Culture
The Struggle for Hearts & Minds
In addition to politicians, lawyers, and business people, the leaders of the revolutionary era included an extraordinary number of prestigious artists, writers, scientists, and scholars. All of these remarkable figures are featured in Revolution: Paris.
scientists
Antoine Lavoisier
One of the most important figures in the early development of chemistry, Lavoisier gave name to oxygen and identified it as an element. He also helped replace archaic units of measurement with the metric system. In 1794, he was guillotined for his ‘day job’ as a tax collector.
Gaspard Monge
A crucial figure in the development of modern geometry, Monge was also a vigorous supporter of the radical revolution of 1792, serving as the Minister of Marine.
Jean Sylvain Bailly
Bailly was a highly regarded astronomer. He was a member of the French Academy of Sciences, helped construct an observatory at the Louvre, and accurately calculated the arrival of Halley’s Comet. He was elected mayor of Paris, but was ultimately executed for his role in the massacre of the Champs de Mars.
Jean Paul Marat
While famous as one of the history’s great firebrand journalists, Marat began his career as a physician and scientist, conducting original research into optics, electricity, and the nature of light and fire. He was assassinated by Charlotte Corday.
Lavoisier operates his ‘solar furnace.’
Gaspard Monge is often credited as the inventor of descriptive geometry.
In one of his most powerful works, David documented the assassination of his fellow radical, Marat.
David survived the revolution to become one of Napoleon’s most important painter-propogandists.
Painters
Jacques Louis David
Recognized as one of the preeminent painters of his generation, David, a committed Jacobin, documented many important moments of the revolution. He also designed official uniforms and orchestrated state parades and pageants.
Élisabeth Vigeé Le Brun
Once considered simply Queen Marie Antoinette’s court painter, Le Brun is now recognized as one of the leading portraitists of the age. Her works hang in many of the world’s most prestigious museums.
Le Brun’s self portrait shows her blend of roccocco and neoclassic styles.
Beaumarchais’s operas remain performed around the world.
Poets, Playwrights & Musicians
André Chénier
After being guillotined for suspected treason, Chénier has become highly regarded as an important voice of the Romantic movement.
Pierre Beaumarchais
Beaumarchais is the author of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, which are still widely performed today. He was also a sometime gunner-runner for American and French revolutionaries.
Olympe de Gouges
A prolific playwright, De Gouges used her pen to promote abolition and women’s rights.
Chevalier de Saint Georges
Son of a Guadeloupe colonist and an enslaved woman, Saint Georges was a famous composer, violinist, dancer, and even fencer. He is considered one of the first people of color to attain acclaim as a classical composer.
Collot d'Herbois
As a dramatist, Herbois’s work was poorly received in the theater scene of Lyon. He later returned to the city and oversaw the killing of thousands during the Reign of Terror. He was guillotined for these crimes.
Fabre d'Églantine
His poem Il Pleut, Il Pleut, Bergère remains a popular French nursery rhyme. Églantine also came up with the names of the months in the new republican calendar. He was executed for his role in a financial scandal during the month he’d named ‘Germinal,’ for the germination of spingtime.
The black serpent, emerging from its impure cave,
has thus seen finally to break under your firm and sure hand
the venomous tissue of his abhorred days!
— His poem in praise of Marat’s assassin, Charlotte Corday, helped lead to Chénier’s denunciation.
One of the more remarkable images of the times depicts a man of color, Saint Georges, competing in a fencing match against a trans woman, the Chevalière d’Eon.
“Intellect does not attain its full force unless it attacks power.”
— Germaine de Staël
“I have no more need of a God than he of me.”
— Sylvain Maréchal
Novelists
Louis Sébastien Mercier
Mercier’s The Year 2440 is a seminal work of modern science fiction. This wildly popular novel depicts a utopian vision of Paris that in some ways presaged the coming revolution.
Germaine de Staël
Novelist, playwright, philosopher, political theorist, salonnière— De Staël was one of the most vigorous minds of her day. Her influence continued long after the revolution. One commentator even quipped: “There were three great powers struggling against Napoleon for the soul of Europe — England, Russia, and Madame de Staël.”
Sylvain Maréchal
Though principally a political writer, Maréchal’s books and novellas expounded on his radically egalitarian ideals.
“In going from this place, I observed toward the right, on a magnificent pedestal, the figure of a negro; his head was bare, his arm extended, his eye fierce, his attitude noble and commanding; round him were spread the broken relics of twenty scepters; and at his feet I read these words: ‘To the avenger of the new world…’”
— Mercier used his novels to promote his abolitionist beliefs.
“I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves”
— Mary Wollstonecraft
Philosophers
Nicolas de Condorcet
‘The last witness of the Enlightenment,’ Condorcet was a polymath whose work covered everything from politics to mathematics. He died in prison by murder or suicide. In a sign of his continued importance, he was symbolically interred in the Panthéon nearly 200 years later.
Sophie de Condorcet
Wife of Nicolas, Sophie was very much a significant mind in her own right. Her salons brought together the leading lights of France and wider Europe.
Mary Wollstonecraft
One of the most important feminist philosophers in history, Wollstonecraft traveled to France to take part in the revolution. She had to flee the country after the fall of her Girondin friends.
“The rights of men stem exclusively from the fact that they are sentient beings, capable of acquiring moral ideas and of reasoning upon them. Since women have the same qualities, they necessarily also have the same rights.”
— Nicolas de Condorcet