Woman on the ScaffoldBy Alice Meynell(English contemporary. Poet and essayist. From “The Bookman.”)
By Alice Meynell
(English contemporary. Poet and essayist. From “The Bookman.”)
See the curious history of the political rights of woman under the Revolution. On the scaffold she enjoyed an ungrudged share in the fortunes of a party. Political life might be denied her, but that seems a trifle when you consider how generously she was permitted political death. She was to spinand cook for her citizen in the obscurity of her living hours; but to the hour of her death was granted no part in the largest interests, social, national, international. The blood with which she should, according to Robespierre, have blushed to be seen or heard in the tribune was exposed in the public sight unsheltered by her veins.... Women might be, and were, duly silenced when, by the mouth of Olympe de Gougas, they claimed a “right to concur in the choice of representatives for the formation of the laws,” but in her person, too, they were liberally allowed to bear responsibility to the Republic. Olympe de Gougas was guillotined. Robespierre then made her public and complete amends.