Bizarre French men with funny wigs who chop off heads like onion heads; the French Revolution in one sentence. Yet, the deeds of the ladies often go unnoticed in this tumultuous era. Here are five of the most prominent female revolutionaries:
NUMBER 1 - MADAME ROLAND
Madame Roland the fiery feminist, born Jeanne-Marie Philipon(later Manon Roland) in 1754, rocked the 18th-century Parisian scene. Married since 1780 to politician Jean-Marie, she was the brains of his operation and wielded great influence in the domain of politics over him, secretly writing his works and speeches for him, albeit without direct credit for them. Sceptical of the radicals and the sans-culottes(lower-class radicals), she vehemently opposed figures like Danton, whom she felt overshadowed her man.
She was a Girondin(a moderate republican party member) and a salonnière, meaning host of a lit party which served as a hub for political talk, despite taking a quite apolitical stance at times and viewing excessive political involvement as inappropriate for women. Her major beef with Robespierre (a Jacobin, the most ruthless and radical group) made things messier between the factions. Madame Roland’s shrewdness and intelligence were extremely prominent in this male-dominated field, leading to her arrest in 1793 during the Jacobin Insurrections.
Written in prison, her memoirs expressed her desire for greater political power, though they were later burned. “Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!” is her famous(or infamous!) mic drop as she was guillotined. Her death caused the Montagnards(Jacobinesque radicals, think Robespierre), to condemn and dissolve the Girondins. Overall, while Madame Roland was the very accurate definition of ‘girlboss, gaslight, gatekeep’, she was not as much a feminist as a strong woman in a sea of men who served as a role model for centuries.

NUMBER 2- OLYMPE DE GOUGES
Olympe de Gouges, feminist femme fatale, born Marie Gouze in 1748 in Montauban was a playwright, abolitionist and an absolute trailblazer. Imagine being married at 16! Well, she did in 1756 to Louis Aubrey, an older man with whom she had a son. After his death, she embraced life to the fullest, hiding her widowhood and researching politics and philosophy to enter Parisian Society. She was firmly against religious marriage which she said to be ‘love’s grave’. There would be no more Marie Gouze; she adopted the name ‘Olympe de Gouges’ and started publishing her works and plays.
In 1789, when France was hyped about the publishing of the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man’ in the French Constitution, de Gouges wrote one of her own, including women as citoyennes with rights. But she didn’t stop there. De Gouges wrote multiple pamphlets and petitions, fighting for everything from elders and widows rights to abolishing slavery and normalising divorce.
However, not everyone was on board with her actions. Some thought she was too out there and some that she wasn’t radical enough. Yet, to countless women, she was a hero, a feminist symbol before the word was even coined. Unfortunately, as goes with revolutionary stories, she didn’t have a happy ending and got guillotined at the order of Robespierre(L move Robespierre).

NUMBER 3- GERMAINE DE STAËL
Germaine de Staël, the drama queen of Paris, was born Anne-Louise-Germaine-Necker in 1766 in Paris to a famous Swiss minister and a French salonnière. She wasn’t just all fancy parties and speaking and not acting. She took philosophy to a whole new level, becoming such an avid fan of Rousseau that she wrote a book about him at 22. In 1786 she married a Swedish Baron, Staël-Holstein, becoming Baroness Staël-Holstein and living that high life. Funny a Jacobin should have a royal title.
About that, she cheered on the Jacobins like her squad, but as France became a two-edged sword, she cosied up to both royalist ministers and Jacobin radicals. Talk of drama! However, Madame Staël wasn’t your average socialite, diving deep into politics and becoming a salonnière like her mother. She invited the best of the bunch, think Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette; the top of the top.
When havoc was unleashed in 1793 with the Reign of Terror, she dipped and fled to Switzerland due to her dual political nature and the Girondins she supported being overturned. There she established a great intellectual salon and published many great works, becoming one of the most influential Western European Romantic writers.
Although her life was cut short on 14 July(Bastille Day) 1817, her legacy of countless literary works and political involvement paved the way for many strong women to come.

