## 1. Life



Marie-Louise-Sophie de Grouchy, Marquise de Condorcet was born in 1764
at the Chateau de Meulan. She died in 1822 of an unknown disease. Her
parents were Marie Gilberte Henriette Freteau de Peny
and Francois-Jacques, Marquis de Grouchy. She was the eldest of four.
Her sister, Charlotte, married Grouchy's close friend and
collaborator, Pierre-Georges Cabanis. One of her two brothers,
Emmanuel de Grouchy, Marshall under Napoleon, was reputedly
responsible for the French losing at Waterloo because he chose to
finish a dish of strawberries before answering a call to battle.



Grouchy was educated at home, benefiting from her brothers'
tutors and her highly cultured mother's teachings. At eighteen,
she was sent to the Chanoinesse school of Neuville, a convent
finishing school for the very rich. There she continued her studies,
reading Rousseau and Voltaire and learning English and Italian by
translating texts by Edward Young and Torquato Tasso. This is also
where she became an atheist.



At the age of 22, she married Nicolas, Marquis de Condorcet,
mathematician and philosopher, who held the post of officer of the
mint under Turgot. Together they moved to the Hotel of the Mint in
Paris, and there they started a salon, hosting members of the
political and literary international scene.



In 1791, together with Condorcet, Thomas Paine, the Girondin Brissot,
and a few others, she started a journal designed to raise awareness of
republican political thought in France. This journal, *Le
Republicain,* only lasted a few months as Condorcet
demanded it be discontinued after the Champ de Mars massacre, at which
Grouchy and her daughter, Eliza, born in 1790, had been present.



Grouchy contributed several pieces to that publication (unsigned or
signed "La Verite"--Truth) and she also
translated others by Paine. It was probably around that time that
Grouchy wrote the first draft of her *Letters on Sympathy*, a
response to and commentary on Adam Smith's *The Theory of
Moral Sentiments*.



In 1793, Condorcet was added to a list of men and women who were
"proscribed" by the government of the Terror and had to go
into hiding to evade arrest. Condorcet remained in hiding until spring
of 1794 when he attempted to run and died under an assumed name in a
small town outside Paris. During his time in hiding, he completed the
introduction to a encyclopedic work on the progress of humanity which
he had started several decades earlier. There is evidence that Grouchy
helped him with this work during her frequent visits. At the very
least, she edited an incomplete manuscript, adding several passages
which were deleted by a later editor.



After Condorcet's death, Grouchy, whose wealth had been
confiscated, lived by painting miniature portraits. By the time the
Terror was over, she decided to publish her *Letters on
Sympathy*, addressed to her her brother-in-law, Cabanis, together
with a translation of Adam Smith's *The Theory of Moral
Sentiments* which greatly surpassed existing translations.



From 1795 until her death in 1822, she dedicated her writing time to
editing her husband's works. She continued to participate in
France's philosophical life through her salon and kept in
regular touch with Cabanis who worked on physiology and later,
Stoicism.


## 2. Enlightenment and Revolution



Grouchy was very much a product of the Enlightenment ideas that
influenced the French Revolution. As a teenager, she gave up religion
and embraced Voltaire, Rousseau, and social justice. Her salon was the
heart of the revolutionary faction that had the most contact with
foreigners such as Thomas Paine. She was also, through Brissot,
closely connected to the Girondins, and through him and her husband,
Condorcet, to the French abolitionist movement. Although she did not
herself write about women's rights, it is not unlikely that she
had some influence over her husband's short piece on this
subject written in 1790: "On the Right of Women to the
City".


### 2.1 Enlightenment Philosophy and the French Revolution



The Revolution was a time when philosophers came into the limelight,
books inspired acts and reforms, and the words of Rousseau, Voltaire,
Adam Smith, Thomas Paine and the Marquis de Condorcet were (at least
for some time) authoritative. But it's important to note that
some of the philosophers who influenced the ideals and the course of
the French Revolution were women. Sophie de Grouchy was one of
them.



Voltaire and Rousseau were almost universally
influential--everyone who could read had heard of them, and while
some preferred one to the other, both figured in the collective
imagination as a model for thinking social and political reforms.
Grouchy had read both at convent school and Voltaire had been
Condorcet's friend and mentor. Unfortunately, his acquaintance
with Voltaire began after the death of Voltaire's partner,
philosopher Emilie du Chatelet, which meant that there was no direct
connection between her and Grouchy.



