Olympe de Gouges

Lore & Background

Born Marie Gouze on 7 May 1748 in Montauban, Quercy, in southwestern France, her mother was Anne Olympe Mouisset Gouze, daughter of a bourgeois family. The identity of her father is ambiguous—possibly her mother's husband Pierre Gouze, or the Marquis de Pompignan, though this is 'historically unverifiable.' She was married on 24 October 1765 to Louis Yves Aubry, a caterer, against her will. Her semi-autobiographical novel decried the marriage: 'I was married to a man I did not love and who was neither rich nor well-born.' On 29 August 1766, she gave birth to their son, Pierre Aubry. That November, a flood of the river Tarn caused Louis' death. She never married again, calling marriage 'the tomb of trust and love.' She changed her name to Olympe de Gouges, from her surname (Gouze) and adding her mother's middle name, Olympe. In 1768, the wealthy Jacques Biétrix de Rozières funded her move to Paris, where she socialized in fashionable society, at one point being called 'one of Paris' prettiest women.' She began her career as a writer in Paris, publishing a novel in 1784 and then a prolific career as a playwright. In 1788 she published Réflexions sur les hommes nègres, demanding compassion for slaves. Her play L'Esclavage des Noirs was staged at the Comédie-Française in 1785 but closed after three performances due to paid hecklers from the slave trade lobby.

Reader's Guide

Olympe de Gouges welcomed the outbreak of the French Revolution but soon became disenchanted when equal rights were not extended to women. In 1791, in response to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, she published her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, challenging male authority and advocating for equal rights for women. There she wrote: 'A woman has the right to mount the scaffold. She must equally have the right to mount the speaker's platform.' She was associated with the moderate Girondins and opposed the execution of Louis XVI. In December 1792, when Louis XVI was about to be put on trial, she wrote to the National Assembly offering to defend him, arguing he had been duped. Her increasingly vehement writings attacked Maximilien Robespierre's radical Montagnards and the Revolutionary government during the Reign of Terror, leading to her arrest and execution by guillotine on 3 November 1793. Her legacy lies in her early and forceful articulation of women's rights and her opposition to slavery, though her life ended under the revolutionary regime she had initially supported.

Did You Know?

• De Gouges was reportedly illiterate and was said to dictate to a secretary.
• She changed her name to Olympe de Gouges from Marie Gouze, adding her mother's middle name Olympe.
• Her play L'Esclavage des Noirs was staged at the Comédie-Française in 1785 but closed after three performances due to paid hecklers from the slave trade lobby.
• In December 1792, she wrote to the National Assembly offering to defend Louis XVI at his trial, arguing he had been duped.
• She was executed by guillotine on 3 November 1793 for attacking Robespierre's Montagnards and the Revolutionary government during the Reign of Terror.