Chapter XIII

Women of the Revolution and the Empire

Many women of the revolutionary period have no claim for mention other than a last glorious moment on the guillotine—­“ennobled and endeared by the self-possession and dignity with which they faced death, their whole life seems to have been lived for that one moment.”  The society which had brought on and stirred up the Revolution was enervated and febrile.  Paris was one large kennel of libellers and pamphleteers and intriguers.  The salon frequenters were trained conversationalists and brilliant beauties who danced and drank, discoursed and intrigued.  It was a superficial elegance, with virtue only assumed.  The art of pleasing had been developed to perfection, but, instead of the actual accomplishments of the old regime, there was merely the outward appearance—­luxury, dress, and magnificence; the bearing and language were of the ambitious common people.  “The great women are those who, the day before, were taken from the cellar or garret of the salon.”

During the Directorate, luxury and libertinism reigned almost as absolutely as during the monarchy.  Barras was supreme.  He had his mistress, or maitresse-en-titre, in the beautiful Mme. Tallien, the queen of beauty of the salon of la mode.  Ease and dissolute enjoyment were the aims of Barras, and in these his mistress was his equal.  They gave the most sumptuous dinners, prepared by the famous chefs of the late aristocratic kitchens, while the people were starving or living on black bread.  She impudently arrayed herself in the crown diamonds and appeared at the reception given to Napoleon.

The salons under the Empire are said to have preserved French politeness, courtesy, and the usages of la bonne compagnie, but intolerance and tyranny reigned there; the spirit of intrigue only was obeyed.  From the beginning of the Revolution to the Empire, it may be said that the streets of Paris from one end to the other were a wild turmoil of people in fever heat—­ready for any crime or cruelty, anxious for anything promising excitement.  Where formerly the elegant lovers of the nobility were wont to promenade, the rabid populace held undisputed possession.

These were years, about 1780 to 1800, during which women shared the same fate with men; and, consigned to the same prisons, ever resigned and ready to die for principle, they knew how to die nobly.  It was truly an age of the martyrdom of woman—­an age in which she lived, through almost superhuman conditions, at the side of man.  She was all-powerful, triumphant as never before; not, however, through her intellectual superiority as in the previous age, but through her courage.  There was not one powerful woman standing out alone, but groups of them, hosts of them.  It was during the Directorate especially that woman controlled almost every phase of activity.