In Search of Mary

by Bee Rowlatt

  Clever Americans tend to talk faster than clever people from elsewhere. Hannah’s no exception, but she is so absorbed into her subject that it’s contagious. People and traffic flow past us as we wander along, talking quickly, walking slowly. She constructs the living, seething Revolution all around us as we go. Hannah’s face is young, but she has wisps of grey in her hair. This is pretty revolutionary too, given the rigour of Parisian standards of feminine grooming.

  “People begin to gather up and they march to the Bastille. The Bastille is now surrounded by people, and the word is spreading. Rumours flow in decentralized ways. Women are key to this. They are important vectors of information: they are out in the streets, they’re in the markets, they are out circulating.”

  I can’t help smiling at women being “important vectors of information”. They were the French Revolution’s Facebook.

  “In these situations it’s always hard to know exactly who started what, where and how. But suddenly the guards begin firing, the people begin attacking and nearly everyone inside is killed. The governor is brought outside, and his head is cut off. They stick the head on a pike, and they march it around as a sign of victory, as a symbol. The Revolution co-opts a lot of the ritualistic violence of the Ancien Régime. But I want to shift off the narration of this event and give you a larger sense of where other things are fitting in.”

  Hannah’s right – the threads are too multiple, too enticing. Plus, she keeps getting faster as the story becomes more blood-soaked. I tell her I’m hoping to learn how it would have been for Wollstonecraft, and how the Revolution did or didn’t help women.

  “Wollstonecraft doesn’t really mention women in her writing here, apart from being pretty horrified by the ‘female mobs’…”

  “Yes, the women’s movement,” Hannah says. “Inasmuch as there is such a thing. On the general stage we have the popular movement and the elite movement, and it’s the same with the women. Women don’t have one unified point of view, and they don’t have a unified point of action. So on the one hand we see hungry women marching for bread, and on the other these aristocratic women hosting salons. So it’s one of these tricky things where it looks like maybe women are being treated as equal, but…” She pauses.

  “In a girly way?”

  “Yeah, they’re being valued, they’re doing something important, but what they’re contributing is something distinctly feminine. That’s the idea: they’re feminine characteristics, so it’s not equal, because they are different. This is a tricky thing.”

  “It’s still a tricky thing, equality… and difference…” I stare back along the street. Hannah is looking at me quizzically.

  “Do you have kids?” I ask.

  “No.”

  Screeching gear change as I hastily return us to the Revolution: “So the optimism of the movement, which captivates the Romantics back in England, it goes way beyond getting bread for hungry people, doesn’t it?”

  “You have to realize what they were up against. We are talking about the monarchy, which has become absolute by the time of the Revolution, and a caste system that has been in place, to use their language, since time immemorial. Authority stems from tradition. And this is the fundamental point of the Enlightenment: moving away from the argument of tradition and instead saying no: you know what, we are going to interrogate tradition, and we are going to bring it up against reason. And if it’s not rational, it doesn’t matter if it’s been around for thousands of years – we’re going to get rid of it.”

  “Reason!” I light up. “Wollstonecraft bangs on about the importance of Reason all the time. Somehow it never really struck me as all that much to ask.”

  “OK, this is so important, because that’s the discourse of the Enlightenment that she’s using. Reason is man’s capacity, through rationalism and logic, to determine what is right. It’s saying we can figure out answers for ourselves. That is revolutionary. Wollstonecraft is saying: I am a rational being, because I can use my reason. Of course I can, because look at me: I’m doing it – right? And people argued at the time women were not even capable of using reason – that they only had sloppy sentiment. So reason is doubly important for her than for male writers. And this is what’s kind of heart-breaking – you see in the Revolution that women take action: they march for bread, they act as citizens, and they simply behave as equals. But the male revolutionaries who are in power ultimately reject that. And this happens on both levels: both to the elite women and also within popular politics—”

  “Why, why did they?” I cut in, upset.

  “Why did women behave as citizens?”

  “No. Why did the male revolutionaries reject them?”

