Book Report, Olympe de Gouges By Olivier Blanc

Résumé du document

This book is a biography of Marie-Olympe de Gouges, a French woman born in 1748 in Montauban. Olivier Blanc, the author, is a French historian born in 1951. He does research about the XVIIIth century and more particularly about the French Revolution and the status of the diplomats during this period. This Book, published in 1981, is his first main work, and it allows the author to rehabilitate the figure of Olympe de Gouges. This revolutionary woman was not only a pioneer in terms of feminism but also abolitionism. The author has opted for a chronological approach, as the book deals with the life of this amazing woman from her birth in Montauban in 1748, to her death, the 3 of November in 1793 by decapitation.

Extraits

[...] However, this very documented book (quotations from original sources are very numerous) shows very well how special and amazing Olympe de Gouges was. She never gave up her fight for the women, but also the slaves, during her entire life, and she never renounced to her ideas even during the Terror. The description made by the author of Olympe de Gouges' living-conditions during the Terror makes me realize how repressive it was and how bad the relationships between Olympe and the leaders of this regime were. [...]

[...] The book also insists on Olympe de Gouges' point of view and involvement in the Revolution. She understood how important the new medias were and did not hesitate to make use of them to spread her ideas; this is particularly the case concerning the posters but also the so-called pamphlets. For instance she were since the beginning of the events in favor of the equality of the conditions, she also pleaded for the creation of a "Garde National des femmes", and used to attend the sessions of the National Assembly. [...]

[...] The author quote one of Olympe de Gouges famous expression which, I think, traduces quite well her convictions am dreaming of a philosophical revolution deserving the holly humanity". Her position was then closed to the one of the Girondins and she actually stood up against the Montagnards since October 1792. She was one of the most famous women victims of the Terror (she was the first woman executed after Marie Antoinette) and before her decapitation she were kept prisoner for a very long time in insanitary places very well described by the author. [...]

[...] I once heard a man saying that "the biography of someone is always the novel of the others" and I find this expression really appropriate to my feelings regarding this book because, by describing the life of this so courageous woman, the author manages to draw a very relevant picture of the France, and more specifically of Paris, during the French Revolution. It was quite surprising because it felt I was actually living this Revolution as it provides a particular point of view, the point of view of an educated woman during one of the most important event of the French History. O. Blanc introduces Olympe de Gouges as a persevering, courageous, intelligent and talented person. Throughout the book we guess how strong this woman had to be to survive in such a severe context. [...]

[...] Book Report, Olympe de Gouges By Olivier Blanc This book is a biography of Marie-Olympe de Gouges, a French woman born in 1748 in Montauban. Olivier Blanc, the author, is a French historian born in 1951. He does research about the XVIIIth century and more particularly about the French Revolution and the status of the diplomats during this period. This Book, published in 1981, is his first main work, and it allows the author to rehabilitate the figure of Olympe de Gouges, this revolutionary woman who was a pioneer in terms of feminism but also abolitionism. [...]