Reading Guide Page 1
Reading
Guide
Liberty: The Lives and Times
of Six Women in Revolutionary
France
By Lucy Moore
Note that the major personalities in this book (and therefore the contest questions) are the six
women described below. Several others appear only as minor characters and for very short
time periods. Study efforts should focus on the six women and their actions, statements,
accomplishments, and failures as well as what others thought or said of them or how others
treated them. Many of the other individuals (men and women) are important only in the way
they related to the six women. Some had important but very limited impact.
Pauline Léon
 28 September 1768 to 5 October 1838
 Father: chocolate maker, died 1784. Mother:
continued business w/ Pauline’s help
 Working class or sans-culotte; could read & write
 Radical republican activist & orator; frequented
visitors’ galleries of Paris Commune, Jacobin Club,
& National Convention
 Founder & president of Société des RépubliancsRévolutionnaires
 Arrested & interrogated after 1791 Champs de Mars
Massacre; arrested & imprisoned w/ husband from
April to August 1794; released after Robespierre’s
death & faded into obscurity
Husband

Théophile Leclerc,
enragé leader
Associates
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Claire Rose Lacombe, radical revolution
Théophile Leclerc, enragé leader
Jacques Roux, enragé leader
Olympe de Gouges, revolutionary feminist
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Reading Guide Page 2
Germaine
de Staël
 22 April 1766 to 14 July 1817
 Father: wealthy Swiss banker & aristocratic
statesman Jacques Necker, director of finance
for Louis XVI; mother: daughter of Calvinist
pastor & popular Parisian salonnière
 Educated according to principles of Rousseau;
novelist, social commentator, literary theorist
 Progressive aristocrat & constitutional
monarchist; an “Anglomaniac”
 Emigrated to Switzerland in 1792, returned to
France in 1793, & established fashionable salon;
exiled by Napoleon, returned to Switzerland, &
reestablished salon in Paris in 1814
Husband
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Erik Magnus de
Staël, Swedish
diplomat
Albert Jean Michel
de Rocca, Swiss
military officer
Lovers
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Associates
Talleyrand, selfserving politician
& diplomat
Louis de
Narbonne, liberal
aristocrat
Benjamin
Constant, liberal
republican
Albert Jean Michel
de Rocca, Swiss
military officer
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Thérésa Cabarrus Fortenay
Tallien
Juliette Récamier
Talleyrand self-serving politician
& diplomat
Mirabeau
Gouverneur Morris & Thomas
Jefferson, American diplomats
Cordorcet, intellectual & social
reformer associated w/
Girondists
Lafayette, liberal aristocrat
The Lameth brothers, leaders of
Feuillants
Paul Barras, radical republican
Jean-Lambert Tallien,
revolutionary journalist
Mathieu de Montmorency,
liberal aristocratic military
officer
Duke of Wellington, British
general & statesman
Lucien Bonaparte, brother of
Napoléon
Reading Guide Page 3
Juliette Récamier
 4 December 1777 to 11 May 1849
 Father: weak but elegant resident of Lyon, a
notary, king’s counsellor, & receiver of finance;
Mother: savy w/ influential friends. JacquesRose Récamier may have been natural father
 Beautiful & educated to be fashionable &
charming
 Prominent Parisian salonnière during
Directory
 Fled France in 1802 & banned by Napoleon in
1811
Husband

Jacques-Rose

Récamier, wealthy
Lyonnais
merchant &
financier; chaste &
paternalistic
relationship
Lover
Associates
François-René de
Chateaubriand,
writer & diplomat
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Germaine de Staël
Thérésia de Fontenay Tallien
Mathieu de Montmorency, liberal
aristocratic military officer
Benjamin Constant, liberal
republican
Rose de Beauharnais (Empress
Josephine)
Napoléon Bonaparte
Reading Guide Page 4
Manon
Roland
 17 March 1784 to 8 November 1793
 Father: master engraver & artisan; respected &
prosperous
 Self-educated; influenced by Voltaire,
Montesquieu, Plutarch, Paine, & especially by
Rousseau
 Radical republican activist & salon hostess;
member of Girondist faction of Jacobin Club
 Assisted husband w/ numerous books &
speeches
 Accused of treason but cleared in December
1792; accused of treason & betrayal of her
gender in June 1793, executed in November
1793
Husband

