Sophie de Grouchy

Entry by Eve-Marie Lampron, 2008

Sophie de Grouchy was born in Meulan (Ile-de-France) on 7 April 1763. She was the daughter of Marie-Henriette Freteau and François-Jacques, Marquis de Grouchy, who attached great importance to her education. Her uncle Charles Dupaty, a well-known lawyer and humanist, was her mentor. Sophie de Grouchy grew up within the intellectual milieu which her family frequented, since her childhood had rubbed shoulders with several Enlightenment figures, including the mathematician Nicolas-Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, who was 19 years her senior. Deeply in love, he proposesd in 1786. She accepted, apparently without much enthusiasm, but a loving relationship based on intellectual complicity and tenderness developed gradually. This first network of enlightened company, strengthened by her marriage in December 1786, marked the entire existence of Sophie de Condorcet, during which she moved to the heart of various progressive circles, whether it be those associated with the philosophers of the Enlightenment (1763-1789), the Republicans (1789-1793) or Ideologues (1795-1822).

The spouses hosted a salon in Paris. The French Revolution and participatory enthusiasm that it aroused in the young woman encouraged her to publish her first works. She translated a pamphlet by Thomas Paine in favor of the Republic and actively participated in meetings held by the progressive club Le Cercle social, as well as in the publication of Le Républicain newspaper, in which she wrote an article under the pseudonym ‘La Vérité’ on 16 July 1791. The salon suspended its activities at the beginning of the Terror. Condorcet shared the fate of the Girondins, with whom he was associated, in the repression of the summer of 1793. Sophie de Condorcet only saw her husband, who was on the run, in the greatest of secrecy, and she only learned of his probable suicide (which occurred on 29 March 1794) several months after the event. Widowed, she devoted a large part of her literary pursuits to rehabilitating and preserving the memory of Condorcet, the intellectual, and signed prefaces to editions of his works, which she got underway. In 1798, she also published a translation of Théorie des sentiments moraux by Adam Smith, enclosing a piece of hers, Lettres sur la sympathie, a work which remains her best known. It is at that time that Sophie de Condorcet opened a salon, with Republican overtones, and critical of both Napoleon’s regime, and the Restoration. She brought together, in particular, Benjamin Constant, Pierre and Pierre Cabanis Guinguene, who were associated with the philosophical current of the Ideologues, who claimed the legacy of the Enlightenment. This network of relationships was central in the latter part of her life, which ended on 8 March 1822 in Paris.

Since the nineteenth century, biographers of Sophie de Condorcet have placed much emphasis on the men who marked her life, whether famous friends, members of her family or her lovers. To name but a few, these were General Lafayette, with whom she was in love shortly before her marriage to Condorcet, and then her male companions and writers and politicians, Maillia Garat (1796-1800) and Claude Fauriel (1801-1822). Since the 1980s, there has been interest in Sophie de Condorcet as an active figure in politics and literature. Her progressive outlook on women's issues are confirmed by several biographers, especially by De Lagrave, who notes the decisive influence of Sophie de Condorcet's ideas on her husband by comparing their respective works and noting that Condorcet had little interest in women’s issues before his marriage. Her famous reply to Napoleon (when he said in front of Sophie de Condorcet in the autumn of 1800 that he did not like women who meddled in politics, upon which she reorted: ‘It is natural at a time when their heads are cut off, that they will want to know why ‘) illustrates her stance on the matter. However, there is little documentation on her thoughts on the subject. It is certainly regrettable that Sophie de Condorcet has only recently been studied for herself. Current research helps our understanding of the life and work of one who was not only wife, sister, sister in law and friend, but also a politician, philosopher and prolific writer who dared to explore genres (journalism, critical annotations, editing) and subjects (philosophy, politics) that were traditionally regarded as male.

(translated by Julie Robertson)

Works

- 1791 : Appel en faveur de la République, par Thomas Paine, Paris, sn (traduction).

- 1791 : «Lettre d’un jeune mécanicien aux auteurs du journal Le Républicain», Le Républicain, 16 juillet (signé «La Vérité», attribué à Sophie de Condorcet).

- 1792 : Apologie de la Révolution française et de ses admirateurs anglais, par Sir James Mackintosh, Paris, Buisson (traduction).

- 1795 : «Préface», dans Nicolas de Condorcet, Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain, oeuvre posthume, éd. P.C.F. Daunou et Mme de Condorcet, Paris, Agasse, p.V-VIII.

- 1795 : Théorie des sentiments moraux, par Adam Smith, suivi de Lettres sur la sympathie, par S. Grouchy Veuve Condorcet, Paris, Buisson, 1798 (traduction et annotation du texte d’Adam Smith).

- 1799 : «Préface», dans Nicolas de Condorcet,Moyens d’apprendre à compter sûrement et avec facilité, éd. Mme de Condorcet et M. Garat, Paris, Moutardier.

