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Liberty in their Names

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Christmas Eve in Paris, 1776

12/27/2017

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​In the winter 1776, Manon Phlippon was 22. She lived alone with her father in Paris on the Quai de l'Horloge, - she had not yet met her husband, Jean-Marie Roland - and she spent much of her time writing in her room, letters or essays in political philosophy.
 
Late on Christmas eve, as the revellers were going home, she wrote a letter to her close friends, Henriette and Sophie Cannet.

Picture
Aristocratic supper.

​As my letter is dated one o'clock in the morning, you may imagine that I am enjoying the greatest calm. Not at all! The carriages are as loud as if they were possessed. The agitation, the racket reminds me of the crowds coming out of the theatre at night. All the Paris mistresses, the fashionable young men, the pretty friars, etc. have been to dine in town and are currently traveling home, livened up by champagne, a few verses and fine epigrams, and with all the enthusiasm of people flying to a secret meeting.
 
I came to my room at eleven and made an extract of an interesting work by a Genevan on the English Constitution, which is a curious monument for observant eyes. But right now I need to follow my libertine streak, which tells me to write with no object, beating around the bush, whimsically letting all my fantasies and mad ideas take the lead for a quarter of an hour. This small relaxation which friendship makes so delicious, will be good for my health. For the last few days, I have not been eating - I have forgotten how. Everything I take is sour or bitter, my eyes are heavy, my imagination ferments, I am enveloped by melancholy. Unless there is some sort of a revolution, I will be ill soon. I tried to stop myself from staying up late, but the more I give in to sleep, the more it demands. It is the releasing of effort that harms me. Work, concentration, the consuming zeal they produce, tighten the spring of my existence and ease the movement of the machine. My heart must be satisfied or my mind exercised - unfortunately, the former is often impossible.
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A Christmas letter from Manon to Sophie Cannet

12/20/2017

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25 December 1776,  1am

 
As you can see, I am not gone to the midnight mass. I would have gone, as I think it is important to set an example even when one doesn't want to do it for oneself. But the weather is frightful, my father did not think it a good time to be devout, so without a fuss we stayed home.
 
You might find it strange that I should write always at the first hour. Let me tell you a something of my daily y life which will give you insight into how I spend my time. I never get up, this time of year, before nine.  I spend my morning with the housework. In the afternoon, I do needlework and I dream, building everything I fancy in my mind, poems, arguments, projects, etc. In the evening I normally read till dinner time, which is uncertain because it depends on when the master comes home. He is out at all times exept meal times, without telling me, or caring for any of his affairs, and too often leaves me to deal with those who come to do business with him. He usually gets home at half past nine, but sometimes ten or later. Supper is soon over, since when there are few dishes, one eats fast and there is no conversation no feast can last long. In between dishes, I always attempt conversation but my attempts are foiled by his careless replies. I am always trying to hold a thread; but though I do my best, it is always in vain. Eventually time passes and it is eleven. My father throws himself in his bed, and I go to my room, where I write two or three. 
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Did Grouchy translate Wollstonecraft?

12/13/2017

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In May 1792, before Mary Wollstonecraft set out for Paris, where she was to act as a war journalist for her publisher Johnson, a French translation of her Vindication of the Rights of Woman came out. 
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Before traveling she wrote to her sister: "I shall be introduced to many people, my book has been translated and praised in some popular prints". 
Picture
Early 19th century engraving after portrait by unknown artist. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/mary_wollstonecraft
So who was the author of this translation that was so favorably reviewed? 

La Défense des Droits des Femmes was translated anonymously. Isabelle Bour suggested that it might have been translated by a member of the Girondin circle. This is quite plausible as we know that the Girondins did defend to some extent women's rights. Condorcet published an article arguing that women should be given equal political rights to men in 1791, so that Wollstonecraft's book would have struck him as important and topical. 

So who was close enough to Condorcet to share his views on women and citizenship, knew enough English to read the Vindication and was an experienced translator? Sophie de Grouchy, of course. We have already speculated as to whether she had read anything by Wollstonecraft, and whether she could have met her. This is another possibility to add to the mix. 
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A Famous Man of France: Mary Shelley's Life of Madame Roland

12/5/2017

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In 1839 and 1840, Mary Shelley published her two-volume Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France. This was part of ten volumes of biography published in the 133 volumes series of Dionysius Lardner: Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–46)
The series was designed to educate the Middle classes.

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In her volumes on famous French men, out of 15 lives, 3 were women: Madame de Sevigne, Madame de Stael and Madame Roland.
 
This may seem a low percentage for the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. And indeed, there were women writing biographies of famous women, for instance, her mother's friend Mary Hays, who wrote Female Biography: or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women of All Ages and Countries. But Shelley, one must remember is  a history book designed for readers of both sexes, in which she includes women. So in a sense her inclusion of these three women alongside 12 well known and respected men (Voltaire, Rabelais, Fenelon, Pascal, Mirabeau, Racine, Corneille, Moliere, Boileau, Rochefoucault, Rousseau and Condorcet) is more daring than a book solely about women, which may not be taken seriously at all by male readers. 

So what did Shelley say about Manon?

Disappointingly, she focuses on her virtues as a wife and mother: 
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​She was her husband's friend, companion, amanuensis; fearful of the temptations of the world, she gave herself up to labour; she soon became absolutely necessary to him at every moment, and in all the incidents of his life; her servitude was thus sealed; now and then it caused a sigh; but the holy sense of duty reconciled her to every inconvenience.

She was probably not aware, because it was not revealed until the early 20th century, that Roland had all but left her husband, before she went to prison, and that she was in love with their friend and colleague Buzot. Both men committed suicide shortly after her death. 

What I found more interesting, and which again may have been a function of how many of Roland's papers had been released at the time Shelley was writing, is her representation fo Roland as an activist, rather than a writer. 
​Her fame rests even on higher and noble grounds than that of those who toil with brain for the instruction of their fellow creatures. She acted. What she wrote is more the emanation of the active principle, which, pent in a prison, betook itself to the only implement, the pen, left to wield, than an exertion of the reflective portion of the mind.

Shelley might well be forgiven for thinking that Roland was a doer more than she was a thinker, if she was acquainted mostly with the prison memoirs, and with Roland’s reputation as a ring-leader, or egeria of the Girondists. The picture, however, is far from accurate. Manon Roland was a writer – producing hundreds of well crafted letters in which she presents philosophical as well as political reflections, writing essays and travel journals which she would not publish in her own name. 

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    This is where I live blog about my new book project, an intellectual biography of three French Revolutionary women philosophers.

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  • Home
  • Liberty in thy name!
  • The Philosophy of Domesticity
    • The Home: A Philosophical Project
  • Women Philosophers Calendars
  • Research
  • Public Philosophy
  • Events
    • Wollstonecraft at Bilkent
    • Bridging the Gender Gap Through Time
    • Wollapalooza
    • Wollapalooza II
  • Historical zombies and other fiction
  • Teaching
  • Crafts and things
  • Feminist History of Philosophy