Women and the Limits of Citizenship in in the French Revolution

228 Pages·1992·8.364 MB·English

by  Olwen Hufton

Women and the Limits of Citizenship
in the French Revolution
The French masses overwhelmingly supported the
Revolution in 1789. Economic hardship, hunger, and
debt combined to put them solidly behind the lead-
ers. But between the people's expectations and the
politicians' interpretation of what was needed to
construct a new state lay a vast chasm. Olwen H.
Hufton explores the reponses of two groups of work-
ing women - those in rural areas and those in Paris -
to the revolution's aftermath.
Women were denied citizenship in the new state,
but they were not apolitical. In Paris, collective
female activity promoted a controlled economy as
women struggled to secure an adequate supply of
bread at a reasonable price. Rural women engaged
in collective confrontation to undermine government
religious policy which was destroying the networks
of traditional Catholic charity.
Hufton examines the motivations of these two
groups, the strategies they used to advance their re-
spective causes, and the bitter misogynistic legacy of
the republican tradition which persisted into the
twentieth century.
OLWEN H. HUFTON is professor of European History
and Women's Studies at Harvard University.
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Women and the Limits
of Citizenship in the
French Revolution
The
Donald G. Creighton Lectures
1989
OLWEN H. HUFTON
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
© Olwen H. Hufton 1992
Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-80205898-1 (cloth)
ISBN 0-8020-6837-5 (paper)
Paperback reprinted 1994,1999
Printed on acid-free paper
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hufton, Olwen H.
Women and the limits of citizenship in the
French Revolution
(The Donald G. Creighton lectures)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8020-5898-1 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-6837-5 (pbk.)
i. France - History - Revolution, 1789-1799 - Women.
2. Women in public life - France - History - 18th century.
3. Women revolutionaries - France - History - i8th century.
4. France - History - 1789-1815.
I. Title. II. Series.
DC158.8.H84 1992 944.04*082 C9i-095i42-x
for Clare, sparring partner and alter ego
in memory of a shared experience
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Contents
Foreword ix
Preface xv
CHAPTER ONE
Women and Politics
i
CHAPTER TWO
Poverty and Charity: Revolutionary Mythology and
Real Women
5i
CHAPTER THREE
In Search of Counter-Revolutionary Women
89
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER FOUR
Epilogue. The Legacy: Myth and Memory
131
Notes 155
Select Bibliography 179
Index 198
Foreword
The historian whose name this lecture series honours,
Donald Creighton, was born in 1902 and died in 1979.
Most of his long and productive life was spent in and
around the Department of History at the University of
Toronto. He was first an undergraduate here, at Vic-
toria College, and then, after a stint at Balliol College,
Oxford, he joined the Department as a Lecturer in 1927.
There followed forty-four years during which he served
a five-year term as Head of the Department, was Pres-
ident of the Canadian Historical Association, won al-
most every literary award available to a historian in
Canada, and by the end of his career he had become
a University Professor, the highest honour this Uni-
versity can bestow on its faculty.
On his death, a group of his friends and former stu-
dents formed a committee whose purpose was to create