WEBVTT - Olympe de Gouges 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.880 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.919 I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We have 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.400 gotten a lot of requests over the years for an 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:24.759 episode on o Lampe de Gouge, who's known, at least 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:31.800 outside of France, primarily for a nine pamphlet titled Declaration 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.040 of the Rights of Women and the Citizen, and this 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.240 was published as a direct response to the seventeen eighty 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.800 nine Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:44.960 with the Declaration of rights of the rights of Man 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:50.360 using the French words citoyen and Degouge's response using the 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:55.880 more feminine form of that word citoyenne. They look very 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:00.480 different uh in writing, but they're pronounced a little similarly. 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.959 Olympe de gouge is writing and political activity though, went 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.800 way way beyond that one pamphlet that she's famous for now. 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.520 And also her execution, which happened just before the start 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.560 of the Reign of Terror, was not because of the 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.520 calls for equal rights for women that she's become so 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:22.399 associated with. It's a whole other thing. Um, So that's 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:24.960 who we're going to talk about today and Olympe de Gouge. 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.600 Her upbringing and early life are really hazy and they 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:31.399 are full of contradictions, some of which are thanks to 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.640 her own writing. We do know that she was born 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:39.240 Marie Goose on May seven in Montebon, which is north 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:43.800 of Toulouse in southern France. Her mother was Anne Olympemoisie, 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.920 a maid servant whose father was a draper, and at 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:50.560 least legally, Marie's father was a butcher named Pierre Goose, 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.360 but there were rumors that her father was actually Jean 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.680 Jacques le Franc who would later become Marquis da Pampaigne. 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:00.720 And the Le Francx and the Moi days had been 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.960 connected for generations, and although Jean Jacques was only five 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:09.440 years her senior, he was an Olymps godfather. The Tarn River, 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.840 which is prone to really dangerous and dramatic flooding, runs 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.720 through the region where the Goose family lived, and when 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.760 the young Marie Goose was only two, Pierre Goose died 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.639 as a result of one of these floods. Aside from 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.320 the fact that it was connected to the flooding, we 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.720 don't really know the details of the cause of death. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.240 I mean, an obvious one would be that he drowned, 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.760 but you know, flooding also causes disease and famines and 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.560 other issues, so we don't really know. At some point 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.480 after that, Marie's mother got married again, this time to 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.799 a police officer, and beyond that we don't know much 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:51.600 else about Marie Goose's early life. She probably got at 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.760 least some education at an Ursuline convent. She could write 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.080 well enough to sign her own marriage documents, and the 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.000 Ursuline convent would have been the most likely placed for 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.600 a girl of her station to have become literate. That 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.919 marriage was to Louis Aubrey, who was a caterer who 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.080 had been one of the late Pierre Goose's associates, and 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:15.079 this happened when Marie was only seventeen. Marie and Louise 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:18.440 had a son, also named Pierre, about two years later, 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.560 and then a few months after that Louis died. This 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.920 was also as a result of a Tarn River flood, 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.280 and once again we don't really know much clarity on 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.040 the details beyond it being related to the flooding. Marie's 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.040 marriage to Louise had been against her will, and after 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.800 his death, she refused to marry again, and she also 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:43.920 refused to conform to what was expected of a widowed mother. Instead, 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.640 she moved to Paris in seventeen sixty seven. It is 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.320 unclear whether she took her son with her or whether 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.880 she left him in someone else's care while he was young, 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.440 and she also changed her name to Olympe de Gouge, 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.320 drawing from parts of Anna lymp and Pierre Goose's name aims, 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.520 and also adding the d e, which made it sound 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:07.520 a little more aristocratic. She may have also meant her 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.280 new name as sort of a racy joke, because at 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:15.080 the time, googe was a slang term for body women. Yeah, 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:19.280 I found totally opposite accounts of whether she took her 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:23.000 son with her or left him with someone else. Regardless, though, 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:27.719 in Paris, Olampta Gouge was supported by Jacques Pietre de Rosier, 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.799 who was a wealthy man who owned a military transport company, 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.039 and she spent her first years in Paris really immersed 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:40.120 in self study, attending and possibly even hosting literary salons, 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:44.160 and then pouring over the work of Enlightenment thinkers, particularly 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.880 Jean Jacques Rousteau. During these years she also would have 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.839 expanded her knowledge of French as a language. Her first 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.640 language was actually a regional dialect called as sit Down. 