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Olympe de Gouges
Olympe de Gouges (French: [ɔlɛ̃p də ɡuʒ] ; born
Marie Gouze; 7 May 1748 – 3 November 1793) was Olympe de Gouges
a French playwright and political activist. She is best
known for her Declaration of the Rights of Woman
and of the Female Citizen and other writings on
women's rights and abolitionism.
Born in southwestern France, de Gouges began her
prolific career as a playwright in Paris in the 1780s. A
passionate advocate of human rights, she was one of
France's earliest public opponents of slavery. Her
plays and pamphlets spanned a wide variety of issues
including divorce and marriage, children's rights,
unemployment and social security. In addition to her
being a playwright and political activist, she was also
a small time actress prior to the Revolution.[1] De
Gouges welcomed the outbreak of the French Portrait by Alexander Kucharsky
Revolution but soon became disenchanted when Born Marie Gouze
equal rights were not extended to women. In 1791, in 7 May 1748
response to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Montauban, Quercy,
Man and of the Citizen, de Gouges published her Kingdom of France
Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Died 3 November 1793 (aged 45)
Female Citizen, in which she challenged the practice Place de la Révolution, Paris,
of male authority and advocated for equal rights for French First Republic
women.
Cause of Execution by guillotine
De Gouges was associated with the moderate death
Girondins and opposed the execution of Louis XVI. Occupations Activist, abolitionist,
Her increasingly vehement writings, which attacked women's rights advocate,
Maximilien Robespierre's radical Montagnards and playwright
the Revolutionary government during the Reign of Spouse Louis Aubry
Terror, led to her eventual arrest and execution by
(m. 1765; died 1766)
guillotine in 1793. Children 1
Signature
Biography
Birth and parentage
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Marie Gouze was born on 7 May 1748 in Montauban, Quercy
(in the present-day department of Tarn-et-Garonne), in
southwestern France.[2] Her mother, Anne Olympe Mouisset
Gouze, was the daughter of a bourgeois family.[3] The identity
of her father is ambiguous. Her father may have been her
mother's husband, Pierre Gouze, or she may have been the
illegitimate daughter of Jean-Jacques Lefranc, Marquis de
Pompignan.[2] Marie Gouze encouraged rumours that
Pompignan was her father, and their relationship is considered
plausible but "historically unverifiable."[4] Other rumours in
the eighteenth century also suggested that her father might be
Louis XV, but this identification is not considered credible.[2]
The Pompignan family had long-standing close ties to the
Jean-Jacques Lefranc, Marquis de
Mouisset family of Marie Gouze's mother, Anne. When Anne
Pompignan, widely rumoured to be
was born in 1727, the eldest Pompignan son, Jean-Jacques Olympe de Gouges's father
Lefranc de Pompignan (age five), was her godfather. Anne's
father tutored him as he grew. During their childhoods,
Pompignan became close to Anne, but was separated from her in 1734 when he was sent to Paris.
Anne married Pierre Gouze, a butcher, in 1737 and had three children before Marie, a son and two
girls.[5] Pompignan returned to Montauban in 1747, the year before Marie's birth.[5] Pierre was
legally recognized as Marie's father.[2] Pierre did not attend Marie's baptism on 8 May. Her
godfather was a workman named Jean Portié, and her godmother a woman named Marie
Grimal.[6] Pierre died in 1750.[6]
The primary support for the identification of Pompignan as Marie Gouze's father is found in her
semi-autobiographical novel, Mémoires de Madame de Valmont, published after Pompignan's
death.[2] According to the contemporary politician Jean-Baptiste Poncet-Delpech and others, "all
of Montauban" knew that Pompignan was Gouze's father.[7] However, some historians consider it
likely that Gouze fabricated the story for her memoirs in order to raise her prestige and social
standing when she moved to Paris.[4]
Early life
Marie-Olympe de Gouges (formally Marie Gouze) was born into a
wealthy family, and although her mother was privately tutored, she
had no actual formal education herself.[8] Reportedly illiterate, she
was said to dictate to a secretary.[9]
Gouze was married on 24 October 1765 to Louis Yves Aubry, a caterer,
against her will.[10] The heroine of her semi-autobiographical novel