The main external influences for late eighteenth century French
Revolutionary philosophers were Adam Smith and Thomas Paine.
Smith's *Wealth of Nations* had been a huge success in
France and his economic thought was particularly influential for
Turgot, France's finance minister before Necker, and Condorcet,
officer of the mint. Condorcet offered a copy of his *Life of
Turgot* to Smith. While Smith and Turgot seem to have developed
their theory of economics independently, there was certainly some
correspondence between the two at a later stage.



Thomas Paine spent much of the period of the French Revolution in
Paris, and he was a good friend of the
Condorcets--Grouchy's command of English must have been
part of the reason why he liked them, but also the couple and their
friends favored an American style of republicanism and Paine's
knowledge and ideas were very useful in helping define what that
meant. Paine played a key role in the founding of the journal *Le
Republicain*, providing several pieces, which were almost
certainly translated by Grouchy.


### 2.2 Salonieres



Although Grouchy was a philosopher who participated fully in the
intellectual debates of her time--including those that led to
political reforms--her status was never quite the same as that of
her male counterparts because she was a woman.



The women who had any influence of the political life of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are very often dubbed
"salonieres". In other words, they were hostesses,
whose job was to make sure that the men who came to share important
philosophical insight in their home did not go about with an empty
glass. Famous salonieres of the French Revolution include
Madame Helvetius, widow of the philosopher of that name, Madame de
Stael, Madame Roland, wife of the Girondin minister of the interior,
and Sophie de Grouchy. Although these women were hostesses, their
motivation for hosting was perhaps as much the desire to be part of
the debate as to facilitate it. It was easier for a woman to talk
politics in her own home than anywhere else. Although women could
attend men's clubs--at least until 1793--and the
Assembly, they could only listen. Several of the salonieres of
the revolution became writers of note, including Madame Roland, Madame
de Stael, and Sophie de Grouchy. Unfortunately, historians of the
revolution, starting with Michelet but continuing to these days,
ensured that they only became famous as hostesses rather than as the
thinkers and writers they were.


### 2.3 The Gironde



One faction of the Revolution that was particularly welcoming to women
was the Gironde. This was in part at least because their unofficial
leader, Brissot, found it easy to admire and respect women's
intellect. He had known Catharine Macaulay in England and been
instrumental in her republican *History of England* being
translated to French. He was a close friend and correspondent of Manon
Roland and had published (anonymously, following her wishes) several
of her reflections on the Revolution in his paper *Le Patriote
Francois*. Brissot was also a close friend and collaborator of
fellow editor Louise Keralio-Robert. It was he who convinced the
French Theatre to put on Olympe de Gouges's abolitionist play,
*Zamore and Mirza*, and then invited her to join his Society of
Friends of the Black. He was also on the editorial board of *Le
Republicain*, and advertised it in *Le
Patriote*.



Condorcet was strongly implicated in the Girondist party by February
1793 as he drafted the Gironde's constitutional project. In July
1793, a list of 21 "proscribed" Girondins was issued, and
39 names (including Condorcet's) were added shortly afterwards.
Brissot and twenty-one others were arrested. They were tried on 24
October and executed on the last day of that month. It took just over
half an hour for the twenty-two heads to fall. Others who had escaped,
including Manon Roland's husband (the interior minister
Jean-Marie Roland) and her lover (the politician Francois
Buzot) committed suicide shortly afterwards. After several months
spent in hiding in Paris, Condorcet too attempted to escape. He died
in prison in Bourg-la-Reine in March 1795, either by swallowing poison
hidden for him in a ring by his brother in law Cabanis or from a heart
attack brought on by his long walk from Paris.



Many of the projects began by the Gironde were more or less given up
by those who came after, including the abolition of slavery and the
emancipation of women.


## 3. Works



Sophie de Grouchy only published one book in her own name: a short
text entitled *Huit Lettres sur la Sympathie* translated as
*The Letters on Sympathy*, which she appended to her
translation of two texts by Adam Smith: *The Theory of Moral
Sentiments* and *The Origins of Language*. We do, however,
have evidence that she wrote other texts. Grouchy edited a republican
journal with her husband in 1791 and there are two articles that,
although unsigned, can be attributed to her. She also contributed
translations and articles by Thomas Paine to the journal, and later
published her own translation of Adam Smith's works. There is
also evidence of some unpublished (and possibly unfinished) work,
which Condorcet refers to in a letter to his daughter.


### 3.1 The *Letters on Sympathy*



The *Letters on Sympathy* were first drafted in 1791 or 1792,
but published in 1798 alongside a translation of Smith's
*Theory of Moral Sentiment* and *Origins of Language*.
According to Grouchy's daughter, Grouchy decided to translate
Smith because she needed money. It also provided her with the
opportunity to publish her own response to Smith. She ensured that it
did not get mistaken for a simple introduction by printing it at the
end of the translations, rather than the beginning.



