The document that became French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was proposed by none other than a member of the French nobility, the Marquis de Lafayette. At 19, Lafayette had defied his family and volunteered his services as a major general in the American Revolution. Inspired by the Declaration of Independence, Lafayette returned to France and proposed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The French document rang with the language of the Enlightenment, and, in time, became part of the nation's constitution.

With the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, the National Assembly (of which Lafayette was a member) laid out the principles that would govern all its future work. The document felled, in one stroke, France's old social patterns, known as the ancien régime. No longer did certain classes in French society receive official privileges. All Frenchmen (although not French women) were considered equal-clergy and peasant, noble and shopkeeper. No longer could the king claim God-given power to rule.

Yet as clear as the words of the declaration rang, in practice no one was sure how to proceed. The long tradition of monarchy was hard to abandon, and as the executive, the king was still in charge. When the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was brought to Louis XVI for approval, he hesitated, recognizing the drastic change it represented. His hesitation led, in part, to the women's march on Versailles palace on October 5, 1789.









What was the role of women during the French Revolution?

The chief organizers of the October 1789 march on Versailles were fiercely determined women. They were angry over the price of bread in Paris, and they were joined by many others-men and women, soldiers and civilians-who were frustrated with the king's reluctance to sign the declaration. When they reached Versailles, armed women murdered some palace guards before gaining an audience with the king. The king agreed to their demands about food prices, and he reluctantly agreed to return to Paris, provided he could bring his entire family.

Some women in revolutionary France held out hope that the republican ideals of liberty and freedom for all would apply to women as well. One of the most outspoken was Olympe de Gouges (say: aw-LAMP duh GOOZH), who published The Declaration of the Rights of Women in 1791. But neither the women's demonstration on October 5 nor the women's declaration signaled the beginning of recognition for women's rights. De Gouges herself was sent to the guillotine in late 1793, and the French newspaper Le Moniteur warned other women to take notice of those who had dared to step outside their "natural sphere." Women in France would have to wait more than a century and a half before winning the right to vote.

Credits: Girondists © Corbis. Marquis de Lafayette © North Wind Picture Archives; Officer Taking Oath. Collection Chauvac Claretie, France/Photo © Giraudon/Art Resource, New York; La Maraichere [Woman of the French Revolution], Jacques Louis David. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, France. Photo © Giraudon/Art Resource, New York; March of the Fish Women to Versailles North Wind Picture Archives.

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