Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We have
Speaker 1: gotten a lot of requests over the years for an
Speaker 1: episode on o Lampe de Gouge, who's known, at least
Speaker 1: outside of France, primarily for a nine pamphlet titled Declaration
Speaker 1: of the Rights of Women and the Citizen, and this
Speaker 1: was published as a direct response to the seventeen eighty
Speaker 1: nine Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen,
Speaker 1: with the Declaration of rights of the rights of Man
Speaker 1: using the French words citoyen and Degouge's response using the
Speaker 1: more feminine form of that word citoyenne. They look very
Speaker 1: different uh in writing, but they're pronounced a little similarly.
Speaker 1: Olympe de gouge is writing and political activity though, went
Speaker 1: way way beyond that one pamphlet that she's famous for now.
Speaker 1: And also her execution, which happened just before the start
Speaker 1: of the Reign of Terror, was not because of the
Speaker 1: calls for equal rights for women that she's become so
Speaker 1: associated with. It's a whole other thing. Um, So that's
Speaker 1: who we're going to talk about today and Olympe de Gouge.
Speaker 1: Her upbringing and early life are really hazy and they
Speaker 1: are full of contradictions, some of which are thanks to
Speaker 1: her own writing. We do know that she was born
Speaker 1: Marie Goose on May seven in Montebon, which is north
Speaker 1: of Toulouse in southern France. Her mother was Anne Olympemoisie,
Speaker 1: a maid servant whose father was a draper, and at
Speaker 1: least legally, Marie's father was a butcher named Pierre Goose,
Speaker 1: but there were rumors that her father was actually Jean
Speaker 1: Jacques le Franc who would later become Marquis da Pampaigne.
Speaker 1: And the Le Francx and the Moi days had been
Speaker 1: connected for generations, and although Jean Jacques was only five
Speaker 1: years her senior, he was an Olymps godfather. The Tarn River,
Speaker 1: which is prone to really dangerous and dramatic flooding, runs
Speaker 1: through the region where the Goose family lived, and when
Speaker 1: the young Marie Goose was only two, Pierre Goose died
Speaker 1: as a result of one of these floods. Aside from
Speaker 1: the fact that it was connected to the flooding, we
Speaker 1: don't really know the details of the cause of death.
Speaker 1: I mean, an obvious one would be that he drowned,
Speaker 1: but you know, flooding also causes disease and famines and
Speaker 1: other issues, so we don't really know. At some point
Speaker 1: after that, Marie's mother got married again, this time to
Speaker 1: a police officer, and beyond that we don't know much
Speaker 1: else about Marie Goose's early life. She probably got at
Speaker 1: least some education at an Ursuline convent. She could write
Speaker 1: well enough to sign her own marriage documents, and the
Speaker 1: Ursuline convent would have been the most likely placed for
Speaker 1: a girl of her station to have become literate. That
Speaker 1: marriage was to Louis Aubrey, who was a caterer who
Speaker 1: had been one of the late Pierre Goose's associates, and
Speaker 1: this happened when Marie was only seventeen. Marie and Louise
Speaker 1: had a son, also named Pierre, about two years later,
Speaker 1: and then a few months after that Louis died. This
Speaker 1: was also as a result of a Tarn River flood,
Speaker 1: and once again we don't really know much clarity on
Speaker 1: the details beyond it being related to the flooding. Marie's
Speaker 1: marriage to Louise had been against her will, and after
Speaker 1: his death, she refused to marry again, and she also
Speaker 1: refused to conform to what was expected of a widowed mother. Instead,
Speaker 1: she moved to Paris in seventeen sixty seven. It is
Speaker 1: unclear whether she took her son with her or whether
Speaker 1: she left him in someone else's care while he was young,
Speaker 1: and she also changed her name to Olympe de Gouge,
Speaker 1: drawing from parts of Anna lymp and Pierre Goose's name aims,
Speaker 1: and also adding the d e, which made it sound
Speaker 1: a little more aristocratic. She may have also meant her
Speaker 1: new name as sort of a racy joke, because at
Speaker 1: the time, googe was a slang term for body women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I found totally opposite accounts of whether she took her
Speaker 1: son with her or left him with someone else. Regardless, though,
Speaker 1: in Paris, Olampta Gouge was supported by Jacques Pietre de Rosier,
Speaker 1: who was a wealthy man who owned a military transport company,
Speaker 1: and she spent her first years in Paris really immersed
Speaker 1: in self study, attending and possibly even hosting literary salons,
Speaker 1: and then pouring over the work of Enlightenment thinkers, particularly
Speaker 1: Jean Jacques Rousteau. During these years she also would have
Speaker 1: expanded her knowledge of French as a language. Her first
Speaker 1: language was actually a regional dialect called as sit Down.
Speaker 1: Because French was her second language and her formal education
Speaker 1: was pretty minimal, she didn't most of her writing in
Speaker 1: French through a secretary. In seventeen eighty four, Jean Jacques
Speaker 1: le franc Marquis da Pompillon died and de Gouge started
Speaker 1: working on an epistolary novel that would be published in Sight,
Speaker 1: and that was called Madame de Valmont's Memoirs on the
Speaker 1: ingratitude and cruelty of the Floucore Family toward her own,
Speaker 1: which rendered such services to the Serge Floure. So this
Speaker 1: book is one of the reasons why some of the
Speaker 1: biographical accounts of Olampe de Gouge's early life are really contradictory.
