Olympe De Gouges and Constance De Salm
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Copyright By Rudy Frédéric de Mattos 2007 The Dissertation Committee for Rudy Frédéric de Mattos Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Discourse of Women Writers in the French Revolution: Olympe de Gouges and Constance de Salm Committee: __________________________________ Robert Dawson, Supervisor __________________________________ Mary Jordan Baker __________________________________ Alexandra Wettlaufer __________________________________ John Hoberman __________________________________ Lisa L. Moore __________________________________ Madeline Sutherland-Meier The Discourse of Women Writers in the French Revolution: Olympe de Gouges and Constance de Salm by Rudy Frédéric de Mattos, D.E.U.G.; Maîtrise L.L.C.E.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2007 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Raymond and Irène de Mattos, to my in-laws, Timothy and Sharon Leyden, for their support and encouragement, and to my late grand-father, Antonio Augusto Segar Fernandes de Mattos, a noble man: “Tête haute!” Before all, I would like to dedicate this report to my wife, Corinne Leyden de Mattos, for all her love, support and sacrifices, without whom none of this work would have been possible. Sorry for all the pain I caused you because of the dissertation. Finally, to my children, Reece and Chloé. I am eternally grateful to all of them. Acknowledgements This dissertation has been a long journey that would never have been possible if it was not for the love, the support, and the dedication of so many people, none more important than my wonderful wife, Corinne. She has goaded me into “getting it done”. I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Dr. Bob Dawson, who provided invaluable suggestions in the writing and editing of this work and for devoting so much of his own time. I would like to thank him for his guidance and assistance in this project. Thank you also to the members of my committee and Dr. Marc Bizer for assisting me. I am very grateful to Karyna Szmurlo and Madelyn Gutwirth for our valuable conversations, their help, suggestions, and encouragement. Thank you Karyna for believing in me and taking me under your wings. v I also would like to thank Dr. Jacobs, the Dean of the Liberal Arts College at Louisiana Tech University as well as Dr. Tabor, former Head of the School of Literature and Language and Dr. Kazcvinsky for being comprehensive and supportive in the finalization of this project. Many thanks to Dr. Dianne Douglas, for her tremendous help and for believing in me. A special thank you to all my dear friends, Sonia Sitja-Rubio, Thomas Korff and Angeliki Salamaleki, for their moral support, and especially to Nadia Mamelouk and Melissa Skidemore who listened to me, encouraged me and helped me through the emotional roller coaster of the dissertation. vi The Discourse of Women Writers in the French Revolution: Olympe de Gouges and Constance de Salm Publication No._________________ Rudy Frédéric de Mattos, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2007 Supevisor: Robert L. Dawson Twentieth-century scholars have extensively studied how Rousseau’s domestic discourse impacted the patriarchal ideology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and contributed to women’s exclusion from the public sphere. Joan Landes, Lynn Hunt, and many others, argued that the French Revolution excluded women from the public sphere and confined them to the domestic realm. Joan Landes also argued that the patriarchal discourse was a mere reflection of social reality. In The Other Enlightenment, Carla Hesse argues for the women’s presence in the public sphere. One of the goals of this dissertation is to contribute to the debate by analyzing the content of the counter-discourse vii of selected women authors during the revolutionary era and examine how they challenged and subverted the patriarchal discourse. In the second chapter, I reconstruct the patriarchal discourse . I first examine the official (or legal) discourse in crucial works which remain absent from major modern sources: Jean Domat’sLoix civiles dans leur order naturel and Louis de Héricourt’s Loix ecclésiastiques de France dans leur order naturel. Then I look at how scientists like Monroe, Roussel, Lignac, Venel, and Robert used discoveries regarding woman’s physiology to create a medical discourse that justifies woman’s inferiority so as to confine them into the domestic/private sphere. I examine how intellectuals such as Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, Coyer and Laclos, reinforced women’s domesticity. In chapter 3, I examine women’s participation in the early stage of the Revolution and the overt attempt by some women to claim their place in the public sphere and to challenge and subvert the oppressive patriarchal discourse through their writings. Chapter 4 focuses on Olympe de Gouges’s theater and a specific example of subversion of the patriarchal discourse: I compare the father figure in Diderot’s La Religieuse and de Gouges’s play Le Couvent, ou les Voeux forcés. Finally chapter 5 examines women’s involvement in the French Revolution after 1794 and Constance de Salm’s attack on patriarchy. viii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Reconstructing the Discourse: the Eighteenth-Century Patriarchal Discourse on Women’s Place and “Nature”. 