Mémoires is fourteen at her wedding; the new Marie Aubry herself
was seventeen.[10] Her novel strongly decried the marriage: "I was
married to a man I did not love and who was neither rich nor well-
born. I was sacrificed for no reason that could make up for the
Olympe de Gouges's son,
repugnance I felt for this man."[11] Marie's substantially larger fortune
Pierre Aubry
allowed her new husband Louis to leave his employer and start his
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own business. On 29 August 1766, she gave birth to their son, Pierre Aubry. That November, a
destructive flood of the river Tarn caused Louis' death.[12] She never married again, calling the
institution of marriage "the tomb of trust and love".[13]
Known under the name Marie Aubry, after her husband's death she changed her name to Olympe
de Gouges, from her surname (Gouze) and adding her mother's middle name, Olympe.[14] Soon
after, she began a relationship with the wealthy Jacques Biétrix de Rozières, a businessman from
Lyon.[15]
Move to Paris
In 1768, Biétrix funded de Gouges's move to Paris, where he provided her with an income.[15] She
lived with her son and her sister.[13] She socialized in fashionable society, at one point being called
"one of Paris' prettiest women," and formed friendships with Madame de Montesson and Louis
Philippe II, Duke of Orléans.[16] De Gouges attended the artistic and philosophical salons of Paris,
where she met many writers, including La Harpe, Mercier, and Chamfort, as well as future
politicians such as Brissot and Condorcet. She usually was invited to the salons of Madame de
Montesson and the Comtesse de Beauharnais, who also were playwrights.
De Gouges began her career as a writer in Paris, publishing a novel in 1784 and then beginning a
prolific career as a playwright. As a woman from the province and of lowly birth she fashioned
herself to fit in with the Paris establishment.[17] De Gouges signed her public letters with
citoyenne, the feminised version of citizen. In pre-revolutionary France there were no citizens, and
authors were the subjects of the king, but in revolutionary France there were only citoyens. It was
in October 1792 that the Convention decreed the use of citoyenne to replace Madame and
Mademoiselle.[18]
In 1788 she published Réflexions sur les hommes nègres, which
demanded compassion for the plight of slaves in the French
colonies.[19] For de Gouges there was a direct link between the
autocratic monarchy in France and the institution of slavery. She
argued that "Men everywhere are equal... Kings who are just do not
want slaves; they know that they have submissive subjects."[20] She
came to the public's attention with the play L'Esclavage des Noirs,
which was staged at the famous Comédie-Française in 1785. Her
stance against slavery in the French colonies made her the target of
threats.[13] De Gouges was also attacked by those who thought that a
woman's proper place was not in the theatre. The influential
Abraham-Joseph Bénard remarked "Mme de Gouges is one of those
women to whom one feels like giving razor blades as a present, who
The Code Noir, a decree
through their pretensions lose the charming qualities of their sex...
passed by King Louis XIV in
Every woman author is in a false position, regardless of her talent." De
1685. The Code Noir
Gouges was defiant: she wrote "I'm determined to be a success, and I'll defined the conditions of
do it in spite of my enemies." The slave trade lobby mounted a press slavery in the French
campaign against her play and she eventually took legal action, forcing colonial empire and
restricted the activities of
free Negroes
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Comédie-Française to stage L'Esclavage des Noirs. But the play closed after three performances;
the lobby had paid hecklers to sabotage the performances.[21]
Revolutionary politics
A passionate advocate of human rights, de Gouges greeted the outbreak of the Revolution with
hope and joy, but soon became disenchanted when égalité (equal rights) was not extended to
women. In 1791, influenced and inspired by John Locke's treatises on natural rights, de Gouges
became part of the Society of the Friends of Truth, also known as the "Social Club," which was an
association whose goals included establishing equal political and legal rights for women. Members
sometimes gathered at the home of the well-known women's rights advocate, Sophie de Condorcet.