Speaker 1: She framed this book as a real correspondence with only
Speaker 1: the names changed to protect their reputations of the people involved. Today,
Speaker 1: though most sources described this book as semi autobiographical, but
Speaker 1: sometimes they also used the letters contained in it to
Speaker 1: try to kind of glean some details about Degouge's early life.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the first de Gouge biography available
Speaker 1: in English is Women's Rights in the French Revolution, a
Speaker 1: biography of Olampe de Gouge. That's by Sophie Mosse and
Speaker 1: it was translated from French. This biography was first published
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, and the author cites these memoirs,
Speaker 1: which again is on a pistolary novel. She's left them
Speaker 1: repeatedly as fact, like the footnotes are literally this book
Speaker 1: and this novel was inspired in part by laz Danchuse,
Speaker 1: which had been published in sevent two and was also
Speaker 1: written in the form of letters exchanged among its characters.
Speaker 1: In the Memoir of Madame de Valemond, the main characters
Speaker 1: are Madame de Vellemont and her half brother son of
Speaker 1: the Marquis de Flacour. In addition to their correspondence, the
Speaker 1: book also includes Madame de Vellemont's correspondence with other family members.
Speaker 1: Part of this book's framework is an unnamed narrator or
Speaker 1: editor who has brought these letters together to publish and
Speaker 1: also takes a part in some of the correspondence. And
Speaker 1: this unnamed editor maintains that all the facts she's putting
Speaker 1: forth in the letters are quote authentic truths and then
Speaker 1: what starts out as a comic story told through letters
Speaker 1: gradually shifts to document Madame de Velmont's attempts to prove
Speaker 1: that she is really the marquise daughter and to get
Speaker 1: his recognition and support. The letters come together to paint
Speaker 1: the Flacour family is having been cruel and indifferent to
Speaker 1: Madame Develoment's mother, with the Marquis trying to distance himself
Speaker 1: from her while never flat out denying that he is
Speaker 1: the father of her child. The unnamed editor and Madame
Speaker 1: de Vellemont are both generally interpreted as stand ins for
Speaker 1: de Gouge herself, with the Marquis de Flac representing the
Speaker 1: Marquis de Pompignan. Biographer Sophie Musse contends that the Marquis
Speaker 1: de Pompailler was unquestionably a Lampta Googa's biological father, and
Speaker 1: that everybody in the community you this. Even that the
Speaker 1: la franc family had taken pains to send Jean Jacques
Speaker 1: away from the area to separate him from an olamp
Speaker 1: when they were young. This just isn't something that it's
Speaker 1: possible to conclusively know at this point, though for a
Speaker 1: Lampta Gouge's own part She didn't overtly claim that the
Speaker 1: Marquis da Pampaigne was her father, but she did sort
Speaker 1: of seemed to stoke the idea that he could be.
Speaker 1: Since he had been dead for four years by the
Speaker 1: time The Memoirs of Madame Valmont was published, we really
Speaker 1: do not have his thoughts on this matter at all,
Speaker 1: unless the letters really are his real letters, as the
Speaker 1: book contends, which seems like a very long walk. But
Speaker 1: I mean, it could be what, like, we just don't
Speaker 1: We don't really know. And this purported connection to the
Speaker 1: Marquis d Pompagne may have given o Lampe de Gouge
Speaker 1: access to theatrical and literary circles that she might not
Speaker 1: have had otherwise. Apart from his attis, the Marquis was
Speaker 1: a poet, playwright, and literary critic whose biggest claim to
Speaker 1: fame at this point is having become the arch enemy
Speaker 1: of the way more famous French writer Voltaire. So the
Speaker 1: idea that she was his unacknowledged daughter may have opened
Speaker 1: some doors for her, and it definitely seems to have
Speaker 1: led to some of her later advocacy on social issues
Speaker 1: related to children born out of wedlock and their mothers.
Speaker 1: O lamp A. Gouge wrote one other novel during her lifetime,
Speaker 1: but she was a lot more prolific when it came
Speaker 1: to writing plays, and we will get some more of
Speaker 1: that after a sponsor break. We know that Olampta Gouge
Speaker 1: had at least one wealthy benefactor who supported her life
Speaker 1: in Paris. That was Jacques phri de Rosier, who he
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. It's likely that she had other benefactors as well.