24 A. Introduction 24 B. Patriarchy and the Law 29 C. “Patriarchification” of the Body and the Law 36 D. “Patriarchizing” the Body 39 E. Woman’s Body: Roussel leading to Medicine 44 I. Roussel’s proto-psychological approach 44 II. Medicine in the shaping of a Nation: Robert’s Mégalanthropogénésie 49 F. Woman and Man: Biology and Sociology in Selected Authors 52 I. Rousseau’s domestic discourse 52 II. Diderot 59 III. Others Selected Authors. 62 A. Montesquieu 62 B. Coyer and the Bagatelles morales 64 C. Laclos 70 G. Chapter Conclusion 75 Chapter 3: Women’s Response to the patriarchal discourse: 77 A. Introduction 77 B. Women’s Writing Challenging the Discourse. Response to the Patriarchal Order 82 C. Challenging the Patriarchal Order: Women’s in the Public Sphere. 99 D. Chapter Conclusion 105 ix Chapter 4: Olympe de Gouges’s Attack on Domesticity and Patriarchy 108 A. Introduction 108 B. Olympe de Gouges and the Theater 112 C. The Difference between the Father Figure in Diderot’s La Religieuse and Olympe de Gouges’s Le Couvent 116 D. Chapter Conclusion 137 Chapter 5 : Women and the Public Sphere after 1794: Constance de Salm 140 A. Introduction 140 B. Women’s Presence after 1794 141 C. Constance de Salm 146 D. Chapter Conclusion 162 Chapter 6 : Conclusion 165 Appendix: Olympe de Gouges’s works, chronological order and by genres 177 Bibliography 180 Vita 197 x Chapter 1 Introduction In the second half of the eighteenth century, ideas of liberty and equality for all citizens, based on the conception of a “social contract,” were entering the philosophical and political discourse. By the onset of the French Revolution, these ideas had already been assimilated into the dominant discourse. Yet, although women were granted some rights, emancipation for women in the public sphere did not fully materialize, for women had been confined to the “domestic sanctuary” of family, making “nature” – that is, the physiological nature of the female body, viewed as affecting women’s psychology – the new justification for women’s exclusion from the public realm of politics. The domestic ideology, developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (among others),1 and echoed in the medical discourse of theoreticians such as Pierre Roussel, was to justify the exclusion of women from the public sphere and their confinement to the private sphere. Stepping out of the private sphere was seen as “unnatural,” as an aberration going against the very nature of women. 1 Many shared Rousseau’s ideas about the differences between men and women and their respective place and role within society such as Amar, Prudhomme, Fabre d’Eglantine, Chaumette, and Robespierre to name a few. 1 Nonconformist acts of self-assertion by women were highly criticized, for it was considered as a sign of deviance, transgression, and revolt by women against the prevailing norms, or as a rejection or a denial of the role presumably assigned to them by the nature of their gender. Society responded to such behavior by accusing the allegedly guilty woman of “desensitization” and a lack of femininity. Female deviance – or any deviance for that matter – is usually judged harshly and the French Revolution provided the patriarchy with the opportunity and the means to further develop and implement the domestic ideology. Many women, on the eve and in the early years of the French Revolution, encouraged by the atmosphere of reformation of the Old Regime and of the nascent Republic, challenged the authority of custom. Yet, their names fell into oblivion partly because of the male-centered discourse of the nineteenth century which mostly focused on men’s participation in the revolutionary events, and also because the patriarchy intended to minimize or even silence women’s temporary intrusion into the public sphere. Patriarchy also wanted to reinforce the domestic ideology and the idea that, while women inherently belong to the home, the public sphere is masculine. To do so, they either undermined or blamed women’s active role in the Revolution, as, for instance, was the case of Charlotte Corday, who murdered Marat in his bath. In addition, 2 historiographers drew a long list of men’s names from all the political factions, and provided detailed accounts of their actions. Official history has not only underestimated but also minimized the role played by women during the French Revolution, a role mostly reduced in the collective memory of French people to the women’s march on Versailles during the journées of October 5 and 6, 1789.