There are few events in history that created such world-wide interest as
the triumphant success of the American War for Liberation. The deepest
impression was made on the French nation, which for centuries had
suffered under the tyranny and coercion of extravagant kings, corrupt
officials, greedy clergy and feudal nobility. In sharp contrast to the
prodigality and lasciviousness of the court and its armies of courtiers
and courtesans, who all revelled in luxuries, there was among the people
a general feeling of misery and despair. Finances were in a frightful
condition; public scandals were every-day occurrences; famines were
frequent; the old creeds had lost their power to arouse enthusiasm,
while out-worn institutions and customs still encumbered the land, and
with their dead weight pressed men down. The deep longing to be
delivered from all these parasites and encumbrances, the urgent need of
reforms and relief was evident everywhere. In the streets, in all cafés,
clubs and salons the discussion of politics was the foremost topic.
The most conspicuous among such political salons were those of
=Théroigne de Méricourt=, =Marie Olympe de Gouges=, and =Madame Roland=.
The first of these three ladies was a quick-witted, strikingly handsome
woman, intensely passionate in temper, and commanding an almost volcanic
power of eloquence. Her salon was the birth-place of the “Club des Amis
de la Loi,” the most noteworthy members of which were Jerome Pétion,
author of “Les Lois Civiles,” and Camille Desmoulins, author of “La
France Libre.” Both writers were among the leaders of the revolution,
and it was Desmoulins, who in July, 1789, inflamed the people by his
violent speeches to take up arms and storm the Bastille. At the fall of
this ill-reputed prison Théroigne de Méricourt came prominently into
notice and it was she who proposed to erect a temple for the National
Assembly on the site of the razed fortress.
With her friends she also had a hand in framing the “Déclaration des
Droits de l’Homme,” which, together with the American Declaration of
Independence, ranks among the greatest human documents of history. The
most important points of this charter of the French Revolution are: that
all men are born and continue free and equal in rights; that Society is
an association of men to preserve the natural rights of men; that
Sovereignty is vested in the nation; that all Authority, held by an
individual or a body of men, comes expressly from the nation; that
Liberty is the power of doing what we will, so long as it does not
injure the same right of others; that the law can forbid only such
actions as are mischievous to society; that Law is the expression of the
general will; that all citizens have a right to take part, through their
representatives, in the making of laws; that laws must be equal to all;
that all citizens have equal rights to fulfill all offices in the state;
that society has a right to demand from every public servant an account
of his administration; that all men are free to hold what religious
views they will, provided that they are not subversive of public order;
that freedom of speech, of writing and printing is one of the most
precious of the rights of man and that public force is needed to
guarantee these rights; that property is an inviolable and sacred right,
of which no one can be deprived, save when public necessity, legally
established, evidently demands it, and then only with the condition of a
just and previously determined indemnity.
With the adoption of this declaration by the national assembly, all
hereditary distinctions, such as nobility and peerage, feudal regime,
titles, and orders of chivalry were abolished, also venality or
hereditary succession in offices, feudal privileges, religious vows or
other engagements which might be at variance with natural rights or the
constitution.—
Early in October, 1789, Théroigne de Méricourt also took a leading part
in the march of the women to Versailles and it was she who by the
violence of her speech won the royalist soldiers over to the revolution
and so enforced the return of the royal family to Paris.
Being accused of dangerous conduct and of having been engaged in a plot
against the life of the queen Marie Antoinette, the daughter of Empress
Maria Theresia of Austria, during a visit to Liége she was seized by
warrant of the Austrian Government and for some time interned at the
fortress of Kufstein. After her release in January, 1792, she returned
to Paris, where she was hailed as a martyr of liberty. Resuming her
former role she again became very active in all public affairs. On June
20, 1792, she even commanded in person the 3d Corps of the so-called
army of the Faubourges, and marched with them to the palace, where the
king, wearing the red cap, met the revolutionists and assured them “that
he would do whatever the constitution ordained that he should do.” But
as soon afterwards the king’s secret connections with Austria and
Prussia became public, the insurrection broke loose again, resulting in
the massacre of the national guard on August 10th, in the Place Véndome.
It was here, that Théroigne sprang at Suleau, a pamphleteer in royal
service, and dragged him among the infuriated mob, where he was
instantly killed.—
It was a year before these incidents that Madame Roland opened a salon
in Paris, whither her husband had been sent as the deputy from Lyons to
the constituent assembly. Her salon had nothing in common with those
frequented by people seeking recreation in conversation and belle
esprit. Generally there were no women present except the hostess. But
her salon was the rendezvous of such fiery spirits as Mirabeau, Brissot,
Vergniaud, Robespierre and others, interested in the great movement,
which was soon to reach its climax. It was in this salon that Madame
Roland impressed her enthusiasm for a republic upon those men who
likewise strove for progress and liberty. Here also she conceived the
plan of a journal, entitled “The Republican,” which, however, was
suppressed after its second issue. Here she penned that famous letter to
the king, which, as it remained unanswered, was read aloud by her
husband, the king’s appointed Minister of the Interior, in full council
and in the king’s presence. Containing many terrible truths as to the
royal refusal to sanction the decrees of the national assembly and as to
the king’s position in the state, this letter initiated the dethronement
of the king and the abolition of royalty.—
It was in these troubled times, also, that another remarkable woman
attracted great attention by matching the “Declaration of the rights of
man” with a “Declaration des Droits de la Femme,” a declaration of the
rights of women. In this document she preached for the first time not
only the principle of equality of both sexes but she also demanded the
right of women to vote and to hold public offices. This document was
published just at the time when the equality of both sexes before the
law and the guillotine had become a recognized fact, when not only the
head of the king but also that of the queen Marie Antoinette had rolled
into the dust. Pointing to these events Olympe de Gouges closed her
manifesto with the flaming words: “When women have the right to ascend
the scaffold then they must have the right to mount the platform of the
orator!”
When Olympe de Gouges wrote these lines, she hardly anticipated her own
fate. Provoking in some way the anger of Robespierre, this rabid tyrant
did send her also to the guillotine.—
Théroigne de Méricourt likewise fell a victim of the furious hostility,
which in 1793 arose between the two leading parties, the Girondists and
the Montagnards, the latter party led by those most extreme autocrats as
Marat, Danton and Robespierre. When Théroigne, being aware that her own
party, the Gironde, was in peril at the hands of these bloodthirsty men,
one day urged the mob to moderate their courses, she was seized,
stripped naked and flogged in the public garden of the Tuilleries. This
infamous affront affected her so that she became a raving maniac, never
recovering her reason.—
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