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Jane Abray Feminism in French Revoultion
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University of Delhi
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Feminism in the French Revolution
Author(s): Jane Abray
Source: The American Historical Review, Feb., 1975, Vol. 80, No. 1 (Feb., 1975), pp. 43-
62
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association
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Feminism in the French Revolution
JANE ABRAY
FRENCH FEMINISM HAS A LONG HISTORY; its roots go back far beyond the
tumult of new ideas that mark the Revolution. Since the Renaissance, indeed
since the Middle Ages, French women-and men-had argued for equality
of legal and political rights for the sexes. Woman's education, her economic
position, and her relationship to her father and husband had all been
worked over time after time.' In the eighteenth century intellectuals carried
on a desultory debate over the status of women. The discussion slowly grew
more heated until, in the early years of the Revolution, a small group of
bold thinkers demanded changes that, if effected, would have altered the
character of French civilization far more than did the abolition of the mon-
archy.
Single or married, women had few rights in the law during the last
decades of the ancien regime. Their testimony could be accepted in criminal
and civil courts but not for notarized acts like wills. In some parts of France
a single woman could enter into contractual relationships, but for the most
part her rights-reasonably extensive as late as the thirteenth century-had
atrophied Generally speaking a single woman remained under her father's
authority until she married; marriage transferred her to her husband's rule.
Once married she generally had no control over her person or her property.
I am happy to acknowledge the genial advice of Professor R. R. Palmer of Yale University, for whose seminar this article was originally written. I also wish to thank the Canada Council for its financial support. 1 See Leon Abensour, Histoire generale du feminisme des origines d nos jours (Paris, 1921); Lulu McDowell Richardson, The Forerunners of Feminism in the French Literature of the Renaissance from Christine of Pisa to Marie de Gournay (Baltimore, 1929); and Georges Ascoli, "Essai sur l'histoire des idees feministes en France du XVIe si&cle a la R6volution," Revue de synthese historique, 13 (19o6): 25-57, 161-84. The term "f6minisme" itself did not come into use in French until the nineteenth century. Charles Fourier used it first in the second edition of his Theorie des Quatre mouvements (Paris, 1841); see Charles Turg6on, Le feminisme franfais (Paris, 1907), 1: 10. 2 Marcel Garaud, La Revolution et l'e'galite' civile (Paris, 19), 172-74. On women's political participation and legal rights in the Middle Ages, see Maurice Bard&che, Histoire des femmes (Paris, 1968), 2: 6o-6i, 72-73. 3Philippe Sagnac, La legislation civile de la Revolution franfaise (Paris, 1898), 295. For an explanation of the father's power, see Jacques Godechot, Les institutions de la France sous la Revolution et l'Empire (Paris, 1951), 206-07.
43
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Feminism in the French Revolution 45
vocates of social revolution this group must be accounted tame. Boudier de Villemert maintained that women ought to have "a serious daily occupation" and recommended embroidery Potential feminists could have found
sterner stuff in the Journal des Dames, a monthly magazine. Its editor in
1774, Mme de Montenclos, was an advocate of women's rights. She staunchly proclaimed, "I am not out to draw attention to myself, but I swear I do want to shatter our conventions and guarantee women the justice that men refuse to them as if on a whim."'O Many of the opponents of these ambitions lurked in the vast literature on women's education. Restif de la Bretonne, following the path of Rousseau's Emile, ordered that all thought of equality between the sexes be suppressed. Women should be forbidden to learn reading and writing in order to limit them to useful domestic labor. Mme de Genlis urged that women's education be organized to prepare them "for a monotonous and dependent life.''12 While the supporters of feminism tended to exalt marriage and motherhood as a claim on society, the anti- feminists used this same "natural vocation" to prove that women should be content to stay home and to obey their husbands.
BY 1789 CONVENTIONAL WISDOMS of all sorts, and even the image of the happy homemaker, had begun to quiver. For in the last years of the decade a more militant feminist theory had emerged in a spate of pamphlets. No longer content to make vague statements advocating equality, the partisans of women's emancipation got down to specific proposals about education, economics, and legal and political rights. Their brochures began to appear in 1787 and quickly multiplied. The general argument ran: human beings are naturally equal, therefore sexual discrimination is unnatural; husband and wife should be equal partners in marriage; women ought to have a better education and access to more, and higher-paid, jobs. Along with demands for marital and economic equality the new feminism laid claim to the vote. The Marquis de Condorcet sounded the first blast of this trumpet in favor
of the regiment of women. He reasoned that women, since they were not
allowed to vote, were being taxed without representation and would be
justified in refusing to pay their taxes. Moreover, said Condorcet, domestic authority should be shared and all positions and professions opened to both sexes. He observed that sexual inequality was a new state and not the tradi- tional lot of women. A year later Condorcet insisted that women who met the property qualifications he proposed for the suffrage should vote. He also
9 Boudier de Villemert, L'Ami des femmes, 51-54. 10 Quoted in Evelyne Sullerot, Histoire de la presse feminine des origines ?i i848 (Paris, 1966), 23, italics in original. 11 Restif de la Bretonne, Les Gynographes (Paris, 1777), 92, i8o. 12 Mme de Genlis, Adele et Thdodore ou Lettres sur 1'education (1782), in her Oeuvres com- pletes (Maestricht, 1782), 1o: 30.
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46 Jane A bray
predicted that his ideas would get little support from women, as they were all too enamored of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to listen to him.' Most women ignored the feminists. Yet Condorcet found some allies. Two pamphlets, Reque'te des femmes pour leur admission a,ux Etats-
Generaux and Remontrances, plaintes et dole'ances des Dames Fran(aises,
called for political rights; the latter also criticized men for stultifying women's minds through a too-narrow education.'4 Not all of these pamphlets were concerned primarily with political rights. "We ask for enlightenment and jobs," said the women of the Third Estate to the king, "not to usurp men's authority, but to rise in their esteem and to have the means of living safe from misfortune.'' One of the most important of these early pamphlets was Cahier des dole'ances et reclamations des femmes, par Mme B... B.... The anonymous author began by revealing her astonishment that women were not seizing the opportunity to make themselves heard. She described her own conver- sion to feminism-she had thought women weak and incompetent but now knew better-and asked whether men could continue to make women the victims of their pride and injustice at a time when the common people were entering into their political rights and when even the blacks were to be free. She insisted that just as a noble could not represent a roturier in the Assembly, so a man could not represent a woman. Mme B... B... then lashed out at the double standard of sexual morality, at the droits d'ainesse and at those of masculinite This pamphlet reappeared word for word as Cahier
des dole'ances et reclamations des Femmes du d!partement de la Charente'
Other pamphlets appeared along with a flurry of satires mocking the feminists' pretensions.'8 Condorcet contributed another major statement in which he repeated his earlier arguments on belhalf of women's suffrage and 13 Marquis de Condorcet, "Lettres d'un bourgeois de New Haven A un citoyen de Virginie" (1787), in his Oeuvres, ed. Frank O'Connor and M. F. Arago (Paris, 1847), 9: 15-19; Condorcet, "Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemble'es provinciales" (1788), in ibid., 8: 141-42. Rousseau's popularity with women is an indication of how few of them held any feminist convictions. 14 See Charles-Louis Chassin, Le Genie de la Revolution (Paris, 1863), 1: 477. 15 Petition des femmnes du Tiers au roi, ler janrvier 1789, extracts in Jeanne Bouvier, Les femmes pendant la Revolution (Paris, 1931), 249-50. Duhet compares this petition to Cahier des doleMances et reclamations des femmes, par Mme B... B..... Les femmes et la Revolution, 32-39. 16 Bouvier, Les femmes pendant la Revolution, 266-74. 17 Duhet, Les femmes et la Revolution, 41. The pamphlet was reprinted under the second title in the Etrennes nationales des Dames. See Sullerot, Histoire de la presse feminine, 47-50. 18 Les tres humbles remontrances des femmes franfaises (1788); De l'influence des femmes dans l'ordre civil et politique (1789); Sophie Remi Courtenai de la Fosse Ronde, Argument des femmes aux Etats-Generaux (1789); Reponse des Femmes de Paris d l'Ordre le plus nombreux de France (1789); Discours preliminaire de la Pauvre Javotte (1790). I have found no trace of the contents of the first four. The Discours preliminaire calls for the abolition of the clergy and the nobility as orders and the constitution of women as the new second order. It castigates the Revolution for neglecting poor women to concentrate on the "aristocratie masculine." Bouvier, Les femmes pendant la Revolution, 297-303. The identification of mas- culinity with aristocracy was a favorite device since it permitted feminists to co-opt all the ideas and stock phrases of the Third Estate's campaign. Duhet discusses some of the satires. Les femmes et la Revolution, 30-32.
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48 Jane A bray
requested the Assembly to pass a law against despotic paternal and marital power In April of that year Etta Palm van Aelders, a Dutch feminist, petitioned the Assembly to provide education for girls, to guarantee women's legal majority at twenty-one, to give both sexes political freedom and equal rights, and -to present divorce legislation The following summer a woman from the Beaurepaire section addressed the Convention. Citizen legislators, you have given men a Constitution; now they enjoy all the rights of free beings, but women are very far from sharing these glories. Women count for nothing in the political system. We ask for primary assemblies and, as the Constitution is based on the Rights of Man, we now demand the full exercise of these rights for ourselves.
The president congratulated her deputation for its zeal-and postponed discussion. 27 Such a discussion might have proved to be quite excited. The assemblies had their full complement of antifeminists, but they also contained a few
advocates of women's emancipation. In 1792 Aubert-Dubayet of Is'ere spoke
on the recording of vital statistics; he called women "the victims of their fathers' despotism and of their husbands' perfidy" and warned that French law must not maintain women in a state of slavery In the spring of 1793 Pierre Guyomar, from the Cotes-du-Nord, presented the Convention with his reflections on political equality. To him the only differences between men and women lay in their reproductive systems, and he could not under- stand why such physical differences should lead to differences before the law. Like many other contemporary feminists, Guyomar compared sexual to racial discrimination. He spoke, too, of "une aristocratie formelle des hommes."