In 1791, in response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, she wrote the
Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne ("Declaration of the Rights of Woman and
of the Female Citizen"). In that pamphlet she expressed, for the first time, her famous statement:
A woman has the right to mount the scaffold. She must possess equally the right to
mount the speaker's platform.[22]
This was followed by her Contrat Social ("Social Contract", named after a famous work of Jean-
Jacques Rousseau), proposing marriage based upon gender equality.[22]
In 1790 and 1791, in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), free people of
colour and African slaves revolted in response to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen.[23] De Gouges did not approve of violent revolution, and
published L'Esclavage des Noirs with a preface in 1792, arguing that the slaves and the free people
who responded to the horrors of slavery with "barbaric and atrocious torture" in turn justified the
behavior of the tyrants. In Paris, de Gouges was accused by the mayor of Paris of having incited the
insurrection in Saint-Domingue with the play.[24] When it was staged again in December 1792 a
riot erupted in Paris.[25]
De Gouges opposed the execution of Louis XVI (which took place on 21 January 1793), partly out of
opposition to capital punishment and partly because she favored constitutional monarchy. This
earned her the ire of many hard-line republicans, even into the next generation—such as the 19th-
century historian Jules Michelet, a fierce apologist for the Revolution, who wrote, "She allowed
herself to act and write about more than one affair that her weak head did not understand."[26]
Michelet opposed any political participation by women and thus disliked de Gouges.[27] In
December 1792, when Louis XVI was about to be put on trial, she wrote to the National Assembly
offering to defend him, causing outrage among many deputies. In her letter she argued that he had
been duped—that he was guilty as a king, but innocent as a man, and that he should be exiled
rather than executed.[28]
Olympe de Gouges was associated with the Gironde faction, which ultimately led to her being
executed. After the execution of Louis XVI she became wary of Robespierre's Montagnard faction
and in open letters criticized their violence and summary killings. She did not go to the guillotine
for her feminism, as many might think. Instead her crime was spreading Federalism as a
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replacement for Montagnard revolutionary central rule. Revolutionary rule during the Terror was
accompanied by emphasis on masculine public political authority that resulted, for example, in the
expulsion of women from Jacobin clubs.[29]
Arrest and execution
As the Revolution progressed, she became more and more
vehement in her writings. On 2 June 1793, the Jacobins of the
Montagnard faction imprisoned prominent Girondins; they
were sent to the guillotine in October. Finally, her poster Les
Trois urnes, ou le Salut de la Patrie, par un voyageur aérien
("The Three Urns, or the Salvation of the Fatherland, by an
Aerial Traveller") of 1793, led to her arrest. Olympe decreed in
this publication that "Now is the time to establish a decent
government whose energy comes from the strength of its laws;
now is the time to put a stop to assassinations and the suffering
they cause, for merely holding opposing views. Let everyone
examine their consciences; let them see the incalculable harm
caused by such a long-lasting division...and then everyone can
pronounce freely on the government of their choice. The
majority must carry the day. It is time for death to rest and for Olympe de Gouges, 1793
anarchy to return to the underworld."[30] She also called for an
end to the bloodshed of the Revolution saying "It is time to put
a stop to this cruel war that has only swallowed up your
treasure and harvested the most brilliant of your young. Blood,
alas, has flowed far too freely!" and warned that "The divided
French... are fighting for three opposing governments; like
warring brothers they rush to their downfall and, if I do not
halt them, they will soon imitate the Thebans, ending up by
slitting each others throats to the last man standing".[31] That
piece demanded a plebiscite for a choice among three potential
forms of government: the first, a unitary republic, the second, a
federalist government, or the third, a constitutional monarchy.
