'Celle dont la voix publique vous a nommé le père': Olympe de Gouges's Mémoire de Madame de Valmont (1788)

This essay argues that Gouges's autobiographical epistolary novel should be read as a fictional judicial memoir. This essay explores the reasons for which a disenfranchised woman would choose to write a work of fiction—and an epistolary novel in particular—rather than take her inheritance claims to court. It then discusses Gouges's representational strategies, as well as her discourse of women's rights and critique of religious fanaticism.