Grouchy is enthusiastic about Smith's views--she agrees
with him that moral sentiments and judgments can be derived from
sympathy and that we need to develop our rational abilities in order
to render this capacity useful. But she takes issue with certain
aspects of those views. In particular, she feels that he has not dug
sufficiently deep in order to understand what sympathy is. He has
noted "its existence, and its principal effects", but not
gone back to "its first cause, showing how it must belong to all
sensible beings capable of reflection" (Letter I, p.3). This
first cause she traces back to infanthood, and to the very physical
relationship of a baby with its nurse. Grouchy does not talk about
mothers there. She is careful to distinguish between the physical
relationship, skin on skin, feeding, and the moral one, the duty a
mother may have to nurture her children, and the duties of the
children to love and respect their mother. In that she differs from
Manon Roland and Mary Wollstonecraft who thought that an infant needed
to be fed by his own mother in order to flourish morally. What Grouchy
is looking for is a physical trigger to the sensations of pleasure and
pain that will eventually give rise to sentiments of sympathy, and
this trigger has to be common to all human beings in order to account
for the ubiquitous presence of sympathy in human societies. Every baby
that survives to an age where they may develop sentiments will have
been fed by another human, and there will have been no previous
universal experience suited to stimulate the sensations that can lead
to these sentiments. Grouchy not only traces sympathy back to its
origins, but her account is distinctly naturalistic. This cashes out
in her description of the growth of sympathy and the birth of
morality.



The text takes the form of eight letters, addressed to C\*\*\*. Although
some readers have conjectured that C\*\*\* was her husband, Condorcet,
there is evidence that the letters are addressed to her
brother-in-law, close friend and collaborator Pierre-George Cabanis.
Cabanis shared an interest with Grouchy on the role of physiology in
human behavior and morality, as well as in social reforms.



The eight letters function like chapters and take the reader through
the argument, which starts with the origins of sympathy, and end with
the application of the theory developed to social, legal and political
reform. Although the format is epistolary, there is no question that
these are not real letters but chapters of a short treatise. The
argument sustained throughout the text and the addresses to C\*\*\* at
the beginning and at the end serve as transition passages from one
part of the argument to the other.



The first letter explains how the author is going to depart from
Smith's own argument. Smith, she says, has merely postulated
sympathy as a human disposition, but what is needed in order to
understand more fully the workings of sympathy is an inquiry into its
origins. She then goes on to argue that these origins are
physiological in nature, arising from an infant's first human,
skin on skin contact (with her nurse) and the discovery of pleasure
and pain. The next two letters offer a theory of the development of
sympathy through reason, showing how we extend our sympathy to a
greater circle as we develop, and distinguishing between different
sorts of sympathies. Letters IV and V offer an account of the origins
of morality out of sympathy, in which the author mostly agrees with
Smith. In the final three letters Grouchy explores the implications of
her theory for the legal, social, economic and political reforms
called for, and made possible, by the French Revolution.


### 3.2 Political Journalism and Translations



*Le Republicain*, edited by the founding members of the
Society of the same name (Condorcet, Brissot, Paine, Duchatelet,
Dumont, and Sophie de Grouchy) lasted for four issues in the
spring/summer 1791. Grouchy seems to have been quite involved in the
production of the journal. In the first issue, she translated two
pieces by Thomas Paine (one of which is signed Duchastellet, despite
having been written by Paine). The third piece in that first issue is
signed "La Verite" (Truth) which featured as
a signature on Grouchy's stationary. Stylistically, it appears
to have been a collaboration between Grouchy and Condorcet. Its
argument is a justification of the revolution to foreigners, an
explanation of how the republican principles it embodied contribute to
freeing the people of France and how they will, at the right time, do
the same for other countries. The main piece of the second issue is
the first half of a long paper discussing a letter written by Louis
XVI to the people of France before his attempted escape. It offers a
republican analysis of the pitfalls of monarchy, even when the monarch
in question is not a tyrant. The article was first drafted by Dumont,
but he later withdrew it and it was significantly rewritten using
arguments, phrases and style that can be found in the *Letters on
Sympathy*. The third issue contains the end of that article,
another letter by Paine, translated by Grouchy, and a short piece
entitled "Letter from a Young Mechanic" which is unsigned
but attributed to Grouchy in which the fictional mechanical inventor
who is a student of Vaucanson proposes that the royal family be
replaced by a set of automata. Even though such machines are
expensive, it says, they will cost a fraction of what the French
people are spending on their actual king. And what's more, the
mechanical king, far from being a tyrant, will raise its pen and sign
everything its government wants it to! Jacques Vaucanson, the putative
teacher of the fictional author was a famous inventor, and one whose
inventions Condorcet had praised in his works as an example of the
sort of technical activity that could be just as inspirational as
theories (Condorcet, *Oeuvres*, 413-437, and Belhoste
1994: 127).



