39 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 The session of this female society was held in a vaulted room, formerly used as an ossuary. The president and the secretaries were placed opposite the entrance. Two rows of benches on each side were for the members of the Society; I counted sixty-seven of them. No galleries; the curious placed themselves at the far end of the room and were separated from the club members only by a simple breast-high bar. When we came in, the session had just begun. Before describing it I will say that some of these women covered their heads with red caps, in particular the president and the secretaries. This grotesque spectacle almost choked us, because we felt constrained not to let ourselves burst out laughing. This session seemed so comical to us that we each made a separate record of it when we left, while our memories were still filled with these details. All I am doing is copying our notes. Session of the Society of Women, Meeting in the Ossuary of the Church of Saint-Eustache, Presidency of Citoyenne Lacombe After the reading of the minutes and of the correspondence, the president recalled that the order of the day concerned the utility of women in a republican government, and she invited the sisters who had worked on this subject to share their research with the Society. Sister Monic was given the floor and read what follows: From the famous Deborah, who succeeded Moses and Joshua, to the two Frei sisters, who fought so valiantly in our republican armies, not a single century has passed which has not produced a woman warrior. See how Thomyris, queen of the Scythians, battles and conquers the great Cyrus; the Marullus girl chases the Turks from [Stylimene]. Catherine Lisse saves the city of Amiens; the wife of Dubarry defends Leucate against Henry III; Joan of Arc, who forced the English to flee before her, shamed them into raising the siege of Orléans, and the name of that city is added to hers. Without my having to cite for you the individual names of these courageous female warriors, which would only serve to throw into greater relief the timidity of our sex by these rare examples of the courage of a few of them, I will remind you of the virile and warriorlike vigor of that colony of Amazons whose existence has been cast into doubt because of people's jealousy of women; I will tell you danger didn't frighten these new Roman women, who cast themselves in the midst of the cutting edge of arms, justly avenging their late husbands; I will cite for you the women of Aquileia, who strung their defenders' bows and garbed their horses for battle; finally, I call your attention to the citoyennes of Lille, who, at this moment, are braving the rage of assailants and, while laughing, are defusing the bombs being cast into the city. What do all these examples prove, if not that women can form battalions, command armies, battle, and conquer as well as men? If any doubt remained, I would cite Panthee, Ingonde, Clotilde, Isabelle, Marguerite, etc., etc. But I will not stop here, and I will say to these men who think they are our masters: Who delivered Judea and Syria from the tyranny of Holofernes? Judith. To whom did Rome owe her liberty and the Republic? To two women. Who were those who gave the final lesson in courage to the Spartans? Mothers and wives, who, in handing them their shields, said only these words: Return home borne upon your shield or bearing it. I do not know why I am burying myself in the dust of history to search for traces of the courage and sacrifice of women, since we have them in our revolution and right before our eyes. In 1788, during the siege of the Palace, women exposed themselves to the brutality of soldiers hired by the court, in order to hail stones down upon them. At the storming of the Bastille, women familiar only with fireworks exposed themselves to cannon and musket fire on the ramparts to bring ammunition to the assailants. It was a battalion of women, commanded by the brave Reine Audu, who went to seek the despot at Versailles and led him triumphantly back to Paris, after having battled the arms of the gardes-de-corps and made them put them down. In spite of the modesty of our president, I will say that on 10 August she marched valiantly against the chateau, at the head of a corps of Fédérés; she still bears the marks of that day. If women are suited for combat, they are no less suited for government. How many of them have governed with glory! My only problem is how to select examples. Theodelinda, queen of Lombardy, brought down Agilulf and extinguished the wars of religion which were blazing in her territories. Everyone knows that Semiramis was a dove in the cabinet and an eagle in the field. Isabelle of Spain governed with glory. Here again is a woman who supported the discovery of the New World. In our times Catherine of Russia achieved what Peter only outlined. But I will go further still and maintain that when the reins of government are held by men, women alone move and direct them. Exceptions are rarer than examples. Augustus proposed nothing to the Roman Senate without consulting Livia. Without searching the histories of other people, let us keep to ours. La Belle Ferronniere directed Francis I, Henry II. Charles IX and Henry III ruled only by the counsels of Catherine of Medici; the fair Gabrielle was behind Henry IV's mistakes; Madame de Pompadour governed the governor of France; finally, the courtesan Dubarry, who was herself a doll, made a marionette out of Louis XV. Thus one can prove that women have always directed governments. Thus one can conclude that they deserve to govern. I would almost say, better than men. Under the despotism of kings these reflections are not permitted, but in a republican regime it is a different story. I will not draw any further conclusions; I ask that the Society in its wisdom consider what rank women should have in a republic, and whether they should still be excluded from all positions and from administration. This discourse, often interrupted, was crowned, when it was over, by violent applause. Nothing seemed more comical to us than to hear passages of history declaimed by a woman who murdered the language with an assurance difficult to describe. The applause was followed by a long period of murmuring through which one could make out a few words and proposals, each one more ridiculous than the last. One called for the raising of an army of 30,000 women to go into battle against enemies, with all prostitutes being forced to march. Another proposed that women be admitted into all branches of administration. Finally, after a half-hour of debate, all proposals were condensed into a petition to present to the Convention, calling for a decree obliging women to wear the national cockade. We were going to leave when we heard one of the club members ask for the floor, to make a new proposal. Let us remain, Lord Bedford said to me, I am too much amused to leave . . . [in text]. Olympe de Gouges spoke as follows: "While admiring what sister Monic has just said, I believe she has left out essential proposals that I am merely going to point out to you. Not only are empires governed through women's ascendancy, but one can maintain, without being refuted, that they are the force behind everything. Who fuels or extinguishes the warrior's courage? Regard Omphale, Delilah, Armida. If the Supreme Being created the soul of man, he left to woman the task of animating it. Watch the young girl dictating to her lover whatever laws please her. At her will, she makes of him a hero or a coward, a criminal or a virtuous man. Isolated, man is our slave; it is only when reunited in a mass that they overwhelm us in their pride. The greatest fault of our sex has been to submit to this unsuitable custom which puts man in the ascendancy; but let us profit from the difference in dress to arrive at some distinction. Here is what I have thought up: If there are no longer any processions, there will have to be public festivals; confide the direction and regulation of them to us. A lovely woman at the head of a crowd of citizens, charged, for example, with inciting young men to fly to the defense of the Fatherland, would say to one of them: Depart, and upon your return, the hand of your mistress will be the reward for your exploits. Whoever hesitates to fight the enemy will hear her voice speaking these words to him: Stay, you cowardly soul; but never count on being united with your lover; she has sworn to reject the desires of a man who is useless to his country. The art we possess to move the souls of men would produce the salutary effect of enflaming all spirits. Nothing can resist our seductive organ. The warrior would be happy to receive laurels from the hand of beauty; young husbands would believe their chains more fitting if they were forged by the hand of a woman. Let us request the direction of festivals and marriages, and that we be the only ones charged with the education of youth. This is all the more easily done, as the priests, whose privilege this used to be (for reasons I cannot fathom), are no longer here. It is up to us to replace them, and to found the religion of the true sans-culottes." This last proposition occasioned bursts of laughter. Discussion of these interesting matters was postponed until another session, and we left with the crowd. The Englishman said to me: "Confess that these extravagances are very amusing." I confess, but when I think about it, the delirium of these women frightens me. If their brains are overheated, you know the obstinacy of this sex; they are capable of committing certain excesses. —Your nation possesses the remedy: the weapon of ridicule and banter, which it knows so well how to wield, will destroy these comical pretensions. Among the follies we have just heard, one can find nothing based in reason. It is, of course, certain that our customs give women much influence over the State. It cannot be denied that they are the most active force in society, the common center to which all the passions of men are attracted, and that they hold together honor, interest, love, taste, and opinion. It is thus a manifest contradiction not to count them for anything in our code of laws. I grant this contradiction; but you will also admit that it is fully justified