- 1801-1804 : «Avertissement», dans OEuvres complètes de Condorcet, éd. Mme de Condorcet, Brunswick-Paris, Moutardier, 1804, t.1, p.15-28.

- 1808? : «Parallèle de Voltaire et de J. J. Rousseau», Le petit magasin des dames, éd. F.J.M. Fayolle, Paris, Solvet, 1808, p.47-49.

Selected bibliography

- Arnold-Tétard, Madeleine, Sophie de Grouchy, marquise de Condorcet: la dame de coeur, Paris, Christian, 2003.

- Boissel, Thierry, Sophie de Condorcet, femme des Lumières, Paris, Presses de la Renaissance, 1988.

- Brown, Karim, «Sophie Grouchy de Condorcet on Moral Sympathy and Social Progress», New York, City University of New York, thèse de doctorat, 1997.

- Forget, Evelyn L., «Cultivating Sympathy: Sophie de Condorcet’s Letters on Sympathy», Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 23, 3, 2001, p.319-337.

- Lagrave, Jean-Paul de, «Sophie de Condorcet, marquise des Lumières», dans Sophie de Condorcet, Lettres sur la sympathie, suivies des Lettres d’amour, éd. Jean-Paul de Lagrave, Montréal, L’Etincelle, 1994, p.17-44.

Web Links

This website dedicated to Sophie de Condorcet is the work of her biographer, Madeleine Arnold-Tétard. [1].

Reception

- (commentaire d’un journaliste royaliste sur les femmes et la politique) «Dans l’infirmerie des lépreuses, je placerai (à commencer par la Condorcet) ces jeunes tendrons qui avec un vernis de santé et une figure engageante se sont pourtant jetés dans la casserole des droits de l’homme. [...] Il est clair que ces dames ont calculé que puisqu’un roi n’avait la vertu de guérir les écrouelles qu’il touchait le jour de son sacre, il ne faudrait pas moins que l’inauguration de vingt-quatre millions de souverains pour cicatriser toutes leurs infirmités.» (Journal de M. Suleau, 13 avril 1792, tel que cité par Elisabeth Roudinesco, Théroigne de Méricourt. Une femme mélancolique sous la Révolution, Paris, Seuil, 1989, p.118-119)

- «Je viens de lire, madame, les huit lettres que vous avez ajoutées à la traduction de Smith. [...] Il y a, dans ces lettres, une autorité de raison, une sensibilité vraie, mais dominée, qui fait de vous une femme à part. [...] Votre caractère vous les a inspirées.» (Mme de Staël, Correspondance générale, lettre du 20 mai 1798, Genève, Skatline, 1978-, t.4, vol.1, p.139)

- «Une des plus belles, des plus spirituelles et des plus instruites qui aient jamais brillé parmi son sexe.» (A. Morellet, Mémoires de l’abbé Morellet sur le dix-huitième siècle et sur la révolution, oeuvre posthume, Paris, L’Advocat, 1821, p.106)

- «Mme de Condorcet, femme d’une éclatante beauté, se joignit à Mme de Staël dans sa faveur enthousiaste pour le jeune ministre de la Guerre, M. de Narbonne. L’une lui prêta l’éclat de son génie, l’autre l’influence de ses charmes. Ces deux femmes semblèrent confondre leurs sentiments dans un dévouement commun à l’homme de leurs préférences. Leur rivalité s’immola à son ambition.» (A. de Lamartine, Histoire des Girondins, Paris, Hachette, 1884 [1865], p.319)

- «Son salon était le centre de l’Europe pensante. Toute nation, comme toute science y avait sa place. [...] Parmi ces illustres penseurs planait la noble et virginale figure de Madame de Condorcet, que Raphaël aurait prise pour type de la métaphysique. Elle était toute lumière; tout semblait s’éclairer, s’épurer sous son regard.» (J. Michelet, Les Femmes de la Révolution, notes par Françoise Giroud, Paris, Carrere, 1988 [1854], p.121-122)

- «Mailla Garat vint distraire Sophie de ses pensées douloureuses. [...] Parfois, entre eux, apparaît, comme une ombre furtive, l’image de Condorcet. [...] Commence le roman où, captive de l’amour, elle se donnera corps et âme.» (Charles Léger, Captives de l’amour, d'après des documents inédits; lettres intimes de Sophie de Condorcet, d'Aimée de Coigny et de quelques autres coeurs sensibles,Paris, C. Gaillandre, 1933, p.49-50)

- «While Mme Condorcet had never taken an outwardly feminist stance in the manner of her husband, she continued, by her writings and political activity, to act as an example of the capabilities of women that the progress of the Revolution was vehemently denying.» (B. Brookes, «The Feminism of Condorcet and Sophie de Grouchy», Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 189, 1980, p.356)