on the part of our enemies to attack the most powerful passion of women, that of their adornment, and on this pretext, arms will be put into their hands that they do not know how to use, but which bad subjects would be able to use all too well. This is not even the only source of division that is associated with this sex. Coalitions of women are forming under the name of revolutionary, fraternal, etc., institutions. I have already clearly observed that these societies are not at all composed of mothers, daughters, and sisters of families occupied with their younger brothers or sisters, but rather of adventuresses, female knights-errant, emancipated girls, and amazons. (Applause) I ask for two very urgent things because women in red caps are in the street. I ask that you decree that no individual, under whatever pretext, and on pain of being prosecuted as a disturber of the public peace, can force any citizen to dress other than in the manner that he wishes. I ask next that the Committee of General Security make a report on women's clubs. (Applause) Decree: No person of either sex may constrain any citizen or citizeness to dress in a particular manner. Everyone is free to wear whatever clothing or adornment of his sex seems right to him, on pain of being considered and treated as a suspect and prosecuted as a disturber of public peace. Sortable Date 1793-10-29 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, 135–36. Description An account of the resource On 29 October 1793, a group of women appeared in the National Convention to complain that women militants had tried to force them to wear the red cap of liberty as a sign of their adherence to the Revolution, but they also presented a petition demanding the suppression of the women’s club behind these actions. Their appearance provided the occasion for a discussion of women’s political activity more generally. Philippe Fabre d’Eglantine (1755–94) gave a speech demanding freedom of dress and denouncing all women’s "coalitions." Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 486 Title A name given to the resource Discussion of Women’s Political Clubs and Their Suppression, October 29–30, 1793 Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/486/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource October 29, 1793 Clubs Public Opinion Sans-culottes Text The Terror 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 In the morning at the market and charnel-house [mortuary] of the Innocents, several women, so-called women Jacobins, from a club that is supposedly revolutionary, walked about wearing trousers and red caps; they sought to force the other citizenesses to adopt the same dress. Several have testified that they were insulted by these women. A mob of some 6,000 women formed. . . . Your committee believed it must go further in its inquiry. It has posed the following questions: 1) Is it permitted to citizens or to a particular club to force other citizens to do what the law does not command? 2) Should the gatherings of women convened in popular clubs in Paris be allowed? Do not the troubles that these clubs have already occasioned prohibit us from tolerating any longer their existence? These questions are naturally complicated, and their solution must be preceded by two more general questions: . . . 1) Should women exercise political rights and get mixed up in the affairs of government? Governing is ruling public affairs by laws whose making demands extended knowledge, an application and devotion without limit, a severe impassiveness and abnegation of self; governing is ceaselessly directing and rectifying the action of constituted authorities. Are women capable of these required attentions and qualities? We can respond in general no. . . . 2) Secondly, should women gather together in political associations? . . . No, because they will be obliged to sacrifice to them more important cares to which nature calls them. The private functions to which women are destined by nature itself follow from the general order of society. This social order results from the difference between man and woman. Each sex is called to a type of occupation that is appropriate to it. Its action is circumscribed in this circle that it cannot cross over, for nature, which has posed these limits on man, commands imperiously and accepts no other law. Man is strong, robust, born with a great energy, audacity, and courage; thanks to his constitution, he braves perils and the inclemency of the seasons; he resists all the elements, and he is suited for the arts and difficult labors. And as he is almost exclusively destined to agriculture, commerce, navigation, voyages, war, to everything that requires force, intelligence, and ability, in the same way he alone appears suited for the profound and serious cogitations that require a great exertion of mind and long studies and that women are not given to following. . . . In general, women are hardly capable of lofty conceptions and serious cogitations. And if, among ancient peoples, their natural timidity and modesty did not permit them to appear outside of their family, do you want in the French Republic to see them coming up to the bar, to the speaker's box, to political assemblies like men, abandoning both the discretion that is the source of all the virtues of this sex and the care of their family? Decree: The clubs and popular societies of women, under whatever denomination, are prohibited. Sortable Date 1793-10-29 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, 136–38. Description An account of the resource In a follow–up to Fabre d’Eglantine’s speech on 29 October, Jean–Baptiste Amar proposed an official decree on 3 October forbidding women to join together in political associations. A deputy tried to argue that this notion ran contrary to the right of freedom of association, but he was shouted down by the other deputies. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 487 Title A name given to the resource Discussion of Women’s Political Clubs—Amar Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/487/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource October 29, 1793 Clubs Public Opinion Sans-culottes Text The Terror 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 Audience of . . . . . . 