NUMBER 4- MADAME TALLIEN
Madame Tallien’s life was something straight out of a juicy teen drama., The ‘It’ girl of the revolution was born Thérèsia Cabarrus in Madrid in 1773, the daughter of a French banker. From a young age, her beauty was widely acknowledged. From some random kid in Madrid to the talk of the town in Paris, Mme. Tallien soon went from gossip and giggles to an unwanted pregnancy with a revolutionary guy by the name of Lepeletier. She married an infamous aristocrat gambler, Fontenay, whom she soon abandoned. The catch? All of this happened by the time she turned 16!
She, a beautiful woman, ditched him and went straight for Tallien in Bordeaux, a sus individual with ties to Robespierre. Rotten business. However, there was nothing Madame Tallien couldn’t get away with, and I mean nothing. Tallien was a cruel man, a revolutionary bad boy who was addicted to the thrill of la guillotine and who threatened to chop her Mme’s off if she didn’t marry him. She agreed, played it cool and got him to chill on the guillotine act, which saved thousands of lives in Bordeaux. Thus, for saving so many lives, Mme. Tallien soon earned the sobriquet ‘Notre-Dame de Bonsecours(later de Thermidor)’.
As no high school drama is complete without the mean girl, Robespierre soon commenced his beef with her, condemning her mercy act. Thus, on his orders, she was sent straight to Friday afternoon detention and was arrested. In prison, Mme. Tallien met Josephine de Beauharnais, the future Empress of France and her ride-or-die BFF. Mme. gaslighted Tallien into starting a coup to overthrow Robespierre and his men, which indeed freed her and bestie. This was the Thermidorian Reaction and without it, the Reign of Terror wouldn’t have been dissolved. Hah, Robespierre, you thought…
Shortly after she had Tallien’s child and they married in 1794 yet they divorced in 1797 since he no longer needed her beauty’s protection. He paid no heed to the fact that they had five children together.
Mme. started a trend in Paris of skimpy, transparent clothing and, scandalously, no undergarments. For her skincare routine, she bathed in strawberries. Soon, she became the most controversial socialite… and the most powerful queen bee! She had her clique of mean girls that she hung out with at lunchtime.
Again, a personage straight out of Clueless, Mme. Tallien came head to toe in jewels to her bestie and Napoleon’s home, where she proceeded to flirt with her bestie’s man. Anyways, the affair cooled off, but she went after Paul Barras who was Josephine’s ex. She had multiple affairs and from 1800 to 1804 was constantly pregnant without halt. Noticing her closeness with his family and her behaviour, Napoleon told Mme. to ‘act more discreetly’. Soon, she was more famous than the Mona Lisa as her almost-fatal visit to the Louvre proved. The crowd gathered around her and her children so violently that she almost died.
Later, in 1805, Mme. married the Comte de Caraman, with whom she had three children. She was brought back to grace, returned to Paris and opened the famous musical court of Chimay. She died in 1835, mother of eleven children and a slay queen as she had been destined to be.

NUMBER 5- CHARLOTTE CORDAY
Charlotte Corday, the angel of assassination, was born in Normandy in 1768. She had a stormy upbringing from the start. As tragedy struck her royalist family, she was sent to get a “proper” education in a convent and become a nun. To no surprise, Corday was too rebellious for the nuns to handle, although she was tremendously smart.
As she grew up, she became really into the Girondin movement against the National Convention and was infatuated with the idea of revolution. With no will for marriage and a family of an opposing faction, she left for Paris.
In Paris, Corday had a one-sided beef with the Jacobin supporter and leader Marat whom she saw as a spineless marionette of the guillotine. In 1793 she requested an interview with him and she got it. Due to a skin disease, Marat spent most of his time in the tub. Corday entered the room and stabbed him in the heart, killing him. Marat not only spent most of his time in the wretched tub but died there too, inspiring the famous Jacques-Louis David painting. She was arrested on the spot and later guillotined. Her severed head was slapped on the cheek by the assistant executioner.
Yet, things took a twist. Instead of becoming a hero, Corday messed things up. People saw Marat as a martyr and labelled the Girondins as the bad guys. Revolutionary women were scandalised due to the bad light thrown upon them. It is commonly believed that figures such as Mme. Roland and Olympe de Gouges could have been spared from the guillotine were it not for Corday’s actions. Plus, everyone was shocked that a woman could pull off such a terrible act; it was even thought that a man put her up to it.
Even though her rebellious act backfired, Corday’s legacy lives on through art, stories, myths and poems. By dying for the Girondins, she joined them and thus, Corday remains a prominent female revolutionary figure who represents a firm conviction in one’s beliefs and an ability to act upon them.


To conclude this compendium of the women’s revolution, it must be said that revolutionary women are truly unsung heroes who should be portrayed as they were. Media oftentimes portrays these women as either damsels in distress or Madame Defarges with no scruples whatsoever, which is such a terrible portrayal for such complex personages of times past.
SOURCES
(for further reading)
MADAME ROLAND
https://guides.loc.gov/women-in-the-french-revolution/manon-roland
Szymanek, Brigitte. “French Women’s Revolutionary Writings: Madame Roland or the Pleasure of the Mask.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 99–122. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/463976. Accessed 1 May 2024.
https://aeon.co/essays/manon-roland-revolutionary-philosopher-and-housewife
Thomas, Chantal. “HEROISM IN THE FEMININE: THE EXAMPLES OF CHARLOTTE CORDAY AND MADAME ROLAND.” The Eighteenth Century, vol. 30, no. 2, 1989, pp. 67–82. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42705725. Accessed 1 May 2024.
OLYMPE DE GOUGES
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2207/4-women-of-the-french-revolution/
https://guides.loc.gov/women-in-the-french-revolution/olympe-de-gouges
Diamond, Marie Josephine. “OLYMPE DE GOUGES AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER AS CRITIQUE.” Dialectical Anthropology, vol. 15, no. 2/3, 1990, pp. 95–105. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29790339. Accessed 2 May 2024.
GERMAINE DE STAËL
MADAME TALLIEN
CHARLOTTE CORDAY
https://guides.loc.gov/women-in-the-french-revolution/charlotte-corday
M. C. P. “Charlotte Corday.” The R. I. Schoolmaster, vol. 4, no. 8, 1858, pp. 225–26. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44787205. Accessed 2 May 2024.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/charlotte-corday-assassinates-marat#
https://blogs.lib.umich.edu/lost-stacks/angel-assassination-charlotte-de-corday-joseph-shearing#:~:text=After%20this%20tragedy%2C%20the%20family,admit%20her%20to%20the%20convent.
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