Speaker 1: She may have had romantic relationships with some of them,
Speaker 1: but like so many any other details about her life,
Speaker 1: it's all pretty vague. De Gouge was also friends with
Speaker 1: Madame de Montesson, wife of Louis Philippe the First, that's
Speaker 1: the Duke of and at one point she was rumored
Speaker 1: to be having an affair with the Duke's son, who
Speaker 1: was later known as Philippe Egalite, and this may have
Speaker 1: been a rumor spread to try to tarnish Degouge's reputation,
Speaker 1: but her son Pierre did wind up getting an appointment
Speaker 1: as an engineer thanks to the Orleans family. As a
Speaker 1: lamp de Gouge was making connections to some of the
Speaker 1: really wealthy and powerful families of France. She was also
Speaker 1: writing plays that focused in one way or another on
Speaker 1: injustice and social issues. They tackled themes like divorce and
Speaker 1: women's rights during and after a divorce, as well as
Speaker 1: sexual double standards and the existence of debtors prisons, the
Speaker 1: rights of children born out of wedlock, and girls being
Speaker 1: forced to marry or sent a convince against their will. Overall,
Speaker 1: her female characters in these plays had and used their agency,
Speaker 1: and they supported and protected one another rather than being
Speaker 1: rivals or adversaries. And when women in Degouga's plays were victimized,
Speaker 1: it was not something that was played for its own
Speaker 1: sake or for shock value. It was connected back to
Speaker 1: a greater theme of social injustice. At the same time,
Speaker 1: though Degouga's plays didn't necessarily dispel negative stereotypes of women,
Speaker 1: such as the idea that women were weak or deceitful. Instead,
Speaker 1: she framed those traits as the inevitable consequences of women's
Speaker 1: place in French society. While there were individual women who
Speaker 1: held high positions within the monarchy or the aristocracy, women
Speaker 1: as a group had very little overt political power. Educational
Speaker 1: opportunities for girls were really limited, and for most women
Speaker 1: they're only options for their adult lives were to get
Speaker 1: married or to enter a convent, and either way they
Speaker 1: had virtually no property rights their control over their own
Speaker 1: lives and bodies. So, for example, the Goose saw women
Speaker 1: as deceitful because they had to be to survive in
Speaker 1: this environment, and as weak because they were given no
Speaker 1: opportunities to build their own strength. Oh Lamb de Gouge
Speaker 1: established a private amateur theater in Paris, but when it
Speaker 1: came to public theater, there was really just one option,
Speaker 1: the French National Theater, known as the comedyfan Says, which
Speaker 1: essentially had a monopoly on professional theater. The Comedy Says
Speaker 1: accepted new plays and then performed them in the order
Speaker 1: that they were received, so if there was a backlog,
Speaker 1: which there usually was, there could be a really long
Speaker 1: delay between a place acceptance and its actual performance. Accepted
Speaker 1: plays were not published until they had been performed, or
Speaker 1: until three years after they had been accepted, whichever might
Speaker 1: come first. That gives you an indication of how big
Speaker 1: the backlog was. Um Playwrights whose plays were accepted were
Speaker 1: given entry privileges at the theater, but when it came
Speaker 1: to the performance of the play itself, that was completely
Speaker 1: out of their control. So, especially for new playwrights who
Speaker 1: were first trying to make a name for themselves, their
Speaker 1: careers really rested on the whims and political shifts of
Speaker 1: the comedy. Fan says this was true for olmpt A Gouge.
Speaker 1: In Sight four, she wrote Zamore and Mirza, or the
Speaker 1: Happy Shipwreck sometimes that's translated as the Fortunate Shipwreck. This
Speaker 1: was a melodrama that takes place in the East Indies,
Speaker 1: involving the shipwrecked aristocratic San Fremont family as well as
Speaker 1: an enslaved Asian couple. The shipwreck is described as happy
Speaker 1: because it leads to the enslaved couple being freed. De
Speaker 1: Googe submitted this play to the Comedy Francais anonymously when
Speaker 1: it was accepted in seventeen five. As time passed after
Speaker 1: her play was accepted, de Googe started writing to the
Speaker 1: theater and its actors about when it would be performed.
Speaker 1: She became so insistent that in September, the troop leader
Speaker 1: wrote back to her and told her that they were
Speaker 1: pulling that play from the repertoire and striking her name
Speaker 1: from the list of people who had entry privileges at
Speaker 1: the theater. The theater also petitioned to have her arrested.
Speaker 1: That might sound a little extreme, this was not really
Speaker 1: a unique situation at all. It was common for playwrights
Speaker 1: to become really frustrated with the Comedy Francais to the
Speaker 1: point of being combative with their correspondence. Was also pretty
Speaker 1: common for the company to then reverse their acceptance of
Speaker 1: the play. But what was really unusual was for a
Speaker 1: playwright who was treated this way to be a woman.
Speaker 1: Between seventeen sixty one and seventeen eighty nine, the Comedy
Speaker 1: Front Says accepted only nine plays written by women. Put
Speaker 1: that in context, the Royal regulations required the company to
Speaker 1: produce between twenty five and forty new plays a year.
Speaker 1: I was not doing that was really performing were like
Speaker 1: ten or twelve, which honestly still sounds like large number
Speaker 1: of plays. Uh, it was accepting more work that it
Speaker 1: was performing though, so plays by women just made up
Speaker 1: a really tiny portion of the theater's repertoire. I feel
Speaker 1: like this is the story of so many companies who
Speaker 1: set really big goals at the beginning of every year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no way you're kind of meet them. Aside from
Speaker 1: de Gouge. Only two of those women corresponded with the
Speaker 1: company about their work. That was the del Arms sisters,
Speaker 1: who had written a one act comedy together. The Comedy
Speaker 1: from says performed that comedy only once, and the del
Speaker 1: Arms sisters felt that it had been dropped in favor
Speaker 1: of work by better known playwrights. They revised the play
Speaker 1: and resubmitted it, and the company rejected that revision six
Speaker 1: months later. So while the company had taken this step
Speaker 1: was penalizing other playwrights who pushed too hard with their correspondence,
Speaker 1: olymp de Gouge was really thely woman to face such
Speaker 1: a treatment. That the Deloram sisters had not had their
Speaker 1: revision accepted, but like they had also not been stripped
Speaker 1: from the roles, there was no warrant out for their arrest.
Speaker 1: Threatened with arrest, so she wrote to the Duc de Richelieu,
Speaker 1: who was one of the first gentlemen of the King's
Speaker 1: bed chamber, noting that while the Comedy Francais had treated
Speaker 1: other playwrights this way, the theater's conduct was quote extraordinary
Speaker 1: toward a woman. The Duke got her status with the
Speaker 1: company restored, and although the comedy friend says still did
Speaker 1: not perform that play. Her correspondence on the subject became
Speaker 1: a little more conciliatory after this. Four years passed between
Speaker 1: the time when The Happy Shipwreck was accepted and when
Speaker 1: it was finally performed, and in that time de Gouche
Speaker 1: had revised it repeatedly, and in August she had printed
Speaker 1: an unbound version of the play, which was technically allowed
Speaker 1: under the policies of the Comedy fonse Is, but it
Speaker 1: was also considered kind of a rude move on her part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she had not quite gotten to that three year market.
Speaker 1: She kind of did an end run around the letter
Speaker 1: of the law. By the time the company did perform
Speaker 1: the play in seventy nine, it was shorter, the story
Speaker 1: took place in the Caribbean, and the characters of Zamora
Speaker 1: and Mirza had become African rather than Asian. The play
Speaker 1: had been re titled The Slavery of Negroes or The
Speaker 1: Happy Shipwreck. It's often been described as the first explicitly
Speaker 1: abolitionist play in French and the first French play told
Speaker 1: from the point of view of enslaved people. Even though
Speaker 1: the comedian Says did finally perform this work, the performances
Speaker 1: themselves did not go smoothly because of its abolitionist focus.
Speaker 1: It drew heavy criticism from wealthy people who had connections
Speaker 1: to French colonies in the Caribbean that relied on enslaved labor.
Speaker 1: Abolitionists praised the play, while and owners hired hecklers to
Speaker 1: disrupt the performances. Some of the people paying people to
Speaker 1: disrupt the performances would have been just like people who
Speaker 1: had investments, as well as like people who directly owned
Speaker 1: these plantations and the enslaved workers who were there. Um
Speaker 1: de Gouge also claimed that there was sabotage on the
Speaker 1: part of the actors. The ones who had been cast
Speaker 1: in the roles of Africans did refuse to darken their
Speaker 1: skin for the roles. So the idea of white actors
Speaker 1: and black face was still absolutely rooted in racism, but
Speaker 1: it it didn't have quite the same connotations in the
Speaker 1: late seventeen hundreds as it would develop during and after
Speaker 1: the era of menstrual shows that started to develop in
Speaker 1: the early eighteen hundreds. France's movement for the abolition of
Speaker 1: slavery was still in its infancy when a Lampe de
Speaker 1: gouge first wrote Zamor and Mirza. The Society of the
Speaker 1: Friends of Blacks was established in seventeen eighty eight and
Speaker 1: de Gouge became a member. Slavery was abolished in France
Speaker 1: in seventeen nine four, although Napoleon restored it in eighteen
Speaker 1: o two by her Count O Lampti. Gouge wrote more
Speaker 1: than forty plays, although only twelve of them survive and
Speaker 1: only four of them are actually staged during her lifetime,
Speaker 1: and aside from her novels and plays, she also wrote
Speaker 1: more than sixty political pamphlets during the French Revolution, and
Speaker 1: we will get to that after another quick sponsor break.
Speaker 1: The calf them or the woman question, was a literary
Speaker 1: and philosophical debate that had been going on in France
Speaker 1: and other parts of Europe for hundreds of years prior
Speaker 1: to the French Revolution, starting in the Renaissance. It involved
Speaker 1: questions about the nature of women and about women's rights
Speaker 1: and status within the society, and a lot of these
Speaker 1: same questions were argued again during the French Revolution, all
Speaker 1: though men were doing a lot of this arguing. Women
Speaker 1: were also politically active during the French Revolution, particularly when
Speaker 1: it came to subjects that were considered part of women's sphere.
Speaker 1: A big one was food and access to food. In ten,
Speaker 1: we did an episode on the Women's March on Versailles,
Speaker 1: which started on March five, s nine, and this was
Speaker 1: a march from Paris to Versailles with the goal of
Speaker 1: getting the monarchy to address a serious food shortage and
Speaker 1: returned to Paris. Women, many of whom were anonymous, published
Speaker 1: work on subjects like education and poverty, as well as
Speaker 1: criticizing divorce and inheritance laws that favored men. The various
Speaker 1: factions that arose during the revolution varied a little bit
Speaker 1: and how welcoming they were of women, I say a
Speaker 1: little bit. It was broader than that. There were some
Speaker 1: factions that were like, nah, we only have men in
Speaker 1: our leadership, and others who did allow women at least
Speaker 1: some participation. So women also formed their own political clubs
Speaker 1: during the French Revolution. Many of those clubs were still
Speaker 1: focused on the subjects that were considered appropriate for women,
Speaker 1: like food and education. O lamp de Gouge had some
Speaker 1: overlap with these other often anonymous women. She wrote on
Speaker 1: some of the same subjects, including divorce, inheritance, and education,
Speaker 1: particularly education for girls. She called for women to be
Speaker 1: able to publicly name the fathers of their children born
Speaker 1: out of wedlock, and for those children to be legitimized.
Speaker 1: She also advocated an end to the dowry system and
Speaker 1: the creation of services for widows, mothers, and children living
Speaker 1: in poverty. But unlike many other women writers who were
Speaker 1: often anonymous, she also wrote under her own name, and
Speaker 1: she wrote more broadly on other political issues and on
Speaker 1: women's political and social rights in general. She advocated for
Speaker 1: professions to be open to anyone, regardless of their sex,
Speaker 1: their color, or their social status. She believed that celibacy
Speaker 1: requirements for monks and nuns set the stage for abuse,
Speaker 1: and called for them to have marriage rights. She proposed
Speaker 1: a voluntary tax to try to address wealth inequality and
Speaker 1: to save the French Republic from bankruptcy. She also advocated
Speaker 1: a luxury tax that would pay for services for the poor.
Speaker 1: She called for an end to the death penalty, and
Speaker 1: she advocated the establishment of a national theater that would
Speaker 1: focus on publishing and staging the work of women play rights.
Speaker 1: Some of the reforms that she advocated were ultimately adopted,
Speaker 1: including protections for children who were born out of wedlock,
Speaker 1: and divorce rights for women. These were passed into law
Speaker 1: by the National Assembly in seventeen nine two. On August
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty nine, the French National Constituent Assembly issued the
Speaker 1: Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, written
Speaker 1: by the Marquis de Lafayette and the Abbe Sis along
Speaker 1: with Thomas Jefferson, that includes seventeen articles out lining the
Speaker 1: fundamental rights of male citizens, and in seventeen the National
Speaker 1: Assembly adopted a new constitution, one that gave the right
Speaker 1: to vote only to male taxpaying citizens, h to a
Speaker 1: lot of people. This was a little at odds with
Speaker 1: the French revolutions professed values including liberty and equality. The
Speaker 1: Gouge's response to all of this was the Declaration of
Speaker 1: the Rights of Woman and the Citizen, sometimes translated as
Speaker 1: the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female
Speaker 1: Citizen thanks to her use of the word sito again.
Speaker 1: It followed the same basic format as the Declaration of
Speaker 1: the Rights of Man, including a preamble, seventeen articles, and
Speaker 1: an epilogue. It was also dedicated to Marie Antoinette, encouraging
Speaker 1: her to take up the cause of the revolution and
Speaker 1: to use her position to advance the cause of women's rights.
Speaker 1: De Gouge published this on September fourteen, seventeen ninety one,
Speaker 1: to coincide with Louis the sixteenth ratification of the New
Speaker 1: Constitution that excluded women from full citizenship rights, and the
Speaker 1: prologue to this piece began quote, man, are you capable
Speaker 1: of being fair? A woman is asking at least you
Speaker 1: will allow her that right. Tell me what gave you
Speaker 1: the sovereign right to oppress my sex. The seventeen articles
Speaker 1: follow the Declaration of the Rights of Man point by point,
Speaker 1: and in some cases they simply use the word woman
Speaker 1: or women in place of man or men, or they
Speaker 1: specifically include women in addition to men where they're referenced.
Speaker 1: So Article one of the Declaration of the Rights of Women,
Speaker 1: for example, is quote woman is born free and remains
Speaker 1: equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may be founded
Speaker 1: only on the common good. Other articles add additional nuance.
Speaker 1: For example, Article ten in the Declaration of the Rights
Speaker 1: of Man is quote no one shall be disc quieted
Speaker 1: on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided
Speaker 1: their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
Speaker 1: In the Rights of Women, that is written as quote,
Speaker 1: none must be disquieted for their opinions. However, fundamental woman
Speaker 1: is entitled to mount the scaffold, she must be equally
Speaker 1: entitled to mount the rostrum, so long as her manifestos
Speaker 1: do not disturb the public order. According to the law,
Speaker 1: Article eleven is about free expression, and in Degouge's writing,
Speaker 1: she specifically cites the rights of mothers to name their
Speaker 1: children's fathers. Quote. The free expression of thoughts and opinions
Speaker 1: is one of the most precious rights of woman, given
Speaker 1: that this liberty ensures the legitimacy of fathers and their children.
Speaker 1: Any female citizens can therefore freely declare I am the
Speaker 1: mother of your child without a barbarous prejudice forcing them
Speaker 1: to hide the truth, unless in response to the abuse
Speaker 1: of this freedom in cases determined by the law. In
Speaker 1: a PostScript that's longer than the rest of the document,
Speaker 1: de Gouge calls for women to wake up and acknowledge
Speaker 1: their rights. She contends, quote, women have done more harm
Speaker 1: than good. Constraint and dissimulation have been their lot. What
Speaker 1: force stole from them rus returned. They had to resort
Speaker 1: to the power of their charms and the most irreproachable
Speaker 1: man could not resist. She then draws parallels between marriage
Speaker 1: and slavery, ending on the idea that quote marriage is
Speaker 1: the tomb of trust and love. She also prints a
Speaker 1: template for what she describes as a social contract between
Speaker 1: a man and a woman, a union that, unlike marriage,
Speaker 1: involves a man and a woman coming together in equality
Speaker 1: and of their own volition. And the PostScript, she also
Speaker 1: recounts an argument with a coachman who tried to overcharge her,
Speaker 1: and this is something that she includes as an example
Speaker 1: of the everyday injustices and indignities that women face, But
Speaker 1: it also seems enough like a digression that a lot
Speaker 1: of time it is left out of English translations. Olamp
Speaker 1: de Gouge had always faced criticism and derision for her
Speaker 1: writing and her political activism. There were allegations of affairs
Speaker 1: that were meant to discredit her, along with claims that
Speaker 1: she was illiterate or a fraud. But when it came
Speaker 1: to the Declaration of the Rights of women, what really
Speaker 1: drew suspicion was her dedication to Marie Antoinette, which reinforced
Speaker 1: suspicions that she was in fact a monarchist and unlike
Speaker 1: a lot of the other suspicions that swirled around her,
Speaker 1: this one was actually pretty accurate. In spite of her
Speaker 1: revolutionary writings and her general support of the French Revolution,
Speaker 1: Olampa Gouge thought a constitutional monarchy was the system of
Speaker 1: government that was most suited to the national character of France.
Speaker 1: But she also thought that the monarch should be a
Speaker 1: symbolic emblem for France as a nation and should work
Speaker 1: for the good of its most vulnerable people, not a
Speaker 1: symbol of power and a tool to carry out the
Speaker 1: wishes of the aristocracy. When King Louis the sixteenth was
Speaker 1: tried for treason in seventeen two, a lamp de Gouge
Speaker 1: offered to defend him. Her argument was that he unquestionably
Speaker 1: had done wrong, but that he had done wrong when
Speaker 1: he was king. By her arguments, since France had abolished
Speaker 1: the monarchy and become a republic in September of sevento
Speaker 1: the former king was no longer guilty in the eyes
Speaker 1: of the republic. The republic could not prosecute someone who
Speaker 1: was no longer the monarch for something the monarch had done.
Speaker 1: Her offer to defend the king, by the way was
Speaker 1: not accepted and he was, of course executed on January one,
Speaker 1: sevente Yeah, we're not suggesting that defense would have worked,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of a weird pretzel logic. It's a
Speaker 1: little it's like, no, he stopped being the person that
Speaker 1: you hate when he stopped being king, Like, that's not
Speaker 1: quite right. So by the time we the sixteenth was executed,
Speaker 1: tensions had been growing between revolutionaries and counter revolutionaries, and
Speaker 1: also among different factions within the revolution for years. The
Speaker 1: French Revolutionary Wars had also started in seventeen ninety two,
Speaker 1: and that had put even more strain on this young republic.
Speaker 1: The revolution had become increasingly radical and increasingly intolerant of
Speaker 1: suspected monarchists and counter revolutionaries. Olampe de Gouge had been
Speaker 1: mostly aligned with the revolutionary faction known as the Girondins.
Speaker 1: Twenty nine of them had been expelled from the National
Speaker 1: Convention and arrested, and then would be executed a few
Speaker 1: months later. In the face of all of this tension,
Speaker 1: in July of seventeen ninety three, de Gouche proposed that
Speaker 1: each department of France be allowed to govern itself rather
Speaker 1: than the one unified nation of France. That was required
Speaker 1: by law, and the This idea seems to be what
Speaker 1: finally led to her arrest on July, not long after
Speaker 1: the mass arrest of the Girondame. She seems to have
Speaker 1: genuinely believed that if she cooperated that her writings would
Speaker 1: demonstrate that she was loyal to France and the Revolution,
Speaker 1: and that she would be cleared of all suspicion. She
Speaker 1: even took investigators to her office and storage space when
Speaker 1: they couldn't find any incriminating writing in her home. The
Speaker 1: materials that they wound up confiscating included an unfinished five
Speaker 1: act play called France Saved or the Tyrant Dethroned. As
Speaker 1: its title suggests, the monarch is dethroned in this play,
Speaker 1: but it's sympathetic portrayal of Marie Antoinette was used as
Speaker 1: evidence in Marie de Goug's trial. So was a pamphlet
Speaker 1: she had written called Three Governments Battled to the Death,
Speaker 1: which called for the Nation of France to make an
Speaker 1: ultimate choice among monarchy, federalism, or republicanism. She had also
Speaker 1: have been highly critical of Maximilian Robespierre and of the
Speaker 1: increasing violence associated with the Revolution and the War on
Speaker 1: July three, De Gouge was charged with quote, having composed
Speaker 1: a work contrary to the expressed desire of the entire nation,
Speaker 1: and directed against whoever might propose a form of government
Speaker 1: other than that of a republic one and indivisible. She
Speaker 1: was incarcerated, and she continued writing smuggling pamphlets detailing the
Speaker 1: conditions they're out of her prison. At trial, the judge
Speaker 1: denied de Gouge legal representation, so she had to represent herself,
Speaker 1: and different accounts interpret her behavior at court vary differently.
