In the summer and Autumn of 1792 - with the Prussians bearing down on Paris, the streets thronged with the stirring swell of the Marseillaise, but also the rotting bodies of those brutally killed during the September Massacres - the French Revolution bore a new symbol of optimism and hope: Liberty. Embodied by a female figure, later known as Marianne, and famously enshrined in Eugène Delacroix’s iconic painting, she was an important reminder that the revolution was about more than just violence, but also the dream of a brighter future, in which all the people of France would have a steak. Marianne was the new Republic personified, and manifested all those virtues most desired by the new order; freedom, equality and reason. But, did this new symbol have any resonance for the actual women of the revolution? Certainly, they had played a major role in bringing the King and Queen back to Paris from Versailles in 1789, helping patriots who stormed Tuileries in 1792, and were keen spectators to the febrile politics of the revolution. For this, women were enshrined as ‘mothers of the nation’, a vital mass of humanity thought to be inspired by an animating emotional power. And yet, unlike their male counterparts, few women save Marie Antoinette, at whom sexualised misogyny was constantly hurled, have stood the test of time. So who were the women at the very heart of the French Revolution? And what did they do to change the course of history? Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the evolving ideology of the French Revolution - one of the most decisive moments of world history - and some of the women at the centre of it all from the very start. Watch 'A Thousand Blows’, a new original series, now streaming on Disney+ globally and on Hulu in the US EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restishistory Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Marianne in the context of the French Revolution?
Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Marianne is the embodiment of the French Republic.
Marianne represents the permanent values that found her citizens' attachment to the Republic, liberty, equality, fraternité. The earliest representation of a woman wearing a Phrygian cap, an allegorical figure of liberty and the Republic, made their appearance at the time of the French Revolution. The origins of the name Marianne are uncertain.
Marianne was a very common first name in the 18th century, and she thus came to represent the people. The counter-revolutionaries used the name derisively when referring to the Republic. So, Tom, that was the website of the Élysée Palace talking about the great symbol of the French Republic. Marianne.
So this is a symbol that emerges at the point that we've just got to in the great narrative of the French Revolution, the summer and autumn of 1792. We heard last time about the terrible September massacres that took place as the Prussians were advancing on Paris.
And it's, of course, at this point that people are singing the Marseillaise, the marching song of the Army of the Rhine that has swept through the capital. But it's also at this point that people alight upon a new symbol of France, which is this figure of Marianne.
Marianne, who is this woman wearing the Phrygian cap, the liberty cap. long flowing hair, will become the emblem of France itself. I think it's really striking that two of the emblematic embodiments of modern France, the Marseillaise, its national anthem, and the figure of Marianne, the embodiment of France herself, emerge in precisely these months, the summer going into the autumn of 1792.
I guess the previous episode that we did where we looked at the September massacres, it didn't really portray the revolution in a great light, did it? If we're absolutely honest.
Not the best light, no.
But I think this kind of reminds us that even while people are being dragged out of prisons and hacked to death, there is also an absolutely invigorating and inspiring sense of optimism and hope that is inspiring terrible deeds, yes, but also it's rallying people to the barricades and it's giving people dreams of a better future. a future in which all of the people of France will have a stake.
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Chapter 2: How did Marianne become a symbol of the French Republic?
So the figure... Of liberty. We've talked so much about the influence of the Romans in particular on the French revolutionaries. So this is a very obviously classical figure, basically a goddess holding the fasces with an axe. and a liberty cap. That's right, isn't it? So, is there a little bit of Athena about this figure, maybe?
I mean, she's liberty. She's a classical abstraction given female form. And as with so much about the French Revolution, it actually has its roots in the Ancien Régime. So... The painters, illustrators had been showing liberty as this kind of goddess in the years before the revolution breaks out.
So there was a particularly famous illustration in a book about Henry IV, who was the great hero of France before the revolution. He was seen as the people's king. And this illustration shows him being carried up to heaven by liberty, by this goddess. You know, this is... kind of allegorical illustrations and paintings that really have very little cut through.
But it's kind of there on the margins. And actually, I think you could say that the very value of Liberty is that she is a kind of a bit of an empty cipher. She's a kind of an abstraction. Right. onto which you can project things.
So Lynn Hunt, the great scholar of the culture of the French Revolution, particular interest in the role of women in the revolution, she wrote about the figure of liberty, that she represented the virtue so desired by the new order, the transcendence of localism, superstition and particularity in the name of a more disciplined and universalistic worship.
Liberty was an abstract quality based on reason. She belonged to no group, to no particular place, which is another way of saying that the whole point of liberty is that she's quite boring. She doesn't bring any baggage. It's important because, of course, the marketing of liberty is also a marketing of the Republic.
She's being stamped on the seal at the point where people don't really know what the Republic is about. What's it going to be? It doesn't have any of the attributes that a thousand-year-old monarchy has. It doesn't bring the inheritance of symbols that France, particularly Royal France, has been absolutely saturated in. Instead, she is She's kind of almost Robespierre.
She's kind of chilly, poised, uptight, virtuous. And of course, there are the two obvious contrasts here. So even though she will come to be called Mary Ann... She's not Christian. She's not the Virgin. She is a Virgin who is not Christian.
And I think that's, as we will see in probably our next series, what you do with Notre Dame, Our Lady, the Virgin, will be a pointed issue in due course for the Revolution. So Liberty Marianne is not the Virgin Mary. But of course, also, she's not an earthly queen. And more precisely, she is not Marie Antoinette. She is not an aristocratic woman.
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