the role of women in the french revolution
DESCRIPTION
This is a little something I wrote for an honors history class at Eastern Michigan University. Hope you enjoy :)TRANSCRIPT
Beam 1
Michele Beam
Professor John Knight
History 110
5 December 2009
The Role of Women in the French Revolution
The French Revolution, which took place from 1789 to 1795, changed every facet of life.
The political, economic, social, and religious structures were destroyed and recreated. A new,
chaotic incarnation of France emerged. But where did the French women fit into this new society
created by the Revolution? The rapid change taking hold in France required women of all
classes, professions, and lifestyles to reevaluate their roles in society. In recent years, new details
regarding the participation of women in the French Revolution have been uncovered. Women
played a fundamental role in events throughout the Revolution, even more so than previously
thought. This was a period in which women would take an active role in politics, through clubs
and the feminist movement. However, all women did not share a common experience; depending
on their social standing and class, a woman’s involvement and perspectives varied greatly.
Up until the Enlightenment, women in throughout Europe had very limited rights.
Women were expected to be charming, well-dressed, and pleasing to the eye; this represented the
social status of their father or husband. A wife was expected to be chaste and produce heirs to
prolong the family line. While the domestic sphere was important, occasionally wives of middle
class families were allowed to help with the husband’s trade as long as it did not interfere with
their duties. During the Reformation period, a woman’s role as a wife and mother in the domestic
Beam 2
sphere became so important that excluded her from all other areas of life, and their involvement
in artisan trades diminished. Women were barred from universities, and as a result, their
education could only extend to the knowledge of traditional “women’s work.” Job opportunities
for females were very limited, as most desirable professions required an education, which they
were denied. The only type of job available to them was work in the domestic sphere, as maids,
wet nurses, seamstresses, and other similar jobs. These jobs kept their wages low, forcing them to
remain under the control of men. When the ideas of the Enlightenment began to spread, women
began to realize that they had rights too, according to the principles of democracy and
individualism. Women all throughout Europe and especially in France began to form salons,
where Enlightenment ideals were discussed.1 Historian Jane Abray states that “single or married,
women had few rights in the law during the last decades of the Ancien Régime. Their testimony
could be accepted in criminal and civil courts, but not for notarized acts like wills…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.”2 The history of women’s rights in Europe lays a foundation for the reasoning
behind the actions of Frenchwomen during the Revolution.
Women played a crucial role in the events of the Revolution, especially in its early years.
Previously, historians believed that mostly men participated in the major events, such as the
attack on the Bastille and the October Days but actually, women played quite a significant role.
The attack on the Bastille took place on the July 14, 1789. An angry mob of about three hundred
Parisians stormed the fortress, searching for weapons and gunpowder. Many viewed the prison
as a symbol of the despotism of the monarchy and nobility. Shirley Elson Roessler says that the
attack was “predominantly a male affair. However, there can be little doubt that there were
Beam 3
women present…contemporary prints show several women, armed, among the insurgents, who
had the support not only of the entire population of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, but of Paris as a
whole.”3 The attack on the Bastille is recognized by most historians as the inciting event of the
Revolution. Throughout the summer of 1789, tensions grew. Bread prices were rising, as a result
of a poor harvest that spring and a shortage of grain. This especially impacted peasants, who
barely made enough money to feed their families. According to Lucie de la Tour du Pin, a young
woman of the nobility, “Everywhere, people were poor and often hungry; for many, meals
consisted of little but soup, made from bread, water, and vegetables. The peasants, whole
families living in a single room, locked into a feudal system, paying much of their harvests in
tithes and taxes to absent noble landowners, were also battling a vicious circle.”4 Not only in
Paris, but all throughout the country, the majority of people were struggling to get by. In July,
the peasants of the French countryside had heard rumors that the aristocratic landowners had sent
roaming bands of vagrants out to protect their crops from the peasants. Coupled with the anxiety
over bread shortages and the overall frustration with the feudal system in the countryside, this
rumor started mass chaos. The peasants responded by arming themselves and attacking the
manor houses of their landlords, destroying paperwork that held them to any feudal obligations
as they went. They ransacked grain supplies of local merchants, helping themselves to as much
as they could take. 5 The Great Fear, as this period was known, only lasted a month. Local
militias began to establish order, and the first and second estates in the National Assembly issued
proclamation officially abolishing feudalism and relinquishing their feudal privileges on August
4.6 Women were especially involved in the Great Fear, since their role in the domestic sphere
included responsibilities for the family’s food supplies. They desperately needed grain in order to
keep their family from starvation, so they did what was necessary. According to Roessler,
Beam 4
“women were also making a valiant effort to feed their families. But they were also struggling to
understand the political tension which held all Paris in its grip. In so doing, they reached far
beyond the boundaries of their traditional domain…As well, the women could not help but
notice a marked increase in the number of soldiers in the area of Paris and Versailles during the
last days of September.”7 Clearly, the problems of the Parisian women were coming to a head.