Speaker 1: She claimed to be thirty eight, but she was really
Speaker 1: forty five. She's also described as sighing, smirking, or rolling
Speaker 1: her eyes as the charges were read, either depending on
Speaker 1: who you're reading, clearly not taking the preceding serious slee
Speaker 1: or trying to kind of performatively embody the idea of innocence,
Speaker 1: almost like a character from one of her plays. She
Speaker 1: was ultimately found in violation of a law that banned
Speaker 1: the composition or printing of works that advocated the re
Speaker 1: establishment of royalty or the dissolution of the republic, which
Speaker 1: was punishable by death. She tried to avoid execution by
Speaker 1: claiming to be pregnant but a doctor examined her and
Speaker 1: said that she was not. As is the case with
Speaker 1: any historical examination of this kind that we talked about
Speaker 1: on the show, we really don't know what was done,
Speaker 1: what this doctor did as a test, or whether it
Speaker 1: would have been able to even detect a pregnancy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it eventually it becomes relatively obvious, but in
Speaker 1: the early stages, who knows, In the early stages in
Speaker 1: the seventeen nineties, yes, Anyway, A Lampe de Gouge was
Speaker 1: executed in Paris on November three see and last words
Speaker 1: were children of the homeland, you will avenge my death.
Speaker 1: The word homeland, as she said it in French, is
Speaker 1: la patry, and that's also translated as both motherland and
Speaker 1: fatherland depending on who you're looking at, because the petree
Speaker 1: part comes from the word for father, but alat is
Speaker 1: also a feminine article, so it kind of mishes both
Speaker 1: of that. Oh. Lampt Deguge's son Pierre denounced her during
Speaker 1: all of this, and while she did write several letters
Speaker 1: to him during her imprisonment and her trial, those were
Speaker 1: all confiscated. She was buried at Madeline Cemetery in Paris,
Speaker 1: which was later closed and cleared, with the skeletal remains
Speaker 1: being moved to the Paris Catacombs, although in unearthed. In July,
Speaker 1: we talked about the discovery of skeletal remains in the
Speaker 1: Chapelle Expatoire, which is a memorial chapel that was built
Speaker 1: on the site of the former cemetery. So it's possible
Speaker 1: that the remains of O lamp de Gouge are in
Speaker 1: the Paris Catacombs. Also possible that they could be in
Speaker 1: these relatively newly unearthed skeletal remains in this chapel. De
Speaker 1: Gouche continued to be criticized and vilified after her death
Speaker 1: in ways that questioned her politics, her character, and her womanhood.
Speaker 1: In seventeen ninety three, French politician Pierre Gaspal Chomet wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: never forget that Virago, the woman man, the impudent olymp
Speaker 1: de Gouge, who abandoned the cares of her household to
Speaker 1: get involved in politics and commit crimes. She died on
Speaker 1: the guillotine for having forgotten the virtues that suit her sex.
Speaker 1: It really took decades, I mean even into like the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties before people started really viewing O lamp de
Speaker 1: Gouge as a forerunner of the feminist movement and to
Speaker 1: really seriously study her work. There were calls to have
Speaker 1: her commemorated at the Pantheon in Paris in nine and
Speaker 1: then again in the First woman to be interred at
Speaker 1: the Pantheon was Sophie Bertelo, whose husband, chemiston politician Marcela Bertel,
Speaker 1: had died within hours of her passing. The first woman
Speaker 1: to be interred at the Pantheon based on her own
Speaker 1: accomplishments was Murray Currey, when that didn't happen until Although
Speaker 1: a Lampa Googe has not been pantheonized, a bust of
Speaker 1: her was installed at the National Assembly in that as
Speaker 1: a Lampta Gouge. As I said just a second ago,
Speaker 1: there was not a lot of serious look at her
Speaker 1: work in her life until roughly the nineties. Really, and
Speaker 1: I would like to say I still find the available
Speaker 1: research lacking. There was just not as much of it
Speaker 1: as I would have liked, and not as robust as
Speaker 1: I would have liked it to be. Do you have
Speaker 1: robust listener mail? Yeah? I have two listener mails that
Speaker 1: are both on the same subject um, and so I
Speaker 1: wanted to touch on both of them. This first one
Speaker 1: is from Nicole uh and Nicole sonth Is On January tenth,
Speaker 1: Nicole said, Hello, I just listened to the Lost Cause episode.
