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Power Couples in Revolutionary Paris

6 weekly sessions online, on Fridays at 11am - 12pm, starting from Friday 30 January.

Overview

This course comprises a weekly 1 hour live online meeting (via Zoom) and online learning materials for you to engage with before and after each live session.

‘Power couples’ is a term that modern audiences are familiar with. Barrack and Michelle Obama, William and Kate, Victoria and David Beckham, to name but a few, are the images that spring most readily to mind when we hear the term ‘power couple’. However, there are historical examples which are often overlooked because this term did not exist in the period being examined. The French Revolution is a prime example of this. In the latter half of the eighteenth-century, there was a shift in marriages which led to marriages of convenience becoming less popular than companionate marriages. These new kinds of marriage provided both partners with significant agency and during the French Revolution, this manifested as both husband and wife possessing considerable political power individually and as part of a couple. The aim of this course is to introduce participants to five revolutionary power couples - Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, the Marquis de Condorcet and Sophie de Condorcet, Louise de Kéralio and François Robert, Marie-Jeanne and Jean-Marie Roland, and Rosalie and Marc-Antoine Jullien. It will consider the ways in which husbands and wives could work together in revolutionary society in a way that benefitted both parties.         

No prior knowledge of this topic is required. Participants will be provided with the relevant context before being given the opportunity to explore a range of primary source materials. From the trials of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette to the memoirs of Madame Roland and the private letters of Rosalie Jullien, participants will analyse a range of historical sources, developing their source handling skills as they do so. They will be given the opportunity to discuss the sources in small groups, pairs and as a larger group. All sources will be translated extracts, so there is no requirement to read French.          

This course is open to all but may be of particular interest to those interested in gendered experiences during the French Revolution, personal testimony as historical sources, and marriage in the early modern period.

Syllabus

  • An introduction to marriage in 18th century France. Enlightenment debates on the roles of men and women/husbands and wives. Group discussion of translations of Rousseau, Voltaire and Diderot. Outline remainder of course.
  • Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. Analysis of extracts from the trials of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.
  • The Condorcets. Analysis of ‘On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship’, and translated extracts from ‘Aux Étrangers sur la Révolution Française’ and ‘Laissé par le roi, en fuyant, et adressé à l’Assemblée National’, from Le Républicain journal.
  • The Rolands. Analysis of Monsieur Roland’s letter to Louis XVI (10 June 1792) and translated extracts from the memoirs of Madame Roland.
  • The Roberts. Analysis of the rules of the Fraternal Society of Both Sexes and a selection of extracts from Le Mercure National.
  • The Julliens. Analysis of letters of Rosalie Jullien. (Jullien’s letters make up the entire source base for this week). Conclusion of course.

Course lecturer

Dr Sam Dobbie is a PhD History graduate from the University of Glasgow, where she also obtained her MA History and MLitt Modern History degrees. She specialises in the French Revolution, with particular emphasis on the role of women in revolutionary society. Her PhD thesis is entitled ‘Women’s Political Agency in Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1793’. Other research interests include France in the long nineteenth-century and revolution as a process.

She has most recently been a tutor at the University of Glasgow and Glasgow Caledonian University on a range of undergraduate and honours courses including France, 1789-1914: Revolution, Nation and Empire, Becoming an Historian, and the Rise of Western Societies, 1789-1914. She also offers courses to adult learners on the Lifelong Learning Dundee programme.

Some of her publications include ‘The Complex Nature of Memory in Personal Testimonies from the French Revolution: The Example of Fournier l’Américain’, Esharp 31 (2024), and ‘High Profile Marriages in Revolutionary Paris: The Condorcets’, Epoch 5 (2021).

Course fee

  • Standard fee: £80
  • Concession fee: £40