by this universal and consequently dangerous ascendancy that you recognize in the sex. —That is true. However it seems to me that instead of forgetting women in their households, one could use them. For example, if they were made the reward for great actions, I do not think there would be any effort men would not make to merit their esteem and their favors. —I think as you do. But we are old stick-in-the-muds, and we forget them in our new laws, only because the first lawgivers of nations have not mentioned them, and because habit, stronger than reason, makes innovations too difficult in this delicate area. Besides, who is the man bold enough to innovate in this matter? —Of course, your revolution changes the object of political speculations. —It is precisely this upheaval which will prevent the true philosopher from casting out a new subject of discord, by presenting some project to give women credit in government. They are strong enough with their ascendancy over us. Let us leave them with the empire of grace and beauty. Sortable Date 1802-00-00 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, 166 - 171. Description An account of the resource Unfortunately the only first-hand account of the meetings of the women’s club comes from notes taken by Pierre–Joseph–Alexis Roussel, published in a volume of memoirs in 1802. His account makes fun of the women’s club for discussing the virtues of women as warriors and administrators. Some of the details, however, are accurate and give credibility to the overall account. The club did decide to demand a decree requiring all women to wear the national cockade (a tricolor ribbon decoration), just as he describes. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 482 Title A name given to the resource Account of a Session of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/482/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1802 Clubs Popular Politics 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 Convinced that there is no liberty without customs and principles, and that one must recognize one's social duties in order to fulfill one's domestic duties adequately, the Revolutionary Republican citoyennes have formed a Society to instruct themselves, to learn well the Constitution and laws of the Republic, to attend to public affairs, to succor suffering humanity, and to defend all human beings who become victims of any arbitrary acts whatever. They want to banish all selfishness, jealousies, rivalry, and envy and to make good their [Society's] name. But besides the spirit and principle of a Society, there still must be a particular rule which lays down all the conditions of the Society; consequently they [the Revolutionary Republicans [citoyennes]] have drawn up the following regulations: Article I. The Society's purpose is to be armed to rush to the defense of the Fatherland; citoyennes are nonetheless free to arm themselves or not. II. The Society shall have a President, a Vice-President, and four Secretaries, who will be changed on the first Sunday of every month; they can be reelected only after two months. The functions of the President are to preside over the Society, to respond to deputations, and to assure that the regulations are observed. III. The functions of the Secretaries are to maintain a register of all the deliberations of the Society and to keep up its correspondence under the President's direction; in addition to these regular functions they will keep a register of the members of the Society and the names of affiliated societies; a catalog of these will be exhibited in the meeting room. IV. Two monitors will be appointed by acclamation. One will be at the entrance to the room to make all persons who enter show their cards, and the other will be in the meeting room to maintain order. They will be changed with the officers. V. The President will wear the bonnet of liberty, and the two monitors will wear a ribbon of the nation on their left arm. When the President is unable to establish order with the bell, she will take off her bonnet; then all the citoyennes will rise and remain standing until she puts her bonnet on again. VI. There will be a Treasurer and two Assistant Treasurers who will be responsible for one another. Their nominations will be made the second Sunday of the month, and they will remain in office for three months. VII. The Treasurer will report every month to the administrative committee, and this committee will report to the Society. There will be no expenditures that the Society has not approved. VIII. There will be an Archivist and an Assistant Archivist; they will be responsible for one another. Their functions are limited to putting the papers of the Society in the best order. They will retain their posts for three months. All the papers will be numbered. At the end of their tenure they will give to the administrative committee an account of the papers they have received; the committee will give them a receipt if they are in order, and if not, will make a report of it. IX. There will be three committees: Administration, Relief, and Correspondence. Each committee will have twelve members, of whom six will leave at the end of three months and will be replaced by the Society.X. All the elections, above mentioned, will be by roll-call vote, and the others, as for commissioners, will be made by the officers. XI. The Society, considering it important to save the acts and proceedings of its sessions, has decreed that minutes be kept for all sessions and that they be signed by the President and at least two of the Secretaries. XII. The Society, believing that people should join together only for mutual honor, support, and encouragement in virtue, has decreed that it will receive in its midst only those citoyennes of good habits; it has made this the most essential condition for admission and has resolved that the lack of good habits is one of the principal reasons for exclusion. XIII. Citoyennes who seek admission to the Society are to be presented by one member and supported by two others. At the following meeting their names will be proclaimed and posted. They will be admitted if no one raises objections; if any objections are raised, their admission will be postponed. The committee of correspondence will listen to the various objections and present its report to the Society, which in its wisdom will judge the denunciations made by certain citoyennes who will be directed to sign them. XIV. When the list of members-elect has been announced, posted, and put to a vote in the Society, the Secretaries will deliver a card to the person admitted, inscribing her on the register of the Society's members. XV. All newly received citoyennes will be summoned by the President, in the name of the Society, to take the following oath: "I swear to live for the Republic or die for it; I promise to be faithful to the Rule of the Society as long as it exists." XVI. Those citoyennes who are to take the oath will place themselves in the order in which they were called before the Secretaries' desk; then the President, in the name of the Society, will read them the formula of the oath while they hold up their right hands; at the end they will speak out, into the respectful silence which should prevail at that moment, "I swear it." XVII. All packets sent to the Society are only to be opened by the President or, if she is absent, by her substitute, who can only be a former President or a Secretary then holding office. XVIII. All correspondence will be signed by the President and the Secretaries with the seal of the Society, and the Committee of Correspondence is responsible for sending the decrees that the Society deems proper to be circulated to affiliated societies or any other places. XIX. All the members of the Society make up a family of sisters, and since an arbitrary act against one of its members must attack the whole Society, the one who suffered the violation of the laws is urged to inform the Society, which will obtain justice for her. XX. No member may borrow the card of anyone whatever, under penalty of exclusion from the Society for one month and even loss of her rights of entry if she repeats the violation. XXI. No citoyennes may place themselves on the dais, not even those who left their place, unless they are called there by the President. XXII. No collection will be made unless the Committee on Relief has reported on a request it received and has determined whether the petitioners have rights to the charity of the Society. XXIII. No deputation can be admitted unless it has first shown its authorization to the President, who will sign it along with two of the Secretaries. XXIV. Out of respect for the Societies represented by the deputations, they will be heard as soon as they are introduced and will be suitably seated opposite the President in a place always kept vacant. The monitors are charged not to allow members of the Society to occupy that place. XXV. No one may occupy any seat unless she has been a member of the Society for at least three months; the monitors, who are not considered seated, are exempt from the above formalities. XXVI. Believing that no member can be denied the right to speak and that young citoyennes could, with the best of intentions, compromise the Society with ill-considered motions, the Society decrees that one must be eighteen years old to be received as a member; however, mothers may bring children younger than eighteen, but they will have no right to deliberate. XXVII. The Society, considering that at times some citoyennes would want to attend, although they were not members, decrees that a citoyenne requesting entry may be admitted if she is supported by two other members of the Society, provided no objections are raised. The Society, having heard the above regulations, approved them on 9 July, Year II of the Republic. Signed: Rousaud, President Potheau L. Monier Secretaries Pauline Leon Sortable Date 1793-02-24 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/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795, edited and translated by 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, 161–165. Description An account of the resource The regulations demonstrate that women wanted to be taken seriously as political participants; they wanted their club to be like the clubs set up by men. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 481 Title A name given to the resource Regulations of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women (9 July 1793) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/481/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 24, 1793 Clubs Popular Politics 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 In Year Two of the French Republic, on February 24th, at 8 A.M., in 1793, we, Silvain Guillaume Boula [?], commissaire de police, assisted by André Lirey [?] Caillouet, secretary-registrar for the Section de l'Arsenal, as a result of remarks that were being heard everywhere, went through the streets of our arrondissement. We heard nothing but assurances concerning goods of prime necessity. Having made this round several times, we saw nothing openly contrary to public order. We received a letter from the police administration relative to bread. We believed we ought to hold off executing it after we conferred with the Committee. Recorded at 7 P.M., same day, same month noted above. Signed [secretary's and commissaire's signatures appended] And the following day, the twenty-fifth of the same month, same year, at 7 A.M., we went, still assisted by the citizen-secretary-registrar, to the doors of the bakers in our Section to see whether bread deliveries were being made without incident and to take remedial action, if possible. We had the satisfaction of seeing that the measures we had taken the night before, in joint action with the Committee, had produced the full effect we were hoping for. Consequently, we returned to the Committee to find out whether there wasn't some new order, and finding none, we returned to our arrondissement. There wasn't what you would call a tumult, but [rather] small groupings of citizens and citoyennes at intervals. In some [of these groups] it was being said, "The bakers were rascals and deserved to be worked over." In others, "The grocers deserved the same, because they were hoarders," and finally, in others, "The majority of those who were directing the Republic were also rascals." And among others [there was] a drunk citizen who made himself conspicuous by saying, "We used to have only one king, and now there are thirty or forty of them." We did everything we could to restore calm in these groups. We succeeded in some; it was impossible in others; and lastly, it was folly in still others. All this [was happening] without our being able to arrest any of the leaders, who were absolutely unknown to us and not from this Section. We returned to the Committee at 1 P.M. after having spent the whole morning on the business detailed above. But at about 2 P.M. word reached us that a crowd was on the way to Citizen Rousseau's shop on the Quai des Armes. We went there at once, still accompanied by the citizen-secretary, and notwithstanding the crowding, we got through to the counter. We climbed up onto it, and having called for silence in the name of the law, we got it. We took advantage of this to recall the oath to protect the safety of persons and properties. We couldn't keep this up, because we were interrupted by cries and apostrophies of all kinds, as much against us as against Citizen Rousseau and his grocery boy, who, at the beginning, had been imprudent enough to brutally push back a pregnant woman, even threatening to string her up from a beam. Five citizens from the [National] Guard arrived. They could not do anything, not even speak. This was a dangerous moment. We supported for the moment a demand to inspect the house made by citizens and citoyennes designated for this purpose. That was the business of the moment. We were even forced to accompany them. This inspection was made calmly enough, except for a few remarks. They wanted to inspect Citizen Arnoult's place as well, on the pretext that the aforementioned Rousseau had hidden his merchandise there. This inspection was agreed to by Citoyenne Arnoult. When we returned, we saw an officer, Citizen Colmet, arrive, accompanied by several armed citizens, who tried in vain to restore order. They retreated shortly afterwards. And finally, there was a woman of fairly good appearance, unknown to me but whom we would recognize perfectly. She was about five feet, one inch tall, thirty years old, with blond hair, white skin, and slightly red eyes. She wore her hair in a demi-bonnet to which a rose-colored ribbon was attached. She was dressed in a déshabillé made out of linen with a blue background and a standard design on it. She wore a mantle of black taffeta and a gold watch on a steel chain. The way we knew she had one [a watch] was that when she emerged from the crowd and came over to the counter, she looked for her watch, [and] drew it out, saying, "I thought it had been taken." This woman did everything in her power to add to the sedition. She had gone on the inspection. And once they returned, it was she who set the price for soap at twelve sous per livre; and for sugar at eighteen. After that, the aforementioned merchandise on hand at the aforementioned Rousseau's place was handed over with an unbelievable impetuosity. Everyone wanted to pay, to be waited on, and to get out, all at the same time. We were compelled to take in the cash in order to prevent a total loss. The aforementioned woman took the aforementioned goods, for which she paid us, and we barely had the time to take in the money, hand over the goods, and put the money in the drawer. In this crowd of citizens and citoyennes we couldn't observe everyone attentively enough to be able to point out anyone except for the woman described above. We clearly recognized some of the citoyennes from our Section, but it would be impossible for us to recall the faces and descriptions except for Citizen Jolly, captain of the company in this Section, who is known to be a good patriot, whom we saw near the aforementioned counter and who, like everyone else, was paying the prices noted above, and who took some soap. We didn't hear him say anything relevant to the circumstance. And we believe absolutely that he was there only because of the perfidious advice of some enemies of the public good, whom he took for patriots and who, knowing how to wrap themselves in this cloak, could address themselves only to citizens whose pure hearts dictated that they would be unable to uncover the foulness of which they [these enemies of the people] are capable. Several citizens having signaled us to get out fast, we left and went to the shop of Citizen Blauguernon [?] also a grocer, on the rue de l'Etoile, where we had the good luck to calm the people. On demand we went to the shop of Citizen Cain, also a grocer, on the rue Saint-Antoine, where, again, notwithstanding the numbers, we reached the counter. Our call and entreaty got us a hearing, which allowed us to recall the most recent oath, but in vain, the tumult and the cries indicating [?] that the time for oaths had passed and that what was necessary was the goods. Once again we believed it was our duty to call for the necessary calm and order. We were heard, and we spoke for about five minutes. We were listened to with pleasure, and calm was restored. We left, and it might have been about five o'clock when we were asked once again to go the Quai des Armes, given that there was a new crowd of citizens there. We went there immediately. And once there, we saw what we were told we would see. But we had brought along with us many armed citizens who dispersed this mob. We saw there a citoyenne, well dressed, who was influencing people and stirring up trouble. Having listened to her during a period allowed for this moment, we apprehended her, calling upon constituted armed force for support. [There followed] another perilous moment, given that the people were opposed to her being taken away. Finally we brought her before the Committee, where we drew up a procès-verbal, and we sent this citoyenne to the commissaire de police of the Section de la Maison Commune so that whatever the laws dictate might be done. Once this business had been attended to, we left, and seeing a tumult at the door of Citizen Houllier's shop, we once again restored calm, having called in advance for a cavalry patrol to carry out our orders, which they did. And then we went to the shops of Citizens Cain, Lessard, and Prevot, also grocers on the rue Saint-Antoine, where the tumult was almost over, and having called upon all these citizens to close their shops at nine o'clock, having even handed them over, under consignment, to Captain Roquet, we returned at last to the Committee at 8 P.M. without any notable incidents, and we were fully convinced that the People are always good. It has been tricked for hundreds of years now, but it has lost neither heart nor its love for the general good. It requires only to be educated and it will do and sacrifice everything once it is led along a route where it will see an end to its misfortunes, and the hope of attaining happiness, if only for its posterity. Drawn up and concluded on the day, month, and year indicated above. Signed [signatures of secretary and commissaire appended] And the twenty-sixth of the same month and year indicated above, still accompanied by the citizen-secretary-registrar, we toured, during the course of the day, all the streets in the Section, and as a large proportion of the citizens were under arms, and as successive patrols were set up, nothing noteworthy occurred. We can offer assurances that things were quiet during the night. Consequently, we drew up the present [report] to be seen and be of value, as reason dictates. Terminated at 8 p.m. same day and year as indicated above. Signed [signatures of secretary and commissaire appended] Sortable Date 1793-02-24 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/. 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, 137–141. Description An account of the resource The reports of the Paris police provide firsthand information about conditions in the city and about the leading role of women in food disturbances. