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From the preface of Le Philosophe Corrigé ou le Cocu Supposé: Everything upsets me, and everything makes me laugh. A change of wind affronts me if I don't expect it, and can reduce me to intolerable wrath; but if I am ready, I can bear any event or suffering better than the most phlegmatic man. Small upsets cause me great anguish, but great ills bring me calm and give me courage. I am full of little flaws, but I possess great virtues. Very few know me completely, and few can appreciate my true worth. People argue about me. Everyone sees me differently and judges accordingly, but I am notwithstanding unchanged, it is not I who varies. I can only value truly honest people. I hate those who are false and all villains, I shun knaves and flattery – you can appreciate why I am often alone. But I do not get bored of my own company and do not fear contagion. I was truly made for society, but I left it early, at the height of my youth. Often I have been called pretty – I do not know whether I am – and I did not believe it then, since I spent so much of my days at my mirror trying to make myself beautiful. Now – and I make light of it – my friends accuse me of too much simplicity in my social interactions, they tell me all the time that I do not make enough of my talents, that once one has begun to acquire a literary reputation it will not do to speak to everybody, and that one should only open ones' mouth to pass judgment, or to be gracious to someone important; that one should embellish one's conversation with studied wit, proclaim one's importance at every opportunity, not be self-critical in writing and have a mind sufficiently grand that it can be scornful. Here are wise precepts, I must say. But I cannot follow them. I must call a cat, a cat, and C*** (Caron de Beaumarchais), a rascal. I grumble against villains because I am incapable of harming them or planning a secret revenge. I joke about others, and myself because I am of a gay disposition. I laugh now about what must befall me, because there is no point in crying about it. I am simple with everyone, but proud with the great, because titles and honours never dazzle me. 
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 Image courtesy of Gallica the electronic references site of the BNF (Bibliothèque Nationale de France), who recently announced that researchers could use their images for free in all their publications. Note that I have the flu, not the bubonic plague.   Although we know that Olympe spent much time protesting that she wrote her own books, and also that she was ignorant but that nature itself spoke through her, this passage, from the preface of Le Philosophe Corrigé ou le Cocu Supposé shows how she also turned the tables on her critiques to accuse them - more or less - of plagiarism. I am the student of nature. I have said so before, and I repeat it now, I owe nothing to the science of men. I am my work and when I compose, there is nothing on my table but ink, paper, and pens. Very often I have bad secretaries who multiply my mistakes instead of correcting them. These are the useful resources that adorn my productions. A lot of skepticism about the interest of women philosophers of the French Revolution is due to the belief that the arguments of women involved in the Revolution came from a place of great privilege, and that they did nothing to address the plight of women who were poor, or even enslaved.
This leads critiques to nod gently and say, perhaps, that this first effort towards women's emancipation was indeed admirable, and helped set the tone for later efforts, but that it isn't quite what we're looking for. Similar points are often made about Mary Wollstonecraft – her feminism was too bourgeois, and it did not address the pressing concerns of working class women (despite the fact that half of her final book, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, concerns the plight of working class women). Some things need to be cleared up here. Out of the three women I research, only one, Sophie de Grouchy, was an aristocrat. Olympe de Gouges, (Marie Gouzes by birth) was the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat. But the father who brought her up was a butcher, and her mother died in poverty. She was educated badly, like a country girl, and only became cultured and literate because she worked hard on teaching herself as a young adult. Manon Roland's father was an artisan, and by the time she was a teenager, he was a failing alcoholic of an artisan. His people had been wine sellers. Her maternal aunt was a servant in the household of a rich woman. Manon was brought up in Paris, and her education received more care because she was a bright, and an only child. But she describes running errands as a child in the streets by the Ile de la Cité, mixing with the common people and not looking or feeling any different from them. Manon married into minor nobility (Jean-Marie Roland was the younger son of a small aristocratic family, but had to earn a living for himself by working as an inspector of textile manufactures). So why do people assume that these women must have been aristocrats? Perhaps because they don't think it would have been possible for women who were not already privileged to stand out from the crowds, to educate themselves, and to make their voices heard. This is something that men can do – women must conform and stay with their family. Another side of the prejudice is the enduring belief that as privileged women, they would not have been in a position to understand or sympathize with women who were not privileged. Again this is an objection that specifically applies to women. No-one complains of Condorcet that he was an aristocrat. No one suggests that as such his political writings are outdated, or unhelpful for the common people. So I'm just setting the record straight here. The women of the French Revolution were not all aristocrats, and even when they were, they were just as capable of being informed about the poor and the disadvantaged as their male counterparts were. Of course, privilege remained an obstacle to full understanding, but not to the extent to which we should now reject their writings. So keep reading! Some of you may have noticed, reading through these posts, that I usually drop the particle when I write about Grouchy, or Gouges. This is why:
French aristocratic names often contain a particle, 'de', 'du', des' or 'd''. This usually indicates the physical place their ancestors were given to lord over. For instance, the castle Sophie de Grouchy purchased for her daughter was called 'Le Bignon-Mirabeau' and had originally belonged to the family of the famous politician, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau. The castle where Sophie de Grouchy was born does not bear her family's name, but there is a village, nearby, which does. Some families used a particle without being members of the aristocracy. The leader of the terror was Maximilien de Robespierre, despite his thoroughly bourgeois origins. Some individuals simply took up the particle when they wanted to mix with the nobility. Marie Gouze, for instance, became first Marie Aubry, when she married, and upon her arrival in Paris, she adopted her mother's first name, changed the spelling of her family name, and added the particle, thus becoming Olimpe de Gouges. Note that while we write her name as Olympe, she signed herself Olimpe. Also, the change from Gouzes to Gouges is probably nothing more than an alternate spelling. One issue that non-francophone readers encounter is what to do with the particle when naming someone who used it. The good thing is that there are rules about this so you need not flounder. Another good thing is that most names have been used accurately for generations, and that it's harder to make mistakes. No-one writes about 'de Condorcet' or the 'Marquis_Condorcet'. The correct usage is to drop the particle when only the last name is used, and to keep it when the last name is preceded with a first name or title. So we say Mirabeau, but the Comte de Mirabeau. Of course it's more complicated than that – more later. It's great that we don't make mistakes when naming people we are familiar with. But very often, that will be mostly men. When an Anglophone academic wants to talk about a particled woman of the past, mistakes will happen: de Beauvoir, anyone? So here is a little primer, with examples of women's names, to help you find the correct appellation for your favorite philosophers. (See this link for a full account in French ) So: when should you use the particle? 1) Always if the last name is precede by a title or first name: Madame de Sévigné, Simone de Beauvoir (but note that when only their last names are used, they become Sévigné and Beauvoir). When the last name is used by itself: 2) No, if the last name starts with a consonant, or an aspirate h, and has more than one pronounced syllable: Grouchy, Pizan (although some Medievalists would suggest we call Christine de Pizan, 'Christine' others argue we should use her last name) . 3) No, if the name starts with an article that does not change with the particle. De+L', or De+La The epicurean philosopher Ninon de Lenclos, was also known as L'Enclos. 4) Yes, if the name starts with an article that does change with the particle. De+Le = Du, De+Les = Des. So if one's nobility belonged to a place linked to a little castle, such as was the case for Emilie Du Châtelet's husband, then the name would be Du Châtelet. 5) Yes, if the name has one pronounced syllable (with the exception of a few famous people who became known by their last names only, such as Sade). Madame De Staël, because her name is pronounced as two vowels, is Staël. But her great niece, Louise de Broglie would have been De Broglie because 'Broglie' is pronounced 'Breuil'. 'Gouges should have been De Gouges, expect that as her particle was of dubious origins, she was also simply Gouges. 6) Yes, if the last name starts with a vowel or a non-aspirate h: And sometimes, as is the case for Anne Dacier, who translated Homer into French, the particle becomes part of the name. I'm hoping you're not more confused than when you started! As always in French, there are exceptions, and as often in French, it's hard to find out what they are (And of course, it's all different for particles in other languages). As any woman who has come across, well, men, knows, sexism is very often justified by spurious appeals to science, whether it is biology, evolutionary theory, brain science, or in a more puzzling twist, mathematics ('It's maths, deal with it!' says random man on twitter). So it might be fun to know that, in the late 18thcentury, one woman sought to debunk sexism with an appeal to the study of the natural world. Here are Olympe's words from The Rights of Woman: Reconsider animals, consult the elements, study plants, finally, cast an eye over all the variations of all living organisms; yield to the evidence that I have given you: search, excavate and discover, if you can, sexual characteristics in the workings of nature: everywhere you will find them intermingled, everywhere cooperating harmoniously within this immortal masterpiece. This is perhaps not entirely accurate, but it's quite a lot better than the pseudo science that is continuously peddled at us via social media! My one criticism is that she might have reminded her readership of a number of species that don't quite fit that model of collaboration between the sexes. I'm thinking of the spider and the praying mantis.     