October arrived, bringing even more bread shortages, but also rumors that the King and
Queen had disrespected the revolutionary colors of red, blue, and white and were plotting a
counter-revolution at Versailles.8 On October 5, 1789 a group of working and middle class
women began to gather in the Hotel de Ville section of Paris, all of them sharing complaints
about the scarcity of bread and grain in the city. They proceeded to the Hotel de Ville itself,
acting on a pretense of taking a tour. There were very few guards present to guard the ample
weapon stores housed there, and the supervisor was taken aback when the women began to take
weapons and ammunition. They gathered many more women, announcing that they planned to
march to Versailles to confront the king. They began the march with around 6,000 women and
500 men, pulling cannons on wagons and armed with pikes, spears, and any other weapons they
could find. They first made a stop at the National Assembly to protest the lack of bread, but were
seen as rabble and turned away. Most of the women continued on to Versailles. When they
arrived, a handful of women were admitted to see the king, who promised to provide provisions
for Paris and signed a declaration agreeing to do so. This satisfied the women, for the most part.
Many of the crowd who had marched the 12 miles to Versailles stayed overnight, sleeping on
floors, in barns, and anywhere else they could fit. Early in the morning of October 6, a small
group of women and men entered the palace through an unguarded door. They rushed toward the
royal apartments, killing guards along the way. The royal family remained unhurt, but was taken
Beam 5
aback by this act of violence. Later, the crowd began to call for the Queen to come out and
address them. Marie Antoinette stood on a balcony in her nightgown and bowed to the crowd,
which pleased them. Although this gesture sated their need for violence, the crowd still called for
the royal family to relocate. Eventually, the King and Queen were forced to leave Versailles for
the Tuileries palace in the heart of Paris.9 Roessler says that the women who marched on
Versailles “felt that if he were there, closer to his people than he could be at Versailles, their
government and therefore their lives would be greatly improved.”10 Historians agree that the
October Days were largely the responsibility of women. Without their participation, events may
have been vastly different.
Women also participated in the Reign of Terror, although their participation in this period
is viewed in a mostly negative light, and with good reason. When Maxmillian Robespierre came
to power, the Reign of Terror began. He systematically rounded up and imprisoned anyone who
was seen as an enemy of the revolution. This included priests who did not give up Catholicism
when it was abolished, royalists, former nobles, feminists, aristocrats, and his enemies in the
National Assembly. These victims of the terror were executed by the guillotine, a frightening
new invention that beheaded prisoners by the wagonload every day. Moorhead notes that “the
guillotine in the Place de la Republique, placed by the side of the statue of Liberty…was
working at such speed that the tricoteuses were splattered with blood as they knitted and came
away with their feet wet.”11 After the royal family was moved to Paris, they were harassed on a
daily basis. One particularly infamous incident is that of the trial and death of Marie Antoinette’s
best friend and loyal servant, the Princesse de Lamballe. In September of 1792, she was put on
trial and was asked to swear loyalty against the monarchy, which she refused to do. She was
thrown to the crowd outside, which was comprised of both men and women. They mutilated her
Beam 6
body and cut off her head, parading it around on a pike outside of Marie Antoinette’s window.
This is one of many disturbing events in which women participated during the Reign of Terror.
According to Censer et al, “concern over the price of food led to riots in February 1792 and
again in February 1793. In these disturbances, which often began at the door of shops, women
usually played a prominent role, egging on their confederates to demand lower prices and to
insist on confiscating goods and selling them at a "just" price.”12 In general, women participated
in the events of the French Revolution more than they had for any other event in the past. It
signaled a time where it was socially and politically acceptable for them to take a stand and take
actions that they would never have been allowed to in the past.
The French Revolution brought about women’s involvement in not only demonstrations,
but also politics. Moorhead says that in the late 1780’s “the Enlightenment, as it unfolded,
touched most of educated Europe, but in France and particularly Paris, its direction was
determined early by a succession of highly intelligent, imaginative, bold women who invited to
their salons men of letters, scholars, and socialites, who were, like themselves, tolerant,
reasonable, full of restraint and self-respect, hostile to the idea of a powerful and controlling
Church and monarchy.”13 Again, women were stepping out of their traditional role as a wife and
mother, and stepping in to an alternate role as an intellectual. In Paris especially, clubs for men
had always been popular. With the emergence of the salons of great women like Madame
Necker, Madame Roland, and Madame Geoffrin, women began to feel more comfortable
gathering to talk about politics and philosophies that affected their lives. Moorhead notes that “in
1789, France’s for the most part illiterate female population had listened to the discourse of
rights and wondered what it might achieve for them. It was women who had, after all, led the
March on Versailles. Freed at last to re-imagine a world made on their own terms, they began to
Beam 7
suggest that they should have a say in their choice of husband and even over how they wished to
live…In Paris, groups of women now opened their own clubs, went to meet friends and talk in
cafes, and sat in the public gallery of the Salle du Manege, where they heckled the delegates.”14
Some Parisian clubs, like the Cercle Social, allowed women to attend their meetings and
participate. The vast majority of clubs were still for men only, but the number of clubs that had
both genders participating grew throughout France. According to Roessler, “Paris was naturally
the center of this ‘mixed’ and female club activity, but important clubs were also organized in
Lyon and in many other provincial towns. Historians have identified more than thirty women’s
political clubs in cities such as Lyon, Dijon, and Bordeaux and scattered throughout France.”15 In
1791, Etta Palm d’Aelders established the first club exclusively for women called Les Amies de
la Verite for the promotion of the feminist ideals of the Marquise de Condorcet, Olympe de
Gouges, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The organization charged expensive dues, which most
working-class women were not able to afford; most of the club’s population consisted of upper-
class women.16 The most notable of the women’s clubs was the Club des Citoyennes
Republicaines Revolutionnaires, which was founded in the spring of 1793 by Pauline Leon and
Claire Lacombe. The women that were part of this club were sans-culottes who emphasized
economic claims, cheap food, and basic improvements for women rather than demands of
feminists like Olympe de Gouges and Etta Palm d’Aelders.17 Jenifer Clark notes that the
Republicaines Revolutionnaires were mainly focused on enforcing the terror and taking political
manners in to their own hands. In the fall of 1793, women from the Republicaines
Revolutionnaires beat a group of market women for refusing to wear the tricolor cockade, a
symbol of national pride. 18 This caused the National Assembly to seriously reconsider the
existence of women’s clubs. The Committee of General Security agreed that women “did not
Beam 8
have the strength of character needed to govern; political meetings took them away from ‘the
more important concerns to which nature calls them.’”19 The bad example of one club struck the
club movement a fatal blow. By abolishing political clubs for women “the Committee of General
Security and the Convention made it clear that political questions were a pretext. What they
wanted to do was exclude women, as a group, from public life.”20 From 1789 to 1793, women’s
political involvement in social clubs flourished, but was halted by the extremist ideology of the
Club des Citoyennes Republicaines Revolutionnaires.
Women’s political involvement was stimulated by clubs, but there was also a more
focused vein who sought greater rights for women. The feminist movement began as early as
1789 when Olympe de Gouges, a failed working-class actress, petitioned the National Assembly
for reforms. She demanded “full legal equality of the sexes, wide job opportunities for women, a
state alternative to the primary dowry system, and schooling for girls.”21 In 1791, de Gouges
published her “Declaration of the Rights of Women” which was modeled on “Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen” and called for equal rights between women and men, a
National Assembly for women, a single standard of justice, and freedom of speech for women. 22
During the same time, the Marquise de Condorcet, the single biggest male proponent of
feminism, “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 professions opened to both sexes…Condorcet
insisted that women who met the property qualification…should be allowed to vote.”23 Etta Palm
d’Aelders, an upper-class woman, was another instrumental feminist who propagated her ideas
beginning in 1790. She gave a speech which “deplored the type of woman who gave herself
totally to the duties of household and family…She felt that women were ‘victims of an education
Beam 9
that took away their courage and suffocated their spirits. Furthermore, she advocated that since
the French had descended from the Romans, the women should now imitate the Roman women
in courage and determination.”24 In April of 1792, Palm d’Aelders “presented a petition in which
she asked the deputies to take under consideration the state of degradation to which women were
reduced in the matter of political rights…She requested that the Assembly give to females the
right to a moral education and that they declare them adults at age twenty-one. As well, she
asked that political liberty and equality of rights be granted to both sexes and that a divorce law
be passed…Indeed, the Assembly later in the year did grant women legal majority at age twenty-
one, including the right to appear as witnesses in civil lawsuits, and produced a law making
divorce possible by mutual consent or marital incompatibility.”25
The leaders of the feminist movement had several major goals. They called for equal
rights between men and women, greater job opportunities, better education, political equality,
divorce laws, the abolishment of primogeniture, and greater freedom to govern their own lives.
In general, the feminists used three major arguments to help achieve their goals. First, women
were human beings who shared natural rights with men; their struggles were parallel to the
struggles of the Third Estate. Second, they were mothers and produced citizens, so they should
have equal rights because their reproduction guaranteed the survival of the bloodlines of France.
Third, the women felt they were fulfilling their patriotic duties as citizens just as well as men,
and because of this could not logically be denied the rights of a citizen.26 The feminists achieved
their goals by forming clubs to discuss these ideals and petitioning the National Assembly. On
many occasions, women addressed the National Assembly, the most popular issues being
divorce, education, and freedom to govern their own lives. In 1792, the feminist’s hopes were
realized, as the National Assembly gave in to some of their demands. New inheritance laws
Beam 10
abolished primogeniture, giving female children equal rights. Women were granted majority at
age twenty-one and after that could contract debts and witness in civil courts. Divorce legislation
was passed which treated women equally and gave them more freedom over their personal
lives.27 It seemed that the dreams of de Gouges, Condorcet, and Palm d’Aelders were coming to
fruition.
1793 proved to be a fatal year for feminism and women’s clubs. The scandalous actions
of the Club des Citoyennes Republicaines Revolutionnaires and their radical ideals reflected a
bad light on not only political clubs, but on French women in general. Abray suggests that “the
suppression of the women’s clubs effectively destroyed the feminist’s political aspirations. It was
not, however, the clearest statement on women’s rights the government made…the convention
voted to exclude women from its meetings; in the 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…The progress of the Revolution had
rendered the brave hopes of the feminists of 1789-1791 chimerical.”28 The fate of Olympe de
Gouges and Madame Roland reflected the fate of the feminist movement; both women were
guillotined in 1793. While women had earned greater rights than they had in the past, these
advances were all swept away by the Napoleonic Codes in 1804.
The feminist movement failed not only because the National Assembly stifled the
political actions of women, it failed because it didn’t have a broad enough base of support. The
majority of French women didn’t want to change their social status. Most accepted the 18th
century ideals of domesticity and femininity that they were held to.29 Abray says women of the
Third Estate asked for Enlightenment and jobs, “not to usurp men’s authority, but to rise in their
esteem and to have the means of living safe from misfortune.”30 Put simply, the feminist
Beam 11
movement was focused on a specific group of people, and that group of people made up only a
small portion of the population.
Differences between women of the working-class and upper-class are apparent. Clark
notes that “the market women demanded protection of their professional rights through the
reestablishment of medieval trade guilds and complained about their work conditions, filthy
hospitals, and the social injustice of having daily to work hard eking out an existence while
others earned money through taxes and lived lazy, extravagant lives. In contrast to the practical
concerns and frustrations of the working women, the requests of aristocratic women focused on
civil rights issues such as obtaining the vote, representation, equality in marriage, and initiating
divorce.”31 Clearly, there is a gap between the needs of two classes. The feminist movement was
centered on the aristocratic women, as previously mentioned. They had an advantage; they could
afford to pay the dues for popular clubs like Les Amies de la Verite. Working-class women also
had a greater passion for revolutionary ideals and causes. When they marched to Versailles
during the October Days of 1789, “there were many testimonies given which recalled violent and
vulgar threats against the queen. It becomes clear that many of the women held the queen
responsible for the political problems which the country faced and that any loyalty they might
have felt for the king did not extend to her.”32 Working-class women were also behind the
monstrous actions committed by the Club des Citoyennes Republicaines Revolutionnaires and in
general during the Reign of Terror. Aristocratic women, for the most part, emigrated to
surrounding countries to avoid being suspected as a counter-revolutionary and guillotined. The
ones who stayed behind were extremely loyal to the Revolution, and had to tread very carefully
in order not to be jailed and executed as royalists. Upper-class women did not have to worry as
much as the working-class to obtain bread and sustenance, even in the times of inflation and
Beam 12
near-famine. They simply did not have the concerns of maintaining a standard of daily life that
the peasants did. Obviously, there was a large gap in experiences between women of the
working-class and of the upper-class.