12 Brumaire, Year II of the Republic. Case of Olympe de Gouges. Questioned concerning her name, surname, age, occupation, place of birth, and residence. Replied that her name was Marie Olympe de Gouges, age thirty-eight, femme de lettres, a native of Montauban, living in Paris, rue du Harlay, Section Pont-Neuf. The clerk read the act of accusation, the tenor of which follows. Antoine-Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, public prosecutor before the Revolutionary Tribunal, etc. States that, by an order of the administrators of police, dated last July 25th, signed Louvet and Baudrais, it was ordered that Marie Olympe de Gouges, widow of Aubry, charged with having composed a work contrary to the expressed desire of the entire nation, and directed against whoever might propose a form of government other than that of a republic, one and indivisible, be brought to the prison called l'Abbaye, and that the documents be sent to the public prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Consequently, the accused was brought to the designated prison and the documents delivered to the public prosecutor on July 26th. The following August 6th, one of the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal proceeded with the interrogation of the above-mentioned de Gouges woman. From the examination of the documents deposited, together with the interrogation of the accused, it follows that against the desire manifested by the majority of Frenchmen for republican government, and in contempt of laws directed against whoever might propose another form of government, Olympe de Gouges composed and had printed works which can only be considered as an attack on the sovereignty of the people because they tend to call into question that concerning which it [the people] formally expressed its desire; that in her writing, entitled Les Trois urnes, ou le Salut de la patrie, there can be found the project of the liberty-killing faction which wanted to place before the people the approbation of the judgment of the tyrant condemned by the people itself; that the author of this work openly provoked civil war and sought to arm citizens against one another by proposing the meeting of primary assemblies to deliberate and express their desire concerning either monarchical government, which the national sovereignty had abolished and proscribed; concerning the one and indivisible republican [form], which it had chosen and established by the organ of its representatives; or, finally, concerning the federative [form], which would be the source of incalculable evils and which would destroy liberty infallibly. . . . The public prosecutor stated next that it is with the most violent indignation that one hears the de Gouges woman say to men who for the past four years have not stopped making the greatest sacrifices for liberty; who on 10 August 1792, overturned both the throne and the tyrant; who knew how to bravely face the arms and frustrate the plots of the despot, his slaves, and the traitors who had abused the public confidence, to men who have submitted tyranny to the avenging blade of the law that Louis Capet still reigns among them. There can be no mistaking the perfidious intentions of this criminal woman, and her hidden motives, when one observes her in all the works to which, at the very least, she lends her name, calumniating and spewing out bile in large doses against the warmest friends of the people, their most intrepid defender. In a manuscript seized in her home, on which she placed a patriotic title only in order to get her poisons circulated more freely, she places in the mouth of the monster who surpasses the Messalinas and the Medicis these impious expressions: "the placard-makers, these paper scribblings, are not worth a Marat, a Robespierre; in the specious language of patriotism, they overturn everything in the name of the people; they appear to be serving propaganda and never have heads of factions better served the cause of kings; at one and the same time they serve two parties moving at a rapid pace towards the same goal. I love these enterprising men; they have a thorough knowledge of the difficult art of imposing on human weaknesses; they have sensed from the beginning that in order to serve me it was necessary to blaze a trail in the opposite direction; applaud yourself, Calonne, this is your work." Lastly, in the work in question one sees only provocation to the reestablishment of royalty on the part of a woman who, in one of her writings, admits that monarchy seems to her to be the government most suited to the French spirit; who in [the writing] in question points out that the desire for the republic was not freely pronounced; who, lastly, in another [writing] is not afraid to parody the traitor Isnard and to apply to all of France what the former restricted to the city of Paris alone, so calumniated by the partisans of royalty and by those of federalism. On the basis of the foregoing expose the public prosecutor drew up this accusation against Marie Olympe de Gouges, widow Aubry, for having maliciously and purposefully composed writings attacking the sovereignty of the people (whose desire, when these were written, had been pronounced for republican government, one and indivisible) and tending towards the reestablishment of the monarchical government (which it [the people] had formally proscribed) as well as the federative [form] (against which it [the people] had forcefully protested); for having had printed up and distributed several copies of one of the cited works tending towards these ends, entitled, Les Trois urnes, ou le Salut de la patrie; for having been stopped in her distribution of a greater number of copies as well as in her posting of the cited work only by the refusal of the bill-poster and by her prompt arrest; for having sent this work to her son, employed in the army of the Vendée as officier de l'état major; for having, in other manuscripts and printed works, notably, in the manuscript entitled La France sauvée, ou le Tyran détrôné as well as in the poster entitled Olympe de Gouges au Tribunal Révolutionnaire, sought