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.120 Because French was her second language and her formal education 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.160 was pretty minimal, she didn't most of her writing in 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:05.719 French through a secretary. In seventeen eighty four, Jean Jacques 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.920 le franc Marquis da Pompillon died and de Gouge started 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:14.080 working on an epistolary novel that would be published in Sight, 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.600 and that was called Madame de Valmont's Memoirs on the 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:21.479 ingratitude and cruelty of the Floucore Family toward her own, 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:26.120 which rendered such services to the Serge Floure. So this 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.120 book is one of the reasons why some of the 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:33.400 biographical accounts of Olampe de Gouge's early life are really contradictory. 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.479 She framed this book as a real correspondence with only 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:41.839 the names changed to protect their reputations of the people involved. Today, 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:47.680 though most sources described this book as semi autobiographical, but 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.599 sometimes they also used the letters contained in it to 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:54.240 try to kind of glean some details about Degouge's early life. 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.880 On the other hand, the first de Gouge biography available 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.479 in English is Women's Rights in the French Revolution, a 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:07.080 biography of Olampe de Gouge. That's by Sophie Mosse and 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:11.279 it was translated from French. This biography was first published 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:15.120 in two thousand and seven, and the author cites these memoirs, 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.920 which again is on a pistolary novel. She's left them 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.680 repeatedly as fact, like the footnotes are literally this book 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:28.040 and this novel was inspired in part by laz Danchuse, 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.640 which had been published in sevent two and was also 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.240 written in the form of letters exchanged among its characters. 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:39.480 In the Memoir of Madame de Valemond, the main characters 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:42.800 are Madame de Vellemont and her half brother son of 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.839 the Marquis de Flacour. In addition to their correspondence, the 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:51.320 book also includes Madame de Vellemont's correspondence with other family members. 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.640 Part of this book's framework is an unnamed narrator or 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.599 editor who has brought these letters together to publish and 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.359 also takes a part in some of the correspondence. And 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.400 this unnamed editor maintains that all the facts she's putting 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:10.480 forth in the letters are quote authentic truths and then 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.600 what starts out as a comic story told through letters 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:18.480 gradually shifts to document Madame de Velmont's attempts to prove 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.960 that she is really the marquise daughter and to get 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:26.120 his recognition and support. The letters come together to paint 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.680 the Flacour family is having been cruel and indifferent to 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:33.720 Madame Develoment's mother, with the Marquis trying to distance himself 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.240 from her while never flat out denying that he is 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:40.200 the father of her child. The unnamed editor and Madame 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.520 de Vellemont are both generally interpreted as stand ins for 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:47.440 de Gouge herself, with the Marquis de Flac representing the 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:52.840 Marquis de Pompignan. Biographer Sophie Musse contends that the Marquis 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:57.840 de Pompailler was unquestionably a Lampta Googa's biological father, and 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.320 that everybody in the community you this. Even that the 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.800 la franc family had taken pains to send Jean Jacques 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.480 away from the area to separate him from an olamp 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.960 when they were young. This just isn't something that it's 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.440 possible to conclusively know at this point, though for a 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:21.240 Lampta Gouge's own part She didn't overtly claim that the 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.640 Marquis da Pampaigne was her father, but she did sort 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:26.560 of seemed to stoke the idea that he could be. 