Topics
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“The creation of the Cult of the Supreme Being in 1793-1794 was a reasonable and effective response on the part of the Revolutionary government to issues raised by the attacks on Catholicism.” Write an essay in which you support or refute this statement, making specific reference to the primary source documents you have read pertaining to religion during the Revolution.
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In the short 1790 newspaper article you read by the Marquis de Condorcet, he argues in favor of granting suffrage, and other civil rights, to adult women. Yet four years later, in the fall of 1793, the National Convention not only fails to give women the vote, it prohibits them from assembling to discuss matters of public concern. Why does the Revolution deny women rights, such as assembly and free speech, that it had endorsed in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, and that Condorcet argued they should be granted? Make specific reference to the primary source documents on women we have read.
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It is January 3, 1790, in Paris. Imagine you are one of the following: a journalist who supports the abolition of slavery and the slave trade, a journalist who favors continuing slavery in the French colonies, a colonial planter (male or female) with holdings in St Domingue, or a free person of color visiting Paris. The previous evening you saw the second, and last public performance of Olympe de Gouges’s Black Slavery, or the Happy Shipwreck at the Comeedie- Française. In a letter to a friend, or in a journal entry, record your reaction to the play.