Supporters of women's rights did not completely abandon their old plat-
forms. Letters to newspapers continued to appear The founder of the
Journal des Droits de l'Homme, a Cordelier named Labenette, defended the
rights of women' A major feminist declaration arrived on the streets of
Paris in 179 1. Olympe de Gouges, having had enough of the "rights of man,"
announced the rights of women. Her text followed closely that of the declaration of August 1789.
All women are born free and remain equal to men in rights.... The aim of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and inalienable rights of women and men.... The nation is the union of women and men.... Law is
25 AP, Feb. 13, 1792, vol. 38, P. 466. Nothing came of the request at this time. 26 Ibid., Apr. 1, 1792, vol. 41, pp. 63-64. Louis Prudhomme ridiculed the petition in "Encore une petition de femmes," in his Revolutions de Paris, Mar. 31-Apr. 7, 1792, no. 143, pp. 2o-24. 27 AP, July 4, 1793, vol. 68, p. 254. 28 Ibid., Aug. 30, 1792, voi. 49, p. 117. 29 Ibid., Apr. 29, 1793, vol. 63, pp. 591-99. 30 Note the correspondence in the Courrier de l'hymen, Feb. 1791, given in Bouvier, Les femmes pendant la Revolution, 110. 31 Sullerot, Histoire de la presse fe'minine, 61. Duhet adds that, pressured by other men, he ceased his propaganda. Les femmes et la Revolution, 213-15.
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Feminism in the French Revolution 49
the expression of the general will: all female and male citizens have the right to participate personally, or through their representatives, in its formation.
De Gouges also demanded equality of opportunity in public employment, the right to paternity suits, and an end to male tyranny generally The following year Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women, inspired in part by the Revolution, appeared in a French translation and created some stir. Women also made their presence felt in the great revolutionary journe'es and in the army While this activity was not, strictly speaking, feminist, any activity by women in a society that places a premium on female passivity has some feminist overtones. Nor were the implications of their actions lost on the women themselves. In 1789 the women of the Halles were singing:
A Versail' comme des fanfarons, J'avions amene nos canons: [bis] Falloit voir, quoi qu' j'etions qu'des femmes Un courage qui n'faut pas qu'l'on blame. Nous faisions voir aux homm' de coeur Que tout comme eux j'n'avions pas peur: [bis] Fusil, musquetons sur 1'epaule, J'allions comme Amadis de Gaule.
The Etrennes nationales des Dames, a feminist newspaper begun in Novem- ber 1789, used the same episode to threaten "aristocratic husbands" that women could just as easily take up arms against them if they persisted in their pretensions In January 1794, when the back of feminism had broken
under the weight of ptublic and governmental hostility, some women still
remembered their old enthusiasms. A police spy reported *on groups of
women eager to see Reine Chapuy, a female cavalry soldier. The idea of her daring aroused several of these women to attack male cowardice and to exalt female courage. Most of the people behind this agitation have left little trace. Some of their clubs can be pinned down; a few of the most flamboyant leaders survive as individuals. Of the Paris political clubs the Cercle Social was the first to advocate feminism. Its members began to hear radical ideas about women's place in society in October 1790; both Condorcet and Etta Palm
32 Olympe de Gouges, Droits de la femme, Sept. 1790, complete text in Bouvier, Les femmes pendant la R, 283-89. 33 Sullerot, Histoire de la presse feminine, 45. 34 On women in the journees, see George Rude, The Crowd in the French Revolution (Oxford, 1967). For women soldiers, see Raoul Brice, La femme et les arme'es de la Re'volution et de l'Empire (1792-I815) (Paris, n.). I6on Schwab has reprinted a satire against the women soldiers in "Les femmes aux Arm&ees," La Revolution dans les Vosges, 6 (1912-13): 109-15. The Convention tried to remove the women soldiers, but some of them managed to evade its decree. AP, Apr. 30, 1793, vol. 63, pp. 628-29. 35 Quoted in Cornwell B. Rogers, The Spirit of Revolution in 1789 (Princeton, 1949), 182. 36 Sullerot, Histoire de la presse fetminine, 48-49. 37 Report of Charmont, Jan. 20, 1794, in Pierre Caron, ed., Paris Pendant la Terreur: Rap- ports des agents secrets du ministre de l'interieur (Paris, 191o-64), 3: 56.
