Testament Politique d'Olympe de Gouges

by Olympe de Gouges

Olympe de Gouges’s Political Statement.

This prophetic pamphlet, distributed by the author to the Convention, the Commune, the Jacobins and various journalists, was written in early June 1793, a few weeks before her arrest on the 22 July. I have seen two fractionally different versions which challenges the received wisdom that Olympe de Gouges only ever produced one print run of her texts.

Signed Olympe de Gouges.
This 4 June 1793, in the second year of the French Republic.

5 pages, Unknown Binding

First published June 1, 1793

About the author

Olympe de Gouges, born Marie Gouze, was a French playwright and political activist whose feminist and abolitionist writings reached a large audience. She became an outspoken advocate for ameliorating the condition of slaves in the colonies and she began writing political pamphlets. Today she is perhaps best known as an early feminist who demanded that French women be given the same rights as French men.

In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791), she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male-female inequality. She was executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror for attacking the regime of Maximilien Robespierre and for her close relation with the Girondists.

Reviews

[OSCAR · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pesar de ser un testamento político, el documento no deja de ser ameno ni anula la reflexión. Olympe de Gouges, según su pluma, atribuye su muerte al despotismo del gobierno revolucionario, que tenía por un crimen de lesa república el haber defendido al destronado Luis Capeto, Luis XVI, y recalca que ella sacrificó hijo y fortuna por ayudar a la revolución y con esperanza tanto en Dios como en la Historia considera la insigne mujer que su trayectoria vital será reivindicada y se le hará justicia.

¡Bello opúsculo!