Daily Life During the French Revolution (31 page)

Madame Roland, often considered one of the most remarkable
women of the revolution for her vitality and courage, was cruelly and callously
condemned to death by the Jacobins. As she bravely walked past a statue of
Liberty erected near the scaffold, she cried, “Oh Liberty! How many crimes are
committed in thy name!” Her husband, having escaped to Normandy, committed
suicide on hearing of his wife’s execution.

Charlotte Corday, an entirely different type of woman, came
from an ancient titled family and spent her early years in a convent. Her
sympathies lay with the Girondins, some of whom had fled to her town of Caen in
open opposition against the Jacobins, The 25-year-old woman made the decision
that she would save France from misfortune by committing the heroic act of
eliminating the bloodthirsty Marat, who every day demanded more and more heads
in his paper
L
’
Ami du Peuple
to satisfy what he considered his
patriotic duty.

On July 13, 1793, she left her home in Normandy and went to
Paris, where she wrote Marat a letter saying she had some vital information
about the Girondins in the town of Rouen to pass on to him if he would see her.
The ruse worked. He was ill and at home, and, after talking with him for a few
minutes while he was in his bath, she took out a knife and stabbed him.
Arrested immediately, she was taken to prison. At her trial, she freely
admitted the murder of Marat, saying that she did it so that peace would return
to France. On July 17, 1793, she was guillotined.

A sans-culotte woman, 1792,
ready to play her part in the revolution.

POLITICAL CLUBS AND POPULAR SOCIETIES

Popular societies, mainly bourgeois clubs, gave Parisian
women a limited chance to participate in contemporary politics, but there were
various rules: the Luxembourg Society permitted daughters (age 14 and up) of
members, and other women over the age of 22 to attend meetings, provided that
their numbers did not exceed one-fifth of the total number of members present.
The society of Sainte-Geneviève permitted women if there was room and if they
sat apart. The Cordeliers Club allowed women from the beginning, but in July
1791 it restricted their share of the membership to 60 women, preferring that
they be primarily symbolic. Earlier, in February 1790, it had even allowed a
woman, Théroigne de Méricourt, to address the assembly and put forth a motion.
Her request to take part in further sessions was turned down by the lawyer,
Paré, who nevertheless conceded that the council of Mâcon recognized that
women, like men, possessed a soul and reason.

Some clubs, less stringent about membership, freely
admitted women. These included the Indigens and the Minimes, among others.
Women also attended the original meetings of the Société Fraternelle at the
Jacobin club. The rules adopted June 2, 1792, allowed both sexes to seek
admission and to take part in discussions and elections. An attempt was made to
reserve a share of the club’s offices for women and to ensure they were
represented on delegations, but this was not successful. A fairly high
percentage of members of these various societies were from the artisan and
shopkeeper class. With the exception of the Indigens, very few of the
desperately poor enrolled in them. Madame Moittre, of the
Académie de
Peinture,
organized a deputation of women artists as well as wives of
artists to visit the National Assembly in September 1789, where they presented
their jewels to the nation as a contribution toward the national debt. Etta Palm,
in December 1790, became very busy lobbying the committees of the National
Assembly for equal rights for women but failed to organize a network of women’s
clubs in Paris.

Pauline Léon, 21 years old at the outbreak of the
revolution, in February 1791 led a group of female rioters to a house, looking
for the Abbé Royou, editor of the paper
Ami du Roi,
who was staying
there at the time. They demolished the house and threw a bust of Lafayette out
of the window. About this time, Léon began to appear at both the Cordeliers
Club and the Société Fraternelle. On July 17, 1791, she narrowly escaped injury
in the massacre of the Champ de Mars, where she, her mother, and a friend had
gone to sign a republican petition sponsored by the two societies. She later
associated with the Luxembourg Society and served as a committee member with
responsibility for admissions. In February 1792, with the support of the
Minimes Popular Society, Léon, along with 300 other women, signed a petition to
the National Assembly to organize a women’s armed fighting force. The proposal
seems to have been rejected on the basis that this kind of agitation was
distracting women from their proper household duties. In May 1793, Léon made
another attempt, announcing at the Jacobin club the beginnings of an
organization to recruit women volunteers to fight in the Vendée against
royalist insurgents. This was the beginning of the Revolutionary Republic
Women’s Society, a club whose membership was limited to women. In two years,
she had moved from the Cordeliers (where women were patronized), to the Fraternelle
and the Luxembourg (where they were given a measure of equality), to the
Revolutionary Republic Women’s Society, which excluded men.

While women attempted to start their own clubs, by 1793 the
Convention had severely repressed them and excluded them from formal political
activity, putting a ban on women’s membership in political organizations of any
kind. Most politicians were firmly against women’s political rights, and there
were often strong verbal attacks on women. A Jacobin had tried to justify the
banning of the militant women’s organizations at the Convention on October 30,
1773, by describing men as

strong,
robust, born with great energy, audacity and courage . . . destined for
agriculture, commerce, navigation, travel, war . . . he alone seems suited for
serious, deep thought . . . and women as being, unsuited for advanced thinking
and serious reflection . . . more exposed to error and an exultation which
would be disastrous in public life.

The idea of rights was universal, however, and the
discrepancies between principle and practice were sharply pointed out by many
courageous women. On September 1791, a butcher’s daughter and part-time
actress, Olympe de Gouges, published
Déclaration des droits de la femme et
de la citoyenne
(Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens). It was a
bold move, but to no avail. Once women’s clubs were banned altogether, women
began to frequent the cafes and bars instead, where they made their views
known.