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 480 Title A name given to the resource Police Reports on Disturbances over Food Supplies (February 1793) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/480/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 24, 1793 Economic Conditions 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 A DEPUTATION OF CITOYENNES AT THE COMMUNE, 24 February 1793 The Municipal Bureau, having received reports on the present state of subsistences in the city of Paris, and considering that emergency circumstances, need, and something of a rise in bread prices should call forth its full solicitude, orders administrators in the Department of Subsistence to take all measures which their wisdom and experience may suggest to provision the city of Paris so as to leave no pretexts from which our enemies can profit to disturb the public tranquility. The Municipal Bureau reserves for itself the responsibility of procuring the necessary funds so that payments for wheat and grain are not held up. On the proposal of the Procurator of the Commune the municipal administration decrees that a proclamation be prepared for the citizens, urging them to fly to the defense of the Republic. A large deputation of citoyennes appears before the municipal administration and asks for authorization to be introduced before the Convention to request a decrease in the price of foodstuffs and to denounce hoarders. The mayor told this deputation that it need not request authorization to go the Convention; nevertheless, he requests that it [the deputation] return home quietly and rely on the solicitude of the people's magistrates who had already taken precautions in this domain by decreeing that an address would be presented in the National Convention to request a stringent law against hoarders. The citoyennes go away quietly. Sortable Date 1793-02-24 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/. 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, 125–126. Description An account of the resource In the rioting over prices of February 1793, women appealed first to the authorities, showing that they intended to communicate directly with their representatives in the municipal government of Paris. By explicitly referring to themselves as "citizens," these women publicly claimed their right to be heard. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 479 Title A name given to the resource A Deputation of Women Citizens Demands Action on Food Prices (24 February 1793) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/479/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 24, 1793 Clubs Economic Conditions Popular Politics 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 [Alexandre, speaking in general terms about the events of February 1792, in Paris, explains the motives of popular resentment and mobilization on the sugar issue:] The people were justified in complaining, but not in using threats and violence. The speculators, or rather, the hoarders—that is what the people called them—said, to exonerate themselves, that because sugar was a luxury product, the price was not and could not be frozen—that in truth it had and could have no other [price] than that dictated by the consumer's fancy. This sophism, born of cupidity, made no common sense, but that's the ordinary mode of reasoning [by greedy persons]. Surely in principle, and before our colonies reached the level of prosperity we witnessed at the time of the Revolution, sugar was a luxury item, but long ago it became an essential foodstuff. The people, who always think out of a sense of their needs, saw perfectly well that the goal of these hoarders was to force them to pay at least double the old price and to reduce them to this necessity or to deprive them of a product on which a part of their subsistence consumption depended, because it was their custom every morning to drink a large quantity of coffee, which kept them going until they returned from work around four or five in the afternoon and took a second meal, with which they ended the day; but the women, above all, were the most enraged at the hoarders, and the most threatening. Already, in the heart of Paris several fairly violent rows have taken place over this issue, and M. d'André, a former deputy in the Constituent [Assembly] who, following the first restoration, was minister of the general police for a brief time, was very compromised in his goods and in his person.[Alexandre goes on to give his account of events on the morning of the fourteenth of February, noting the tactics of taxation populaire invoked by the women to obtain "a kind of distributive justice, but one tainted in its principles by violence."] . . . The people, all heated up, and delayed by what had occurred [disturbances which took place between seven and ten o'clock in the morning], abandoned their work and met in large numbers in the streets mentioned above; spirits were running high against the hoarders and hoarding; the most alarming measures were urged, nothing less [drastic] than breaking into the Monnery house, pillaging it, and even setting it on fire. I was being kept informed about all these discussions by some people who were less carried away than the others and who had some personal feeling for me. . . . [Alexandre describes the scene:] However, the people, who had gathered in larger numbers and earlier than the previous day, were very menacing; threats led to action. I had to sustain a very heavy initial assault from their quarter, but it was unsuccessful. A second, which followed soon after, yielded better results: the entrance and the first-floor windows were forced open and broken. There was talk of setting the house on fire. I came out and spoke to the most excited [ones], who nonetheless never committed any violence against me. "Burn the house down, if you want to," I told them, "but the neighboring houses will burn down also, and the people they belong to haven't done you any harm or wrong." "You are right," was their reply, and they didn't burn anything. That was a major gain. However, there was a third attack, very heavy, but which was sustained by the defenders without a shot and in such a way as to prevent the assailants from gaining entry into the house. But because they were throwing stones, several cavalrymen and foot soldiers were seriously injured. The commissioner of police, M. Junie, got through to us and was hit in the head [with a stone] which inflicted a major wound, but not a dangerous one, which seemed to make the attackers very angry. The commanding officer of the cavalry wanted to attack; I stopped him, and, in fact, both he and his cavalrymen would soon have been cut to shreds by the more than fifty thousand people who were surrounding us, and then everything would have been lost. The women above all, were the most excited. They were real furies. They wanted to go to the barracks, break in, and by main force take out the cannon of the battalion and put them to use against the Monnery house. I was informed about this in time and had such a heavy guard posted that the project failed. . . . In truth, the rumor soon began spreading that a heavy column supported by six cannon, with the Mayor and the Commander-General at its head, was moving towards the Faubourg. When I went out into the street with my sword in hand, someone confirmed this news for me. Then a woman of the people, shoving her fist under my nose, said: "Oh shit! You sure have gotten us in deep!" "I!" I answered with a great deal of cool, "did I give you the advice to sound the alarm?" "No." "Okay then, it's your goddamned tocsin that got the police force mobilized and marching." "The swine! I think he's right". . . . The sugar, whether it was the cause or the pretext of these disturbances, was removed and delivered safe and sound into the hands of its owners, along with the money collected from the sales of the first barrels which had been inopportunely pulled out; the crowds dispersed by themselves and with no violence. Calm was restored. In a word, it all appeared to be over. And nothing was, yet. Sortable Date 1792-02-00 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, 115–118. Description An account of the resource This fragment from a memoir by Charles Alexandre shows the anger of women when confronted by a sugar shortage. They readily attributed the shortage to hoarding by greedy merchants. This document also shows the new importance of colonial products such as sugar and coffee. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 478 Title A name given to the resource Women’s Participation in Riots over the Price of Sugar, February 1792 Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/478/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 1792 Economic Conditions Popular Politics 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 To be decreed by the National Assembly in its last sessions or by the next legislature. Preamble. Mothers, daughters, sisters, female representatives of the nation ask to be constituted as a national assembly. Considering that ignorance, neglect or contempt for the rights of woman are the sole causes of public misfortunes and governmental corruption, they have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of woman: so that by being constantly present to all the members of the social body this declaration may always remind them of their rights and duties; so that by being liable at every moment to comparison with the aim of any and all political institutions the acts of women's and men's powers may be the more fully respected; and so that by being founded henceforward on simple and incontestable principles the demands of the citizenesses may always tend toward maintaining the constitution, good morals, and the general welfare. In consequence, the sex that is superior in beauty as in courage, needed in maternal sufferings, recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of woman and the citizeness. 1. Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on common utility. 2. The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of woman and man. These rights are liberty, property, security and especially resistance to oppression. 3. The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation, which is but the reuniting of woman and man. No body and no individual may exercise authority which does not emanate expressly from the nation. 