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Feminism in the French Revolution 51
tyranny She addressed to the general populace an Appel aux Fran,aises
sur la regeneration des moeurs et necessite de l'influence des femmes dans
un gouvernement libre. In 1791 she tried to organize a national federation of women's groups. Failure here did not stop her. She went on to address the Assembly, demanding equal employment and education, as well as political and legal equality. Its president replied ambiguously; the legis- lature would avoid taking any actions that might bring the citizens to regret and tears. Like de Gouges, Palm practiced the wrong politics-she had, for example, invited the Princesse de Bourbon to be a patron to one of her charitable organizations. Unlike de Gouges she had the good sense to leave France before the government could arrest her. Theroigne de Mericourt, whose real name seems to have been Anne Terwagne, is perhaps the best known of these three, largely because of the attacks her contemporaries made on her. She created a sensation in the early years of the Revolution, holding a salon, trying to form a women's club, participating in the attacks on the Tuilleries, and striding about in riding clothes. Her feminism was something of a sideline, albeit sincere. In an autobiographical account she declared herself to be "humiliated by the servitude and the prejudices in which male vanity keeps our oppressed sex." She encouraged women to form a militia company because, she said, "it is time for women to break out of the shameful incompetence in which men's ignorance, pride, and injustice have so long held us captive." Her attempts to found a women's club provoked Antoine-Joseph Santerre, the commander of the National Guard, to observe that the men of his section would rather find their homes in order when they came back after a hard day's work than be greeted by wives fresh from meetings where they did not always gain in sweetness. Like de Gouges and Palm, Theroigne was politically moderate, a friend to the Girondin deputies. The shock from a beating she received from a group of Jacobin women in the spring of 1793 seems to have turned her mind. After spending some time in an asylum she was released, only to be permanently recommitted in 1797. Two other women deserve mention, the chocolate maker Pauline Leon and the actress Claire Lacombe, founders and presidents of the most famous of the women's clubs, the Citoyennes Republicaines RKvolutionnaires.
44Quoted in Bouche de fer, Jan. 3, 1791, quoted in P. J. B. Buchez and P. C. Roux, Histoire parlementaire de la Revolution franpaise (Paris, 1834-38), 8: 424-27. 45 There is no biographical study of Etta Palm. Episodes in her life are described in Aulard, "Le feminisme pendant la R&volution fransaise," 364-65; in Villiers, Histoire des clubs de femmes; and in Bourdin, Les SociStes populaires, 144-48, 151, i6o, 289. See also Marie Cerati, Le club des citoyennes republicaines revolutionnaires (Paris, 1966), 19-21. 46 Her life is given in Lacour, Trois femmes. Her own account of it is appended to Emma Adler, Die Beriihmten Frauen der franzosischen Revolution (Vienna, 19o6), 244-78. Her speech on the women's militia is quoted in Cerati, Le club des citoyennes, i8; that of Santerre is in Bourdin, Les Societe's populaires, 153. One of The6roigne's doctors, Jean Esquirol, described her last years in Les maladies mentales (Brussels, 1838). The Actes des Apdtres (1789-J1) is a fertile source of attacks on her; see in particular version 2, no. 38; version 4, no. 1 io; and version 6, no. 169. See also Marcellin Perlet, Les Actes des Ap6tres, 1789-91 (Paris, s873), 145-56.
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5,2 Jane A bray
Founded in the spring of 1793, the club contributed to the fall of the Girondins, then drifted away from the Jacobins toward the enrages, a move that had much to do with its eventual suppression. The Republicaines were sans-culottes women, and their program emphasized economic claims, notably cheap food, rather than strictly feminist demands. Nevertheless the Republicaines showed some sympathy for women's emancipation. Only two accounts of their meetings survive, and one shows the Republicaines dis- cussing women's capacity to govern. At the first of these the citoyenne Monic concluded that women were certainly worthy to rule nations, per- haps even more so than were men In June 1793 the Republicaines tried to put their ideas into practice by attempting to gain entry to the Conseil Genenral Revolutionnaire, newly set up in Paris The women of the Droits de I'Homme section had high praises for their activities.
You have broken one of the links in the chain of prejudice: that one, which confined women to the narrow sphere of their households, making one half of the people into passive and isolated beings, no longer exists for you. You want to take your place in the social order; apathy offends and humiliates you.
The feminist program for educational, economic, political, and legal change developed piecemeal. To justify their goals the feminists used three major arguments. First, women were human beings who therefore shared in the natural rights of man, a conviction often explicitly expressed but also im- plicit in the borrowing of political terms like "aristocracy" and "despotism" to describe the old system. Feminists saw the women's struggle as parallel to and a continuation of the war of the Third Estate against the upper classes. Second, the feminists made use of women's biological role. As the mothers of all citizens women had a special claim on the state, for they guaranteed its survival. Unlike modern feminists, they made no attempt to define women as other than mothers and potential mothers. Third, once the Revolution was under way, feminists cited women's political contribu- tions to the struggle for liberty and pointed to their continuing patriotism. Since they were fulfilling the duties of citizens women could not logically be denied the rights of citizens. The feminists felt they had solid grounds for their proposals, but one by one the revolutionary governments re- jected them. Education was the most important feminist rallying point. It was also the subject on which feminists and their opponents had managed some agreement before the Revolution. The conviction that women's education needed improvement had been fairly general before 1789. The revolu-
47 The account of the first meeting is in P.-J. Proussinale [Pierre-Joseph Alexis Roussel], Le chdteau des Tuilleries (Paris, 1802), quoted in Cerati, Le club des citoyennes, 49-51. For the other account see note 98 below. 48 Moniteur, May 31, 1793, vol. i6, p. 527. 49 Quoted in Bouvier, Les femmes pendant la Revolution, 329-31. Scott Lytle, "The Second Sex (1793)," Journal of Modern History, 27 (1955): 14-26, is clearer on the R6publicaines' end than is Cerati, Le club des citoyennes, 110-78.