Speaker 1: You're warning at the beginning about when you recorded the
Speaker 1: episode and who would know what the world would be
Speaker 1: like could not have been more apprecient, because I of
Speaker 1: course listened to it in the aftermath of the attempted coup.
Speaker 1: Your message could not have been more important or needed
Speaker 1: this week, and I am so grateful for your podcast.
Speaker 1: You laid out history and a cultural cornerstone in such
Speaker 1: a clear but also kind way. I have many friends
Speaker 1: who work at the Capitol and we're evacuated or barricaded.
Speaker 1: I can't help thinking that if more people learned history
Speaker 1: and the way you taught it, then maybe there wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been a Confederate flag marched through the Capitol. I
Speaker 1: work in politics and have been in Atlanta for the
Speaker 1: Senate race since July. Moving to a new city during
Speaker 1: a pandemic when you work eight hour weeks, it's very difficult.
Speaker 1: I cannot be more grateful to have had both of
Speaker 1: your company as I walked the belt line alone. It
Speaker 1: was also good to know even that there are cool
Speaker 1: people like you that live or have lived in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Thank you for all do Nicole Uh. Nicole has a
Speaker 1: ps about growing up in Seattle and being taught that
Speaker 1: States rights caused the Civil War in middle school, and
Speaker 1: then I have another email from Julia. Julia starts off
Speaker 1: saying long time listener, first time writer up, and then
Speaker 1: sort of talks about having listened to the whole archive
Speaker 1: and then winding up with a playlist that's forty nine
Speaker 1: hours and thirty five minutes long of un listened to podcasts.
Speaker 1: Uh and goes on to say, that's the long way
Speaker 1: to say I'm behind in my podcast listening, which is
Speaker 1: how I listened to the Lost Cause episode last week.
Speaker 1: You prefaced the episode with an explanation that you had
Speaker 1: no idea how it might land giving current events when
Speaker 1: the episode was released. While it was released a month ago,
Speaker 1: it had particular points last week. As I listened, I
Speaker 1: kept picturing the images from the Capitol last week. Thank
Speaker 1: you for the reminder of how we got to this point.
Speaker 1: I know that the podcast tries not to take a
Speaker 1: political stance, but this episode helped me recenter on some
Speaker 1: of the lessons that need to be learned from the
Speaker 1: events last week. The stories we tell ourselves about our country,
Speaker 1: our democracy, and our history have a real impact. It
Speaker 1: can be helpful both to look at the history to
Speaker 1: show us how current events came to pass. It's also
Speaker 1: helpful to think about current events in the frame of
Speaker 1: how it will become history. Julia goes on a little
Speaker 1: bit from there and talks about the past year being
Speaker 1: history making and appreciating knowing that the two of us
Speaker 1: are in Julia's podcast feed, so um. Julia also sent
Speaker 1: dog pictures. Thank you, Julia. I'm kind of abridging the
Speaker 1: email just a little bit just because I'm reading two
Speaker 1: of them. Thank you both Julia and Nicole. They were
Speaker 1: similar enough in their themes that I wanted to read
Speaker 1: both emails and also note that, man, we are in
Speaker 1: the same situation now of like we don't know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen between when we record this episode on
Speaker 1: the twelfth of January and when it comes out, Like
Speaker 1: we had just come out of the uh the studio
Speaker 1: after recording our unearthed episodes, and I had decided what
Speaker 1: I was going to do next, and I started working
Speaker 1: on a Lampe de gouge. In less than twenty four
Speaker 1: hours later, I was glued to the news like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is bizarre. It feels like this episode about you know,
Speaker 1: a woman who was an abolitionist and a campaigner for
Speaker 1: women's rights, it feels irrelevant somehow because of all this
Speaker 1: other stuff that's going on. It has been a very
Speaker 1: confounding and surreal time to be working on this podcast,
Speaker 1: as we have talked about at other points before in
Speaker 1: the last year or so. Yeah, yeah, it makes us,
Speaker 1: you know, re look at everything we talked about and like,
Speaker 1: should we publish this now or should we wait? Is
Speaker 1: related to what's going on. But it's unpleasant and we
Speaker 1: all had a lot of have been through a lot
Speaker 1: of unpleasant Maybe we move it. I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: it'll be more unpleasant later. We never know what's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: especially since we try to always keep at least a
Speaker 1: week of episodes already done, which really just gives us
Speaker 1: coverage like if somebody is ill or the power is
Speaker 1: out or whatever like that then means that this time
Speaker 1: passes between when we record and when the episode comes out,
Speaker 1: and in the interim it's like, man, the million things
Speaker 1: have happened that made everything seem strange. So thank you
Speaker 1: both Julia and Nicole for your emails on this subject
Speaker 1: and if you would like to write to us about
Speaker 1: this or any other podcast, or at History podcast at
Speaker 1: i heart radio dot com. And we're also all over
Speaker 1: social media admiss in History. That's where you'll find our Facebook,
Speaker 1: our Twitter, our Pinterest, in our Instagram. I'm gonna be candid.
Speaker 1: I haven't done anything with the pinterest in a while
Speaker 1: me either, but it exists. You can also subscribe to
Speaker 1: our show on the I heart Radio app and Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts and anywhere else that you get your podcasts. M
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.