A recurrent theme both in the "Letter from a Young
Mechanic" and "Observations on the King's
Letter" is the financial cost of maintaining a royal family.
Grouchy, who had lived for some years in the Hotel de Monnaies while
Condorcet was the inspector general of the Monnaie de Paris under
Necker, had some knowledge of economics. Condorcet himself advocated a
liberal economy, much closer to his previous superior, Turgot, a
Physiocrat who believed in a laisser-faire economy. Together Turgot
and Condorcet had attempted in 1774 to solve the problem of the
growing price of bread by letting the farmers decide how they sold
their flour, instead of controlling the market. Unfortunately their
reform was followed by a drought and later severe hail storms so that
whatever grain had managed to push through the dry soil was destroyed
because it could not be harvested. The king, rather than following
Necker's advice and waiting for his reforms to have their
effect--after all no amount of reform could change the
weather--sacked Turgot and gave his job to Necker. This did
nothing to prevent the people from starving and France found itself in
the midst of the "flour wars" with riots in Paris and
pillages in the countryside by people who could no longer afford to
buy bread, or who spent their entire income on it, leaving nothing for
clothes or housing. The final issue of the journal contains a long
essay on the creation of an electoral council, a piece later reprinted
as part of Condorcet's works.



In 1798, Grouchy published a two volume translation of Adam
Smith's *The Theory of Moral Sentiments* and *A
Dissertation on the Origins of Languages*. Her translation was
notable in that it was based on the seventh (1792) and most
authoritative edition of Smiths's work. Also, unlike previous
translators of *The Theory of Moral Sentiments*, Grouchy
followed the text closely, without summarizing, interpreting, adding,
or deleting parts. Her translation remained in print until the late
twentieth century.


### 3.3 The *Sketch of Human Progress*



In 1794, while Condorcet was in hiding, Grouchy advised him to work on
the introduction of his unfinished history of human progress. There is
evidence that the couple worked closely together at that time.
Moreover, there are discrepancies between the final manuscript in
Condorcet's hand, and the first published version, edited and
introduced by Grouchy. There are notable passages added that deal with
the role of women and families in the evolution of humanity. On the
first page of the first part, "Men united into hordes",
Condorcet writes that human groups are always family based and this is
because mothers and fathers have a natural tendency to form strong
emotional attachments towards their children:



> 
> 
> A family society seems to be natural to man. Its origin is to be found
> in the child's need for its parents and in the natural
> solicitude of the mother and--though to a lesser extent--of
> the father for their offspring. But the child's need lasts long
> enough to bring into existence and foster a desire to perpetuate this
> life together and to awaken a lively sense of its advantages. A family
> that lived in a region offering ready means of subsistence could
> increase and become a tribe. (Lukes and Urbinati 2012: 9)
> 
> 
> 



These passages were deleted in a later edition by Francois
Arago who preferred to see them as inauthentic than as the product of
a collaboration between Condorcet and Grouchy.



Condorcet's discussion of the importance of the family for human
society in these first paragraphs does not lead, as one might expect,
to further discussion of how the family develops, and how it
influences the progress of humanity. But in Grouchy's 1795
edition, the idea that studying families is important in order to
understand human progress is reintroduced in the last pages
(Condorcet, 1795, p.322):



> 
> 
> Until now, political history, as indeed, the history of philosophy and
> of science has always been the history of a few men. But what the
> human species actually consists in, the families, subsisting nearly
> entirely from their labor, has been forgotten.(my translation)
> 
> 
> 



A history of families, Grouchy and Condorcet conclude, is what we need
to study in order to truly understand human progress because focusing
on isolated individuals, exceptionally bred royalty, or heroes whose
paths are exceptional, cannot give us an accurate picture of how
humanity in general changed through the ages.