4. Liberty and justice consist in restoring all that belongs to another; hence the exercise of the natural rights of woman has no other limits than those that the perpetual tyranny of man opposes to them; these limits must be reformed according to the laws of nature and reason. 5. The laws of nature and reason prohibit all actions which are injurious to society. No hindrance should be put in the way of anything not prohibited by these wise and divine laws, nor may anyone be forced to do what they do not require. 6. The law should be the expression of the general will. All citizenesses and citizens should take part, in person or by their representatives, in its formation. It must be the same for everyone. All citizenesses and citizens, being equal in its eyes, should be equally admissible to all public dignities, offices and employments, according to their ability, and with no other distinction than that of their virtues and talents. 7. No woman is exempted; she is indicted, arrested and detained in the cases determined by the law. Women like men obey this rigorous law. 8. Only strictly and obviously necessary punishments should be established by the law, and no one may be punished except by virtue of a law established and promulgated before the time of the offense, and legally applied to women. 9. Any woman being declared guilty, all rigor is exercised by the law. 10. No one should be disturbed for his fundamental opinions; woman has the right to mount the scaffold, so she should have the right equally to mount the rostrum, provided that these manifestations do not trouble public order as established by law. 11. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of woman, since this liberty assures the recognition of children by their fathers. Every citizeness may therefore say freely, I am the mother of your child; a barbarous prejudice [against unmarried women having children] should not force her to hide the truth, so long as responsibility is accepted for any abuse of this liberty in cases determined by the law [women are not allowed to lie about the paternity of their children]. 12. The safeguard of the rights of woman and the citizeness requires public powers. These powers are instituted for the advantage of all and not for the private benefit of those to whom they are entrusted. 13. For maintenance of public authority and for expenses of administration, taxation of women and men is equal; she takes part in all forced labor service, in all painful tasks; she must therefore have the same proportion in the distribution of places, employments, offices, dignities, and in industry. 14. The citizenesses and citizens have the right, by themselves or through their representatives, to have demonstrated to them the necessity of public taxes. The citizenesses can only agree to them upon admission of an equal division, not only in wealth, but also in the public administration, and to determine the means of apportionment, assessment, and collection, and the duration of the taxes. 15. The mass of women, joining with men in paying taxes, have the right to hold accountable every public agent of the administration. 16. Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured or the separation of powers not settled has no constitution. The constitution is null and void if the majority of individuals composing the nation has not cooperated in its drafting. 17. Property belongs to both sexes whether united or separated; it is for each of them an inviolable and sacred right, and no one may be deprived of it as a true patrimony of nature, except when public necessity, certified by law, obviously requires it, and then on condition of a just compensation in advance. Postscript Women, wake up; the tocsin of reason sounds throughout the universe; recognize your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition and lies. The torch of truth has dispersed all the clouds of folly and usurpation. Enslaved man has multiplied his force and needs yours to break his chains. Having become free, he has become unjust toward his companion. Oh women! Women, when will you cease to be blind? What advantages have you gathered in the revolution? A scorn more marked, a disdain more conspicuous. During the centuries of corruption you only reigned over the weakness of men. Your empire is destroyed; what is left to you then? Firm belief in the injustices of men. The reclaiming of your patrimony founded on the wise decrees of nature; why should you fear such a beautiful enterprise? . . . Whatever the barriers set up against you, it is in your power to overcome them; you only have to want it. Let us pass now to the appalling account of what you have been in society; and since national education is an issue at this moment, let us see if our wise legislators will think sanely about the education of women. Women have done more harm than good. Constraint and dissimulation have been their lot. What force has taken from them, ruse returned to them; they have had recourse to all the resources of their charms, and the most irreproachable man has not resisted them. Poison, the sword, women controlled everything; they ordered up crimes as much as virtues. For centuries, the French government, especially, depended on the nocturnal administration of women; officials kept no secrets from their indiscretion; ambassadorial posts, military commands, the ministry, the presidency [of a court], the papacy, the college of cardinals, in short everything that characterizes the folly of men, profane and sacred, has been submitted to the cupidity and ambition of this sex formerly considered despicable and respected, and since the revolution, respectable and despised. . . . Under the former regime, everyone was vicious, everyone guilty. . . . A woman only had to be beautiful and amiable; when she possessed these two advantages, she saw a hundred fortunes at her feet. . . . The most indecent woman could make herself respectable with gold; the commerce in women [prostitution] was a kind of industry amongst the highest classes, which henceforth will enjoy no more credit. If it still did, the Revolution would be lost, and in the new situation we would still be corrupted. Can reason hide the fact that every other road to fortune is closed to a woman bought by a man, bought like a slave from the coasts of Africa? The difference between them is great; this is known. The slave [that is, the woman] commands her master, but if the master gives her her freedom without compensation and at an age when the slave has lost all her charms, what does this unfortunate woman become? The plaything of disdain; even the doors of charity are closed to her; she is poor and old, they say; why did she not know how to make her fortune? Other examples even more touching can be provided to reason. A young woman without experience, seduced by the man she loves, abandons her parents to follow him; the ingrate leaves her after a few years and the older she will have grown with him, the more his inconstancy will be inhuman. If she has children, he will still abandon her. If he is rich, he will believe himself excused from sharing his fortune with his noble victims. If some engagement ties him to his duties, he will violate it while counting on support from the law. If he is married, every other obligation loses its force. What laws then remain to be passed that would eradicate vice down to its roots? That of equally dividing [family] fortunes between men and women and of public administration of their goods. It is easy to imagine that a woman born of a rich family would gain much from the equal division of property [between children]. But what about the woman born in a poor family with merit and virtues; what is her lot? Poverty and opprobrium. If she does not excel in music or painting, she cannot be admitted to any public function, even if she is fully qualified. . . . Marriage is the tomb of confidence and love. A married woman can give bastards to her husband with impunity, and even the family fortune which does not belong to them. An unmarried woman has only a feeble right: ancient and inhuman laws refuse her the right to the name and goods of her children's father; no new laws have been made in this matter. If giving my sex an honorable and just consistency is considered to be at this time paradoxical on my part and an attempt at the impossible, I leave to future men the glory of dealing with this matter; but while waiting, we can prepare the way with national education, with the restoration of morals and with conjugal agreements. Form for a Social Contract between Man and Woman We, ________ and ________, moved by our own will, unite for the length of our lives and for the duration of our mutual inclinations under the following conditions: We intend and wish to make our wealth communal property, while reserving the right to divide it in favor of our children and of those for whom we might have a special inclination, mutually recognizing that our goods belong directly to our children, from whatever bed they come [legitimate or not], and that all of them without distinction have the right to bear the name of the fathers and mothers who have acknowledged them, and we impose on ourselves the obligation of subscribing to the law that punishes any rejection of one's own blood [refusing to acknowledge an illegitimate child]. We likewise obligate ourselves, in the case of a separation, to divide our fortune equally and to set aside the portion the law designates for our children. In the case of a perfect union, the one who dies first will give up half his property in favor of the children; and if there are no children, the survivor will inherit by right, unless the dying person has disposed of his half of the common property in favor of someone he judges appropriate. [She then goes on to defend her contract against the inevitable objections of "hypocrites, prudes, the clergy and all the hellish gang."] Sortable Date 1791-09-00 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, 124–29. Description An account of the resource Marie Gouze (1748–93) was a self–educated butcher’s daughter from the south of France who under the name Olympe de Gouges wrote pamphlets and plays on a variety of issues, including slavery, which she attacked as being founded on greed and blind prejudice. In this pamphlet she provides a declaration of the rights of women to parallel the one for men, thus criticizing the deputies for having forgotten women. She addressed the pamphlet to the Queen, Marie Antoinette, though she also warned the Queen that she must work for the Revolution or risk destroying the monarchy altogether. In her postscript she denounced the customary treatment of women as objects easily abandoned. She appended to the declaration a sample form for a marriage contract that called for communal sharing of property. De Gouges went to the guillotine in 1793, condemned as a counterrevolutionary and denounced as an "unnatural" woman. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 477 Title A name given to the resource Olympe de Gouges, The Declaration of the Rights of Woman (September 1791) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/477/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 1791 Enlightenment Laws 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 Gentlemen, you have admitted my sex to this patriotic club The Friends of Truth [the club associated with the Cercle social]; this is a first step toward justice. The august representatives of this happy nation have just applauded the intrepid courage of the Amazons [armed women who hoped to join the army] in one of your departments and have permitted them to raise a corps for the defense of the nation. This is a first shock to the prejudices in which our existence has been enveloped; it is a violent stroke against the despotism that has proved the most difficult to uproot. Do not be just by halves, Gentlemen; . . . justice must be the first virtue of free men, and justice demands that the laws be the same for all beings, like the air and the sun. And yet everywhere, the laws favor men at the expense of women, because everywhere power is in your hands. What! Will free men, an enlightened people living in a century of enlightenment and philosophy, will they consecrate what has been the abuse of power in a century of ignorance? . . . The prejudices with which our sex has been surrounded—supported by unjust laws which only accord us a secondary existence in society and which often force us into the humiliating necessity of winning over the cantankerous and ferocious character of a man, who, by the greed of those close to us has become our master—those prejudices have changed what was for us the sweetest and the most saintly of duties, those of wife and mother, into a painful and terrible slavery. . . . Well! What could be more unjust! Our life, our liberty, our fortune are no longer ours; leaving childhood, turned over to a despot whom often the heart finds repulsive, the most beautiful days of our life slip away in moans and tears, while our fortune becomes prey to fraud and debauchery. . . . Oh! Gentlemen, if you wish us to be enthusiastic about the happy constitution that gives back men their rights, then begin by being just toward us. From now on we should be your voluntary companions and not your slaves. Let us merit your attachment! Do you believe that the desire for success is less becoming to us, that a good name is less dear to us than to you? And if devotion to study, if patriotic zeal, if virtue itself, which rests so often on love of glory, is as natural to us as to you, why do we not receive the same education and the same means to acquire them? I will not speak, Gentlemen, of those iniquitous men who pretend that nothing can exempt us from an eternal subordination. Is this not an absurdity just like those told to the French on 15 July 1789: "Leave there your just demands; you are born for slavery; nothing can exempt you from eternally obeying an arbitrary will." Sortable Date 1790-12-30 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, 122–23. Description An account of the resource Like many female activists, the Dutch woman Etta Palm D’Aelders did not explicitly articulate a program for equal political rights for women, though that would no doubt have been her ultimate aim. Instead she worked to bring about a change in morals and customs that would in turn foster a more egalitarian atmosphere for women. She gave this address at a meeting of the Confederation of the Friends of Truth, the first political club to admit women as full members. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 476 Title A name given to the resource Etta Palm D’Aelders, "Discourse on the Injustice of the Laws in Favor of Men, at the Expense of Women" (30 December 1790) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/476/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 30, 1790 Laws 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 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 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 Deposition Number LXXXIII Madelaine Glain, forty-two years old, a faisease de menage [cleaning woman], wife of François Gaillard, an office clerk in the District de l'Oratoire with whom she lives on rue Froidmanteau, no. 40, testifies that, having been forced, as many women were, to follow the crowd that went to Versailles last Monday, 5 October, and having arrived at Sevrès near the porcelain manufactory, [and] a gentleman with a black decoration having asked them where they were going, they answered that they were going to ask for bread at Versailles. This gentleman urged them to behave themselves, but a woman whom the declarant knew to be a prostitute and who since then has been living with Lagrement, a soft drink peddler on rue Bailleul, having said that she was going to Versailles to bring back the queen's head, was sharply reproached by the others. Having arrived at the streets leading to Versailles, this same woman stopped a mounted Royal Guardsman, to whom she delivered many insults, threatening him with a bad, rusty sword which she held open in her hand. This Royal Guardsman said that she was a wretch, and in order to [make her] release the bridle of his horse, which she was holding, he struck her a blow which inflicted an arm wound. Having come at last to the Chateau with the intention of informing His Majesty concerning the motives of their proceedings, she, the declarant, found herself locked in, that is to say, her skirts caught on two spikes of the gate, from which a Swiss Guard released her. After that she went with the other women to the hall of the National Assembly, where they entered, many strong. Some of these women having asked for the four-pound loaf at eight sols, and for meat at the same price, she, the declarant, called for silence, and then she said that they were asking that they not be lacking bread, but not [that it be fixed] at the price these women were wanting to have it. She did not go with the deputation to the Chateau but returned with Sieur Maillard and two other women to the Hôtel-de-Ville in Paris to bring back the decrees they were given at the National Assembly. Monsieur the mayor and the representatives of the commune were satisfied and received them with joy. Then she, the declarant, was led by the National Guard to the District de l'Oratoire to convey this good news. She cannot give us any news concerning what happened at Versailles on the sixth, but she learned, without being able to say from whom, that someone named Nicolas, a model in the academy, who lived at the home of Poujet, rue Champfleuri, on that day, Tuesday, had cut off the heads of two Royal Guards who had been massacred by the people, and since then the above-mentioned Nicolas has not reappeared in the quartier. Deposition Number LXXXV Jeanne Dorothée Delaissement, age twenty-eight, a mistress seamstress, widow of Philippe Brenair, living in Paris, rue Mauconseil, at the house of the wheelwright, opposite rue Française, stated that on last Monday, 5 October, in the morning, she, the declarant, was forced to go, as many other women were, with the crowd that wanted to go to Versailles. The women who dragged her in first led her to the Hôtel-de-Ville and then to Versailles. She saw nothing worth mentioning along the way. She knows that an individual whom she did not know at that time, but whom she came to know afterwards, named Maillard went to a great deal of trouble to keep order among the women, who were armed with pikes, sticks, pieces of iron, and other things, and that he succeeded in getting them to disarm en route. When they arrived at Versailles, a soldier dressed in a blue costume, who she learned was in the Regiment of Flanders, told her, in answer to her questions about people they should be suspicious of, that the Flanders Regiment would do them no harm, but that they must beware of the Royal Guards, who, during a meal, had trampled the national cockade. She, the declarant, did not go the Chateau or to the meeting hall of the National Assembly, etc. Deposition 343, 18 June 1790 Marie-Rose Barre, age twenty, unmarried, a lace-worker, residing at 61, rue Meslay, upon oath . . . Deposes that on 5 October, last, at about eight o'clock in the morning, going to take back some work, she was stopped at the Pont Notre Dame by about a hundred women, who told her that it was necessary for her to go with them to Versailles to ask for bread there. Not being able to resist this great number of women, she decided to go with them. At the hamlet at the Point-du-Jour, two young men, unknown to her, who were on foot and going their way, told them that they were running a great risk, that there were cannons mounted at the bridge at Saint Cloud. This did not prevent them from continuing on their way. At Sevrès they had some refreshments; then they continued on their way toward Versailles. The two young men of whom she spoke met them near Viroflay and told them that they had escaped at Saint Cloud but that at Versailles they would be fired on. But they continued on their way. At Versailles they found the King's Guards lined up in three ranks before the palace. A gentleman dressed in the uniform of the King's Guards, who, she was told, was the duc de Guiche, came to ask them what they wanted of the king, recommending peaceful behavior on their part. They answered that they were coming to ask him for bread. This gentleman was absent for a few minutes and then returned to take four of them to introduce them to the king. The deponent was one of the four. Before taking them to the king, he led them to the comte d'Affry, who requested that