SALONS

Salons were historically aristocratic institutions where
one could mix with privilege and rank. Here, opinions were shared by both men
and women in private houses. These gatherings were hosted by women and date
back to the seventeenth century; the first salon is attributed to Madame
Rambouillet. Many more soon followed, organized by influential women who set
the agenda for discussion, selected the guests, and decided whether or not
additional activities, such as poetry readings or the presentation of a
dramatic piece from an up-and-coming playwright, would be included. There was
no official or academic status involved, but to be invited enhanced a person’s
prestige and opened doors. Participants were generally philosophers,
scientists, novelists, politicians, playwrights, and wealthy entrepreneurs.
Some politically oriented women found their way into society through their
salons, such as Louise Robert, a journalist whose salons were attended by
Danton and Chabot. The discussions that took place often served as a source of
material for the newspapers.

For many of these people, discussion was not only a
diversion but an occupation. They might meet at two in the afternoon, talk
until about seven, dine, and then meet again later in the evening to exchange
views on subjects from Plato to Benjamin Franklin, from agriculture to
politics, although literary topics and current events were high on the agenda.
Ideas of the Enlightenment were freely discussed away from the eyes of censors
or the royal court. Some salons engaged in special subjects; for example, the
elite of the artistic world met at the house of Julie Talma, and paintings and
sculpture exhibitions might also take place at a salon where the artist
displayed his latest work. Patriots attended sessions at the home of Madame
Bailly, wife of the mayor of Paris, and at Madame Necker’s on Thursdays, where
such luminaries as Sieyès, Condorcet (whose wife held her own salon), Parmy,
and Talleyrand gathered. After 1791, more radical salons began to appear, such
as those of Madame Desmoulins and Madame Roland.

MADAME GERMAINE DE STAËL

Germaine Necker was born into a wealthy Protestant
bourgeois family on April 22, 1766. Her father, Jacques Necker, a Swiss banker,
became the minister of finance under Louis XVI. Her mother gathered the finest
minds in France and from abroad at her salon, and she permitted Germaine to
attend, where she impressed many with her quick wit. Her mother became her
primary tutor as she learned history, philosophy, and literature, especially
studying the books of the exponents of the Enlightenment. At age 25, Germaine
married the bankrupt Magnus Staël von Holstein, the Swedish ambassador to
France, for the independence this would give her, and in 1786 she took up
residence in the Swedish embassy in Paris, where she presided over her ailing
mother’s salon. Later, she established her own salon, where writers, artists,
and critics spent much time in discourse on good manners, good taste, and
literary trends.

Her father was dismissed from office and recalled several
times, and Germaine fully supported him with tongue and pen as she became more
deeply involved in politics. When he was ordered out of the country, he left,
accompanied by his wife and angry daughter and with ambassador Magnus, who, it
seems, preferred to stay closer to the money than to his job.

Germaine encouraged the Girondins and supported the
government, but she pleaded for a bicameral legislature under a constitutional
monarchy that would assure representative government, civil liberties, and
protection of property.

She soon lost respect for her incompetent and insolvent
husband and did not object to his taking as his mistress a 70-year-old actress
on whom he spent his official income as ambassador—a position he neglected as
he spent much time gambling and losing while the Neckers reluctantly paid his
debts.

A free spirit, Germaine was known for her sparkling wit and
strong will; although she was not pretty, any bed she chose was generally
available to her. In one of her many influential books,
Delphine,
she
wrote, “Between God and love I recognize no mediator but my conscience.” The
first of her many affairs was with Talleyrand. Later, there were other lovers,
including Louis de Narbonne-Lara, to whom she formed a deep attachment. As a
member of the aristocracy, he was against the bourgeois regime, but the
persuasive views of Germaine brought him around.

When she returned to Paris, her salon again became active,
graced with the presence of Lafayette, Brissot, Barnave, Condorcet, and
Narbonne-Lara. With the help of Lafayette and Barnave, she managed the
appointment of Narbonne-Lara as minister of war. Marie-Antoinette reluctantly
let this stand with a bitter comment on the good fortune of Madame de Staël,
who now had the entire army at her disposal. Narbonne-Lara did not last long in
his post, however. Advising the king to reject the aristocracy and support the
propertied bourgeoisie to maintain law and order under a limited monarchy, he
offended ministers of the crown, who orchestrated his dismissal.

On June 20, 1792, Germaine witnessed the storming of the
Tuileries by a large, frighteningly violent crowd. The shouts, insults, and
murderous weapons offered a horrifying spectacle. On August 20, she saw another
such assault, and this time the palace was taken over by the mob, the royal
family fleeing to the Legislative Assembly for protection. The frenzied rebels
arrested every aristocrat they could find, and Germaine spent much money
sheltering friends and helping them to escape. She hid Narbonne-Lara in the
Swedish embassy and stood up to a patrol that wanted to search it. He was later
secreted to England.

Worse was yet to come. On September 2, 1792, the rampant
sans-culottes opened the jails and murdered the aristocrats and their
supporters who they found there. Meanwhile, on the same day, Germaine set out
in a fine six-horse coach accompanied by servants, the ambassador’s insignia
prominently on display. She headed for the gates of the city but had not gone
far when the carriage was stopped by a menacing gaggle of women. Burly workmen
appeared and ordered the carriage to drive to the section headquarters at the
Hôtel de Ville. She was escorted through a hostile crowd brandishing pikes and
lances and taken to an interrogation room. Her fate seemed sealed, but, as luck
would have it, a friend who saw her in the headquarters of the Commune managed
to secure her release, accompanied her to the embassy, and obtained a passport
that allowed her to pass the city gate and turn the horses toward her family
home in Switzerland. On September 7, she reached her parents’ château and soon
after gave birth to a son, Albert. She continued to give refuge to passing
emigrants escaping France—noble or common.