If we take into account the influence of Sophie de Grouchy as his
collaborator, we can interpret this framing of the work with
considerations about family life as hers. It does give the work a
distinctly proto-feminist flavor of the kind that goes beyond
Condorcet's principles. Focusing on the family and its
importance for human development is crucial to the proper integration
of women into the history of humanity and to make their lives central
to any plans for future progress. Not only does it allow us to look
beyond the odd, isolated woman who against all historical odds
succeeded in asserting herself at the top of some discipline or other,
but it also reminds men that they have a life and a set of duties
within the family unit, that they are not free individuals moving
history along with the sheer force of their courage or intellect, but
fathers who need to change a nappy and help their daughters with their
homework so that they too have a chance at participating in human
progress.


### 3.4 Other Writings



We have evidence that Grouchy wrote other texts beside those listed in
the previous sections. In his 1794 "Advice to his
daughter", Condorcet refers to texts and fragments by his wife,
besides the eight letters on sympathy, dealing with moral philosophy.
In 1792 Grouchy wrote to Etienne Dumont to ask him to read a draft of
the *Letters* and the beginning of a philosophical novel. The
fragments have not been found so far, and it is possible that they
were destroyed.


## 4. Philosophy



The *Letters on Sympathy*, where the greatest part of
Grouchy's philosophy is to be found, are principally a response
to Smith's *Theory of Moral Sentiments*. The author
states in the first letter that her writing was prompted by reading
Smith's book, and that where she disagreed with him, she wanted
to develop her own views and arguments. Later in that letter she says
what specifically she disagrees with: Smith does not investigate the
origins of sympathy, and hence his account of its effects must be
incomplete. Elsewhere in the *Letters* she specifies aspects of
her argument where she either agrees or disagrees with Smith.



Grouchy is also writing in the context of the French revolution, and
attempting, with her husband, to help bring about a number of reforms
in France. This means that her philosophy is mostly focused on value
theory--specifically moral, social, legal, economic and political
theory.



Theoretical influences come from philosophers who turned to psychology
and cognitive development such as Locke and Condillac. As far as
political philosophy was concerned, we find influences from Voltaire
and Rousseau, but also Fenelon and Montesquieu.



A further influence must be noted, that of her choice of
correspondent, C\*\*\*. Jean-George Cabanis was a medical doctor by
training, but also a writer who attempted to combine his scientific
knowledge with moral and social philosophy. His main work, *On the
relations between the physical and moral aspects of man* in 1802
describes the effects that physiology has on moral
psychology--character, he says, is inevitably affected by the
body's reaction to the weather, and by the function of organs,
such as digestion. In her work, Grouchy also emphasizes the role of
physiology in morality, arguing that sympathy arises first and
foremost out of the sensations caused by internal organs.


### 4.1 Moral Psychology



Grouchy's moral philosophy cannot be defined in terms of one
particular influence. Her arguments carefully weave together elements
from what we would recognize now as distinct ethical theories: ancient
virtue ethics, stoicism, and utilitarianism.


#### 4.1.1 Early modern developmental psychology



Locke was a major influence in eighteenth century moral psychology,
especially through his *Thoughts on Education* in which he
argued that every aspect of an infant's experience contributes
to her moral and cognitive development. Like him, Grouchy traces the
development of morality to infancy, arguing that its first sources
occur "in the cradle" when an infant experiences the pain
of being separated from her nurse and the pleasure of being reunited
with her.



From Locke, but also Condillac, Grouchy takes the idea that cognitive
development is primarily physiological at source, but can lead, with
the proper education, to the development of moral sentiment on the one
hand (the soul) and of abstract ideas on the other (the mind). The two
together, for Grouchy, gives us the idea of justice.


#### 4.1.2 Physiology



The most important physiologist thinker during Grouchy's
lifetime was her brother in law Pierre-Georges Cabanis. In 1796, two
years before the publication of the *Letters*, but four years
after they were first drafted, Cabanis presented a number of lectures
on a topic that was central to the most original parts of
Grouchy's response to Smith, namely, the role of the sensations
of pleasure and pain in bringing about sympathy, and ultimately
morality. His lectures were printed in 1802 under the title *Les
Rapports du Physique et du Moral*. Arguing that morality was the
result of reasoning about sensations, Cabanis proposed that
"moral properties were nothing but physical properties
considered from certain particular points of view" and that



> 
> 
> [i]t is from that point of view that the physical study of man is
> principally interesting: this is where the philosopher, the moralist,
> the legislator must direct their gaze, and where they can find at the
> same time new lights on human nature, and fundamental ideas on its
> perfectioning. (Cabanis 1802: 78, 80)
> 
> 
> 



Grouchy agrees with Cabanis that the ultimate source of human
development is physical, and this is how she departs from
Smith's account of sympathy. Smith acknowledges that sympathy
exists as part of human psychology, but Grouchy insists on tracing its
origins and finds them in sensations of pleasure and pain. While
Cabanis is mostly interested in finding physiological correspondences
for particular moral or psychological phenomena, Grouchy, starting
from simply physiological sources, builds a complex and complete
theory of moral development, which starts from particular and personal
attachments and ends in the love of humanity in general.


