By the time the Terror kicked in, living in Paris was no longer a safe option for those who'd been at all involved with the opposition party and many retired to the nearby countryside. One very popular place was Auteuil, where Madame Helvetius ran her famous salon where philosophers, mathematicians, poets and politicians gathered. Both Sophie de Grouchy Olympe de Gouges moved there. But of course one still had business in Paris. Olympe had to travel there to visit her printer, and make sure her latest tracts were pasted and distributed where she wanted them to be. This meant first getting to Paris, and then through the busy streets to her printer's in the 6th arrondissement. This is Olympe's own description of one particular trip to Paris from Auteuil:
I live in the countryside. I left Auteuil this morning at eight and winded my way to the road that goes from Paris to Versailles where one can often find those famous roadside cafés that inexpensively gather passers by. No doubt an unlucky star was pursuing me that morning. I reached the gate and I could not even find the sad, privileged, hackney coach. I rested on the steps of that insolent edifice that secreted clerks. Nine o’clock chimed and I continued on my way; I spotted a coach, took my place, and arrived at a quarter past nine, according to two different watches, at the Pont-Royal. I took the hackney coach and flew to my printer, rue Christine, for I could only go so early in the morning: when I am proofreading there is always something to do, if the pages are not too tight or too full.
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When I work on a new historical author, I like to look for inspiration in fiction, art or cultural artefacts. To get in the mood for Christine de Pizan I watched Dreyer's 1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc and spent ages poring through medieval recipes in Le Menagier de Paris. When it comes to Olympe, there are several fictionalised biographies, but they are, to be honest, all a bit dreary. Catel and Bocquet's graphic novel, Olympe de Gouges, on the other hand, is truly inspirational. The history is detailed and as accurate as can be expected in a fiction, the character of Olympe is likeable and really fits the tone of her writings. The black ink drawings which become darker and less detailed as the story gets bleaker, really bring Paris, especially, to life. Also, it's a long book (488 pages) so you can really get stuck into it! Sophie de Grouchy's first biographer was the civil servant, part-time historian Antoine Guillois. His book, La Marquise de Condorcet, sa famille, son salon, ses amis, portrays Sophie as a 'superior woman' praised for her beauty, her virtue and her intellect. Guillois dedicates his work to Sophie's grand nephew, the Vicomte de Grouchy. Olympe de Gouges also had a biographer named Guillois, a young medical student who chose to write his thesis on women's psychology during the revolution, focusing on one case, a woman clearly suffering from paranoid delusions, according to his expert diagnostic. Would it be too much of a coincidence if the two Guillois were related? It's by no means an uncommon name. In fact, in my searches, I discovered some Guillois of that period based in Turkey! But as it turns out, they are father and son, and here's the evidence on Guillois Junior's birth certificate (courtesy of a Guillois descendant , Jacques le Normand.
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This is where I live blog about my new book project, an intellectual biography of three French Revolutionary women philosophers. Categories
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