Jean-Marie
Roland de la
Platière, leading
Girondin
Lover
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Associates
François Buzot,
leading Girondin
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Jacques-Pierre Brissot, leader of
Girondins
Jérôme Pétion, Girondin mayor of
Paris
Georges Danton, Jacobin leader
Maximilien Robespierre, Jacobin
leader
Reading Guide Page 5
Thérésa
de Fontenay
Tallien
 Father: François Carbarrus, French financier,
founder of Royal Bank of Spain, finance
minister to Spanish king; mother: daughter of
French industrialist; raised by nuns & well
educated
 Revolutionary republican aristocrat &
salonnière; attended meetings of Fraternal
Society of Patriots of Both Sexes, member of
liberal Club of 1789; used influence on Tallien
to save many individuals from Terror
 Hated by Robespierre; arrested & jailed in
1794; released after Robespierre’s death
 Known as “Notre Dame de Themidor” when
released from prison; hated by Napoleon who
banned interaction with Josephine
Husband
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Jean Jacques
Devin de
Fontenay,
debauched
aristocrat
Jean-Lambert
Tallien, radical
représententant
en mission
Prince of Chimay
(Francois-Josephde Riguet)
Lovers
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Associates
Félix Lepeletier,
radical aristocratic
revolutionary
Étienne de
Lamothe,
revolutionary
army officer
Jean-Lambert
Tallien, radical
représententant
en mission
Paul Barras,
radical republican
& Director thruout the Directory
Gabriel Ouvard,
banker
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Félicité de Genlis, liberal
salonniérre
Germaine de Staël
Mathieu de Montmorency, liberal
aristocratic military officer
The Lameth Brothers, noted
liberals
Lucy de la Tour du Pin, aristocratic
lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette
Emmanuel Sieyés, moderate
revolutionary & Director
Maximilien Robespiere, Jacobin
leader
Camille Desmoulins, radical lawyer
& journalist
Claude Ysabeau & Marc Antoine
Jullien, représentants en mission
Stanislas Freron, radical writer &
deputy
Napoléon Bonaparte
Lucien Bonaparte
Rose de Beauharnais (Empress
Josephine)
Reading Guide Page 6
Théroigne de
Méricourt
 13 August 1762/69 to 9 June 1817
 Born into prosperous peasant family; raised by
heartless aunt, trained as seamstress & servant;
self-educated & influenced by Plato & Seneca
 Left punitive family to work as cowherd,
seamstress, & governess before becoming singer
& courtesan
 Radical democratic idealist & feminist; ardent
republican & revolutionary activist; viciously
attacked by royalist propagandists; received civic
crown for participation in 10 August 1792 attack
on Tuileries Palace & killing of nine royalists
 Founder & secretary of the Society of the Friends
of the Law; joined Fraternal Society of Patriots of
Both Sexes; spoke to but refused membership in
Cordeliers’ Club; spoke from terraces of National
Assembly
 Demanded female equality; renowned for
wearing austerely masculine riding-habit
 Imprisoned by Austria 1790-91; following mental
breakdown, institutionalized from 1794 until her
death in 1817
Lovers
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Associates
Callous English army office 
who refused to marry her & 
numerous others
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Pauline Léon
Thérésia de Fonteny
Camille Desmoulins, radical lawyer & journalist
Gilbert Romme, doctor & ardent Jacobin
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, moderate revolutionary &
Director
Olympe de Gouges, revolutionary feminist
Francois & Louise Robert, ardent republicans
Francois de Blanc, Austrian civil servant
Jacques-Pierre Brissot, leader of Girondins
Jérôme Pétion, Girondin mayor of Paris
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Reading Guide Page 7
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