Claire Lacombe (4 August 1765 – 2 May 1826) was a French actress and militant during theFrench Revolution. In addition to being known as an effective street fighter during the early phases of the Revolution, Lacombe was a founding member of theSociety of Revolutionary Republican Women, a political club of largely working class women. The Society militated for participatory democracy and for policies that would meet the basic needs of urban workers, who suffered from high food prices and food shortages. It was later to be crushed by theJacobins, along with other working class movements such as thesan-culottes and theenragés.
Lacombe was born in the provincial town ofPamiers in southwesternFrance. She became an actress at a young age and appeared in theatrical productions 'somewhere in southern France, probably Marseille[1]'. She arrived in Paris in 1792.[1][2] The actress, in her mid-twenties, was 'self-assured, self-assertive, and self-dramatizing, all useful qualities for making one's mark on the revolutionary scene.'[1]
Lacombe first attracted attention in Revolutionary politics in late July 1792, when she gave a well-received speech to theNational Constituent Assembly. In her speech, she pledged to fight for her country 'with the courage of a Roman and with the hatred of tyrants' and promised to help with the extermination of 'Neros and Caligulas'.[1] She also asked to be recruited in the army. At the time, revolutionary France was facing major military threats from the royal houses of Europe. The speech was given the ‘honors of the session’ (a distinction) and was printed by the Assembly.[3]
Indeed, Lacombe made good on her commitment to fight. She and other women were active in the street combat that was part and parcel of the revolutionary process. In particular, during theinsurrection of 10 August 1792, Lacombe fought with the rebels during the storming of theTuileries Palace, which was protected by the mercenary Swiss Guard. Hundreds of Swiss guardsmen and 400 revolutionaries were killed in the battle. Along withThéroigne de Mericourt andReine Audi, Lacombe rallied the revolutionary forces, who were under fire. She was shot through the arm but kept on fighting, earning herself the lifelong sobriquet, "Heroine of August Tenth". For her bravery, she was awarded a civic crown (couronne civique) by the victoriousfédérés.[1][4]
After acquiring a certain level of recognition due both to her public speaking and her abilities in insurrectionary combat, Lacombe strengthened her position as a political actor. She was a frequent attendee at meetings of theCordeliers Club, through which she became involved with the most radical elements of the Revolution.
In February, 1793, Lacombe and another female revolutionary,Pauline Léon, founded ‘the most famous of women’s clubs,’[5] theSociety of Revolutionary Republican Women.[6][7][8] Composed chiefly of working-class women, the Society was aligned with the most militant revolutionaries, thesans-culottes andenragés.[6] They "demanded not just the execution of royalty and the rooting out of the aristocracy, but a social and economic program, ... to restrict ... the speculator, the stock-jobber, the hoarder, and to enact a system of fixed, 'just' prices, controlled markets and supplies.[1]" In this sense, the Revolutionary Republicans' programme was, in the first instance, economic and not overtly feminist. However, they did demand that the universal male suffrage created in theConstitution of 1793 (but not implemented) be extended to women.[9] The Society also functioned as a fighting force, and employed violent tactics to intimidate people that they considered to be anti-revolutionaries.[10]
Almost from the outset, the French Revolution, including its most radical elements, encountered difficulties incorporating women's rights into their broader principles of human rights. This debate took place within a societal context in which women of all classes were almost entirely without political or civil rights. For example, women had no right to vote; men had total legal authority over their wives; and female children received a non-existent or inferior education relative to males.[11] When the women from the bourgeoisie asked to be included in the emerging framework of human rights, the reigning institutions (including the Jacobian political movement) were initially quite receptive. Indeed, many bourgeois demands were enacted into law, such as the promulgation in 1792 of a divorce decree; setting the age of legal majority at 21 for both sexes; and establishing the right of women to testify in certain civil suits.[11] But when working class women started to militate by asking for 'disruptive' measures to increase the supply of bread in cities and to prevent price fixing and hoarding, this support evaporated.[1][11]
Despite the deeply entrenchedchauvinism of the time, there were a few men among the revolutionaries who supported the fight for women's rights. One of these wasThéophile Leclerc, with whom Lacombe lived for a while, until he left her to marry Pauline Léon.[12]
The political scene during theReign of Terror involved both physical and verbal violence by many elements of the Revolution. The main factions consisted of:
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In addition to the internal tensions caused by these political factions, revolutionary France was facing a serious external threat from the royal houses of Europe and had declared war on Austria. During the Terror, this war was not going well for France. At the same time, the Vendée and, to a lesser extent, other regions were in open revolt against the Revolution. France's economic situation was also dire as it attempted to deal with the ‘crushing national debt’[11] that it had inherited from the ancien regime.[13] Faced with these existential threats, the main goal of the Jacobins (who controlled the Revolutionary government at the time) was to calm the working class while they dealt with the external and internal threats. For this reason, after pressure from theenragés, thesans-culottes and the Society, the Jacobins actually adopted many of their policies. However, their ultimate goal was to suppress these movements so as to the minimize the threat of further disruption.[1]
