MODULE - 6
A DIRECTORY RULES FRANCE
• Fall of Jacobin government allowed the wealthier middle classes to seize power.
• New constitution was introduced.
• Appointed
Which denieda Directory,
the voteantoexecutive made up of five members.
non-propertied
• Against
sectionstheof concentration of power
society. It provided in one-man
for two elected executive as under the Jacobins.
• legislative
Directors councils.
often clashed with the legislative councils, who then sought to dismiss
them.
• Political instability of the Directory paved the
way for the rise of a military dictator,
Napoleon Bonaparte.
DID WOMEN HAVE A REVOLUTION ?
PARISIAN WOMEN ON THEIR WAY TO VERSAILLES
This print is one of the many pictorial representations of
the events of 5 October 1789, when women marched to
Versailles and brought the king back with them to Paris
• Women were active participants.
• They hoped that their involvement would pressurise the revolutionary government.
• Women of the third estate had to work for a living.
They worked as seamstresses or laundresses,
sold flowers, fruits and vegetables at the market,
or were employed as domestic servants in the
That is, cook,
houses of prosperous fetch water,
people.
queue up for bread and
• Most women did not have access
look after to
theeducation
children. or job training.
• Daughters of nobles or wealthier members of the third
estate could study at a convent.
• Working women had also to care for their families.
• Wages were lower than those of men.
• Women started their own political clubs and newspaper.
• Sixty women’s clubs came up in different French cities.
• Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women was
the famous of them.
• Women were disappointed that the Constitution of 1791 reduced them to
passive citizens.
They demanded the right to vote, to be elected to Assembly and to hold political office.
• Revolutionary government did introduce laws that helped improve the lives of women.
Together with the creation of state schools, schooling was made compulsory for all girls.
• Fathers could no longer force them into marriage against their will.
• Marriage was made into a contract entered into freely
and registered under civil law.
• Divorce was made legal.
• Women could now train for jobs.
• Women’s struggle for equal political rights continued.
During the Reign of Terror, the new government issued
laws ordering closure of women’s club and banning their
political activities. May prominent women were arrested
and a number of them executed.
1946 Women in France won the right to vote.
THE LIFE OF A REVOLUTIONARY WOMAN OLYMPE DE
GOUGES (1748-1793)
Olympe de Gouges was one of the most important of the
politically active women in revolutionary France. She
protested against the Constitution and the Declaration of
Rights of Man and Citizen as they excluded women from
basic rights that each human being was entitled to. So, in
1791, she wrote a Declaration of the Rights of Woman
and Citizen, which she addressed to the Queen and to the
members of the National Assembly, demanding that they
act upon it. In 1793, Olympe de Gouges criticised the
Jacobin government for forcibly closing down womenís
clubs. She was tried by the National Convention, which
charged her with treason. Soon after this she was
executed.
SOME OF THE BASIC RIGHTS SET FORTH IN OLYMPE DE GOUGES DECLARATION.
1. Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights.
2. The goal of all political associations is the preservation of the natural rights of woman and
man: These rights are liberty, property, security, and above all resistance to oppression.
3. The source of all sovereignty resides in the nation, which is nothing but the union of
woman and man.
4. The law should be the expression of the general will;
all female and male citizens should have a say either
personally or by their representatives in its formulation;
it should be the same for all. All female and male citizens
are equally entitled to all honours and public
employment according to their abilities and
without any other distinction than that of their talents.
5. No woman is an exception; she is accused, arrested,
and detained in cases determined by law. Women,
like men, obey this rigorous law.