The problem was that the law of the revolution made it a
capital offense for anyone to publish a book or pamphlet that
encouraged reestablishing the monarchy.[32]
Marie-Olympe de Gouges was arrested on 20 July 1793. Les trois urnes, the 1793 poster by
Although she was arrested in July, she would not meet the end Olympe de Gouges that led to her
arrest and execution
of her life until November of that year.[33] After her arrest, the
commissioners searched her house for evidence. When they
could not find any in her home, she voluntarily led them to the storehouse where she kept her
papers. It was there that the commissioners found an unfinished play titled La France Sauvée ou le
Tyran Détroné ("France Preserved, or The Tyrant Dethroned"). In the first act (only the first act
and a half remain), Marie-Antoinette is planning defense strategies to retain the crumbling
monarchy and is confronted by revolutionary forces, including de Gouges herself. The first act ends
with de Gouges reproving the queen for having seditious intentions and lecturing her about how
she should lead her people. Both de Gouges and her prosecutor used this play as evidence in her
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trial. The prosecutor claimed that de Gouges's depictions of the queen threatened to stir up
sympathy and support for the Royalists, whereas de Gouges stated that the play showed that she
had always been a supporter of the Revolution.[34]
She spent three months in jail without an attorney as the presiding judge had denied de Gouges
her legal right to a lawyer on the grounds that she was more than capable of representing herself. It
is likely that the judge based this argument on de Gouges's tendency to represent herself in her
writings.[34] Through her friends, she managed to publish two texts: Olympe de Gouges au
tribunal révolutionnaire ("Olympe de Gouges at the Revolutionary tribunal"), in which she related
her interrogations; and her last work, Une patriote persécutée ("A [female] patriot persecuted"), in
which she condemned the Terror.[34]
De Gouges had acquired for her son, Pierre Aubry, a position as a vice-general and head of
battalion in exchange for a payment of 1,500 livres, and he was suspended from this office after her
arrest.[35] On 2 November 1793 she wrote to him: "I die, my dear son, a victim of my idolatry for
the fatherland and for the people. Under the specious mask of republicanism, her enemies have
brought me remorselessly to the scaffold."[36]
On 3 November 1793, the Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced
her to death, and she was executed for seditious behavior and
attempting to reinstate the monarchy.[37] Olympe was executed
only a month after Condorcet had been proscribed, and just
three days after the Girondin leaders had been guillotined. Her
body was disposed of in the Madeleine Cemetery.[38] Olympe's
last moments were depicted by an anonymous Parisian who
kept a chronicle of events:
Yesterday, at seven o'clock in the evening, a most
extraordinary person called Olympe de Gouges who
held the imposing title of woman of letters, was
taken to the scaffold, while all of Paris, while
admiring her beauty, knew that she didn't even
know her alphabet... She approached the scaffold
with a calm and serene expression on her face, and
forced the guillotine's furies, which had driven her The execution of Olympe de
to this place of torture, to admit that such courage Gouges
and beauty had never been seen before... That
woman... had thrown herself in the Revolution,
body and soul. But having quickly perceived how
atrocious the system adopted by the Jacobins was,
she chose to retrace her steps. She attempted to
unmask the villains through the literary
productions which she had printed and put up.
They never forgave her, and she paid for her
carelessness with her head.[39]
Posthumous political impact
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Her execution was used as a warning to other politically active
women. At the 15 November 1793 meeting of the Commune,
Pierre Gaspard Chaumette cautioned a group of women
wearing Phrygian bonnets, reminding them of "the impudent
Olympe de Gouges, who was the first woman to start up
women's political clubs, who abandoned the cares of her home,
to meddle in the affairs of the Republic, and whose head fell
under avenging blade of the law". This posthumous
The execution of the Girondins
characterisation of de Gouges by the political establishment
was misleading, as de Gouges had no role in founding the
Society of Revolutionary Republican Women. In her political
writings de Gouges had not called for women to abandon their
homes, but she was cast by the politicians as an enemy of the
natural order, and thus enemy of the ruling Jacobin party.
Paradoxically, the two women who had started the Society of
Revolutionary Republican Women, Claire Lacombe and
Pauline Léon, were not executed.[40] Lacombe, Léon and
Theroigne de Mericourt had spoken at women's and mixed
clubs, and the Assemblée, while de Gouges had shown a
reluctance to engage in public speaking, but prolifically
published pamphlets.[41] However, Chaumette was a staunch
opponent of the Girondins, and had characterised de Gouges as
unnatural and unrepublican prior to her execution.[42]
The year 1793 has been described as a watershed for the
construction of women's place in revolutionary France, and the
deconstruction of the Girondins' Marianne. That year a number
of women with a public role in politics were executed, including
Cartoon showing Robespierre
Madame Roland and Marie-Antoinette. The new Républicaine
guillotining the executioner after
was the republican mother that nurtured the new citizen. having guillotined everyone else in
During this time the Convention banned all women's political France.
associations and executed many politically active women. [43]
1793 marked the start of the Reign of Terror in post-
revolutionary France, where thousands of people were executed. Across the Atlantic world
observers of the French Revolution were shocked, but the ideals of liberté, égalité, fraternité had
taken a life of their own.[44]
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen had been widely
reproduced and influenced the writings of women's advocates in the Atlantic world.[45] One year
after its publication, in 1792, the keen observer of the French Revolution Mary Wollstonecraft
published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.[46] Writings on women and their lack of rights
became widely available. The experience of French women during the revolution entered the
collective consciousness.