During the French Revolution, women, especially in Paris, stepped out of their traditional
domestic role as a mother and wife, and extended into the turbulent world of revolutionary
politics. They were directly involved with major events, such as the attack on the Bastille, the
October Days of 1789, the Reign of Terror, and bread riots throughout the revolution. Women
also experienced the new and short-lived phenomenon of mixed and women’s-only clubs such as
the Les Amies de la Verite and the Club des Citoyennes Republicaines Revolutionnaires. The
feminist movement, guided by Olympe de Gouges, the Marquise de Condorcet, and Etta Palm
d’Aelders, had success in the sense that it achieved the most important of its far-reaching goals,
but failed in the sense that it did not garner support throughout all social classes. There was a
significant difference in the experiences shared by the working-class and aristocrats. Women in
participated in the Revolution more than anyone from that time would have imagined possible
and more than historians had previously thought. Their role was instrumental in the fate of the
revolution and will always be remembered as a time that changed the status of women
throughout all of Europe.
Beam 13
Notes
1 Radek, Kimberly. “Women from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment.” ivcc.edu. Illinois Valley Community College Gender Studies Dept, 2008.
2 Abray, Jane. “Feminism in the French Revolution.” The American Historical Review February 1975: 42-62.
3 Roessler, Shirley Elson. Out of the Shadows, Women and Politics in the French Revolution, 1789-1795. New York: Peter Lang, 1996 p. 8.
4 Moorehead, Caroline. Dancing to the Precipice, the Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era. New York: Harper Collins, 2009 p. 90.
5 Censer, Jack and Lynn Hunt. “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, Exploring the French Revolution.” Center for History and New Media of George Mason University, 2001.
6 “Women and the French Revolution, 1789-1795.” pinn.net. Sunshine for Women, 2003.
7 Roessler, p. 11.
8 Censer et al.
9 Roessler, p. 12-35.
10 Roessler, p.46.
11 Moorhead, p. 172.
12 Censer et al.
13 Moorhead, p. 19.
14 Moorhead, p.138.
15 Roessler, p. 50.
16 Clark, Jenifer. “Women in the French Revolution: The Failure of the Parisian Women’s Movement in Relation to the Theories of Feminism of Rousseau and Condorcet.” The Concord Review 1992: 115-127 p.120.
17 Abray, p.52.
18 Clark, p. 121.
19 Abray, p. 56.
20 Abray, p. 57.
21 Clark, p. 119.
Beam 14
22 Censer et al.
23 Abray, p. 45
24 Roessler, p. 58.
25 Roessler, p. 61-62.
26 Abray, p. 52.
27 Abray, p. 58.
28 Abray, p. 58.
29 Abray, p. 59.
30 Abray, p. 46.
31 Clark, p. 117.
32 Roessler, p. 39.
Beam 15
Works Cited
Abray, Jane. “Feminism in the French Revolution.” The American Historical Review February
1975: 42-62. Print.
Censer, Jack and Lynn Hunt. “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, Exploring the French
Revolution.” Center for History and New Media of George Mason University, 2001.
Web. 22 November 2009.
Clark, Jenifer. “Women in the French Revolution: The Failure of the Parisian Women’s
Movement in Relation to the Theories of Feminism of Rousseau and Condorcet.” The
Concord Review 1992: 115-127. Print
Moorehead, Caroline. Dancing to the Precipice, the Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness
to an Era. New York: Harper Collins, 2009. Print.
Radek, Kimberly. “Women from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment.” ivcc.edu. Illinois
Valley Community College Gender Studies Dept, 2008. Web. 24 November 2009.
Roessler, Shirley Elson. Out of the Shadows, Women and Politics in the French Revolution,
1789-1795. New York: Peter Lang, 1996. Print.
“Women and the French Revolution, 1789-1795.” pinn.net. Sunshine for Women, 2003. Web. 22
November 2009.