  “Let me explain within the context.” Hannah says. I stifle an impatient sigh: can’t there just be a reason? “There is, of course, a lot of good intention. On the legislative side, the Republic is declared in September 1792, and laws start being passed right away. Divorce is legalized. And there’s huge uptake. There’s also a law on equal inheritance for men and women. But in a few years Napoleon takes over. In 1805 divorce becomes illegal again, and there’s a conservative backlash against the Revolution that’s going to have a huge impact on women. They end up being trapped in that backlash that reasserts very traditional values.”

  Divorce is a subject close to Wollstonecraft’s heart. The rule of law could safeguard women’s very lives. These days it’s sometimes an excuse for couples to tear chunks off each other while their lawyers make a fortune. But in her time, a husband quite literally owned his wife – could take her assets and have her imprisoned at will, take away her kids and abuse her with impunity. Marriage is a nightmare, haunting all of Wollstonecraft’s writings like a crouching dark demon. She is rightly terrified of it.

  We’re now walking along the Rue de Rivoli, and I ask if we can sit on the grass in the Tuileries to let Will stretch his small legs. He’s been patiently sitting in his buggy throughout the tempestuous tutorial. Over his unbothered golden head we’ve discussed the Jacobin Club, the bread marchers, the King’s attempt to flee dressed as a servant and war with the crowned heads of Europe. We’re in our own revolutionary bubble on the bustling streets.

  “I still don’t understand.” I say, popping Will’s seatbelt open and unleashing him onto the grass. “I get the backlash, but not why the revolutionaries themselves failed to go further at the time – why couldn’t women be considered as equals?”

  “OK. Take slavery. There is slavery in the French colonies. And as we see later in America, the question of women’s suffrage and of blacks becoming full citizens comes up at the same time. And this is what happens in the Revolution: the question of freeing slaves and the question of women’s rights are also being posed.”

  “What, then it was just too much freedom to handle?”

  “You can see that the revolutionaries are trying so hard, but the new world is very much their own vision. The new possibilities are very specific in terms of their own political and economic freedom. Consider the commercial value of the French colonies and sugar islands like Haiti. So when other groups, like slaves, get excited too and say: ‘Hey, OK, freedom – let’s do it!’ suddenly it goes beyond what they had originally envisaged, and they are afraid.”

  We go quiet for a moment. Will runs over and urgently bestows a hedgerow leaf on me, pressing it into my hand before wobbling away. Cheered, I bring the conversation back to my guiding star. Wollstonecraft arrives fairly late on into the Revolutionary action. It’s November 1792, only a few weeks after the founding of the New Republic and these new laws. Other Romantic thrill-seekers like Wordsworth are already leaving in fear. In fact, Wordsworth flees in the very same week that Wollstonecraft arrives (abandoning his pregnant girlfriend on the way – oh, those revolutionary men).

  “Wollstonecraft’s arrival pretty much coincides with the start of the Reign of Terror, doesn’t it?”

  “OK – so the Terror is very specific, and it starts after the monarchy falls. The K
ing is arrested in August 1792, after a dramatic invasion of the Tuileries. But the Republic isn’t declared until September. Meanwhile a rumour spreads that the prisons of Paris contain foreign conspirators. A group of sans-culottes go into the prisons, and they just slaughter over a thousand trapped prisoners. It’s extraordinarily bloody and totally bizarre. And it’s dreadful. There’s no way of justifying it: it’s dreadful.”

  We sit.

  “And this is when we get the stuff from Dickens: the guillotine, the knitters, the countless tumbrels – and all the time they’re hacking people’s heads off willy-nilly?”

  “Yes.” Hannah says quietly. “Literally thousands of people have their heads chopped off.”

  Madame la Guillotine. Funny they didn’t mind allowing gender in there. The machinery is female. As is the statuesque embodiment of la Liberté. Idealized abstract females are celebrated – but real, actual women popping up and demanding stuff? Er – no, we’re all right, thanks.

  We’ve wandered at meandering Will-speed between hedge-rows of the Tuileries, and now, sitting on the grass, we’re cold. Hannah suggests a coffee. We capture Will, and like the women bread marchers bringing the King on a cart back to Paris, take him to the nearest café. Hannah opens the door, and the warm air meets us. We sit down inside; my nose is dripping and my microphone hand has frozen. Will’s cheeks are red, and he’s hungry. The welcome glory of coffee and a cheese omelette arrives at the table. Over the noise of cutlery and sweeping waiters, Hannah summarizes:

  “Women in the Revolution were deemed to have this special sympathetic power that can civilize men. The emerging sense is that home is the women’s domain. It’s the woman who is full of love and care, the woman who is the source of virtue and morality—”

  The omelette wolfed, Will starts reaching out for things to grab and pull towards him, like a human whirlpool. He throws a spoon and the menu as we hastily move the Dictaphone, the salt and pepper, then our phones, and then our coffee away from his angering reach.

  “But when women start taking action,” she goes on “saying: ‘All people are born equal’ and joining in and taking part, the Jacobins become startled and say: ‘What are you doing here?!’ – and they just ignore them—”

  Will rubs his eyes, then suddenly starts to sob. “I know – can you believe those Jacobins?” I say emphatically. He doesn’t think it’s funny. He’s put up with a lot today: the omelette was my last trick. With no other distractions it’s time to call it a day. I’m grateful that Hannah spoke so quickly, that we could fit so much into the time we had. We hug warmly and say our goodbyes. I load Will into his buggy, blanket him up and lie him down flat for his well-earned sleep, and we set off back down the Rue de Rivoli.

  I’m stunned and aroused by this gale-force encounter. A respectful love for Paris surges inside me. They may not have baby chairs in restaurants, but modern civilization began right here. The keys to history are all around us as we hurry along, weaving through glossy shoppers and tourists. I breathe it in and feel small. Here on these streets, among the history-drenched symbols and monuments. A nod to the statue of Joan of Arc, wielding her golden flag in the air. I gaze up, indulging a daydream that one day, maybe one day, there will be a statue of Wollstonecraft.

  Passing yet another Starbucks, I’m struck by a rueful thought. Not only did we enjoy an insolent American breakfast this morning, I’ve also just done the French Revolution with an American, albeit a Francophone one. It feels remiss. We need to boost the intake of proper Frenchness. Luckily I’ve found a source of appellation d’origine contrôlée. He is an expert in the Revolution from the University of Paris, and he’s suggested we meet in a café on the Quai de Loire, near to his campus. Allons-y. Will and I catch the metro to Stalingrad in the 19th Arrondissement.

  Professor Marc Belissa is in his fifties, with dark hair. He’s tall and smokes roguishly. He does that French thing of being more attractive than he actually is. How do they do that? We sit down to black coffees with Will pulled up between us. I stir my coffee with the plastic thing that isn’t a spoon, and get the recording equipment ready. It’s kind of him to come and meet us, but from the outset he’s quite sniffy about Wollstonecraft. He says there’s not much interest in her in France, adding vaguely: “They probably do like her in the US and the UK, though.”

  He delivers this snub so enchantingly that I find myself smiling along. Maybe it’s his accent. Then he asks me if I know much about the Revolution. I flash back to my head-spinning time with Hannah, and tell him I’ve learnt there are no short cuts, but that I’m keen to discover how life would have been for a foreigner living here during Revolution, and especially during the reign of Terror.

  “Ah,” he intones. “You have to make the distinction between the first three years of the French Revolution, 1789 to 1792, and the so-called period of Terror, which I call the period of the Revolutionary Government. Because that is the real name of this period. I don’t call it ‘the Terror’. The word Terror, it’s not very precise. What is Terror? Is it a series of practices? Is it a programme? If you look carefully, you see that the Terror was never proclaimed – there was never a law. There was not a ‘Reign’ or ‘regime’ of Terror!”

  “Oh, come on, all that blood-letting,” I say, “and the general state of paranoia?”

  “It’s not paranoia when it’s real,” he insists, calling to mind a Hollywood blockbuster. “And as for the blood? That was also there in 1789, and you don’t call 1789 the Terror. France was very isolated – France was at war with nearly everyone: she fought her neighbours because they had declared hostility to her. It was war! The radicalization of the French Revolution cannot be understood without the context of the war – it’s a European problem.”

  “But what about the machinery of Terror – I mean, literally a machine for publicly chopping off lots of heads?”

  “Non.” Professor Belissa decapitates my question. “Terror is not a machinery: it’s a slogan. It’s not a regime and it’s not a philosophy. You have to think of the Terror as also the most democratic period of the Revolution: you have to think at the same time of both democracy and Terror, which is quite difficult.” He utters the word distinctly, and it’s definitely Terror with a capital T.

  “During the Terror, slavery was abolished in France. During the Terror, the right to existence was proclaimed in the 1793 Droits de l’Homme. During the Terror, the widows got pensions from the state. The poor and the women without husbands got social legislation – that was all during the Terror. So if you see it uniquely in terms of bloodshed, then you don’t understand all the social advances.”

  Right. This isn’t giving me much of an angle on how it was to be Wollstonecraft, arriving just as Wordsworth scuttled back to English safety. I try to steer us back to being a foreigner coming here in 1792. How might you be treated?

  “That depends which country you’re from. If you’re American it’s OK. If you think in terms of who was farthest away on the scale of liberty, at the bottom was the Spanish. For the French, even before the Revolution Spain was considered backwards. It was a place where priests dominated. Italy also, because of the power of the Pope. The Belgians, they had a revolution at the same time as us, but it was ended in 1790 by Austrian repression and the Hapsburg monarchy. But to be English was maybe the worst you could be. And this is not because they were the worst enemy. Non. This is because they were seen as the people who should have been the natural allies of the Revolution. They knew about the Rights of Man, they had a limited monarchy, they had political parties and the English liberty – so those people should have been sympathetic. And so the Revolutionaries saw the English as the worst enemies of all, because they betrayed us.”

  I note the word “us”. And the disdain for the English. But Professor Belissa is impossible to dislike. I persist: “Wollstone-craft’s boyfriend is American and has certain privileges, and for her safety he registers her as his wife even though they’re not really married. So at what point did it
become a danger to her life to be English rather than just an affront to people?”

  “Your country was at war with my country, remember. The legislation passed a law that all citizens of countries at war with France had to be watched. English people were banned from Paris and from border and port towns. For Tom Paine there was of course an exception: he was naturalized. But at one point the French thought it was necessary to expel all foreigners – Paine included. And when Paine came out of jail, he said: ‘I understand these measures – even if they were harsh, I understand it was necessary.’ So people like Paine and Wollstonecraft were considered suspect in terms of being foreigners, but not really as criminals. People think: ‘Ah, Paine was in jail, so France must be chauvinistic.’ But it’s not true.”

  Far from Hannah’s account of the French political paradigm being all about consensus, Professor Belissa is relishing this debate, and the more I question his Revolution, the more he enjoys himself.

  “Are you defending the Revolution?”

  “No. I’m defending complexity. There is no neutral language. We must see that the term ‘Reign of Terror’ was invented in 1795, after the Terror, by the people who killed Robespierre and blamed everything on him. He was a scapegoat. He was not bad – all of them were… It’s a complete misunderstanding.”

  “Are you saying Robespierre wasn’t guilty of crimes?”

  “But were they crimes? Is it a crime to execute people for being counter-revolutionary, in a Revolution? It’s only three thousand—”

  “Only three thousand?!”

  I go into Gallic gesticulation overdrive, nearly falling off my chair. Professor Belissa is unruffled: “You have to compare it to the thousands and thousands of French dying in the armies along the way. And all those dying of hunger? Not during the Terror. During the Terror the price of bread was protected and no one died of hunger. There was famine after the Terror; in 1795 the Seine froze over, a lot of people died, bread was very expensive and crops failed. What about these deaths, ah?”