American women began to refer to themselves as citess or citizeness and took to the streets to
achieve equality and freedom.[47] The same year de Gouges was executed the pamphlet On the
Marriage of Two Celebrated Widows was published anonymously, proclaiming that "two
celebrated widows, ladies of America and France, after having repudiated their husbands on
account of their ill treatment, conceived of the design of living together in the strictest union and
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friendship."[48] Revolutionary novels were published that put women at the centre of violent
struggle, such as the narratives written by Helen Maria Williams and Leonora Sansay.[47] At the
1848 Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, the rhetorical style of the Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen was employed to paraphrase the United States
Declaration of Independence into the Declaration of Sentiments,[49] which demanded women's
right to vote.[50]
After her execution her son Pierre Aubry signed a letter in which he denied his endorsement for
her political legacy.[35] He tried to change her name in the records, to Marie Aubry, but the name
she had given herself has endured.[51]
Writing
All of Olympe de Gouges's plays and novels convey the overarching theme of her life's work:
indignation at social injustices. In addition to women's rights, de Gouges engaged contested topics
including the slave trade, divorce, marriage, debtors' prisons, children's rights, and government
work schemes for the unemployed. Much of her work foregrounded the troubling intersections of
two or more issues. While many plays by women playwrights staged at the Comédie Française were
published anonymously or under male pseudonyms, de Gouges broke with tradition; not only did
she publish using her own name, but she also pushed the boundaries of what was deemed
appropriate subject matter for women playwrights—and withstood the consequences.[52] A record
of her papers which were seized at the time of execution in 1793 lists about 40 plays.[53]
In 1784 she published an epistolary novel inspired by Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) by Pierre
Choderlos de Laclos. Her novel claimed to consist of authentic letters exchanged with her father
the Marquis de Pompignan, with the names changed. "Madame Valmont" thus represented de
Gouges herself, and "Monsieur de Flaucourt" was Pompignan.[54] The full title of the novel,
published shortly after Pompignan's death, indicated its claim: Mémoires de Madame de Valmont
sur l'ingratitude et la cruauté de la famille des Flaucourt avec la sienne dont les sieurs de
Flaucourt on reçu tant de services (Madame de Valmont's Memoirs on the Ingratitude and
Cruelty of the Flaucourt Family Towards her Own, which Rendered such Services to the Sirs
Flaucourt).[55]
As a playwright, she charged into the contemporary political controversies and was often in the
vanguard.[56] Alongside Marquis de Condorcet, de Gouges is considered one of France's earliest
public opponents of slavery.
De Gouges's first staged production was originally titled Zamore et Mirza; ou L'Heureux Naufrage
[Zamore and Mirza; or The Happy Shipwreck] (1788). Drawing both praise from abolitionists and
attacks from pro-slavery traders, it is the first French play to focus not only on the inhumanity of
slavery but also the first to feature the first-person perspective of an enslaved individual.[57]
In her 1788 "Réflexions sur les Hommes Nègres" she brought to attention the horrible plight of
slaves in the French colonies and condemned the injustice of the institution declaring “I clearly
realized that it was force and prejudice that had condemned them to that horrible slavery, in which
Nature plays no role, and for which the unjust and powerful interests of Whites are alone
responsible” likewise declaring that "Men everywhere are equal... Kings who are just do not want
slaves; they know that they have submissive subjects."[58]
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In the final act of L'Esclavage des Noirs de Gouges lets the French colonial master, not the slave,
utter a prayer for freedom: "Let our common rejoicings be a happy portent of liberty". She drew a
parallel between colonial slavery and political oppression in France. One of the slave protagonists
explains that the French must gain their own freedom, before they can deal with slavery. De
Gouges also openly attacked the notion that human rights were a reality in revolutionary France.
The slave protagonist comments on the situation in France "The power of one Master alone is in
the hands of a thousand Tyrants who trample the People under foot. The People will one day burst
their chains and will claim all its rights under Natural law. It will teach the Tyrants just what a
people united by long oppression and enlightened by sound philosophy can do". While it was
common in France to equate political oppression to slavery, this was an analogy and not an
abolitionist sentiment.[59]
Political pamphlets and letters
Over the course of her career, de Gouges published 68 pamphlets.[60]
Her first political brochure was published in November 1788, a
manifesto entitled Letter to the people, or project for a patriotic fund.