to degrade the constituted authorities, calumniate the friends and defenders of the people and of liberty, and spread defiance among the representatives and the represented, which is contrary to the laws, and notably to that of last December 4th. Consequently, the public prosecutor asks that he be given official notice by the assembled Tribunal of this indictment, etc., etc. In this case only three witnesses were heard, one of whom was the citizen bill-poster, who stated that, having been asked to post a certain number of copies of printed material with the title Les Trois urnes, he refused when he found out about the principles contained in this writing. When the accused was questioned sharply about when she composed this writing, she replied that it was some time last May, adding that what motivated her was that seeing the storms arising in a large number of départements, and notably in Bordeaux, Lyons, Marseilles, etc., she had the idea of bringing all parties together by leaving them all free in the choice of the kind of government which would be most suitable for them; that furthermore, her intentions had proven that she had in view only the happiness of her country. Questioned about how it was that she, the accused, who believed herself to be such a good patriot, had been able to develop, in the month of June, means which she called conciliatory concerning a fact which could no longer be in question because the people, at that period, had formally pronounced for republican government, one and indivisible, she replied that this was also the [form of government] she had voted for as the preferable one; that for a long while she had professed only republican sentiments, as the jurors would be able to convince themselves from her work entitled De l'ésclavage des noirs. A reading was provided by Naulin, the public prosecutor's substitute, of a letter written by the accused to Herault-Sechelles in which principles of federalism are found. The accused replied to this fact that her intention had been, as she had said already, pure and that she wanted to be able to show her heart to the citizen jurors so that they might judge her love of liberty and her hatred of every kind of tyranny. Asked to declare whether she acknowledged authorship of a manuscript work found among her papers entitled La France sauvée ou le Tyran détrôné, she replied yes. Asked why she had placed injurious and perfidious declamations against the most ardent defenders of the rights of the people in the mouth of the person who in this work was supposed to represent the Capet woman, she replied that she had the Capet woman speaking the language appropriate for her; that besides, the handbill for which she was brought before the Tribunal had never been posted; that to avoid compromising herself she had decided to send twenty-four copies to the Committee of Public Safety, which, two days later, had her arrested. The public prosecutor pointed out to the accused, concerning this matter, that if her placard entitled Les Trois urnes had not been made public, this was because the bill-poster had not been willing to take it upon himself. The accused was in agreement with this fact. Questioned about whether, since her detention, she had not sent a copy to her son along with a letter, she said that the fact was exact and that her intention concerning this matter had been to apprise him of the cause of her arrest; that besides, she did not know whether her son had received it, not having heard from him in a long while and not knowing at all what could have become of him. Asked to speak concerning various phrases in the placard entitled Olympe de Gouges, defendeur de Louis Capet, a work written by her at the time of the former's trial, and concerning the placard entitled Olympe de Gouges au Tribunal Révolutionnaire as well, she responded only with oratorical phrases and persisted in saying that she was and always had been a good citoyenne, that she had never intrigued. Asked to express herself and to reply precisely concerning her sentiments with respect to the faithful representatives of the people whom she had insulted and calumniated in her writings, the accused replied that she had not changed, that she still held to her same opinion concerning them, and that she had looked upon them as ambitious persons. In her defense the accused said that she had ruined herself in order to propagate the principles of the Revolution and that she was the founder of popular societies of her sex, etc. During the resume of the charge brought by the public prosecutor, the accused, with respect to the facts she was hearing articulated against her, never stopped her smirking. Sometimes she shrugged her shoulders; then she clasped her hands and raised her eyes towards the ceiling of the room; then, suddenly, she moved on to an expressive gesture, showing astonishment; then gazing next at the court, she smiled at the spectators, etc. Here is the judgment rendered against her. The Tribunal, based on the unanimous declaration of the jury, stating that: (1) it is a fact that there exist in the case writings tending towards the reestablishment of a power attacking the sovereignty of the people; [and] (2) that Marie Olympe de Gouges, calling herself widow Aubry, is proven guilty of being the author of these writings, and admitting the conclusions of the public prosecutor, condemns the aforementioned Marie Olympe de Gouges, widow Aubry, to the punishment of death in conformity with Article One of the law of last March 29th, which was read, which is conceived as follows: "Whoever is convicted of having composed or printed works or writings which provoke the dissolution of the national representation, the reestablishment of royalty, or of any other power attacking the sovereignty of the people, will be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal and punished by death," and declares the goods of the aforementioned Marie Olympe de Gouges seized for the benefit of the republic. . . . Orders that by the diligence of the public prosecutor this judgment will be executed on the place de la Revolution of this city [and] printed, published, and posted throughout the realm; and given the public declaration