What did olympe de gouges write

Last Updated on April 25, 2024

Despite holding a significant place in the annals of French revolutionary history, Olympe de Gouges is hardly a household name.

Many will easily recognize figures such as Lafayette, the Marquis de Condorcet, and the redoubtable Robespierre– names that appear over and over in popular accounts of the Revolution of 1789 and its aftermath.

What they often don’t know is that one brave, provocative woman responded to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen with a proto-feminist manifesto– one that castigated the Revolution’s glaring omission of women from its proposed expansion of human rights.

Keep reading to learn who de Gouges was, how she contributed to the advancement of human (and women’s) rights in France and worldwide– and how her life came to a brutal and needless end at the hands of Robespierre’s Reign of Terror.

From Playwright & Abolitionist to Revolutionary Pamphleteer

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