In early 1789 she published Remarques Patriotiques setting out her
proposals for social security, care for the elderly, institutions for
homeless children, hostels for the unemployed, and the introduction
of a jury system. In this work, she highlighted and promulgated the
issues facing France on the brink of revolution writing “France is sunk
in grief, the people are suffering and the Monarch cries out.
Parliament is demanding the Estates-General and the Nation cannot
come to an agreement. There is no consensus on electing these
assemblies...The Third Estate, with reason, claims a voice equal to that
of the Clergy and Nobility...for the problems that get worse every day”
and declared to the king that “Your People are unhappy.
Unhappy!”.[61] She also called upon women to "shake off the yoke of
shameful slavery". The same year she wrote a series of pamphlets on a
range of social concerns, such as illegitimate children. In these First page of Declaration of
pamphlets she advanced the public debate on issues that would later the Rights of Woman and of
be picked up by feminists, such as Flora Tristan. She continued to the Female Citizen
publish political essays between 1788 and 1791. Such as Cry of the
wise man, by a woman in response to Louis XVI calling together the Estates-General.[56]
De Gouges wrote her famous Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen shortly
after the French Constitution of 1791 was ratified by King Louis XVI, and dedicated it to his wife,
Queen Marie Antoinette. The French Constitution marked the birth of the short-lived
constitutional monarchy and implemented a status based citizenship. Citizens were defined as men
over 25 who were "independent" and who had paid the poll tax. These citizens had the right to
vote. Furthermore, active citizenship was two-tiered, with those who could vote and those who
were fit for public office. Women were by definition not afforded any rights of active citizenship.
Like men who could not pay the poll tax, children, domestic servants, rural day-laborers and
slaves, Jews, actors and hangmen, women had no political rights. In transferring sovereignty to the
nation the constitution dismantled the old regime, but de Gouges argued that it did not go far
enough.[62]
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De Gouges was not the only feminist who attempted to influence the political structures of late
Enlightenment France. But like the writings of Etta Palm d'Aelders, Theroigne de Mericourt, Claire
Lacombe and Marquis de Condorcet, her arguments fell on deaf ears. At the end of the 18th
century influential political actors such as Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-
Périgord and Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès were not convinced of the case for equality.[63]
In her early political letters de Gouges made a point of being a woman, and that she spoke "as a
woman". She addressed her public letters, published often as pamphlets, to statesmen such as
Jacques Necker, the Duke of Orléans, or the queen Marie-Antoinette. Like other pamphlet writers
in revolutionary France, she spoke from the margins and spoke of her experience as a citizen with a
desire to influence the ongoing public debate. In her letters she articulated the values of the
Enlightenment, and commented on how they may be put into practice, such as civic virtue,
universal rights, natural rights and political rights. In language and practice this was a debate
among men and about men. Republicans discussed civic virtue in terms of patriotic manliness (la
vertu mâle et répub-licaine). Women were not granted political rights in revolutionary France,
thus de Gouges used her pamphlets to enter the public debate and she argued that the debate
needed to include the female civic voice.[18]
De Gouges signed her pamphlets with citoyenne. It has been suggested that she adopted this
notion from Rousseau's letter To the Republic of Geneva, where he speaks directly to two types of
Genevans: the "dear fellow citizens" or his "brothers", and the aimables et virtueses Citoyenne,
that is the women citizens. In the public letter Remarques Patriotique from December 1788 de
Gouges justified why she is publishing her political thoughts, arguing that "This dream, strange
though it may seem, will show the nation a truly civic heart, a spirit that is always concerned with
the public good".[64]
As the politics of revolutionary France changed and progressed de Gouges failed to become an
actor on the political stage, but in her letters offered advice to the political establishment. Her
proposition for a political order remained largely unchanged. She expresses faith in the Estates
General and in reference to the estates of the realm, that the people of France (Third Estate) would
be able to ensure harmony between the three estates, that is clergy, nobility and the people.
