Notes on Olympe de Gouges

Early Life

• Born with the name Marie Gouze
• Middle-class family. Her father was a butcher and her mother was the daughter of a cloth merchant.
• Believed she was the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman
• Forced into a marriage of convenience. Her husband died one year after the birth of her only son.
• Moves to Paris, changes name and meets a wealthy lover. Other lovers followed
• Very well connected with Paris’ intellectual revolutionary scene

Abolitionist- Feminist

• In 1784, De Gouges wrote Zamore and Mirza against slavery and later “Black Market”
• Wrote about and advocated for “free love”
• Wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, in response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man

Jacobins and Girondins

• Close with Girondins, opposed Jacobins
• Against execution of Louis XVI
• Her friends are guillotined
• De Gouges calls for a plebiscite. She includes constitutional monarchy among options
• She condemns “The Terror”
• She is executed in 1793

“Oh women! Women, when will you cease to be blind? What advantages have you gathered in the Revolution?” – Olympe De Gouges