Thread by @marinamaral2

#OnThisDay in 1793, French playwright and feminist Olympe de Gouges is guillotined.

On the night before her death, she wrote: “I die, my dear son, a victim of my idolatry for the fatherland and for the people. (...) I die, my son, my dear son: I die innocent.”

She was executed during the Reign of Terror (1793–1794) for attacking the regime of the Revolutionary government and for her association with the Girondists.

In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen (1791), she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male-female inequality:

"Women, rouse yourselves! The tocsin of reason resounds through the whole universe: recognize your rights."

Here is her final letter, to her son. It was never delivered.

"I die, my dear son, a victim of my idolatry for the fatherland and for the people. Under the specious mask of republicanism, her enemies have brought me remorselessly to the scaffold.

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After five months of captivity I was transferred to a maison de santé in which I was as free as I would have been at home. I could have escaped… but convince that all malevolence combining to ensnare me could not make me take a single step against the Revolution...

... I myself demanded to go to trial. Could I have believed that unmuzzled tigers would themselves be judges against the laws, even against that assembled public that will soon reproach them with my death?

I was presented with my indictment three days before my death; from the moment this indictment was signed the law gave me the right to see my defenders and whomsoever else I chose to assist my case.

All were prevented from seeing me.

I was kept as if in solitary confinement, unable to speak even to the gaoler. I was given the list at midnight, and the following day at 7 ‘clock, I was taken to the Tribunal, weak and sick, and lacking the art of speaking to the public;

like Jean-Jacques and also on account of his virtues, I was all too aware of my inadequacy.

I asked for the défenseur officieux that I had chosen. I was told that there wasn’t one or that he did not wish to take on my cause; I ased for another to take his place.

I was told that I had enough wit to defend myself.

Yes, no doubt I had enough to spare to defend my innocence, which was evident to the eyes of all present. I do not deny that a defenseur officieaux could have done much more for me in pointing out all the services...

... and benefits that I have brought the people.

Twenty times I made my executioners pale and not knowing how to reply to each sentence that betrayed my innocence and their bad faith, they sentenced me to death...

... lest the peope be led to consider my fate as the greatest example of iniquity the world has ever seen.

Farewell my son, I shall be no more when you receive this letter.

But leave your post, the injustice done to your mother and the crime committed against her are reason enough.

I die, my dear son; I die innocent. All laws have been violated for the most virtuous woman of her century… always remember the good advice that I have given you.

I leave your wife’s watch as well as the receipt for her jewellery at the pawnbrokers, the jar and the keys to the trunk that I sent to Tours.

De Gouges."

From atop the scaffolding, she cried out, “Children of the fatherland, you will avenge my death.”

The letter is featured in this book, which I'm very excited to read: Last letters: Prisons and prisoners of the French Revolution, 1793-1794.

amazon.com/Last-Letters-P…