Marie (Gouze) de Gouges (1748 - 1793)

Born 7 May 1748 in Montauban, Quercy, France

Wife of Louis Yves Aubry — married 24 Oct 1765 in Montauban, Quercy, France

Descendants

Died 3 Nov 1793 at age 45 in Paris, Seine, France

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Biography

Olympe (Gouze) de Gouges is Notable.

Olympe de Gouges (born Marie Gouze) was a French playwright and political activist. She wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen (1791), in which she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male-female inequality. She was executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror.

Olympe de Gouges was born Marie Gouze on 7 May 1748 in Montauban. She was the daughter of Olympe Mouisset, who was married to Pierre Gouze, a butcher.^[1] Pierre Gouze was away and could not have been Marie Olympe's father. According to contemporary accounts "all of Montauban knew" that Olympe was in fact the daughter of Jean-Jacques Lefranc de Pompignan. Lefranc de Pompignan was close to Olympe's maternal family, had been the godfather of Olympe's mother, Anne-Olympe Mouisset (though only 4 years her senior) and later became her lover.

On 24 October 1765, Marie Gouze, 17 years old, married Louis Yves Aubry, caterer of M. de Gourgues, in the Saint-Jean-de-Villenouvelle church of Montauban.^[2] The marriage produced one son, Pierre Aubry, born 1766. Marie's husband disappeared not long afterwards, allegedly drowned in a flood of the Tarn river. Marie then left Montauban for Paris, where her elder sister was living, and took her son with her. From then on she called herself Olympe, or Marie Olympe, and added a particle "de" to her name. The name "Gouges" was an alternate spelling of Gouze, also used by her sister.

Olympe was then the companion of Jacques Biétrix de Rozières, a high ranking civil servant. He proposed marriage to her, but she refused, preferring to keep her liberty. They did, however, remain together until the Revolution and this liaison gave Olympe the means to live comfortably, give her son a good education and meet influential people. She began writing articles, novels and plays, and set up her own theater troupe.

In 1785 her play, Zamore et Mirza, ou l'heureux naufrage was a direct attack on the Code Noir and aimed to draw attention to the fate of Black slaves in the French colonies.

Starting in 1788, she wrote many political pamphlets. She was in favor of a constitutional monarchy, and her innovative ideas included support of freedom of expression, gender equality, the establishment of divorce, the abolition of slavery and the death penalty, the creation of a tax on the income of the richest, the establishment of a people's court for all, the creation of maternity hospitals and solidarity homes for the most deprived, etc. In 1791 she wrote a Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen) addressed to Marie-Antoinette, in which she affirmed the equality of civil and political rights of both sexes, notoriously stating "La femme a le droit de monter à l'échafaud; elle doit avoir également celui de monter à la Tribune."

Olympe de Gouges supported a constitutional monarchy and was opposed to the King's execution, also because she was opposed to capital punishment. She openly disapproved of the Reign of Terror, noting that "the blood, even that of the guilty, shed with cruelty and profusion, eternally defiles revolutions", attacking Marat ("a runt of humanity") and Robespierre ("opprobrium and loathing of the Revolution").

On 20 July 1793 Olympe de Gouges published a pamphlet, "Les Trois Urnes", demanding a plebiscite for a choice among three potential forms of government: unitary republic, a federalist government, or a constitutional monarchy. The law of the revolution forbidding any writings questioning the principle of the Republic, she was arrested.

She was tried on 2 November 1793, just two days after the execution of the Girondins. She was sentenced to death and claimed to be pregnant, which doctors where unable to confirm or deny, but the procurator Fouquier-Tinville decided that she was not pregnant and should be executed immediately. (Fouquier-Tinville was himself condemned, for, among other things, having sent pregnant women to the guillotine). Olympe de Gouges was executed on 3 November 1793 in Paris.^[3]

Issue

Olympe's son Pierre Aubry (who later used the name "Aubry de Gouges"), married to Hyacinthe Mabille, had five children. His daughter Charlotte married Robert Selden Garnett, a Virginia planter, and ironically became a slave owner. Her son Robert Selden Garnett served with the Confederate States Army and was the first general officer killed in the Civil War. Pierre's other daughter, Geneviève, married William Wood and settled in Tasmania, where she still has descendants.

Biographie

Olympe de Gouges et une femme de lettres et femme politique française, pionnière du féminisme français.

Elle est née Marie Gouze le 7 mai 1748 à Montauban, fille légitime de Pierre Gouze, boucher, et d'Olympe Mouisset. Elle est baptisée à Saint-Jacques de Montauban^[1].

Elle est mariée le 24 octobre 1765, à l'âge de 17 ans, à Louis Yves Aubry, officier de bouche de M. de Gourgues, intendant de Montauban, en l'église Saint-Jean-de-Villenouvelle à Montauban^[2].

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Acte de baptême: BMS 1748 Montauban Saint-Jacques, Archives du Tarn-et-Garonne en ligne cote 6 e 121-42 (vue 19 Link), consulté le 30 décembre 2017
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Acte de mariage: BMS 1765 Montauban Saint-Jean-de-Villenouvelle, Archives du Tarn-et-Garonne en ligne cote 6 e 121-3 (vue 32 Link), consulté le 30 décembre 2017
3. ↑ Acte de décès: Reconstitution chronologique des actes de décès (série V.2E), 1630-1859 Décès juil.-déc. 1793 N° de film 007823016 image 1144 https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSSP-93QV-R?i=1143&cat=43261

• Olympe de Gouges
• Olympe de Gouges, biographie sur La République des lettres.