Category: French Revolution

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To The Guillotine and Back

One thing I’ve learned…

while researching this book in Paris, is there are enough individual sad stories about the French Revolution to fill an entire book. This really hit home when we visited the Picpus Cemetery in the 12th district.

Picpus is the only private cemetery left in the city of Paris. It is a cemetery born out of the Revolution. For background purposes, let me take you to 11 June 1794. France and Paris in particular are in the depths of the period called “The Terror.”

The Terror

The guillotine has been dismantled and moved to the “Square of the Overturned Throne.” This in now known as the place de la Nation (Métro: Nation). For the next 46 days, 1,306 people were executed here. Only on 27 July 1794 or 9 Thermidor was the blade of the guillotine silenced. Robespierre was arrested, attempted suicide, and held at various locations.

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The Women of the French Revolution

Women
A Versailles, à Versailles du 5 Octobre 1789. Illustration (unknown). Bibliothèque nationale de France. PD+100; PD-US-No Notice. Wikimedia Commons.

The Many Layers of Women

One of the more fascinating aspects of my research on the French Revolution has been the role that women played in the Revolution. While I’m no historian and have limited knowledge of historical world events, I have never run across such a significant event in which women were the catalysts for such important components. While it’s the men that receive most of the attention (as well as several keynote women such as Marie Antoinette), if you scratch the surface, you’ll find many layers of women whose actions contributed to those turbulent times.

For simplicity sake (at least for my simple mind), I’ve categorized the women into groups: royalty, nobility, citizens (known as sans-culottes), the salons, and the feminists. We can talk about each of these groups but the real forces behind many of the pivotal events of the Revolution were the female citizens of Paris – the working class of Paris or sans-culottes.

Food was scarce. Bread was hard to come by. The weather had taken its toll on the harvests for several consecutive years. It was the woman’s responsibility to feed the family. It was the woman who held her baby who screamed as he slowly died from starvation. These women got mad. They demanded change.

Women Stormed the Bastille Too!

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