Weep and Shut up! Gregoire's unpleasant side.

Henri Grégoire, known as the Abbé Grégoire, a catholic priest with jansenist sympathies, leading member of the Third Estate, Constitutional Bishop of Blois, was an important figure in the French Revolution, especially for his work against slavery in the French colonies. Grégoire, a close friend of Brissot, one of the few Girondins to survive the Terror, kept on fighting for abolitionism until his death in 1820. 
 
Given their shared enthusiasm for abolition, and the fact that they moved in the same circles it may seem surprising that his name and Olympe de Gouges' are not found together more often, or that there is no correspondence between them. When I was in the Archives Nationales, I found out why: Grégoire may have a great abolitionist, but his treatment of women did not measure up. 
 
The first clue as to Grégoire's attitude is a footnote from his 'Lettre aux philanthropes', (p. 19, note 1) written in 1790, to shame the French into action in the colonies:

Readers, I confess to you, in great secrecy, a story about myself that the white colonists are murmuring to each other: 'it is not surprising that he defends the mixed bloods because his brother has married a woman of colour'. Honestly, if I did have a virtuous mixed-raced sister in law, I would prize her more than I do the near totality of your women, whose amiability receives such praise, but who cannot even, underneath their apocryphal modesty, conceal the ugliness of their vice; and who are all at once brazen in their gaze, impudent in their talk, and cynical in their acts.  

​One might be prepared to forgive and forget – this is after all only a footnote, if it were not for a letter written to Brissot a few months later, in which he more than reiterated his views on women: 

​My dear patriot
 
You surprise me when you tell me that the white colonists are resentful of what I said in my letter to the philanthropes against women's libertinage. I must begin by telling you that I only meant this of our city women, beginning with the capital. And I repeat that the near totality of those are brazen in their gaze, impudent in their talk, and cynical in their acts.
 
But as an explanation is demanded of me, I do not believe that our islands abound in vestal virgins and Lucretians, or that they are truly ruled by dissolute morals. I will also say, to the Creole and the French women: are you virtuous? If so, what I said does not concern you, I admitted some exceptions therefore you have no right to be shocked. Is your virtue false? In that case you must weep and keep silent. 

In other words, ​some women may be virtuous, most are not. Either way – women should shut up.