Under the Reign of Terror, theenragés were suppressed both by the guillotine and by prohibition. On September 16, 1793, Lacombe, then president of the Society, was publicly denounced by the Jacobins to theCommittee of General Security. They accused her of “makingcounter-revolutionary statements,” and having lived with and aided a “notorious counter-revolutionary, theenragé Leclerc”.[14] Lacombe was arrested by order of the Committee of General Security, but, for unknown reasons, she was quickly released.[11]
She defended herself vigorously to the working class women in her Society and continued her political activities. However, the writing was already on the wall for this group, which was seen by the Revolutionary government as uncontrollable and no longer politically useful.[1][15] The Society nevertheless continued its activism, carrying petitions to the Convention. These asked for policies that would 'rehabilitate prostitutes through useful work and indoctrination' and called for 'the enforcement of price fixing laws' andsans-culottes policing of warehouses through ‘domiciliary visits’.[1]
This activism would soon be brought to a complete stop. In late October 1793, a violent confrontation took place between Society members and the 'bourgeois' owners of food stalls inLes Halles (the main food market of Paris, which was located right across from the headquarters of the Society in theSaint-Eustache Church). The violence occurred when the Revolutionary Republicans tried to force the more conservative women ofles Halles (the main food market in Paris) to wear thebonnet rouge (a revolutionary hat).[16] The confrontation resulted in the market women laying charges against the women of the Society, including Claire Lacombe. This gave the Jacobins "the excuse they were looking for"[17] to get rid not only of Claire Lacombe, but also of all women's political organisations.[1] It took only one day for theCommittee of General Security to prepare its report and recommendations on these charges. The report focused on two general questions: 'should women exercise political rights and meddle in (s'immiser) the affairs of government? And should women take part in political societies?'.[1] The report’s negative answer to both of these questions cited several reasons: making the necessary investment in political organization would cause women to ‘sacrifice the more appropriate cares to which Nature assigns them.'[1] Also, women were not thought to have the 'self discipline, dispassion, limitless self-sacrifice' required to exercise political rights.[1] TheNational Convention adopted these recommendations unanimously on 30 October 1793.[10][18]
Barred from any political activity, Lacombe attempted to return to her acting career. On April 2, 1794, she was arrested as she prepared to leave for a theater inDunkirk.[12] Pauline Léon and her husband, Leclerc, were arrested the following day. Lacombe was released from prison on 20 August 1795, by order of the Committee of General Security.[19] She was imprisoned one year longer than Léon and Leclerc because, unlike them, she refused to condemn the Revolutionary government and Robespierre in order to please theThermidorians during theThemidorian Reaction (when Robespierre’s government gave way to a more moderate group).[3]
After prison, Lacombe abandoned her political activities and took up again her career in acting. Numerous documents attest to the roles she played, mainly in Nantes.[20] Ultimately, her career wound down and she seems to have ended her life in poverty.[1] Suffering from mental health problems, Lacombe was admitted to thePitié-Salpêtrière Hospital on 19 June 1821,[21] where her profession was recorded as "teacher" ("institutrice"). She died there on 2 May 1826, from a cardiacaneurysm.[22]
According to some modern analyses, the suppression of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women was due to men’s fear of losing their control over the productive — and reproductive — functions of the female sex.[15] For example, Pierre GaspardChaumette (anenragé who was the president of theParis Commune from 1789 until 1795) asserted men's rights to have women care for the family, and claimed that domestic duties were the only civic duties women had. He further cautioned women by reminding them of the recently executedMadame Roland andOlympe de Gouges, describing such politically active women as "haughty", "denatured" and "shameless".[23][24]
Although it was preceded by centuries of philosophical discussion, the Revolution’s grappling with women’s issues was particularly wide ranging and concrete.[5] The revolutionary conversation covered such issues as marriage, divorce, inheritance, voting rights, childhood education, prostitution, and women in labor markets and the military. Given its socio-political context, feminism during the French Revolution was so avant-garde that its success would have been much more surprising than its failure.[3] Despite this relative failure (some progress was made on a few issues), the intense debate about what is now considered to be feminist issues during the Revolution – initiated and nourished by militants such as Claire Lacombe – laid the groundwork for subsequent progress on women’s rights.[3]
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