The Women of the French Revolution: Olympe de Gouges and the Guillotine

In the summer of 1793, the French Revolution turned on its own daughters. Olympe de Gouges, playwright and author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, was executed by guillotine for daring to challenge Robespierre's Jacobins. This episode of The Story of France follows de Gouges from her provincial origins in Montauban to the revolutionary stage of Paris, where she defended the rights of women, slaves, and the poor. We explore her famous 1791 Declaration, her confrontation with the Jacobin Club, and the politically charged trial that ended her life. Along the way, we meet other women of the Revolution: Charlotte Corday, the assassin of Marat; the tricoteuses who knitted at the foot of the scaffold; and the activist Etta Palm d'Aelders, who petitioned for women's political equality. We discuss the Jacobins' fear of women's political clubs and the law of 1793 that banned them outright. Lucas and Luna also examine de Gouges's lesser-known literary works, including her early anti-slavery play 'l'Esclavage des Nègres' and her prescient warnings against the Terror. The episode concludes with the legacy of de Gouges and the question of whether the Revolution truly advanced women's rights or merely left them in the shadow of the guillotine. #FrenchRevolution #OlympeDeGouges #WomensRights #Guillotine #Jacobin #Robespierre #CharlotteCorday #DeclarationOfTheRightsOfWoman #Feminism #Terror #Montauban #Tricoteuses #EttaPalmDAelders #History #FexingoHistory #Podcast #France #RevolutionaryWomen Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo