Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson

In the following excerpt from their book, Women in Revolutionary Paris: 1789–1795, Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Apple- white, and Mary Durham Johnson contend that French revolutionary women were able to make a lasting political impact on their country. Although Levy, Applewhite, and Johnson acknowledge that many of the political gains women made in the early years of the French Revolution had eroded by 1795, the authors argue that women in later decades were inspired by those early efforts, helping them effect lasting change in French society.

The authors assert that France’s revolutionary women became “barometers of political crises,” whose demands could not be neglected. They also maintain that French women contributed to the political education of children. Levy is a...