#### 4.1.3 Pleasure and pain



The first causes of sympathy, Grouchy argues, are the sensations of
pains and pleasure one experiences as part of our relationship to
another. A baby who finds comfort at the breast of its nurse will
experience pain when it is separated from it, and later learn to
recognize and care for the pain experienced by the nurse. Grouchy
distinguishes between physical and moral pleasures and pains on the
one hand, and present and remembered pleasures and pains on the other.
She also argues that we can derive abstract ideas of pleasures and
pains.


#### 4.1.4 Stoicism



The principal Stoic element in the *Letters on Sympathy* is the
way in which Grouchy describes the development of sympathy as
reminiscent of the Stoic "cradle arguments," that is,
offering a description of infant behavior as evidence of what is
natural to human beings and not merely conventional. Stoic cradle
arguments often invoke the concept of *oikeiosis*. The Stoics
claim that what can be observed in infants is a natural concern for
self-preservation. This tendency, *oikeiosis*, naturally grows
to extend one's tendencies towards self-preservation to an
impartial concern for all (Annas 1993: 265). Animals and young
children are capable of the early stages of the process--that of
recognizing their own bodies as belonging to them, and learning how to
use them for their own survival. Mature animals are also able to
engage in later stage of *oikeiosis*, that of caring for their
young. Human *oikeiosis* starts as it does with animals, but
develops further--as far as cosmopolitanism.



The development of sympathy in Grouchy follows a similar pattern. We
start in infancy by recognizing our own pains and pleasures, those
that signal to us what we need to stay alive. From this the circle of
sympathy is widened to include others who form part of our life,
starting with the observations of physical pleasures and pains, in
oneself and in others, then moving towards psychological sufferings,
and extending the circle further to humanity in general.


#### 4.1.5 Utilitarianism



Grouchy's strong emphasis on pain and pleasure might suggest
that her moral theoretical leanings are towards consequentialism
rather than Stoicism. And indeed some of her discussions of what it
means to do the right thing seem to be informed by consequentialism.
In Letter V, she claims that acts receive reason's approval
depending on the extent to which they benefit humanity. In Letter
VIII, she suggests that the value of the law can be measured in part
in terms of the pleasure and pain it produces.



Cabanis (C\*\*\*) agreed with Grouchy that the ability to see and
recognize pain was central to sympathy and ultimately to morality, but
he also sought to reconcile this with a form of Stoicism. What
attracted Cabanis--and presumably Grouchy--to Stoic
philosophy was the possibility it opened for a form of atheism that
nonetheless saw something divinely pleasing in all living things.
Cabanis's last work is a defense of hylozoism rather than the
materialism he is known for, i.e., the view that spirit, as reason, is
everywhere, and most especially in humans and "higher"
animals. But nonetheless, Cabanis explicitly rejects the Stoic view
that pains and pleasure don't matter morally, and indeed,
suggests that even the Stoics did not believe this:



> 
> 
> We cannot possibly agree with the Stoics that pain is not bad. Perhaps
> pain is not always bad in its effects--it can offer useful
> warnings, sometimes even strengthens physical organs just as it
> impresses greater energy and strength of will to morality. [...]
> But if pain was not an evil it would not be so for others anymore than
> for ourselves. We should discount it in others and in ourselves. So
> why this tender humaneness that characterizes the greatest stoics much
> more than the firmness and the constancy of their virtues? (Cabanis
> 1824: 84)
> 
> 
> 



Cabanis goes on to cite Cato, who gave up his horse for his companion
on a scorching road in Sicily, and Brutus, who gave his coat to a sick
slave on a freezing winter night. Stoics themselves do not countenance
the view that pain should be ignored when it comes to acting.
Therefore, one can be an ethical stoic and make the relief of pain
central to one's morality.


