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Reading Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary Guide France

By Lucy Moore

Note that the major personalities in this book (and therefore the contest questions) are the six women described below. Several others appear only as minor characters and for very short time periods. Study efforts should focus on the six women and their actions, statements, accomplishments, and failures as well as what others thought or said of them or how others treated them. Many of the other individuals (men and women) are important only in the way they related to the six women. Some had important but very limited impact.

Pauline Léon  28 September 1768 to 5 October 1838

 Father: chocolate maker, died 1784. Mother: continued business w/ Pauline’s help

 Working class or sans-culotte; could read & write

 Radical republican activist & orator; frequented visitors’ galleries of Paris Commune, Jacobin Club, & National Convention

 Founder & president of Société des Républiancs- Révolutionnaires

 Arrested & interrogated after 1791 Champs de Mars Massacre; arrested & imprisoned w/ husband from April to August 1794; released after Robespierre’s death & faded into obscurity

Husband Associates  Théophile Leclerc,  Claire Rose Lacombe, radical revolution enragé leader  Théophile Leclerc, enragé leader  Jacques Roux, enragé leader  Olympe de Gouges, revolutionary feminist

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 22 April 1766 to 14 July 1817 Germaine  Father: wealthy Swiss banker & aristocratic de Staël statesman Jacques Necker, director of finance for Louis XVI; mother: daughter of Calvinist pastor & popular Parisian salonnière

 Educated according to principles of Rousseau; novelist, social commentator, literary theorist

 Progressive aristocrat & constitutional monarchist; an “Anglomaniac”

 Emigrated to Switzerland in 1792, returned to France in 1793, & established fashionable salon; exiled by Napoleon, returned to Switzerland, & reestablished salon in Paris in 1814

Husband Lovers Associates  Erik Magnus de  Talleyrand, self-  Thérésa Cabarrus Fortenay Staël, Swedish serving politician Tallien diplomat & diplomat  Juliette Récamier  Albert Jean Michel  Louis de  Talleyrand self-serving politician de Rocca, Swiss Narbonne, liberal & diplomat military officer aristocrat  Mirabeau  Benjamin  Gouverneur Morris & Thomas Constant, liberal Jefferson, American diplomats republican  Cordorcet, intellectual & social  Albert Jean Michel reformer associated w/ de Rocca, Swiss Girondists military officer  Lafayette, liberal aristocrat  The Lameth brothers, leaders of Feuillants  Paul Barras, radical republican  Jean-Lambert Tallien, revolutionary journalist  Mathieu de Montmorency, liberal aristocratic military officer  Duke of Wellington, British general & statesman  Lucien Bonaparte, brother of Napoléon

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Juliette Récamier  4 December 1777 to 11 May 1849

 Father: weak but elegant resident of Lyon, a notary, king’s counsellor, & receiver of finance; Mother: savy w/ influential friends. Jacques- Rose Récamier may have been natural father

 Beautiful & educated to be fashionable & charming

 Prominent Parisian salonnière during Directory

 Fled France in 1802 & banned by Napoleon in 1811

Husband Lover Associates  Jacques-Rose  François-René de  Germaine de Staël Récamier, wealthy Chateaubriand,  Thérésia de Fontenay Tallien Lyonnais writer & diplomat  Mathieu de Montmorency, liberal merchant & aristocratic military officer financier; chaste &  Benjamin Constant, liberal paternalistic republican relationship  Rose de Beauharnais (Empress Josephine)  Napoléon Bonaparte

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Manon  17 March 1784 to 8 November 1793

Roland  Father: master engraver & artisan; respected & prosperous

 Self-educated; influenced by Voltaire, Montesquieu, Plutarch, Paine, & especially by Rousseau

 Radical republican activist & salon hostess; member of Girondist faction of Jacobin Club

 Assisted husband w/ numerous books & speeches

 Accused of treason but cleared in December 1792; accused of treason & betrayal of her gender in June 1793, executed in November 1793

Husband Lover Associates  Jean-Marie  François Buzot,  Jacques-Pierre Brissot, leader of Roland de la leading Girondin Girondins Platière, leading  Jérôme Pétion, Girondin mayor of Girondin Paris  Georges Danton, Jacobin leader  Maximilien Robespierre, Jacobin leader

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 Father: François Carbarrus, French financier, Thérésa founder of Royal Bank of Spain, finance minister to Spanish king; mother: daughter of de Fontenay French industrialist; raised by nuns & well educated

Tallien  Revolutionary republican aristocrat & salonnière; attended meetings of Fraternal Society of Patriots of Both Sexes, member of liberal Club of 1789; used influence on Tallien to save many individuals from Terror

 Hated by Robespierre; arrested & jailed in 1794; released after Robespierre’s death

 Known as “Notre Dame de Themidor” when released from prison; hated by Napoleon who banned interaction with Josephine

Husband Lovers Associates  Jean Jacques  Félix Lepeletier,  Félicité de Genlis, liberal Devin de radical aristocratic salonniérre Fontenay, revolutionary  Germaine de Staël debauched  Étienne de  Mathieu de Montmorency, liberal aristocrat Lamothe, aristocratic military officer  Jean-Lambert revolutionary  The Lameth Brothers, noted Tallien, radical army officer liberals représententant  Jean-Lambert  Lucy de la Tour du Pin, aristocratic en mission Tallien, radical lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette  Prince of Chimay représententant  Emmanuel Sieyés, moderate (Francois-Joseph- en mission revolutionary & Director de Riguet)  Paul Barras,  Maximilien Robespiere, Jacobin radical republican leader & Director thru-  Camille Desmoulins, radical lawyer out the Directory & journalist  Gabriel Ouvard,  Claude Ysabeau & Marc Antoine banker Jullien, représentants en mission  Stanislas Freron, radical writer & deputy  Napoléon Bonaparte  Lucien Bonaparte  Rose de Beauharnais (Empress Josephine) 5

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 13 August 1762/69 to 9 June 1817 Théroigne de  Born into prosperous peasant family; raised by Méricourt heartless aunt, trained as seamstress & servant; self-educated & influenced by Plato & Seneca

 Left punitive family to work as cowherd, seamstress, & governess before becoming singer & courtesan

 Radical democratic idealist & feminist; ardent republican & revolutionary activist; viciously attacked by royalist propagandists; received civic crown for participation in 10 August 1792 attack on Tuileries Palace & killing of nine royalists

 Founder & secretary of the Society of the Friends of the Law; joined Fraternal Society of Patriots of Both Sexes; spoke to but refused membership in Cordeliers’ Club; spoke from terraces of National Assembly

 Demanded female equality; renowned for wearing austerely masculine riding-habit

 Imprisoned by Austria 1790-91; following mental breakdown, institutionalized from 1794 until her death in 1817

Lovers Associates  Callous English army office  Pauline Léon who refused to marry her &  Thérésia de Fonteny numerous others  Camille Desmoulins, radical lawyer & journalist  Gilbert Romme, doctor & ardent Jacobin  Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, moderate revolutionary & Director  Olympe de Gouges, revolutionary feminist  Francois & Louise Robert, ardent republicans  Francois de Blanc, Austrian civil servant  Jacques-Pierre Brissot, leader of Girondins  Jérôme Pétion, Girondin mayor of Paris

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