We are all familiar with the red phrygian cap with its tricolor 'cocarde' worn during the revolution. But the Revolutionary French, were full of fashion ideas. On the side of the revolution, accessories commemorated heroes, such as a ring with Marat's effigy, or events such as the fall of the Bastille painted on a fan. And in worse taste, perhaps, there were guillotine earrings, with a little falling head below the blade.    On the side of those whose head might fall, there were also some interesting fashion choices. The short haircut 'à la Titus' or 'à la victime' is said to have been a snub to Sanson, who would cut his victim's hair before taking them to the guillotine. And poor taste was not only on the side of the revolution as some aristocratic women reputedly wore a red ribbon around their necks at parties…  I found these images on two websites: http://histoire-du-costume.blogspot.com/2014/05/les-modes-au-temps-de-la-revolution.html and
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/04/06/the-bloody-family-history-of-the-guillotine/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Pinterest With thanks to @prgodbarebones for pointing the guillotine earrings (!) my direction. Olympe de Gouges is famous for having claimed that 'marriage is the tomb of love'. And as happened with Mary Wollstonecraft, she runs the risk of being read as a defender of free love, scornful of monogamous unions. This, however, misunderstands her position, which is a criticism of certain social manifestations of marriage, which run deeper than just a comment on love and unions, and addresses the reduced capacity of humans for co-operation as they learn to believe in the superiority of reason and science over everything else. Reconsider animals, consult the elements, study plants, finally, cast an eye over all the variations of all living organisms; yield to the evidence that I have given you: search, excavate and discover, if you can, sexual characteristics in the workings of nature: everywhere you will find them intermingled, everywhere cooperating harmoniously within this immortal masterpiece. Olympe is not simply criticizing men's capacity to see women as ally they ought to co-operate with, but as missing the point of co-operation generally, because they are 'puffed up with science'. She is, it seems, criticizing the rise of individualism, of the belief that reason alone is our master, and that only men have that. This is borne out in her discussion, in Le Bonheur Primitif, of how an individual's need for glory puts a stop to a well functioning, happy community of men and women. And a key factor in this happiness is marital union: For man's happiness, and for natural law, the finest institution was the respect they felt for the sacred ties that united spouses; two beings were only bound together according to their reciprocal feelings. But when the social cohesion is broken, marriage is no longer the key to happiness, quite the contrary: Marriage is the tomb of trust and love. A married woman can, with impunity, give bastards to her husband and a fortune that is not theirs. The unmarried woman only has the feeblest rights; ancient and inhuman laws forbid her the right to the name or wealth of the father of her children and no new laws have been devised to address this matter.  Anne-Josèphe Terwagne was born in Mercourt, in Belgium in 1762. As a child and a young woman, she was abandoned, moved from house to house, country to country, job to job, and eventually ended up in Paris, with some money left her by a lover. There she took up the name Théroigne de Méricourt and started to dress in Amazon fashion, that is a comfortable style of dress that allows women the same freedom of movement as men She was an early enthusiast of the French Revolution who spoke out in favour of women's rights, but especially of women's participation, demanding that she be allowed to arm a battalion of women, so that if the men had to leave France to fight abroad, the country would not be undefended.  In 1790, during a trip back home in Belgium, she was arrested and taken to an Austrian prison, where she was interrogated about her revolutionary activities. The text below was written shortly after her return. It is an address to the 48 'sections' of Paris, the units of democratic government that had replaced the 'districts' set up in 1789. During her imprisonment, Theroigne learnt much about what foreign powers intended for France. What the enemy wants is division among the French, Civil war. She cites the fact that there has been some in-fighting in Paris already, and explains that the foreign enemy does not care about party politics except in so far as it sets the revolutionaries against each other. "Citizens" she says. "Let's stop and think, or else we are lost." If we care about the public interest, she carries on, we must put aside our personal differences and band together. The French, she says, are enlightened, and they will fight for their liberty till the last drop of blood. It wouldn't take much, she adds, to put a stop to the in-fighting and change the course of the revolution back to its true goals. After all, she says, it didn't take much for the French to step over the line and massacre the King's army at the Tuileries the previous year.  So here's what she suggested: "I propose, consequently, that each section should elect six older female citizens amongst the most virtuous and wise to reconcile and unite citizens and remind them of the dangers faced by their country. They will wear a large scarf on which it will be written 'FRIENDSHIP' and 'FRATERNITY'. Whenever the section hold a general assembly, they will be present in order to call to order any citizen who would stray, and would not respect the freedom of opinion, so precious for the creation of a good public spirit. Those who have only strayed but have good intentions and otherwise love their nation will keep silent. But those of bad faith, placed here by the aristocrats, the enemies of France and the agents of the king to interrupt, swear, and fight will not listen to the voice of those female citizens any more than to that of the president so it will be a way of finding out who they are. Their names will be noted and they will be investigated. Those female citizens should be changed every six months. Those that demonstrate the most virtue and firmness in their task of uniting citizens and protecting freedom of opinion can be re-elected within one year. Their reward should be to have a special place in our national holiday, and to be in charge of inspecting the schools for girls. As I find myself single parenting my son for a whole 12 days, I feel bound to reflect on what it was like, being a single working mother during the French Revolution. Olympe de Gouges, widowed at twenty, her son just one year old, brought him up by herself in Paris while pursuing her career as an actress, then a playwright, and later a political writer. She made sure to pay for him to have private tutors, and may have had help from her sister, also in Paris, to look after him. We know that he came with her to theatrical rehearsals, and eventually became an actor in her troup. By the time she died he was married with one child and another on the way. Under pressure (and perhaps torture) he signed a letter renouncing his mother. A few years later, he wrote and signed a document recusing himself, which he sent to the government, along with two volumes of his mothers' works. Pierre Aubry, Olympe's son, struggled to make a career for himself under Bonaparte, but eventually was sent by him to French Guiana, in South America, at the time slavery was being re-introduced there. Aubry died a few months after arriving, of malaria. His wife remarried, several of their children survived and some of their descendants still live in Australia and the United States.  Mary Wollstonecraft found herself pregnant by her American lover during her stay in Paris, and moved alone to Le Havre when her baby girl, Fanny, was born. There she looked after her daughter while writing up her History of the French Revolution. By the time Mary and her daughter came back to England, the relationship with Fanny's father, Imlay, was over. In order to keep them out the way, he asked Mary to go and investigate the disappearance of a cargo of silver on the coast of Norway. Mary went with her daughter and a French maid, clearly not thinking of single motherhood as a reason not to travel. When they came back, Imlay made it clear that he had no intention of spending time or money on his daughter. Mary responded by attempting to commit suicide, leaving the following note for her daughter: I have long determined that the best thing I could do was to put an end to the existence of a being whose birth was unfortunate, and whose life has only been a series of pain to those persons who have hurt their health in endeavouring to promote her welfare. Perhaps to hear of my death will give you pain, but you will soon have the blessing of forgetting that such a creature ever existed. When Mary met her William Godwin, they agreed that he would act as her daughter's father. Unfortunately, she did not live long enough to find out whether that model of parenting would have been a success. Fanny Wollstonecraft did not live a happy or successful life. She lost her mother at the age of 3, and was left in the care of the father of her new sister, Mary. William Godwin remarried a few years later and Fanny and Mary were looked after by their step-mother who cared more for her own daughters than for them. Godwin, although he saw it as his duty to care for Mary's daughter, did not think much of her: My own daughter is considerably superior in capacity to the one her mother had before. Fanny, the eldest, is of a quiet, modest, unshowy disposition, somewhat given to indolence, which is her greatest fault, but sober, observing, peculiarly clear and distinct in the faculty of memory, and disposed to exercise her own thoughts and follow her own judgment. Mary, my daughter, is the reverse of her in many particulars. She is singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire for knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes is almost invincible. My own daughter is, I believe, very pretty; Fanny is by no means handsome, but in general prepossessing. When the girls were teenagers, Percy Blithe Shelley came into their lives and seduced Mary by talking to him about her mothers' life and work. Two years after Mary ran away with the poet, Fanny, left alone with her unkind stepmother and a stepfather who did not care much about her, committed suicide. She was 22. Sophie de Grouchy was widowed at 30, her only daughter still a toddler. Although she had a support system – her sister and an old nanny – to help her bring up young Eliza, she had to earn the money to feed and house her extended family, and she did that by painting portraits. Eliza Condorcet O'Connor is the one real success story of the three. This is perhaps due to the fact that her mother did not die when she was a toddler and was not tried and executed, thereby ruining her family's reputation and career prospects. By the time Eliza was old enough to marry, her mother had regained most of their family wealth and was able to purchase Mirabeau's old castle for her. Eliza seemed to have lived a long and happy life there, continuing the work her mother had started of editing her father's works. Her descendants still live at the castle  |
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