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54 jane A bray
vention's education committee both flirted with the idea of training women to set type, but nothing came of it Nor did the revolutionary govern- ments make any effort to help the women injured by the collapse of luxury trades like silk and lace The government established ateliers nationaux for men quite early in the Revolution, but it was reluctant to help women. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, the mayor of Paris, requested aid for them in January 1790, but it was almost two years before anything was done, and then action came from municipal, not national, authorities. Where women were ad- mitted to the ateliers they were regularly paid less than men In the Salpetriere the administration relied in part on the profits of the unpaid labor of young girls to make ends meet Small wonder women continued to complain. Under the Old Regime women could sometimes vote and act as regents; during the Revolution they assumed their right to form political associa- tions. Less than five years after the calling of the Estates-General this had all disappeared. T'he legislators barely considered female suffrage despite the heated arguments the feminists had put forward. Abbe Emmanuel- Joseph Sieyes voiced the general opinion as early as July 1789. "Women, at least as things now stand, children, foreigners, in short those who contribute nothing to the public establishment, should have no direct influence on the government.' '61 The systematization of French electoral law eliminated the idiosyncrasies that had permitted women to vote; for the first time in cen- turies women were completely barred, as a group, from this aspect of the political process. Few peopile protested this exclusion. The women of Droits
de l'Homme in Paris and the Republicaines Revolutionnaires castigated the
provisions of the Constitution of 1793, but only by making speeches in the latter's club Possibly the infrequency with which elections were held took the sting out of this exclusion; certainly at the level where politics really mattered, in the clubs and sections, women continued to vote for a time. Probably exclusion from the regency also mattered little, particularly
when everyone was soon excluded by the abolition of thie monarchy. The
regency was not an important issue in itself, but it shows the ease with which the legislators could dismiss the idea of women participating in government.
56 "Un arrete feministe du Comitl6 de salut public en l'an III," Revolution franfaise, 6o (1911): 266; the meetings of Dec. g, May 28, 30, 1793, and Aug. 20, 1794, in Proccs-verbaux dut Comite d'instruction publique de la Conivention nationale, 3: 87; 4: 493, 503, 963. 57 Hufton, "Women in Revolution," 96; Georges Duval, Souvenirs thermidoriens (Paris, 1844), 1: 53 n. Sullerot estimates that there were over loo,ooo lacemakers in the region of Le Puy in 1789. Histoire et sociologie du travail feminin, 71. 58 Bouvier, Les fern mes pendant la Revolution, 156-58. 59 Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, "Rapport (les Visites faites dans divers h6pitaux," 1790, in Proci's-verbaux et rapports du coinitn de rnerldicit(^, 618. 60 Report of Latour-Lamontagne, Sept. 13, 1793, in Caron, Pal-is pendant la Terreur, 1: 88. 61 Sieyes's preliminiary remarks on the constitution, July 20-21, 1789, Recueil des pieces authentiques approuvees par l'Assemblee nationale de France (Geneva, 1789), 1: 193-99. 62 Duhet, Les femtimnes et la Revolution, 136-37. 63 AP, Mar. 22, 2'3, 1791, vol. 24, pp. 261-67, 305-07.