made by the aforementioned Marie Olympe de Gouges that she was pregnant, the Tribunal, following the indictment of the public prosecutor, orders that the aforementioned Marie Olympe de Gouges will be seen and visited by the sworn surgeons and doctors and matrons of the Tribunal in order to determine the sincerity of her declaration so that on the basis of their sworn and filed report the Tribunal can pronounce according to the law. Before pronouncing his judgment, the prosecutor summoned the accused to declare whether she had some observations to make concerning the application of the law, and she replied: "My enemies will not have the glory of seeing my blood flow. I am pregnant and will bear a citizen or citoyenne for the Republic." The same day [12 Brumaire], the health officer, having visited the condemned, recognized that her declaration was false. . . . The execution took place the next day [13 Brumaire] towards 4 P.M.; while mounting the scaffold, the condemned, looking at the people, cried out: "Children of the Fatherland, you will avenge my death." Universal cries of "Vive la République" were heard among the spectators waving hats in the air. Sortable Date 1794-11-02 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 From Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795, edited and translated by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson. Copyright 1979 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press, 254–259. Description An account of the resource The case against Olympe de Gouges is worth reading in detail because it is typical of the attacks on those who criticized the authority of the central government that gathered force in the fall of 1793 and continued up to July 1794, when Robespierre fell from power. Gouges, an advocate of increased popular consultation, criticized the National Convention, calling its members ambitious men. This criticism was a far greater factor in the decision to sentence her to death than was her public support of women’s rights. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 488 Title A name given to the resource The Trial of Olympe de Gouges Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/488/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 2, 1794 Laws Monarchy Sans-culottes Text The Terror 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 I demand a special mention in the proceedings for the murmuring that has just broken out; it is a homage to good morals. It is shocking, it is contrary to all the laws of nature for a woman to want to make herself a man. The Council should remember that some time ago these denatured women, these viragos [noisy, domineering women; amazons], wandered the markets with the red cap in order to soil this sign of liberty and wanted to force all the women to give up the modest coiffure that is suited to them. . . . Since when is it permitted to renounce one's sex? Since when is it decent to see women abandon the pious cares of their household, the cradle of their children, to come into public places, to the galleries to hear speeches, to the bar of the senate? . . . Remember that haughty wife of a foolish and treacherous spouse, the Roland woman [Marie Jeanne Roland, wife of a minister in 1792], who thought herself suited to govern the republic and who raced to her death. Remember the shameless Olympe de Gouges, who was the first to set up women's clubs, who abandoned the cares of her household to involve herself in the republic, and whose head fell under the avenging blade of the laws. Is it for women to make motions? Is it for women to put themselves at the head of our armies? Sortable Date 1793-11-17 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, 138–39. Description An account of the resource When a group of women appeared at City Hall wearing red liberty caps, Pierre–Gaspard Chaumette denounced them and all political activism by women. He held out the examples of Madame Roland and Olympe de Gouges as warnings. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 489 Title A name given to the resource Chaumette, Speech at City Hall Denouncing Women’s Political Activism (17 November 1793) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/489/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 17, 1793 Public Opinion Sans-culottes 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 Damiens, this fourth of Ventôse, Year Two of the Republic My son: I write you to let you know that tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, I will send off a small package of old things for your children. I wanted to have something better; for the moment, I have nothing else. The postage will be paid. As for me, I am not yet doing very well. Good food is unavailable. There is nothing to be had. I was waiting patiently for the first of Ventôse, hoping it would have brought back a little plenty, but nothing. To get four eggs you have to get in a line with six hundred people to wait your turn, and for everything, generally. They say nothing about soap either, except that there will not be any more. All that is taking a long time to come. You have to stay filthy for lack of it. Our prevot cousins send best regards. He asks you as soon as you have received [it, a procuration mentioned below] at M. de Verdun's, to send [it] to him. You shouldn't wait to receive [one] for Sagnier and Quiotte. They aren't in need. With them, the death of their mother separates them, but as for those who remain at home, very much in need, there are still three. As I told them, there is a delay concerning the arrest of Verdun. I told them we were in need, as they are; that as soon as you receive [it] at Citizen Verdun's, you would sent it to us. She brought me a little cake. I send you a piece. It will be a bit hard, but you can heat it up. About a certificate, August answered. He told me he knew all about it, but that these favors are only for those who can prove they have nothing and that their children provide for their subsistence. Nonetheless, he said that if they were willing to give us one, he would send it to us; but your father says he will not show his face in town because he will be disgraced. You will find several books that I am sending back to you. In one you will find a ten-livre bill. Three livres of this comes from Sophia [for] your pomade and the money for your bottle. The rest is for your children. This book will be tied up with string. Look out for it. Let me know, I beg you, when you have received it at Citoyenne Roucoult's address, and don't delay, because I'll be uneasy. I saw in the paper that someone named Ducroquet was arrested. I'll admit to you that that obsesses me, although I know full well, and I am quite sure, that you are a good patriot. This name, Ducroquet, caught my eye, but I was told that it was a deputy in the assembly. Let me have some news from you. That would give me pleasure, as I think you know. I send you my love, and I am, Your mother, Harlay Ducroquet Undoubtedly you received the letter and the procuration from Sagnier. Today, Monday, I will put the package in the carriage. It is possible that it will leave tomorrow. Sortable Date 1794-02-21 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 From Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795, edited and translated by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson. Copyright 1979 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press, 252. Description An account of the resource Madame Ducroquet wrote to her son in the spring of 1794 about the continuing shortage of food. She expressed her worries upon reading that someone with the same name had been arrested; in fact, it was her son, who went to the guillotine only a few weeks later. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 490 Title A name given to the resource How a Mother Survives Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/490/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 21, 1794 Economic Conditions 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 Liberté, égalité This 25 Fructidor, Second Year [11 September 1794] of the French Republic, One and Indivisible, Citizens, Citoyenne Anne Felicité Guinée, twenty-four years old, married to Citizen Fillastre, a wig maker on rue des Vieilles Auduette, no. 3, Section de l'Homme Armé, informs you that she was arrested on [22 Germinal] at the Place des Droits de l'Homme, where I [sic] had gone to get butter. I point out to you that for a long time I have had to feed the members in my household on bread and cheese and that, tired of complaints from my husband and my boys, I was compelled to go wait in line to get something to eat. For three days I had been going to the same market without being able to get anything, despite the fact that I had waited from 7 or 8 A.M. until 5 or 6 P.M. After the distribution of butter on the twenty-second, some citizens said to me, "Are you still here?" I replied, "For three days I have been coming without getting the least thing." A citizen came over to me and said that I was in very delicate condition. To that I answered, "You can't be delicate and be on your legs for so long. I wouldn't have come if there were any other food." He replied that I needed to drink milk. I answered that I had men in my house who worked and that I couldn't nourish them with milk, that I was convinced that if he, the speaker, was sensitive to the difficulty of obtaining food, he would not vex me so, and that he was an imbecile and wanted to play despot, and no one had that right. Here, on the spot, I was arrested and brought to the guard house. I wanted to explain myself. I was silenced and was dragged off to prison, where I was left for six hours without anyone's asking whether I needed anything. About 7 P.M. I was led to the Revolutionary Committee of Section des Droits de l'Homme, where I was called a counterrevolutionary and was told I was asking for the guillotine because I told them I preferred death to being treated ignominiously the way he was treating me. I asked to write to my husband. I was refused. I saw a citizen wig maker whom I begged, in low tones, to go alert my husband. When my husband arrived, he was told that he was not needed. He went to Section de l'Homme Armé. Two commissaires, the commissaires de police et d'accapparement, reclaimed me. It [the Revolutionary Committee of Section des Droits de l'Homme] informed the commissaires that a counterrevolutionary could not be returned, and the commissaires answered that they had never known me to be such. About midnight my procès-verhal was read to me. I was asked if I knew whom I had called a despot. I answered, "I didn't know him," and I was told that he was the commander of the post. I said that he was more [a commander] beneath his own roof than anyone, given that he was there to maintain order and not to provoke bad feelings. During this [time] one of the members called me a counterrevolutionary and an aristocrat. I answered that I was surprised that he insulted me that way and that even though I was a prisoner, they had to respect me. From the answers in my procès-verhal I was told that I had done three times more than was needed to get the guillotine and that I would be explaining myself before the Revolutionary Tribunal. The next day, I was taken to the Revolutionary Committee of my Section, which without waiting to hear me, had me taken to the Mairie, where I stayed for nine days without a bed or a chair with vermin and with women addicted to all sorts of crimes who wanted everything from me. And when I complained, they put a knife to my throat. One day a bakeress who was under arrest for having given out bread without a [ration] card said, in tears, that she would have done better to throw her bread away than to give it away without a card. Despair prompted her to speak so. Three prisoners called me and asked me whether I wanted my liberty. My first impulse was to say yes. They told me, "You have heard what the bakeress just said. We will denounce her before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and we will have our liberty. I said that I would have my liberty because justice owed it to me, but that I would prefer death to having [liberty] at the expense of the liberty or the life of anyone else. I warned the bakeress to be more circumspect, and from that moment I became their sworn enemy. There was no