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:29.840 Since he had been dead for four years by the 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.839 time The Memoirs of Madame Valmont was published, we really 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.439 do not have his thoughts on this matter at all, 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:40.560 unless the letters really are his real letters, as the 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.720 book contends, which seems like a very long walk. But 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.600 I mean, it could be what, like, we just don't 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.160 We don't really know. And this purported connection to the 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.480 Marquis d Pompagne may have given o Lampe de Gouge 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:57.240 access to theatrical and literary circles that she might not 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:01.360 have had otherwise. Apart from his attis, the Marquis was 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.160 a poet, playwright, and literary critic whose biggest claim to 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.800 fame at this point is having become the arch enemy 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.760 of the way more famous French writer Voltaire. So the 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.400 idea that she was his unacknowledged daughter may have opened 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.480 some doors for her, and it definitely seems to have 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.800 led to some of her later advocacy on social issues 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.360 related to children born out of wedlock and their mothers. 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.360 O lamp A. Gouge wrote one other novel during her lifetime, 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:31.360 but she was a lot more prolific when it came 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:33.760 to writing plays, and we will get some more of 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:44.720 that after a sponsor break. We know that Olampta Gouge 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.440 had at least one wealthy benefactor who supported her life 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.800 in Paris. That was Jacques phri de Rosier, who he 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.880 mentioned earlier. It's likely that she had other benefactors as well. 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:58.880 She may have had romantic relationships with some of them, 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.920 but like so many any other details about her life, 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.360 it's all pretty vague. De Gouge was also friends with 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:10.199 Madame de Montesson, wife of Louis Philippe the First, that's 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.880 the Duke of and at one point she was rumored 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.240 to be having an affair with the Duke's son, who 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.920 was later known as Philippe Egalite, and this may have 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.480 been a rumor spread to try to tarnish Degouge's reputation, 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.920 but her son Pierre did wind up getting an appointment 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:29.520 as an engineer thanks to the Orleans family. As a 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:31.959 lamp de Gouge was making connections to some of the 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:35.680 really wealthy and powerful families of France. She was also 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:39.160 writing plays that focused in one way or another on 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:43.320 injustice and social issues. They tackled themes like divorce and 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.920 women's rights during and after a divorce, as well as 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:51.280 sexual double standards and the existence of debtors prisons, the 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.520 rights of children born out of wedlock, and girls being 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.520 forced to marry or sent a convince against their will. Overall, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.360 her female characters in these plays had and used their agency, 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.200 and they supported and protected one another rather than being 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:10.480 rivals or adversaries. And when women in Degouga's plays were victimized, 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:12.720 it was not something that was played for its own 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.920 sake or for shock value. It was connected back to 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.000 a greater theme of social injustice. At the same time, 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:25.120 though Degouga's plays didn't necessarily dispel negative stereotypes of women, 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.680 such as the idea that women were weak or deceitful. Instead, 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:33.800 she framed those traits as the inevitable consequences of women's 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:38.280 place in French society. While there were individual women who 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:42.960 held high positions within the monarchy or the aristocracy, women 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:47.600 as a group had very little overt political power. Educational 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.640 opportunities for girls were really limited, and for most women 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.000 they're only options for their adult lives were to get 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.240 married or to enter a convent, and either way they 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.240 had virtually no property rights their control over their own 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:05.680 lives and bodies. So, for example, the Goose saw women 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.080 as deceitful because they had to be to survive in 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.480 this environment, and as weak because they were given no 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:16.360 opportunities to build their own strength. Oh Lamb de Gouge 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.040 established a private amateur theater in Paris, but when it 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.160 came to public theater, there was really just one option, 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.199 the French National Theater, known as the comedyfan Says, which 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:32.120 essentially had a monopoly on professional theater. The Comedy Says 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.480 accepted new plays and then performed them in the order 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.480 that they were received, so if there was a backlog, 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.439 which there usually