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Olympe de Gouges
"Femme, réveille-toi !" Comment faire entendre sa voix en ce XVIIIe siècle qui grouille de paroles alors que grandit le silence divin ? Quel langage trouver pour avoir le sentiment d’être soi ? Comment exister à ce moment où la politique devient un théâtre de l’idéal mais aussi de la cruauté ? Comment, en somme, faire en sorte que "si la femme a le droit de monter sur l’échafaud", elle puisse aussi avoir le droit de "monter à la tribune" ? Voici quelques-unes des questions auxquelles tente de répondre cette biographie de Marie Gouze, dite Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793), auteur d’une œuvre essentielle comprenant pièces de théâtre et écrits politiques, dont la célèbre Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne.
267 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 31, 2018
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May 21, 2026Olympe de Gouges, born Marie Gouze in 1748, was the author of declaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne 1791, in the early years of the French Revolution, after which she was executed by gulliotine 1793 - not for saying that women have rights, though the symbolism of that is powerful and a reasonable shorthand for the course of the revolution, but for her support of a radical new direction in French politics, to this day still unexplored - a constitutional monarchy and a limited central government.
In one of his reviews Warwick made a distinction between a biography that focuses on the story of a person's life and one that instead is about their ideas. The author here certainly likes to quote some of the ideas and insights that other writers have had - some of which I captured on the updates below this review, but it is not that they are discussed, which is a pity.
Aged seventeen Marie Gouze was married to a man who she did not like, fortunately for her he was dead within a year, leaving her if not a merry, then at least a relieved, eighteen year old widow with a new born son. At some point she moved to Paris, where an elder sister of her's was already living, and she reinvented herself as Olympe de Gouges, Olympe was one of her mother's names, de Gouges the author suggests sounds like Gouze. From the 1780s onwards Olympe was writing plays until her death. After the revolution she was going to the same salon as Mary Wollstonecraft and Tom Paine, she was associated with the Girondins.
I enjoyed reading about Olympe de Gouges. And if you have no particular interest in literature, or history, this biography might be an okay choice to get acquainted with her. I found it a bit odd, so odd that afterwards I read the Wikipedia page of Olympe de Gouges to try and see if I could separate the facts from the speculation in this book.
Although de Gouges was a published author and politically active in the second half of eighteenth century France, there does not seem to be that much known about her. My impression was that two or three postcards would be enough to write down all the facts. Which makes me wonder how it was that this book runs to about 230 pages. Ok, I know that a biography is more than a list of facts, but it can help to have good foundations and a solid framework to support the discussion of the person and their ideas.
Anyway, it feels as though I have been typing this for weeks without getting to the core of anything at all - probably because that is the situation. The author has become a professional biographer - other lives he has written about include the Lumiere brothers and Buffalo Bill. Perphas theatricality and performance links all his subjects. I feel he believes in his subject, but maybe he was overwhelmed by the possibilities -do you stick to the facts, to the ideas, to the intellectual ferment of the revolutionary era? In France, one can live as a God, I believe when you are a tourist, the same probably does not apply to locals. Recently I discovered that in cafes one can order a cafe gormand. The server brings you a tray with a small cup of coffee, and three small deserts or pastries. This is a cafe gormand biography. The reader gets a little taste of different things, enough to stimulate and intrigue, but insufficient to satisfy. The author reports that Alexander Dumas dismissively commented of Olympe de Gouzes that she could neither read nor write. Maybe that's true, or maybe it's not. Still it seems remarkable to me that decades after her death, a hugely successful and popular novelist felt the need to slap her down. Maybe we are close to something significant about the social relations of men and women, or maybe not? Perhaps you might imagine a grand tradition of democracy from Greece to Rome, to modern societies? Personally I feel there is a great...
After some time...
Written, as far as I can tell, by a specialist in writing biographies, this is a smoothly written work. It does give a sense of the broad strokes of her life, while the absence of detail or knowledge of late eighteenth century French literary patronage, the business of the Parisian theatres, the politics of the Girondans and their supporters left me with unanswerable questions and unease. A fascinating figure emerges from a book which while providing talking points and opinions, never contextualises her.
In one of his reviews Warwick made a distinction between a biography that focuses on the story of a person's life and one that instead is about their ideas. The author here certainly likes to quote some of the ideas and insights that other writers have had - some of which I captured on the updates below this review, but it is not that they are discussed, which is a pity.
Aged seventeen Marie Gouze was married to a man who she did not like, fortunately for her he was dead within a year, leaving her if not a merry, then at least a relieved, eighteen year old widow with a new born son. At some point she moved to Paris, where an elder sister of her's was already living, and she reinvented herself as Olympe de Gouges, Olympe was one of her mother's names, de Gouges the author suggests sounds like Gouze. From the 1780s onwards Olympe was writing plays until her death. After the revolution she was going to the same salon as Mary Wollstonecraft and Tom Paine, she was associated with the Girondins.
I enjoyed reading about Olympe de Gouges. And if you have no particular interest in literature, or history, this biography might be an okay choice to get acquainted with her. I found it a bit odd, so odd that afterwards I read the Wikipedia page of Olympe de Gouges to try and see if I could separate the facts from the speculation in this book.
Although de Gouges was a published author and politically active in the second half of eighteenth century France, there does not seem to be that much known about her. My impression was that two or three postcards would be enough to write down all the facts. Which makes me wonder how it was that this book runs to about 230 pages. Ok, I know that a biography is more than a list of facts, but it can help to have good foundations and a solid framework to support the discussion of the person and their ideas.
Anyway, it feels as though I have been typing this for weeks without getting to the core of anything at all - probably because that is the situation. The author has become a professional biographer - other lives he has written about include the Lumiere brothers and Buffalo Bill. Perphas theatricality and performance links all his subjects. I feel he believes in his subject, but maybe he was overwhelmed by the possibilities -do you stick to the facts, to the ideas, to the intellectual ferment of the revolutionary era? In France, one can live as a God, I believe when you are a tourist, the same probably does not apply to locals. Recently I discovered that in cafes one can order a cafe gormand. The server brings you a tray with a small cup of coffee, and three small deserts or pastries. This is a cafe gormand biography. The reader gets a little taste of different things, enough to stimulate and intrigue, but insufficient to satisfy. The author reports that Alexander Dumas dismissively commented of Olympe de Gouzes that she could neither read nor write. Maybe that's true, or maybe it's not. Still it seems remarkable to me that decades after her death, a hugely successful and popular novelist felt the need to slap her down. Maybe we are close to something significant about the social relations of men and women, or maybe not? Perhaps you might imagine a grand tradition of democracy from Greece to Rome, to modern societies? Personally I feel there is a great...
After some time...
Written, as far as I can tell, by a specialist in writing biographies, this is a smoothly written work. It does give a sense of the broad strokes of her life, while the absence of detail or knowledge of late eighteenth century French literary patronage, the business of the Parisian theatres, the politics of the Girondans and their supporters left me with unanswerable questions and unease. A fascinating figure emerges from a book which while providing talking points and opinions, never contextualises her.
March 22, 2025
a little long for me
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews