Question

Find out more about any Revolutionary Figures you have read about in the chapter
‘French Revolution’. Write a short biography on that person.

Answer 1

Olympe de Gouges was one of the most important of the politically active women in revolutionary France. She protested against the Constitution and the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen as they excluded women from basic rights that each human being was entitled to. So, in 1791, she wrote a Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen, which she addressed to the Queen and to the members of the National Assembly, demanding that they act upon it. In 1793, Olympe de Gouges criticized the Jacobin government for forcibly closing down women's clubs. She was tried by the National Convention, which charged her with treason. Soon after this, she was executed.