◀ Prev · Parts · Full · Next ▶

This was followed by her Contrat Social ("Social Contract", named after a famous work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau), proposing marriage based upon gender equality.cite-ref-french-revolution-p-235-22-1[22]

In 1790 and 1791, in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), free people of colour and African slaves revolted in response to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.cite-ref-moorep15-23-0[23] De Gouges did not approve of violent revolution, and published L'Esclavage des Noirs with a preface in 1792, arguing that the slaves and the free people who responded to the horrors of slavery with "barbaric and atrocious torture" in turn justified the behavior of the tyrants. In Paris, de Gouges was accused by the mayor of Paris of having incited the insurrection in Saint-Domingue with the play.cite-ref-24[24] When it was staged again in December 1792 a riot erupted in Paris.cite-ref-25[25]

◀ Prev · Parts · Full · Next ▶