Performing Justice: The Trials of Olympe de Gouges

Examines the radical republicanism, arrest and trials of Olympe de Gouges, in 1793 at the onset of the French Revolution, in relation to the manuscript of an unfinished play, "La France sauvée ou le tyran détroné" (France preserved, or the tyrant dethroned). States that in the projected 5-act play de Gouges planned a sweeping historical drama, centered on the desperate machinations of Queen Marie-Antoinette on the eve of the impending demise of the monarchy. Juxtaposes what might be called the "declarative politics in de Gouges's "Declaration of the Rights of Woman."