### 4.2 Political Philosophy


#### 4.2.1 Liberty



Since the revival of neo-republican thought in contemporary political
philosophy, several philosophers of the past have been re-interpreted
as republican thinkers. This is the case, for instance, with Mary
Wollstonecraft, who until recently was thought of as a liberal
thinker, is now seen by many as an important source for feminist
republicanism (Halldenius 2015; Berges & Coffee 2016). Although we
should be weary of reading too much contemporary political theory into
past thinkers, in particular when it comes to very technical arguments
and definitions, it is nonetheless often helpful to focus on the
central themes of republican thought in order to understand these
thinkers. In particular, the Revolutionary engagement with liberty was
very often framed in Roman terms with arguments that to become a
republic was to become free from domination by an arbitrary power.
These thoughts resonated particularly strongly, and sometimes
differently for women philosophers as they considered whether their
positions as wives and daughters in a patriarchal society meant that
they too were dominated, and would carry on being so in a republic
unless marriage and family laws were reformed. This was the focus of
Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges, but it was less so in the
case of Grouchy, who to some extent relied on her husband's more
powerful and influential voice to propose feminist reforms.



Placing Grouchy in a republican context highlights the importance of
her work for the French Revolution and vice versa. Few political
philosophers write in a vacuum; most are influenced by or wish to
influence the events unfolding around them. But when the events are as
remarkable as a revolution, then it makes no sense to ignore their
impact on the work we are looking at. In the case of Grouchy, it is
even clearer that she wished to participate, through her writings, in
the making of the new Republic; in the summer of 1791, together with
Condorcet and a few friends, she established a political journal,
*Le Republicain,* the purpose of which was to enlighten
the public as to what republicanism was.



*Le Republicain* lasted for just over a month, framed by
two events: Louis XVI's attempted escape from France, and the
Champ de Mars Massacre. The aim of *Le Republicain*
stated in its opening article, "Avis aux Francais,"
was to promote the ideal of republicanism, attempting to make it more
respectable and better understood than it was at the time: "to
enlighten minds on the subject of republicanism, which is slandered
because it is misunderstood". (Condorcet and Paine 1792, p.5



A theme that is strongly present in all the articles of *Le
Republicain*, including the ones attributed to Grouchy, is
the threat to freedom constituted by any monarchy, no matter how
well-intentioned the monarch is. In this, Grouchy and the other
authors of *the Republicain* differ from republicans
inspired by Montesquieu, such as Sieyes, who believed that the
form of government was incidental to a republican constitution as long
as the ruler always acted in the public interest. Grouchy and others
disagreed on the grounds that the hereditary power granted to a
monarch is always arbitrary, so that even if it is benign, it is not
reliably so. It does not matter, says Paine, whether a monarch is
"a fool a hypocrite or a tyrant"--what matters is
that this individual has "absolute power" over everyone,
including those who are not yet born (Condorcet and Paine 1792, p.5. A
monarch who is well intentioned may change his attitude for personal
reasons and become a tyrant, or he may die and leave the power in the
hands of a tyrannical successor.


#### 4.2.2 Equality



Philosophers of the French revolution were interested in equality as
well as liberty (fraternity was added later to the motto), but the
equality that concerned them was equality of status, specifically
civic status, rather than political status. Very few of them even
thought about economic equality. Sophie de Grouchy wrote that all
citizens are owed the same respect, and this implies that there should
not be extreme economic inequality.



The central argument of Grouchy's *Letters* is that
virtue, moral or political, is born out of sympathy, the ability and
propensity to feel others' pain and to want to relieve it.
Grouchy claims that we first experience sympathy as an infant in the
arms of a nurse, and that we learn progressively to feel sympathy for
the physical and mental pain that any other person experiences,
whether or not we are close to them. But in order for this to be
possible, we do need to see the suffering other as a human being, as
someone just as capable of experiencing pain as we are. Extreme
inequality means that this does not happen: the very rich and the very
poor do not regard each other as being part of the same species, so
that they cannot sympathize with each other and will not apply the
laws of morality and justice in their dealings with each other (Letter
VIII).



Grouchy's concrete proposal to reduce extreme inequality does
not include even the possibility of future inequality. She assumes
that without legally supported inequality, natural inequalities (in
intelligence and fecundity) would result in three quarters of the land
being distributed randomly according to luck and skill and one quarter
distributed equally between families. But this, she argues, with
figures at hand, would still exclude extreme poverty or extreme wealth
and would be sufficient to ensure that all citizens recognized each
other as equally worthy of respect.



Although there is definitely a feminist background to Grouchy's
*Letters*, one which reflects her husband's 1790 paper on
the inclusion of women to the rights of the city, and perhaps in fact
inspired that paper, it does not have a clear or central feminist
agenda. Humanity in general is the focus of her discussion; women are
explicitly included in the arguments (indeed, the very first teacher
of sympathy is the wet-nurse, the most prominent example given of a
good teacher is Sophie's own mother, and mothers and fathers are
equally enjoined to participate in a child's proper education)
but they are not given separate consideration. In her discussion of
family law, she does mention reforms that would affect women more
particularly.