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Feminism in the French Revolution 55
Far more important to ordinary women than the vote or the regency was the issue of citizenship. Were women citizens enough to take tlle civic oath, one of the central means of demonstrating acceptance of the revolu- tionary ideals and of participating in communal life? In 1790, when the National Assembly swore the oath, the spectators, men and women, joined them Within two months women's right to take the oath had become an issue. Brigent Baudouin, wife of a municipal officer in ILanion, wrote the Assembly on behalf of several women in her village. "There is not a word about women in the Constitution, and I admit that they can take no part in government; nevertheless mothers can and should be citizens." They should therefore, she continued, be permitted to swear the revolutionary oath before the municipal officers. Goupil de Prefeln, a member of the Cercle Social, moved that all married women of "respectable conduct" be granted this honor. He added that mothers undoubtedly had more right to it than did childless women. The motion was tabled Swearing civic oaths became particularly important in the summer of 1790 during the Fetes de la Federation. In Beaune the National Guard invited eighty-four women to the ceremony, but the municipal authorities firmly refused to let them take part In Toulouse the city officials, momentarily forgetting
la galanterie franfaise, turned the fire hoses on the women present to dis-
perse them Examples could be found of women who did take the oath and who were invited to sign petitions and make other symbolic gestures- for example, at the Champs de Mars in 1791-but the whole issue of
women's citizenship remained clouded. With no suire rule to which to
appeal, women had to depend on the good will of local authorities. Even at this low, but symbolically vital, level women's political status continued
to be a matter of privileges not rights. The Commnittee of Public Safety
and the Directory would bothi find themnselves dealing with the conse-
quences. A representative on mission, J.-B. Jerome Bo, wrote the committee in 1794 to advise exemplary punishment of troublemakers, especially of those women who claimed that the law could not touch them because they
had not taken the civic oath. In 1796 some factions used women to create
disorder; since the government did not take them seriously, women could get away with subversive speeches for which men could be jailed. The revolutionary governments had at one time taken women's activities quite seriously, but only long enough to outlaw their clubs. Apparently article 7 of the second Declaration of Rights, guaranteeing the rights of free speech and assembly, no more applied to women than did article 5, which 64 Ibid., Feb. 4, 1790, vol. 11, p. 432. 65 Ibid., Mar. 29, 1790, vol. 12, pp. 402-03. 66 Moniteur, July 28, 1790, vol. 5, p. 240. 67 Revolutions de Paris, Feb. 26-Mar. 5, 1791, no. 86, pp. 385-86n. 68 Report of Mar. 29, 1794, in Recueil des Actes du Com-it de salut public, ed. Alphonse Aulard (Paris 1889-1951), 12: 272; on the events of Apr. 17, 1796, see the Courrier re'publicain, quoted in Alphonse Aulard, Paris pendant la reaction thermidorienne et sous le Directoire (Paris, 1898-1902), 3: 126.
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Feminism in the French Revolution 57
education has been practically nonexistent. Their presence in the socie'tes populaires, then, would give an active part in government to persons exposed to error and seduction even more than are men. And, let us add that women, by their constitution, are open to an exaltation which could be ominous in public life. The interests of the state would soon be sacrificed to all the kinds of disrup- tion and disorder that hysteria can produce.
Impressed, the Convention quickly voted to outlaw all women's clubs. Had the government been content to close the Club des Citoyennes Republicaines Revolutionnaires without making these explanations its at- titude would remain ambiguous. By expanding its target to include all women, of whatever political or apolitical stripe, the Committee of General
Security and the Convention made it clear that political questions were
merely a pretext. What they wanted to do was to exclude women, as a group, from public life. Anaxagoras Chaumette, the procureur of the Paris Commune, summed up the new order a fortnight later. Speaking in re- sponse to the arrival of a deputation of women at the Conseil General of
the Commune he lectured: "So! Since when have people been allowed to
renounce their sex? Since when has it been acceptable to see women abandon
the pious duties of their households, their children's cradles, to appear in
public, to take the floor and to make speeches, to come before the senate?' '
The Committee of Public Safety drove the message home in an "Avis aux
Republicaines," which appeared in the semiofficial Feuille du Salut Public.
The committee began its admonition on a menacing note. It reminded
women of the fate of Marie-Antoinette, de Gouges, and Mme Roland. The
purpose of this reminder was strikingly clear in the choice of de Gouges. "She wished to be a politician and it seems that the law has punished this
conspirator for forgetting the virtues appropriate to her sex" -that is, not
for the character of her opinions but for having hiad opinions. This lecture
concluded by spelling out the virtuous life. Women! Do you want to be Republicans?... Be simple in your dress, lhard- working in your homes, never go to the popular assemblies wanting to speak there. But let your occasional presence there encourage your children. Then la Patrie will bless you, for you will have done for it what it has a right to, expect from you.
Few people protested the suppression of the women's clubs. Lacombe
brought a deputation of women to the Convention the following day; the
deputies howled them down and hooted them out In the provinces the 71 Moniteur, Oct. 30, 1793, vol. i8, pp. 299-300. One member alone objected. He was ignored. Note that the decree against the women's clubs was a first step to the suppression of the soci&t6s populaires. 72 Ibid., Nov. 17, 1793, vol. i8, p. 450, italics in original. 73 Ibid. 74 AP, Nov. 5, 1793, vol. 78, p. 364. Caron, Paris pendant la Terreur, in which one might expect to find indications of popular reaction to the Convention's decision, is particularly fragmentary for October-November 1793. Possibly there was a good deal of protest that has left no trace, but this is not probable.
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58 Jane A bray
clubs quietly dissolved. For a time the women in Paris could continue to participate in sectional assemblies and mixed clubs like the Societe
Fraternelle du Panth6on Perhaps this softened the blow; in the capital
at least women still had political outlets. Yet their status in the men's clubs was unclear. In the assembly of the Pantheon-franSais section a deputation
from the Societe des Amis de la Republique was warmly applauded when
its spokesman asserted that the ban on women's clubs also forbade them to vote in other clubs. A member of the Paris Commune disagreed, and the matter was dropped Vague reports of women's organizations crop up in records from later periods-a leader of a "club des femmes jacobites"
was arrested in May 1795; earlier the police had flushed out a "nid des
jacobines" -but these reports are too ambiguous to prove anything about women's political activities. The suppression of the women's clubs effectively destroyed the feminists' political aspirations. It was not, however, the clearest statement on women's rights the government made. After the journee of Ier Prairial of the Year III
(May 20, 1795), the Convention voted to exclude women from its meetings;
in future they would be allowed to watch only if they were accompanied by a man carrying a citizen's card Three days later the Convention placed all Parisian women under a kind of house arrest. "All women are to return to their domiciles until otherwise ordered. Those found on the streets in groups of more than five one hour after the posting of this order will
be dispersed by force and then held under arrest until public tranquillity
is restored in Paris."79 The progress of the Revolution had rendered the
brave hopes of the feminists of 1789-91 chimeric.
Only in regard to their legal status could feminists find some gratification.
The Revolution, so severe to women in public life, was kinder to them in private life. Inheritance laws were changed to guarantee male and female
children equal rights Womnen reached majority at twenty-one under the
new laws. Moreover they could contract debts and be witnesses in civil
acts Other legislation changed the laws concerning women's property,
giving them some voice in its administration, and acknowledged the
mother's part in decisions affecting her children Revolutionary divorce
75 See the reports in Caron, Paris pendant la Terreur, Dec. 29, 1793, vol. 2, p. 75; Jan. 7, 1794, vol. 2, p. 227; Jaii. i6, 1794, vol. 2, p. 398; Jan. 25, 1794, vol. 3, p. 149; Jan. 27, 1794, vol. 3, p. 170; Feb. 5, 1794, vol. 3, p. 342; Mar. 26, 1794, vol. 6, pp. 117-18; Mar. 30, 1794, vol. 6, p. 207. March 30 is the last date for which Caron gives reports. 76 Ibid., Feb. 14, 1794, vol. 4, pp. 112-14. 77 Police report for May 26, 1795, and excerpt from the Courrier republicain of Jall. 23, 1795, both quoted in Aulard, Paris pendant la reaction thermidorienne, i: 748, 421. 78 Moniteur, May 20, 1795, vol. 24, p. 515. 79 Meeting of May 23, 1795, in Proces-verbal de la Convention nationale (Paris, 1792-an IV), 62: 67. I have found no trace of the repeal of this unenforceable law. 80 Felix Ponteil, Les institutions de la France de I8I4 ai I870 (Paris, 1966), 170. 81 AP, Sept. 20, 1792, vol. 50, p. i8i; Godechot, Les institutions de la France, 48. Despite the new law thie Ministry of the Interior was still in dloubt as to women's rights in respect of civil acts a year and a half later. AP, Jan. 14, 1794, vol. 83, p. 338. 82 Garaud, La Revolution et l'galite civile, 178; Sagnac, La iegislation civile, 296; Sullerot, Histoire de la presse fdminine, 65.
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6o Jane A bray
sence. Mme Robert, coeditor of the Mercure national, belonged to the Societe Fraternelle des Jacobins, but she was no feminist. She told her club, apropos of women inspectors for the public hospitals, that women could contribute greatly to the success of the inspections, but she went on to add, "Their domestic duties, sacred duties important to the public order, prohibit their taking on any administrative functions, and I do not claim to draw them from their sphere."90 Mme Roland, too, accepted the status quo. "I am often annoyed to see women arguing over privileges that do not suit them; even the title of 'author' seems ridiculous for a woman to me. However gifted they may be in these fields, they ought not to display their talents to the public.''91 The Directory is often described as a woman- dominated regime and Mme Tallien cited as a leading example of women's power in this era. However she once wrote to the Convention, "Woe indeed to those women who, scorning the glorious destiny to which they are called, express, in order to free themselves of their duties, the absurd
ambition to take over men's responsibilities.'"92 Mme de Stael, perhaps the
most important of the revolutionary women, seems to have had some feminist leanings, but she certainly cannot be brought forward as an ac-
tivist The pattern is clear: the most famous women of the period were
careful to give the disreputable feminists a wide berth. Nor did the supporters of women's rights capture the backing of the leading men of the Revolution. Condorcet was a real anomaly. Far more typical was Mirabeau, who gushed over the "irresistible power of weakness," warned that women's delicate constitutions limited them to the "shy labors" of the home, and pondered whether they should ever be let out of the
house Jacques-R,ene Hbert, as one would expect, did not gush. Although
he took some earthy shots at wife beaters- "ces bougres de tyrans"-his sympathies were limited Robespierre's attitude remains enigmatic. Jacques Godechot asserts that he spoke in favor of votes for women in the Con-
stituent Assembly, but otlher commentators place him in the opposite camp.
The volumes of his Oeuvres comple'tes published to date shed no light. Louis-Antoine Saint-Just would go as far as agreeing that laws on adultery
should be equal for both sexes but, like Mirabeau, he belonged to the
"faiblesse int6eressante" school and urged that girls be educated at home,
90 Quoted in Villiers, Histoire des clubs de femmes, 5o-. 91 Quoted in L. J. Larcher and P. J. Martin, Les femmes peintes par elles-memes (Brussels, 1858). 68-69. 92 AP, Apr. 23, 1794, vol. 89, p. 215.. 93 See Madelyn Gutwirth, "Mme de Stae, Rousseau and the Woman Question," Publications of the Modern Lanrguage Association, 86 (1971): looog9. 94 AP, Sept. 10, 1791, vol. 30, pp. 518-19. 95 Jacques-Ren,e He6bert, Le Pcre Duchesne, Dec. 6, 1790, no. 31, in Le Pere Duchesne d'HMbert, ed. Fritz Braesch (Paris, 1938), 391. 96 Godechot, Les institutions de la France, 47. I have been unable to trace this motion. Sullerot (Histoire de la presse feminine, 63), Villiers (Histoire des clubs de femmes, 248), and Lytle ("Second Sex," 23) all consider Robespierre to he an opponent of women's emancipation.
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Feminism in the French Revolution 6i
with due regard for the preservation of their chastity For the rest, we can find clues in their newspapers. Louis Prudhomme's Re'volutions de Paris reveled in misogyny Jean-Paul Marat, Camille Desmoulins, and Gracchus Babeuf ignored the women's movement Jacques Roux, like Condorcet, was an exception, but as a defender he was hardly an unmitigated bless- ing The feminists, then, had been unable to win the backing of any of the important Revolutionary factions. Their following was confined to a few clubs and to isolated individuals, many of them political moderates whom the progress of the Revolution incidentally eliminated. The characters of the feminist leaders were scarcely the sort to find favor with the respectable. Of those whose lives we know, only Condorcet was above reproach. The pretensions to gentility of de Gouges. Theroigne de Mericourt, and the "Baronne" d'Aelders struck contemporaries as ludicrous, and this amusement carried over to their activities. The unsavory histories of Theroigne de Mericourt and Claire Lacombe did not help the movement any more than did Lacombe's and Leon's liaisons with the enrage Leclerc. While male revolutionaries might be forgiven their sexual peccadilloes, the women could count on no such toleration. Even as they protested the existence of a double standard it was at work against them. All of the feminist leaders were further compromised by their political convictions, whether moderate or extremist. Moreover the feminists were all held guilty for the acts of all other women-the emigres, the tricote'uses, Marie-An- toinette, Charlotte Corday. Protest as they might, the feminists could never convince the public that the principle of collective responsibility slhould not be applied to the whole sex. The feminists made tactical and strategic errors. Women's groups allowed themselves to be distracted too easily. The Republicaines Revolutionnaires let themselves become embroiled in street fights over the wearing of the cocarde and the bonnet rouge All of the women's clubs suffered from their habit of putting other people's causes before their own. The provincial
97 Louis-Antoine Saint-Just, "Esprit de la revolution et de la constitution franSaise" (1791), in Oeuvres completes de Saint-Just, ed. Charles Vellay (Paris, 1908), i: 2g1-92; Saint-Just, "Frag- ments sur les institutions republicaines" (1793-94), in ibid., 2: 519. 98 For example, "De l'influence de la revolution sur les femmes," Revolutions de Paris, Feb. 5-12, 1791, no. 83, pp. 226-35; "Addition a I'article des femmes p6titionnaires, no. 124," ibid., Dec. 10-17, no. 127, pp. 497-500; "Club de femmes a Lyon," ibid., Jan. 19-26, 1793, no. 185, pp. 234-35; "Femmes contre-r6volutionnaires en bonnet rouge," ibid., Nov. 4, 1793, no. 213, pp. 15o-51. Prudhomme demonstrated his "sympathy" for the Republicaines by publishing, after their dissolution, a praces-verbal of one of their last, and chaotic, meetings, that of October 28, 1793. "Proce~s-verbal de ce qui est arrive aux Citoyennes republicaines-Revolution- naires," ibid., Nov. 13-20, 1793, no. 215, pp. 207-10. 99 See their journals, respectively, L'Ami du peuple and the Journal de la Rdpu blique franaise; Rdvolutions de France et de Brabant and the Vieux Cordelier; and Tribun du peuple. 100 Jacques Roux, speaking to the Paris Commune, June 21, 1793, in Scripta et Acta, ed. Walter Markov (Berlin, 1969), no- 51, pp. 472-73. 101 The wearing of the cocarde and the brawls this caused gave the government another pretext to move against the women's clubs. The affair is complicated and is more easily followed in Duval, Souvenirs thermidoriens, 1: 52-54, than by tracing it through either the AP or the Moniteur.
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Jane Abray Feminism in French Revoultion
Course: BA (Hons.) History
University: University of Delhi
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