Two new books restore Madame du Deffand and Olympe de Gouges to the light of the Enlightenment
A published correspondence and a biography argue that both women were, in their own right, at least as voltairian as Voltaire himself.
According to Le Monde, two books published this season put Madame du Deffand and Olympe de Gouges back at the center of the Enlightenment story that has long been told mostly through Voltaire. One draws on Madame du Deffand's correspondence with Voltaire; the other is a biography of Olympe de Gouges that traces how deeply Voltaire's thought shaped her.
Le Monde frames the pairing as a corrective: both women, the article notes, were at least as voltairian as Voltaire himself, even though their intellectual standing has traditionally been read as satellite to his. Madame du Deffand, whose salon and letters placed her at the heart of eighteenth-century literary exchange, appears here through her own correspondence rather than as a supporting figure in someone else's biography.
Olympe de Gouges, author of the Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne, is the subject of the second book, which according to Le Monde's summary examines the influence Voltaire had on her thinking. The two works, taken together, are presented as putting these women's own voices and arguments back into view.
Le Monde gives no further detail on the books' authors, publishers or publication dates in the material available.
Sources
This article was written from these reports.