### 4.3 Legal Philosophy


#### 4.3.1 Citizenship



In her defense of equality, Sophie de Grouchy considers the problems
brought about by inequality of status, privileges, and wealth and the
way in which the law contributes to these problems by maintaining
privileges. She is in agreement with the principles debated in the
early days of the French revolution, in particular by Emmanuel
Sieyes who argued that to be unequal in the eyes of the law is
to be potentially dominated. That is, a citizen can use a privileged
relationship to the law to abuse another. Grouchy argues that this was
one the greatest wrongs of the Ancient Regime, i.e., when the
law is not applied equally to all, those who cannot manipulate it
perceive themselves as dominated:



> 
> 
> [When the law allows for] privileges, hereditary, personal or local
> which offer a legal loophole, direct or indirect, [t]hen the people
> are tempted to see criminal laws as made against them and in favor of
> the rich, as the result of an association designed to oppress them.
> (Letter VIII, p. 152
> 
> 
> 


#### 4.3.2 Punishment



Much of Grouchy's discussion of the law focuses of the question
of punishment. Before 1789, there were a number of ways in which the
law could kill its criminals depending both on the kind of crime they
had committed and their station. Aristocrats were decapitated with a
sword. This was regarded as the most honorable death, although it was
not always the least painful or horrible. The Count Lally-Tollendal,
who received the death penalty in 1766 for having betrayed the
King's interest at war, had to be hit three times by the sword
before his neck could be broken and the head detached. Sanson, the
executor of the Revolution, cited his example when defending the
proposed new machine that would cut heads off neatly and instantly.
Nonetheless, decapitation was more honorable than the sentences
reserved for commoners of death by hanging (murderers) or the wheel
(thieves, highway robbers). The crime women were most commonly accused
of was infanticide or performing abortions. These were punished by
hanging when they were found guilty of having killed their infants,
but, as was most often the case, when evidence was lacking, they would
do prison time for fornication, or be freed until more evidence could
be found.



Grouchy's discussion of punishment is clearly influenced by the
writings of the Milanese criminologist Cesare Beccaria. Beccaria had
already argued for the necessity of equal penalties for all as even
privileges must rest on an equal respect for the law. His book *On
Crimes and Punishment* published in 1764 was translated in French
that same year and published with a lengthy commentary from Voltaire.
Beccaria came to Paris and spent much of 1776 in Madame
Helvetius's salon in Auteuil. His influence was no doubt still
present some years later when the Marquis de Condorcet, and their
future brother-in-law Pierre-George Cabanis, and later
Condorcet's wife Sophie de Grouchy also became frequent
visitors. This, as well as Condorcet's close connection with
Voltaire, and his own engagement at the time Beccaria's book was
published in penal reform, goes some way towards explaining
Grouchy's affinities with Beccaria's claims. In her
*Letters on Sympathy*, she argues that:



> 
> 
> In order for the fear of a sentence to be effective and beneficial the
> sentence must not outrage. Its justice must be perceptible to average
> reason, and it must especially awaken the conscience, at the same time
> as it punishes its silence and slumber. But this will not be so
> [...] if a judge can arbitrarily harden or soften a sentence; if
> there are privileges, hereditary, personal or local which offer a
> legal loophole, direct or indirect. (Letter VIII)
> 
> 
> 


#### 4.3.3 Marriage and family laws



Divorce was legalized and made more accessible for a brief period
during the French Revolution before it was codified under Napoleon in
a way that made much more difficult to obtain, especially for women.
Grouchy in her *Letters* argues in favor not only of divorce,
but of short-term, renewable marriage contracts and clear rights for
children born outside marriage and for their mothers. In these she is
in agreement with another woman philosopher of the Revolution, Olympe
de Gouges. Grouchy derived these arguments at least in part from
Montesquieu's analysis of the Roman law in the *Spirit of the
Law*.


#### 4.3.4 Commercial law



Grouchy also argued that a heavily regulated market increased poverty,
forcing the poor to remain poor, or even become poorer because they
couldn't regulate their exchanges or negotiate their work and
production fairly. Grouchy, like Condorcet and Turgot, believed that
shackling the market with strict laws was a form of domination and
that allowing farmers and merchants to set their own prices would go
some way towards relieving poverty in the country. Thus she can be
interpreted as one of the original defenders of commercial
republicanism (Berges 2018a).