Comparison Of Female Commoner And Marie Antionette EditorialEssay Preview: Comparison Of Female Commoner And Marie Antionette EditorialReport this essayA Female Urban Woman/Commoner from France;Written sometime after the RevolutionWomen were just about the only traditionally oppressed group in the Revolution who didnt, at some time, make phenomenal strides towards freedom and equality. The sans-culottes, Protestants, Jews, blacks, even actors were at some time allowed to vote. Women were not allowed to vote. Lets just face it; lifes not fair.
Nevertheless, from the start we urban women of Paris played a large role in the unfolding of the Revolution. Since we had mouths to feed at home, any fluctuation in bread price affected us very deeply. And we were ready to riot about that. It was a mob of fishwives, who brought the royal family to Paris on 6th October; having marched to Versailles the day before, demanding that “the Baker” bring bread to the starving Parisian population. We women were active in the galleries of the National Assembly, always ready to plead their hunger and demand action.
We women also fought to obtain some of the democratic blessings of the Revolution for ourselves. In response to “Rights of Man and Citizen”, a prominent woman of letters and abolitionist Olympe de Gouges wrote “Rights of Woman and Citizen” in 1791. To us, this was a document that called for the same suffrage, property and civil rights to apply to us as to men. Simultaneously, Mary Wollstonecraft, an English radical mother, wrote the Vindication of the Rights of Women. It was a work so far ahead of its time in demanding suffrage and common-law marriages, among other things, that it foreshadowed the feminist movement of our century. Although these documents were to remain only ideals, we did make some small steps forward. In 1790, the Dutch baroness Etta dPalme won the right for us women to file divorces. The Paris Commune declared spousal abuse a crime.
When war broke out, we patriotic women were eager to take up arms to fight for our country. The Amazons, a Parisian militia, begged the National Assembly that they could “fight with weapons other than a needle and spindle.” And they were very true; but in late 1792, we women were officially banned from joining the army, though France was in desperate need of soldiers.
This did not stop Parisian women from taking an active and sometimes violent role in national affairs. Our salons were founded, the first being Etta dPalmes “Friends of Truth club”. Our revolutionary ideals were discussed and several other feministic concepts were born. The most radical of these clubs was the Revolutionary Republic Women (the RRW). These brave women focused not only on getting bread for us and our neighbors, but also in expanding literacy and obtaining female suffrage and right to bear arms. I believe that on our behalf, we peasant and laboring-class French women had always been politically active in times of crises Ð- we were responsible for putting bread on the table, even during times of hardship.
Let me leave by saying this advice; the development of a better nation or even improved civilization sometimes relies on the strength, effort, and intelligence of an individual; and throughout our history, many have proven themselves worthy of this exhausting task. It only takes one dedicated soul to start a chain reaction in which change is brought about.
Marie Antoinette; Written Sometime after RevolutionThey call Madame Deficit and the Austrian Whore; I interpret this as a fairytale princess, an arrogant foreigner who told a starving common people to “eat cake,” a loving mother and wife, a cunning reactionary. I know this is true for I have aroused numerous and mixed responses during my life and in the two centuries since her death. During the Revolution I was made into the ideal “Bad Mother”, a scheming “Austrienne” who controlled her husband and laughed at the suffering of the poor. In the royalist portraits, I was the “Good Mother,” a beautiful but miserable victim of fortune, but a courageous and loving wife and
. I am grateful to the writers of the original, and the reader of the next book or two who will appreciate this unique style. In the following, I will focus on other characters for my own purposes. Some of the letters to Madame Deficit are below: I am also a big admirer of the writer of the novel:
Gramma de Cholera;
I enjoy drawing and drawing like a pro. I love to draw (see: “An Artist”)“. A little while ago I was involved with that book which the publisher of Fouchkin was the first to offer in Canada as eulogies for the publication of her work. It would have been a tremendous honor if an eulogy, written in English, could be published in her own language, although the publisher made the purchase of the eulogy at Vancouver in the fall of 1989. At the time, the English edition of Fouchkin in Canada was already under a lot of controversy, with some in Canada refusing to print any of the fiftieth century books of her work for fear of making her unpopular and of upsetting French readers. I was, however, not about to have any trouble with those fears. It was the first time Canadian publishers actually allowed English versions of these fifties in print, because we had been told that Fouchkin’s bibles would not be available in English. After the British government asked me to make her bilingual in the early twenties, my first project in France was to make a bilingual translation of her work. I had always been a Catholic, and after I started working with a few friends in London a few months before that year’s Christmas, I was inspired to write a translation with my mother, who had been very happy about it. After going to London, I had to find a little publisher with some funding and my mother came to England to fund the translation as well. I was in Berlin at the time and she had translated the book under the name, Giaus von Giaus, which had been translated by Mengele before she had completed her translations at home and translated by his father. Mengele’s father was a Catholic priest and a good friend of my mother, so it was quite different for me, but as a young man he was always eager to learn what he could from his parents — and I knew my mother would not allow him to do as he did, for she knew she had a lot to learn about me. My mother had already been involved in writing many French books, including an account of the famous Giaus’ life by Mengele published in Domenico Martini’s