Despite this she expresses loyalty for the ministers Jacques Necker and Charles Alexandre de
Calonne. De Gouges opposes absolutism, but believed France should retain a constitutional
monarchy.[64]
In her open letter to Marie-Antoinette, de Gouges declared:
I could never convince myself that a princess, raised in the midst of grandeur, had all
the vices of baseness... Madame, may a nobler function characterize you, excite your
ambition, and fix your attention. Only one whom chance had elevated to an eminent
position can assume the task of lending weight to the progress of the Rights of Woman
and of hastening its success. If you were less well informed, Madame, I might fear that
your individual interests would outweigh those of your sex. You love glory; think,
Madame, the greatest crimes immortalize one as much as the greatest virtues, but what
a different fame in the annals of history! The one is ceaselessly taken as an example,
and the other is eternally the execration of the human race.[65]
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Public letters, or pamphlets, were the primary means for the working class and women writers to
engage in the public debate of revolutionary France. The intention was not to court the favour of
the addressee, often a public figure. Frequently these pamphlets were intended to stir up public
anger. They were widely circulated within and outside France. De Gouges's contemporary Madame
Roland of the Gironde party became notorious for her Letter to Louis XVI in 1792. In the same
year de Gouges penned Letter to Citizen Robespierre, which Robespierre refused to answer. De
Gouges took to the street, and on behalf of the French people proclaimed "Let us plunge into the
Seine! Thou hast need of a bath ... thy death will claim things, and as for myself, the sacrifice of a
pure life will disarm the heavens."[66]
Legacy
Although she was a celebrity in her lifetime and a prolific author, de Gouges became largely
forgotten, but then rediscovered through a political biography by Olivier Blanc in the mid-
1980s.[67]
On 6 March 2004, the junction of the Rues Béranger, Charlot, de Turenne, and de Franche-Comté
in Paris was proclaimed the Place Olympe de Gouges. The square was inaugurated by the mayor of
the 3rd arrondissement, Pierre Aidenbaum, along with then first deputy mayor of Paris, Anne
Hidalgo. The actress Véronique Genest read an excerpt from the Declaration of the Rights of
Woman. 2007 French presidential contender Ségolène Royal expressed the wish that de Gouges's
remains be moved to the Panthéon. However, her remains—like those of the other victims of the
Reign of Terror—have been lost through burial in communal graves, so any reburial (like that of
Marquis de Condorcet) would be only ceremonial.
She is honoured in many street names across France, in the Salle Olympe de Gouges exhibition hall
in rue Merlin, Paris, and the Parc Olympe de Gouges in Annemasse.
The 2018 play The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson centers on de Gouges and a dramatized
version of her life as a playwright and activist during the Reign of Terror.[68]
Selected works
Zamore et Mirza, ou l’heureux naufrage (Zamore and Mirza, or the Happy Shipwreck) 1784[69]
Le Mariage inattendu de Chérubin (The Unexpected Marriage of Cherubin) 1786[70]
L’Homme généreux (The Generous Man) 1786[71]
Molière chez Ninon, ou le siècle des grands hommes (Molière at Ninon, or the Century of
Great Men) 1788[72]
Les Démocrates et les aristocrates (The Democrats and the Aristocrats) 1790[73]
La Nécessité du divorce (The Necessity of Divorce) 1790[74]
Le Couvent (The Convent) 1790[75]
Mirabeau aux Champs Élysées (Mirabeau at the Champs Élysées) 1791[76]
La France sauvée, ou le tyran détrôné (France saved, or the Dethroned Tyrant) 1792[77]
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L'Entrée de Dumouriez à Bruxelles (The Entrance of Dumouriez in Brussels) 1793[78]
Portrayals
The Revolutionists, play by Lauren Gunderson which premiered at Cincinnati Playhouse in the
Park in February 2016 with Lise Bruneau in the role of Olympe[79] · [80]
Flashback, a Caroline Vigneaux film released in November 2021 on Amazon Prime Video with
Sylvie Testud in the role of de Gouges.
Olympe, play by Frank Salin where she is intepreted on stage by Firmine Richard at the
Festival d'Avignon ("Off" Festival) in July 2024.[81]
Olympe, une femme dans la Révolution [Olympe, a woman in the Revolution] TV movie by
Matthieu Busson and Julie Gayet, where she is portrayed by Julie Gayet (2024).
See also
France portal
Feminism portal
List of civil rights leaders
List of women's rights activists
The Women's March on Versailles
Women's Petition to the National Assembly
References
1. Hunt, p. 498
2. Kuiper, Kathleen. "Researcher's Note: Who was Olympe de Gouges's father?" ([Link]
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3. Mousset, Sophie (2007). Women's Rights and the French Revolution: A Biography of Olympe
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4. Cole, John R. (2011). Between the Queen and the Cabby: Olympe de Gouge's Rights of
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6. Mousset, Sophie (2007). Women's Rights and the French Revolution: A Biography of Olympe
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7. Paul, Pauline (2 June 1989). "I Foresaw it All: The Amazing Life and Oeuvre of Olympe de
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8. Diamond, p. 98
9. Sokolnikova, page 88
10. Mousset, Sophie (2007). Women's Rights and the French Revolution: A Biography of Olympe
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11. Noack, Paul (1992). Olympe de Gouges, 1748–1793: Kurtisane und Kampferin für die Rechte
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13. Lisa L. Moore; Joanna Brooks; Caroline Wigginton (2012). Transatlantic Feminisms in the Age
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14. Scott p. 222
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France. University of Delaware. p. 122. ISBN 978-1611493559.
19. Erica Harth (1992). Cartesian Women: Versions and Subversions of Rational Discourse in the
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27. See Charles Monselet, Les Oubliés et les Dédaignés [The Forgotten and the Scorned]. See
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28. Longman (1989). Chronicle of the French Revolution, p. 311
29. Scott p. 232
30. De Gouges, Olympe. Les Trois Urnes, Ou Le Salut De La Patrie, Par Un Voyageur Aérien.
1793. ["Urnes" is the French equivalent of ballot boxes.]
31. De Gouges, Olympe. Les Trois Urnes, Ou Le Salut De La Patrie, Par Un Voyageur Aérien.
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32. Walsh, William Shepard (1913). A Handy Book of Curious Information: Comprising Strange
Happenings in the Life of Men and Animals, Odd Statistics, Extraordinary Phenomena, and Out
of the Way Facts Concerning the Wonderlands of the Earth. J. B. Lippincott & Co.. p. 834
33. Vanpee p. 47
34. Vanpée, Janie (March 1999). "Performing Justice: The Trials of Olympe de Gouges". Theatre
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[Link]/details/womenhighereduca00alem/page/n61). ISBN 978-1576076149.
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s://[Link]/[Link]). Archived from the original ([Link]
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73. de Gouges, Olympe. "Les Démocrates et les aristocrates" ([Link]
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74. de Gouges, Olympe. "La Nécessité du divorce" ([Link]
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34230/[Link] Archived from the original (htt
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2 November 2021.
77. de Gouges, Olympe de (20 June 2019). La France Sauvée ou le Tyran Détrôné: A
Dramaturgical Casebook ([Link]
78. de Gouges, Olympe. "Entrée de Dumouriez à Bruxelles" ([Link]
5085902/[Link] Archived from the original ([Link]
[Link]/[Link]) on 5 November 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2021.
79. "The Revolutionists - Fesisty Feminist Comedy, 2 Acts, 100 minutes" ([Link]
[Link]/all-plays/the-revolutionists). [Link]. Retrieved 2 November
2024.
80. "The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park presents a world premiere of The Revolutionists by
Lauren Gunderson (author) at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park Thompson Shelterhouse
Theatre, 962 Mt. Adams Circle Cincinnati, OH, Feb 6 – Mar 6, 2016" ([Link]
[Link]/productions/80761-the-revolutionists-at-cincinnati-playhouse-in-the-park-thompson-shel
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Further reading
Bergès, Sandrine (2022). Olympe de Gouges, doi:10.1017/9781009023702 ([Link]
1017%2F9781009023702). Cambridge University Press.
External links
Olympe de Gouges ([Link] on [Link]
A website containing English translations of de Gouges's works ([Link]
u)
An extensive article about Olympe de Gouges ([Link]
ttp://[Link]/hommes/[Link])
An excerpt from the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen ([Link]
[Link]/web/20041011032318/[Link]
Daniel Cazes (2007). Obras feministas de François Poulain de la Barre (1647–1723): estudio
preliminar ([Link]
beau++La+Fayette&pg=PA36). UNAM. p. 36. ISBN 978-9703246137.
Olympe de Gouges: bibliographical and biographical references. ([Link]
[Link]/project/directory-of-women-philosophers/de-gouges-olympe-1748-1793/) – Center
for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists
Retrieved from "[Link]
[Link] 16/16