Pauline Léon
Pauline Léon (28 September 1768 – 5 October 1838) was an influential woman during the French Revolution. She played an important role in the Revolution, driven by her strong feminist and anti-royalist beliefs. Along with her friend Claire Lacombe, founded the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women (Société des Républicaines-Révolutionnaires), and she also served as a prominent leader of the Femmes Sans-Culottes. Biography Léon was born to chocolate makers Pierre-Paul Léon and Mathrine Telohan in Paris on 28 September 1768. She was one of six children. When her father died in 1784, Léon began helping her mother with the chocolate business in exchange for room and board. She was also responsible for helping to raise and support her siblings until the time of her marriage. Throughout Léon's life, she became entrenched in the politics of the Revolution. She affiliated herself with radical anti-royalist groups such as the Cordeliers club and the Enragés. It was through these affiliations that she met Théophile Leclerc, a leader of the Enragés, who fought violently for the creation of a French direct democracy. The two were married in 1793 when Pauline was 29 years old. In April of the next year, because of their radical revolutionary acts, the Committee of General Security issued a warrant for their arrest. They were arrested together but held separately in a prison in Luxembourg, where Leclerc had been serving as a soldier. Because they had committed no major crimes, they were released three months later after Robespierre died. After her release from prison, Léon began to pull herself out of the political scene, focusing her efforts on her household and her occupation as a schoolteacher. Léon died at age 70 at home in Bourbon-Vendée on 5 October 1838. Role The French Revolution generated political excitement and sometimes violent unrest. Witnessing this unrest stirred Léon to action, and she became a radical for the revolutionary cause. In 1789 at the beginning of the Revolution, she joined in the famous Storming of the Bastille, even carrying her own pike. A couple years later, in 1791, she again joined a passionate political crowd and risked her life by signing the Cordeliers' republican petition at the Champ de Mars. Her political leanings were no secret. For years, Léon openly protested against all of the following: Lafayette and his royalist wartime opinions, King Louis XVI and the system of French monarchy, and anyone who was openly a counter-revolutionary. As was mentioned above, Léon's official political loyalties were with the Cordeliers Club and the Enragés. Being a part of those groups fueled her revolutionary spirit, and she stood with them even when it landed her in prison for several months. Léon's political involvement in the Revolution is especially noteworthy because she came from the Parisian artisan class, while most other politically involved women of her day were aristocratic. Feminism The Revolution was a time of great debate concerning the status and right of women from all social classes. The entire governmental structure was in question, and