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.
I think that the answer to this question is really applicable to travel anywhere, not just in Europe. It’s the biggest travel mistake I have made, and it’s a travel mistake my wife has made. WE PACK TOO MANY CLOTHES!
Stew and Sandy confer their next sight-seeing move with professional tour guide, Raphaelle. (Photo by Dan Owen)
As we have become more savvy in our travels, we’ve learned how to pack. I have found that I really don’t need eight pairs of pants. I’ve learned that there are very comfortable walking shoes other than Nike tennis shoes. I’ve learned that wearing the tee shirt or baseball cap with the New York Yankees emblem is not an appropriate thing to do (full disclosure: I don’t follow baseball). While I’ve never done this, I just shake my head when I see Mr. and Mrs. America in the crowd wearing matching sweat suits. I always say to myself, “Wow, what a pair of shmucks.”
Here’s another mistake…
One of the other mistakes is to find yourself in a city for three days and the ONE museum that you came to see is closed for three days a week. Guess what? It’s the three days you are there. So my advice is to research the primary sites before you commit to travel dates. In other words, look the places up on the Internet and get a sense for when they are open (and closed). We got to Paris once and we had never been to the Picasso Museum. So we trucked on over and found it was closed for renovations – very disappointing but our consolation prize was a visit to Père Lachaise cemetery.
Another mistake
…is to not take advantage of products or services you can purchase prior to your travels. While some of these are discounted, others will save you time when you get to your destination. If you’re going to travel by rail, then look into getting the Euro Rail Pass. It cannot be bought on the continent. You must buy before you leave. If you’re going to London or Paris, buy one of the Tube/Metro passes for a week or however long you need. Check out the city you’re going to visit to see if they offer a museum/attraction admission package. An example would be the Paris Museum Pass. You’ll have to do a little arithmetic to see if it’s worth it but one of the intangible benefits is that it lets you bypass those long lines at the Louvre or other popular attractions.
You will make travel mistakes. We all do. The smart people learn from their mistakes. They correct them the next time and just move on to new mistakes.
Do we have a lot of stories? Of course we do. I’m looking forward to sharing these with you. Please continue to visit our blog.
Thanks so much for following my blog and my little journey through this incredibly interesting process of writing a book and then getting the bloody thing published.
– Stew
Please note that I do not and will not take compensation from individuals or companies I mention or promote in my blog.
“Informative and entertaining, Stew Ross’ newest work evokes a difficult and frightening time in the history of the City of Light. The detailed descriptions of sites such as the Vél’ d’hiv’ or Gestapo headquarters reminds us of the choices people made during those years.”
Cynthia Bisson, PhD, Professor of History, Belmont University, French Resistant Expert
“Another outstanding, well-researched, and presented book by Stew Ross. It gives a detailed guided walking tour full of facts about the activities of the Gestapo during their occupation of Paris during World War II. I highly recommend this book to everyone who has an interest in what life was like during the Nazi occupation in France.”
Richard H.F. Neave, President Royal British Legion Paris branch, member Paris-based Libre Résistance SOE “F” Section and author of SOE: A Life in the Shadows