was, there could be a really long 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:46.080 delay between a place acceptance and its actual performance. Accepted 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:49.480 plays were not published until they had been performed, or 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.800 until three years after they had been accepted, whichever might 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.320 come first. That gives you an indication of how big 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:59.679 the backlog was. Um Playwrights whose plays were accepted were 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.000 given entry privileges at the theater, but when it came 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.880 to the performance of the play itself, that was completely 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.600 out of their control. So, especially for new playwrights who 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.240 were first trying to make a name for themselves, their 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.920 careers really rested on the whims and political shifts of 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.920 the comedy. Fan says this was true for olmpt A Gouge. 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.840 In Sight four, she wrote Zamore and Mirza, or the 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:28.520 Happy Shipwreck sometimes that's translated as the Fortunate Shipwreck. This 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.880 was a melodrama that takes place in the East Indies, 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:37.240 involving the shipwrecked aristocratic San Fremont family as well as 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.520 an enslaved Asian couple. The shipwreck is described as happy 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.839 because it leads to the enslaved couple being freed. De 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:49.080 Googe submitted this play to the Comedy Francais anonymously when 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:53.120 it was accepted in seventeen five. As time passed after 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:55.959 her play was accepted, de Googe started writing to the 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.760 theater and its actors about when it would be performed. 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:03.720 She became so insistent that in September, the troop leader 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:05.880 wrote back to her and told her that they were 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.600 pulling that play from the repertoire and striking her name 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.440 from the list of people who had entry privileges at 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:15.960 the theater. The theater also petitioned to have her arrested. 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.120 That might sound a little extreme, this was not really 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.880 a unique situation at all. It was common for playwrights 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.840 to become really frustrated with the Comedy Francais to the 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:31.360 point of being combative with their correspondence. Was also pretty 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.160 common for the company to then reverse their acceptance of 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.880 the play. But what was really unusual was for a 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.680 playwright who was treated this way to be a woman. 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.640 Between seventeen sixty one and seventeen eighty nine, the Comedy 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:49.160 Front Says accepted only nine plays written by women. Put 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:53.320 that in context, the Royal regulations required the company to 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.520 produce between twenty five and forty new plays a year. 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.320 I was not doing that was really performing were like 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.440 ten or twelve, which honestly still sounds like large number 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.720 of plays. Uh, it was accepting more work that it 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:11.480 was performing though, so plays by women just made up 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:16.440 a really tiny portion of the theater's repertoire. I feel 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.200 like this is the story of so many companies who 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.240 set really big goals at the beginning of every year. Yeah, 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:26.200 there's no way you're kind of meet them. Aside from 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.240 de Gouge. Only two of those women corresponded with the 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.360 company about their work. That was the del Arms sisters, 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.880 who had written a one act comedy together. The Comedy 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.200 from says performed that comedy only once, and the del 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:41.640 Arms sisters felt that it had been dropped in favor 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.080 of work by better known playwrights. They revised the play 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.360 and resubmitted it, and the company rejected that revision six 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:52.800 months later. So while the company had taken this step 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:57.960 was penalizing other playwrights who pushed too hard with their correspondence, 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.440 olymp de Gouge was really thely woman to face such 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:04.200 a treatment. That the Deloram sisters had not had their 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.320 revision accepted, but like they had also not been stripped 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.280 from the roles, there was no warrant out for their arrest. 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.680 Threatened with arrest, so she wrote to the Duc de Richelieu, 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.080 who was one of the first gentlemen of the King's 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:22.200 bed chamber, noting that while the Comedy Francais had treated 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:27.240 other playwrights this way, the theater's conduct was quote extraordinary 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:31.000 toward a woman. The Duke got her status with the 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:35.000 company restored, and although the comedy friend says still did 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.200 not perform that play. Her correspondence on the subject became 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:43.440 a little more conciliatory after this. Four years passed between 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.280 the time when The Happy Shipwreck was accepted and when 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.640 it was finally performed, and in that time de Gouche 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:54.280 had revised it repeatedly, and in August she had printed 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.800 an unbound version of the play, which was technically allowed 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:01.160 under the policies of the Comedy fonse Is, but it 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:05.040 was also considered kind of a rude move on her part. Yeah, 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.639 she had not quite gotten to that three year market. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.200 She kind of did an end run around the letter 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.200 of the law. By the time the company did perform 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.080 the play in seventy nine, it was shorter, the story 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.120 took place in the Caribbean, and the characters of Zamora 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.520 and Mirza had become African rather than Asian. The play 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.639 had been re titled The Slavery of Negroes or The 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.919 Happy Shipwreck. It's often been described as the first explicitly 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:37.280 abolitionist play in French and the first French play told 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.280 from the point of view of enslaved people. Even though 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:44.200 the comedian Says did finally perform this work, the performances 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:48.960 themselves did not go smoothly because of its abolitionist focus. 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.720 It drew heavy criticism from wealthy people who had connections 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.560 to French colonies in the Caribbean that relied on enslaved labor. 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:01.600 Abolitionists praised the play, while and owners hired hecklers to 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.679 disrupt the performances. Some of the people paying people to 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:07.959 disrupt the performances would have been just like people who 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.440 had investments, as well as like people who directly owned 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:16.640 these plantations and the enslaved workers who were there. Um 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.000 de Gouge also claimed that there was sabotage on the 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.399 part of the actors. The ones who had been cast 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.560 in the roles of Africans did refuse to darken their 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.200 skin for the roles. So the idea of white actors 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.320 and black face was still absolutely rooted in racism, but 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.159 it it didn't have quite the same connotations in the 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.800 late seventeen hundreds as it would develop during and after 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.119 the era of menstrual shows that started to develop in 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:48.040 the early eighteen hundreds. France's movement for the abolition of 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.639 slavery was still in its infancy when a Lampe de 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.600 gouge first wrote Zamor and Mirza. The Society of the 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.879 Friends of Blacks was established in seventeen eighty eight and 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:02.040 de Gouge became a member. Slavery was abolished in France 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.760 in seventeen nine four, although Napoleon restored it in eighteen 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.040 o two by her Count O Lampti. Gouge wrote more 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.600 than forty plays, although only twelve of them survive and 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.520 only four of them are actually staged during her lifetime, 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.879 and aside from her novels and plays, she also wrote 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:23.000 more than sixty political pamphlets during the French Revolution, and 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:28.720 we will get to that after another quick sponsor break. 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:38.080 The calf them or the woman question, was a literary 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.480 and philosophical debate that had been going on in France 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.560 and other parts of Europe for hundreds of years prior 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.520 to the French Revolution, starting in the Renaissance. It involved 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:52.440 questions about the nature of women and about women's rights 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.960 and status within the society, and a lot of these 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.520 same questions were argued again during the French Revolution, all 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.320 though men were doing a lot of this arguing. Women 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:07.479 were also politically active during the French Revolution, particularly when 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.760 it came to subjects that were considered part of women's sphere. 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.560 A big one was food and access to food. In ten, 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.160 we did an episode on the Women's March on Versailles, 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:21.639 which started on March five, s nine, and this was 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.320 a march from Paris to Versailles with the goal of 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.680 getting the monarchy to address a serious food shortage and 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:32.240 returned to Paris. Women, many of whom were anonymous, published 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.919 work on subjects like education and poverty, as well as 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:40.760 criticizing divorce and inheritance laws that favored men. The various 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:44.560 factions that arose during the revolution varied a little bit 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:48.000 and how welcoming they were of women, I say a 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.440 little bit. It was broader than that. There were some 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:53.040 factions that were like, nah, we only have men in 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.000 our leadership, and others who did allow women at least 0:20:56.040 --> 0:21:01.199 some participation. So women also formed their own political clubs 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.440 during the French Revolution. Many of those clubs were still 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:08.439 focused on the subjects that were considered appropriate for women, 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.399 like food and education. O lamp de Gouge had some 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:16.359 overlap with these other often anonymous women. She wrote on 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:20.080 some of the same subjects, including divorce, inheritance, and education, 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.399 particularly education for girls. She called for women to be 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.400 able to publicly name the fathers of their children born 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:30.679 out of wedlock, and for those children to be legitimized. 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.159 She also advocated an end to the dowry system and 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:38.119 the creation of services for widows, mothers, and children living 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:41.879 in poverty. But unlike many other women writers who were 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.560 often anonymous, she also wrote under her own name, and 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:49.320 she wrote more broadly on other political issues and on 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:53.840 women's political and social rights in general. She advocated for 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:57.439 professions to be open to anyone, regardless of their sex, 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:01.320 their color, or their social status. She believed that celibacy 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.480 requirements for monks and nuns set the stage for abuse, 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:07.920 and called for them to have marriage rights. She proposed 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.760 a voluntary tax to try to address wealth inequality and 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:15.679 to save the French Republic from bankruptcy. She also advocated 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.520 a luxury tax that would pay for services for the poor. 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.960 She called for an end to the death penalty, and 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:26.359 she advocated the establishment of a national theater that would 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:29.840 focus on publishing and staging the work of women play rights. 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:33.960 Some of the reforms that she advocated were ultimately adopted, 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.960 including protections for children who were born out of wedlock, 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:40.400 and divorce rights for women. These were passed into law 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:44.720 by the National Assembly in seventeen nine two. On August 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:49.199 seventeen eighty nine, the French National Constituent Assembly issued the 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:52.760 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, written 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:56.040 by the Marquis de Lafayette and the Abbe Sis along 0:22:56.080 --> 0:23:00.439 with Thomas Jefferson, that includes seventeen articles out lining the 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:05.760 fundamental rights of male citizens, and in seventeen the National 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:09.639 Assembly adopted a new constitution, one that gave the right 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:14.720 to vote only to male taxpaying citizens, h to a 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:18.879 lot of people. This was a little at odds with 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:25.359 the French revolutions professed values including liberty and equality. The 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:28.119 Gouge's response to all of this was the Declaration of 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:32.440 the Rights of Woman and the Citizen, sometimes translated as 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:34.920 the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:37.679 Citizen thanks to her use of the word sito again. 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:42.000 It followed the same basic format as the Declaration of 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:45.399 the Rights of Man, including a preamble, seventeen articles, and 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:49.720 an epilogue. It was also dedicated to Marie Antoinette, encouraging 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:52.280 her to take up the cause of the revolution and 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:55.679 to use her position to advance the cause of women's rights. 0:23:56.440 --> 0:24:00.800 De Gouge published this on September fourteen, seventeen ninety one, 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:04.680 to coincide with Louis the sixteenth ratification of the New 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.959 Constitution that excluded women from full citizenship rights, and the 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:13.040 prologue to this piece began quote, man, are you capable 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:16.680 of being fair? A woman is asking at least you 0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:20.159 will allow her that right. Tell me what gave you 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:24.959 the sovereign right to oppress my sex. The seventeen articles 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:28.000 follow the Declaration of the Rights of Man point by point, 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:30.879 and in some cases they simply use the word woman 0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:34.440 or women in place of man or men, or they 0:24:34.560 --> 0:24:38.840 specifically include women in addition to men where they're referenced. 0:24:39.440 --> 0:24:42.119 So Article one of the Declaration of the Rights of Women, 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:46.240 for example, is quote woman is born free and remains 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:49.880 equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may be founded 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:54.280 only on the common good. Other articles add additional nuance. 0:24:54.520 --> 0:24:57.360 For example, Article ten in the Declaration of the Rights 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:00.520 of Man is quote no one shall be disc quieted 0:25:00.560 --> 0:25:04.480 on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided 0:25:04.520 --> 0:25:08.359