longer any rest for me, and they invented all kinds of things to inflict pain on me, and I was told my head would roll, by decree. One evening, eight or nine days after my arrest, I wrote a letter to my husband to ask him for linen and for money. In the morning I gave it to a female commissaire. I told her, "Have it read by the administrators." And I gave her some money for taking it to its address. Neither my husband nor myself ever heard anything more about this letter, and we do not know what became of it. On the ninth day I was transferred to the prison of La Force, and I had to sleep on straw, as I had no money, and I was asked for fifteen sous on the first night. I said that whenever I received the money, I would give it to them. I wrote to inform [people] where I had been transferred. My letters were intercepted. In the evening I was getting ready to sleep in the same room I had slept in the previous evening. With the lowest of inhumanity, they came to take me away. It was useless for me to beg, shed tears, and say that I would not be without money for long. It was all useless, and I was placed in a room for troublemakers [? in French chambre des galleasse]. The next day, when the commissaire brought my food from the house, I wanted to give [them] a letter. One of the turnkeys pushed me back with such brutality that I was unable to hand over my letter. In the end, . . . my husband received only two of them. I received some money. I had to give it to the authorities for the room with straw where I had slept. I was already being threatened, and I would have been attacked had I not given over everything that was being asked. I went into my cell, and in spite of the fact that I had paid for my bed, I still had to hand over money to this same woman who had me put into the room for troublemakers. In the end I can give you only the very slightest idea of all the horrors that are committed in these terrible prisons. The details would take too long. I was thrown together not with women but with monsters who gloried in all their crimes and who gave themselves over to all the most horrible and infamous excesses. One day, two of them fought each other with knives. Day and night I lived in mortal fear. The food that was sent in to me was grabbed away immediately. That was my cruel situation for seventeen days. My whole body was swollen from chagrin and from the poor treatment I had endured; finally, on the seventeenth day I was called to appear before the municipal police. How taken aback I was when I heard the national guardsman say that I was charged with having made remarks that were unbecoming to a citizen [and] tended to stir people up in the Place des Droits de l'Homme. I was stricken to the point that it was impossible for me to speak a word, and I lost the use of my senses. My case had been placed before the correctional police while I was under arrest. The General Assembly of my Section named commissaires to work for my liberation. The condition I was in gave my husband and my relatives reason to believe I was pregnant. A brief was presented, and this was mentioned, and that was the reason I obtained my provisional discharge on double bail. From this period on I have been ill continually. I had bile in my blood, and I have had a great deal of difficulty restoring my health. I am informing you that I am the mother of a family and that I have not stopped being persecuted by fate, considering that my husband lost his position and the little he had saved from his work. This most recent trial has just crowned our misfortune because of the expenses my detention gave rise to and [because of] my illness, and I find myself overwhelmed on all sides. For a long time now I have been looking for a position, in view of the fact that my husband's situation has deteriorated. I cannot find anything. My conduct is free of all reproach. I have always comported myself following republican principles, and I have always sought to merit the esteem [due] a good citizen. I count on your justice to get a definitive judgment handed down as speedily as possible for my tranquility and for that of the two citizens who are posting bail for me, and I dare flatter myself that your humanity will not view with indifference the fate which overwhelms me and that it "humanity" will do everything possible to obtain a position for me or whatever employment seems suitable to you. That would give me and my family the means to subsist. I am counting on your justice and your humanity. Salut et fraternité written by me, [signed] femme Filhastre Sortable Date 1794-09-11 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 From Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795, edited and translated by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson. Copyright 1979 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press, 267–270. Description An account of the resource This petition from the wife of a wigmaker in Paris demonstrates both the volatility of the political situation (she went to jail for badmouthing a local official while standing in line at a food market) and the conditions in prison. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 491 Title A name given to the resource An Ordinary Woman Faces Prison for her Comments Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/491/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 11, 1794 Popular Politics 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 It has been established from various reports relative to yesterday that groups in the squares, in the streets, and in public places, as well as gatherings at bakers' doors, were as numerous as they were tumultuous and extremely agitated. The women, above all, seemed to be playing the principal role there; they were taunting the men, treating them as cowards, and seemed unwilling to be satisfied with the portion that was offered to them. A large number of them wanted to rush into insurrection; even the majority appeared to be determined to attack the constituted authorities, and notably the government Committees, which would have happened were it not for the prudence and firmness of the armed troops. One can easily convince oneself of what has just been reported by glancing attentively and impartially at several reports which bear witness [to this understanding of the situation]. 