Title: Olympe De Gouges, The Revolutionary Feminist Who Was Beheaded
Headings: Meet Olympe De Gouges, The Radical Women’s Rights Activist Who Was Guillotined By French Revolutionaries
Meet Olympe De Gouges, The Radical Women’s Rights Activist Who Was Guillotined By French Revolutionaries
Olympe de Gouges demanded the regulation of prostitution and the dissolution of marriage, but when she criticized Maximillien Robespierre's Reign of Terror, he silenced her for good.
Olympe De Gouges, A Teenage Widow
Leading The 18th-Century Fight For Women’s Rights
Fighting In The French Revolution
Paying With Her Head
A Founder Of Modern Feminism

Content: Unknown/Gallica Digital Library The execution of Robespierre in 1794. During King Louis XVI’s trial, de Gouges argued for the king’s exile rather than his execution. When Maximilien Robespierre rose to power and ushered in the Reign of Terror, de Gouges openly criticized his rule. A proponent of constitutional monarchy, de Gouges soon found herself labeled an enemy of the Revolution. Paying With Her Head
The Declaration of the Rights of Woman foreshadowed the end of de Gouges’s life. In one declaration, de Gouges held that “woman has the right to mount the scaffold, so she should have the right equally to mount the rostrum” or the podium from which to espouse her beliefs. Just two years later, de Gouges faced arrest for these beliefs. In 1793, de Gouges had called for a direct vote on France’s form of government. She spent the next three months in jail where she continued to publish works defending her political views. But then on Nov. 2, 1793, the Revolutionary Tribunal convicted de Gouges of printing seditious works after a rushed trial.