they be introduced to His Majesty right away, which was done. They spoke first to M. de Saint-Priest, and then to His Majesty, whom they asked for bread. His Majesty answered them that he was suffering at least as much as they were, to see them lacking it, and that so far as he was able he had taken care to prevent them from experiencing a dearth. Upon the king's response they begged him to be so good as to arrange escorts for the flour transports intended for the provisioning of Paris, because according to what they had been told at the bridge in Sevrès by the two young men of whom she spoke earlier, only two wagons out of seventy intended for Paris actually arrived there. The king promised them to have the flour escorted and said that if it depended on him, they would have bread then and there. They took leave of His Majesty and were led, by a gentleman in a blue uniform with red piping, into the apartments and courts of the palace to the ranks of the Flanders Regiment, to which they called out, "vive Le Roi!" It was then about nine o'clock. After this they retired into a house on rue Satory and went to bed in a stable. She does not know the names and addresses of the three women introduced to the king with her. Tired from the trip, having a swollen foot, she did not go Tuesday to the palace or the Place d'Armes, knows nothing, as a witness, of what happened there, and came back to Paris between four and five o'clock in the afternoon of that day in a carriage. She adds that a fortnight later a gentleman whom she heard called M. de Saint-Paul came to her place and asked her to go to a court commissioner to make a formal declaration of what M. de Saint-Priest told her on Monday, 5 October, at Versailles, when she presented herself to speak to the king. As the deponent did not know a court commissioner, Saint-Paul suggested Maitre Chenu. The deponent remarks that she was then living on rue du Four at the corner of rue des Ciseaux. . . . The commissioner. . . took her declaration. . . in which she sets forth that having heard it said, by the two young men mentioned above, that of seventy wagons of flour intended for Paris only two had arrived, she informed M. de Saint-Priest of this, and he answered that as the grain shortage was equally bad everywhere, it was not surprising that the inhabitants of places where flour passed through stopped it for their supply. Besides, the threshing season had not yet arrived, which caused the provisions to be smaller than they should be. . . . She told the commissioner that the minister did not say to her what was being attributed to him by the public: "When you had only one king, you had bread; now that you have twelve hundred of them, go and ask them for it," that in fact she did not hear the minister say this. Which is all that the deponent said she knows . . . and she has signed. Sortable Date 1789-10-00 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, 47–50. Description An account of the resource The commission investigating the events of October 1789 also interrogated many women who had participated. Most of them denied any role in the violence, but they did explain their mixture of political and economic motives, citing the high price of bread and their desire to explain their situation to the National Assembly. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 474 Title A name given to the resource Women Testify Concerning Their Participation in the October Days (1789) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/474/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource October 1789 Monarchy 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 Stanislas-Marie Maillard, twenty-six years of age, captain in the Bastille Volunteers, residing in the rue Bethizi at Paris, in the parish of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, testified that at seven o'clock in the morning of 5 October last he went to the City Hall to lodge a complaint on behalf of the volunteers. The city council was not in session, but the rooms were filled with women who were trying to break in all the doors of the rooms in the City Hall. This determined him to go down to the headquarters of the National Guard in order to receive the instructions of M. de Gouvion as how best to remedy and prevent the destruction that might be wrought by these women. M. de Gouvion requested him immediately to stay with him and to help him to calm the people. At that moment news was brought to M. de Gouvion of a riot that had broken out in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and, fearing that the company of volunteers stationed at the Bastille, at the entrance to the Faubourg, had not been supplied with ammunition, M. de Gouvion gave him an order for the delivery of three hundred cartridges for the volunteers. He (the present witness) then made off to the district of St. Louis-la-Culture, where he had the order countersigned; went on to the place where the volunteers were stationed, found, on inspection and after inquiry, that they had enough ammunition for their defense, and consequently made no use of the order. The workers at the Bastille now advanced on the volunteers standing under arms in the courtyard, but Mr. Hulin, their commanding officer, and he himself addressed the workers with courtesy and assured them that their arms would only be used against the enemies of freedom, and not against themselves as they appeared to fear, and to convince them of this they ordered the volunteers to lower their arms. When calm had been restored and the workers had left the Place de la Bastille, he left Mr. Hulin and in accordance with M. de Gouvion's request to give him assistance (M. de Gouvion being alone), returned alone to the City Hall. On arrival he found it at first impossible to enter the building, which was occupied by a large crowd of women who refused to let any men come in among them and kept repeating that the city council was composed of aristocrats. He himself was taken for a member of the council, as he was dressed in black, and entry being refused him, he was obliged to go and change his clothes. But as he went down the steps of the building, he was stopped by five or six women, who made him go up again, shouting to their comrades that he was a Bastille Volunteer and that there was nothing to fear from him. After this, having mingled with the women, he found some forcing the downstairs doors and others snatching papers in the offices, saying that that was all the city council had done since the revolution began and that they would burn them. Supported by a certain Richard Dupin, he urged them to keep calm, but these women kept saying that the men were not strong enough to be revenged on their enemies and that they (the women) would do better. While he was in the courtyard, he looked around and saw a large number of men go up, armed with pikes, lances, pitchforks, and other weapons, having compelled the women to let them in. They then flung themselves on the doors that the women had begun to beat, broke them down with great hammers that they had with them and with crowbars that they found in the City Hall, and took all the arms they could find and gave some to the women. He then received word that a number of women had arrived with torches to burn the papers in the building, so he dashed out [and] flung himself upon them (there were but two) as they approached the City Hall, each bearing a lighted torch; he snatched the torches from their hands, which nearly cost him his life, as they were intent on carrying out their design. He prayed them to send a deputation to the council to demand justice and to describe their plight, as they were all in need of bread, but they replied that the whole council was composed of bad citizens who deserved to be hanged from lamp posts, M. Bailly and M. de Lafayette first of all. . . . Mr. Maillard . . . continuing his evidence, said that to avert the danger and misfortune that threatened both Mm de Lafayette and Bailly and the City Hall, he thought it best to go once more to staff headquarters, where he only found present M. Derminy, M. de Gouvion's aide. Whereupon he (the witness) told M. Derminy that these women would not listen to reason and that, having destroyed the City Hall, they intended to proceed to the National Assembly in order to learn all that had been done and decreed up to the present date. He told these ladies that the National Assembly owed them no reckoning and that if they went there, they would cause a disturbance and would prevent the deputies from paying serious attention to the important business arising from the present situation. As the women persisted in their plans, he thought it wise to repair once more to M. Derminy and acquaint him with their resolution, adding that if the latter thought fit, he would accompany them to Versailles in order to prevent and to apprise them of the danger to which they were exposing themselves by embarking on so rash a venture. To this M. Derminy replied that he could not give him an order of this nature, which would be against the citizens' interests, but that he (the witness) might do as he pleased, provided that what he did did not endanger the public peace. In reply, he assured M. Derminy that the proposed action would have no such results and that it was, in fact, the only means of relieving the City Hall and the capital; moreover, by these means the districts could be alerted, and, while the women marched four leagues, the army would have time to avert the evils that these ladies were proposing to commit. The witness now seized a drum at the entrance to the City Hall, where the women were already assembled in very large numbers; detachments went off into different districts to recruit other women, who were instructed to meet them at the Place Louis XV. . . . But as the people were assembled in great numbers, and this square was no longer suited as a place of meeting, they decided to proceed to the Place d'Armes, in the middle of the Champs Elysées, whence he saw detachments of women coming up from every direction, armed with broomsticks, lances, pitchforks, swords, pistols, and muskets. As they had no ammunition, they wanted to compel him to go with a detachment of them to the arsenal to fetch powder, but. . . now by means of prayers and protestations he succeeded in persuading the women to lay down their arms, with the exception of a few who refused, but whom wiser heads among them compelled to yield. Meanwhile, he had acquired the confidence of these women to the extent that they all said unanimously that they would have only him to lead them. A score of them left the ranks to compel all the other men to march behind them, and so they took the road to Versailles with eight or ten drums at their head. They now numbered about six or seven thousand and passed through Chaillot along the river. There all houses were closed up, for fear, no doubt, of pillage, but in spite of this, women went knocking at all the doors, and when people refused to open, they wanted to beat them in, and removed all signboards. Observing this, and wishing to prevent the ruin of the inhabitants, he gave the order to halt and told them that they would discredit themselves by behaving in such a manner and that if they continued to do so he would no longer march at their head, that their actions would be looked on unfavorably, whereas if they proceeded peaceably and honestly, all the citizens of the capital would be grateful to them. They yielded at length to his remonstrances and opinions and discreetly continued on their way to Sevrès. On the way, however, they stopped several couriers and carriages of the court coming from the direction of Versailles for fear (as they said) that the Pont de Sevrès be closed to stop them passing but without harming these persons in any way. Arriving at the Pont de Sevrès, he gave the order to halt, and, to prevent mischief, he asked if there were any armed men there; but instead of the inhabitants of Sevrès to whom he addressed this question giving any satisfactory reply, they merely stated that Sevrès was in a state of the greatest consternation, that all houses were closed, and that it would be impossible to find any refreshment for these ladies. . . . [Several of the men having been left behind at Sevrès,] he and the women continued on their journey to Versailles. Past Viroflay they met a number of individuals on horseback who appeared to be bourgeois and wore black cockades in their hats. The women stopped them and made as if to commit violence against them, saying that they must die as punishment for having insulted, and for insulting, the national cockade; one they struck and pulled off his horse, tearing off his black cockade, which one of the women handed to him (the witness). He ordered the other women to halt . . . and came to the aid of the man whom they were ill-using; he obtained his release on condition that he should surrender his horse, that he should march behind them, and that at the first place they came to he should be made to carry on his back a placard proclaiming that he had insulted the national cockade. . . . [The same treatment having been meted out to two other passersby, and two of the women having mounted their horses,] he drew the women up (as far as it was in his power to do so) in three ranks and made them form a circle and told them that the two cannons that they had with them must be removed from the head of their procession; that although they had no ammunition, they might be suspected of evil intentions; that they would do better to give an air of gaiety than to occasion a riot in Versailles; and that as the city had not been warned of their proceedings, its inhabitants might mistake their purpose, and they might become the victims of their own zeal. They consented to do as he wished; consequently, the cannons were placed behind them, and he invited the women to chant "Long live Henry IV!" as they entered Versailles and to cry "Long live the king!"—a cry which they did not cease to repeat in the midst of the citizens awaiting them, who greeted them with cries of "Long live our Parisiennes!" So they arrived at the door of the National Assembly, where he told them that it would be imprudent for more than five or six of them to appear. They refused, all wanting to go in, whereupon a guards' officer, on duty at the National Assembly, joined him and urged that not more than twelve of the women should enter. . . . After much discussion among the women, fifteen were chosen to appear with him at the bar of the National Assembly; of these fifteen he only knew the woman Lavarenne, who has just been awarded a medal by the Paris city council. Entering the assembly, he urged the women to be silent and to leave to him the task of communicating to the assembly their demands, as they had explained them to him on the way; to this they consented. He then asked the president's leave to speak. M. Mounier, who was then president, granted him leave. . . . He (the witness) now once more addressed the assembly and said that to restore calm, allay public disquiet, and avert disaster, he begged the gentlemen of the assembly to appoint a deputation to go to the Life-Guards in order to enjoin them to adopt the national cockade and make amends for the injury they were said to have done to it. Several members raised their voices and said it was false that the Life-Guards had ever insulted the national cockade, that all who wished to be citizens could be so freely, and that no one could be forced to be so. Speaking again and displaying three black cockades (the same that were spoken of earlier), he said that, on the contrary, there should be no person who did not take pride in being so and that if there were within this august assembly any members that felt dishonored by this title, they should be excluded immediately. Many applauded these words, and the hall rang with cries of "Yes, all should be so and we are all citizens." In the midst of this applause he was handed a national cockade, sent in by the Life-Guards, which he showed to all the women as a proof of their submission, and all the women cried, "Long live the king and the Life-Guards!" He once more asked leave to speak and said that it was essential also, in order to avert misfortune and to allay the suspicions that had been spread in the capital concerning the arrival of the Flanders Regiment at Versailles, to withdraw this regiment, because the citizens feared it might start a revolution. [The assembly now agreed to appoint a deputation to wait upon the king and put forward the women's demands. Meanwhile, angry words were exchanged with the clerical members of the assembly, and it was rumored that the Life-Guards had fired on the women outside.] As he spoke, a dozen women entered the National Assembly and said that the Life-Guards had just fired on them, that one had been arrested, and that they were waiting for him (the witness) to come down before deciding on the manner of the death he had merited. At that moment the sound of musket fire could be heard; this caused alarm in the assembly, and he was urged by several deputies to hasten down in order to put a stop to these mischiefs. He went down surrounded by the women and observed a Life-Guard, who was being held by the bridle of his horse; the man wished to dismount, but the women prevented him, though without doing him any injury other than to hurl abuse at him. When the Life-Guard saw him advance to speak to him, he drew a sword and cut through his reins; the point of the sword struck a woman on the shoulder, and he fled. He (the witness) made to run after him, but he could not catch him, and the Life-Guard, as he fled, discharged his pistol at him but failed to hit him. He (the witness) then returned to the National Assembly, having enjoined the women not to approach closer to the royal palace. At eight o'clock in the evening the president returned with his deputation from their audience with the king. He repeated the king's words before the assembly; the women listened respectfully, as their intent was to restore calm among his people. Then the president read aloud five papers relative to the demands addressed by the Parisian National Guard to the National Assembly and to the king concerning the food supply. His Majesty had commanded that two officers should accompany him (the witness) back to Paris, but the women objected to this, and all said that they alone should escort him. . . . Arriving in Paris, he gave orders to be taken directly to the City Hall, which he entered escorted by some 150 women, who went ahead of him into the hall where sat the representatives of the commune, the mayor presiding. He (the witness) gave an account of all that had taken place. . . . At six o'clock in the morning of Tuesday, 6 October, the mayor besought the women to withdraw to their homes, which they did; but eight or ten of them escorted him (the witness) to his dwelling, which was then the Hôtel de Grenelle St. Honoré in the street of the same name. At eight o'clock in the morning of this same day, ten to twelve women came to fetch him and compelled him to march with them to meet the National Guard and present the Marquis de Lafayette with a laurel branch on his return from Versailles. But a messenger whom they encountered told them that he was ordered to have the Tuileries palace prepared to receive His Majesty, who was coming to Paris that evening. The women urged him (the witness) to go with them to meet His Majesty. So he went with them, and they met the king at Viroflay. They mingled with the women who escorted the king's carriage and returned to Paris to the City Hall, and here he left all these women. And that is all he knew of the matter. Sortable Date 1789-10-05 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, 36–42. Description An account of the resource Stanislas Maillard was a national guardsman known for having taken a leading role in the attack on the Bastille. In 1790 he testified before a commission established by the court in Paris to investigate the events of October 1789. He exaggerates his role in the events but gives a vivid account of the women’s march, especially their insistence on petitioning the deputies in the National Assembly. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 473 Title A name given to the resource Stanislas Maillard describes the Women’s March to Versailles (5 October 1789) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/473/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource October 5, 1789 Monarchy Popular Politics Text Women