1. In [the report] signed Marceau, who reports having heard it said, "That will make for civil war; that's all we're asking for; is it also possible to live with two ounces of bread? Aren't they doing this on purpose?" he adds that in other gatherings they all said, "The Convention had better put some order into all that; it's about time." He sums up by saying that heads are dangerously inflamed. 2. In [the report] signed Bouillon, here are the phrases, verbatim: "Yesterday a multitude of women from the Section des Piques, after having refused the portion of bread being offered to them, went to the Committee of the Section and from there to the Convention. They stopped all the women they met on their way and forced them to join up with them." 3. Citizen Compere, in his report, confirms the above assertion and adds more alarming occurrences. . . . Surveillance. . . . [sic] Bellier reports that at the horse market last night some women were saying that they must go en masse to the Convention to demand a king in order to have bread; the same report states that at 9 P.M., near the Pont Notre Dame, there was a group of two hundred people who were speaking the same language. This inspector was called before the Convention to be reprimanded for his apathy or his carelessness in not having followed the individuals who were making these remarks. A special watch has been set up for this purpose [sic]. Signed Beurlier, Duret 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 From Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795, edited and translated by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson. Copyright 1979 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press, 287–288. Description An account of the resource Agitation over the shortage of bread reached a breaking point in the spring of 1795. Women played critical roles in these disturbances, as they had before the Revolution. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 492 Title A name given to the resource Police Reports on Women’s Discontent (Spring 1795) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/492/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1795 Popular Politics 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 Section de l'Indivisibilité Denunciation against Widow Barbau, 10 Prairial, Year III [29 May 1795]. Because any citizen who is a friend of order and justice and humanity must state what he saw and heard from the monsters composing the infernal sect of Jacobin terrorists, blood-drinkers, etc., . . . I declare that the Barbau woman from the Marché Saint-Jean, in the right-hand corner, is one of these furies to be guillotined, vomited up from Hell to destroy the French human race. The role she played during the reign of the Robespierrists will bring her into the public eye. She was the secret agent and confederate of Laine, Commissaire of the former Revolutionary Committee of this Section. Moreover, she was a sister tricoteuse [knitter] in the spectator galleries of the Jacobins, known from [these affiliations] to the Revolutionary Tribunal. She said to whoever was willing to listen to her, "I have had thirty-five of them guillotined by a simple declaration, and this will not be the sum total. It wouldn't matter if someone were my best friend, I would have him guillotined if he did not think like a true Jacobin. . . ." About five or six weeks ago, at the door of Citizen Patriarche, a baker on the rue de Culture-[Ste.] Catherine, I saw and heard her making the most revolting, seditious, and bloody remarks you could imagine. She incited citizens and citoyennes to revolt, to throw their bread in the face of the Commissaires, and from there to go and fall upon the people in power. According to her account, it was they who were responsible for people's dying of hunger as much as the egotistical merchants, the former aristocrats, the rich. All who were and still are priests will not be guillotined or finished off en masse; everything will not be okay, etc. . . . She said, "They really had it in for our poor Robespierre, but in his reign, at least, one ate. For humane reasons executions took place promptly, but these people, they make us die languishing because if that kind of thing goes on we will die mad; but good patriots will get the upper hand, and if they do not, the Republic is lost." On the days which preceded 1 Prairial, I noted in her appearance and on her sinister face an extraordinary contentment. She was seen appearing late in the morning and returning very late and very excited because she believed her triumph assured. She already pointed out those whom she would have guillotined. She was often at the door of the Convent Filles-Bleues and for secret business at the door of the former Hotel Carnavalet. . . . Whenever a so-called muscadin or other well-dressed persons passed before her, she cried out pretty loudly, "There goes yet another damned one for the guillotine." There is every reason to believe that she was paid off, since no one has seen her work. She contributed no small amount to bringing on the disastrous journées of 1, 2, and 3 Prairial. On the 5th, seeing that the battle was lost, she said good-bye and moved out that same day. On my life, I will support everything stated above. [signed] Fontaine rue de Culture Ste. Catherine, no. 529 Note. On Saturday, the 4th of the month, she danced en ronde at the door of the convent. She held up a red handkerchief as a rallying sign, and she called it her favorite handkerchief, or her handkerchief of blood. Sortable Date 1795-05-29 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 From Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795, edited and translated by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson. Copyright 1979 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press, 292–293. Description An account of the resource Once the uprising of May 1795 had been suppressed, the government set up a military tribunal, which gathered denunciations of presumed rioters. This one gives a good sense of the charges made and the kind of language used ("infernal sect of Jacobin terrorists, blood–drinkers, etc."). Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 493 Title A name given to the resource Denunciation of a Woman Participant in the Uprising of May 1795 Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/493/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 29, 1795 Popular Politics 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 Q. Why isn't she wearing the clothes appropriate for her sex? A. The trade she is in does not allow it, as women's clothes would constrain her in working. Q. On 1 Prairial [20 May 1795], wasn't she leading some women, and didn't she have an open saber in her hand? A. No. Q. On 2 Prairial, wasn't she also leading some women who went to the Convention? A. As she was going to work around 6 A.M. the day in question, she was taken there by force by some women from Faubourg Marceau. She was obliged to march with them, and she left them near the Champs-Elysées. Q. Hadn't she gone with the women to the doors of the Convention? A. No. Q. When she left the Faubourg with these women, didn't she have an unsheathed saber in her hand? A. She had a saber in her hand, but it was in its scabbard. Q. On the way, had she not drawn the saber from its scabbard? A. No. Q. At what time did she leave the women? A. She left them around 1 P.M. Q. Where did she go after she left them? A. She went to drink a pint of wine in the cabaret at the waterfront near Pont-Marie. She was with a young woman and a single girl. Q. Does she know the names of the two women? A. She doesn't. Q. Does she know where they live? A. One of them lives near the Vincennes gate. She does not know the number of the house or the Section and the other told her, while they were drinking, that she lived near the Porte-Antoine, but she doesn't know anything else about it. Q. At what time did she return to the Faubourg? A. She returned there around 5 P.M. Q. Did the women come back with her to the Faubourg? A. The married woman accompanied her to the rue de Reuilly and it was there that she left her; the other went off after they left the cabaret, and then she, the declarant, returned to her place, where she remained until the next morning. Q. Where was she on 4 Prairial? A. She left her place at 5 A.M. to go to work above the rue Montmartre, where she unloaded a wagonload of charcoal at a restaurant owner's place. Q. At what time did she return to the Faubourg? A. At 10 A.M. Q. Had she not been among the women who wanted to stir up citizens to keep the troops in the Faubourg from leaving? A. She was on the boulevard then, and she met the troops at the Porte-Denis. Q. Was she in the Faubourg at the time of the proclamation of the Convention ordering the return of the cannon, and did she not stir people up in an attempt to prevent them from being returned? A. She was walking on the Grande Rue du Faubourg, but she said nothing. Her interrogation was read back to her. She said her answers were truthful. When she was asked to sign, in accordance with the law, she stated that she didn't know how. Then we, the above-named Commissaire [Louis Gille], suspecting that the above-named Vigniot was not telling us the truth, asked Citizen Gamier, chef de brigade, residing at Grande Rue, no. 109, to come to our office so we could find out from him whether he had some information to give us concerning the above-named Vigniot. Citizen Gamier, having arrived, stated that on 1 Prairial, a citoyenne dressed as a man and whom he recognized as the one who was now in our office was at the head of the first mob of women, at least four-hundred in number, which set out for the Convention. The above-named woman, dressed as a man, marched at the front of the above-mentioned women with an open saber in her hand and was leading them. She was also wearing a three-cornered hat with a red and blue plume, and she was next to the drummer, who was beating double-time. He, the declarant, went to the head of this crowd and asked this woman dressed as a man on whose order she was marching to drumbeat. Then she, as well as the other women, shouted to him to let them pass. He does not know how she comported herself at the Convention, but he, the declarant, having been degraded by the furies that morning and dragged along, nonetheless was at the guard post at the gate of La Place d'Armes at the stated time of 7 P.M. Seeing the above-named disguised woman coming back, he ordered her arrested and brought to the guard post. He upbraided her in the sharpest tones concerning her comportment and principally about how, through her instigation, she had exposed many mothers with families and had imperiled them. After that, he, the declarant, dismissed her. . . . [Extract from the minutes of the meeting of the General Assembly of Section Montreuil on 5 Prairial:] Several members denounced a woman usually dressed as a man who worked as a charcoal carrier for being one of these [women] who incited rebellion by going into houses and, through sheer force, dragging away respectable citoyennes content to stay in their households and mistreating those who refused to march against the National Convention. The assembly decreed that the Committee of General Security be notified, and in the event that the charcoal carrier has any arms, they will be taken from her. Sortable Date 1795-06-00 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 From Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795, edited and translated by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson. Copyright 1979 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press, 299–301. Description An account of the resource The police interrogated those accused of participating in the May 1795 riots. This interrogation gives a good idea of the police’s concerns. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 494 Title A name given to the resource Interrogation of a Suspected Rioter (June 1795) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/494/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 1795 Popular Politics 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 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