Between the Queen and the Cabby: Olympe de Gouges’s Rights of Woman by John R. Cole (review)

encore l’optimisme des Lumières confronté au désastre de Lisbonne en 1755 (194–97). Une réaction mesurée contre le catastrophisme de l’Europe est saine mais assimiler tout l’environnementalisme à une secte millénariste née de son malaise culturel et historique est faux. Chez Bruckner, la prolifération du vocabulaire du fanatisme, du charlatanisme religieux et des superstitions sectaires, et la polémique hargneuse qui confond les divers mouvements écologiques grèvent la pensée. On doit ferrailler contre les utopies de Charles Fourier et les chimères vertes, mais tout n’est pas ridicule ou totalitaire chez Jacques Ellul, Ivan Illich ou Serge Latouche; Al Gore n’est pas l’Unabomber et un monde sépare Coline Serreau de Earth First!. Certes, certains écologistes sont anti-modernistes ou pire, mais tous ne sont pas zoophiles (146–52), technophobes ou “progressistes antiprogr ès” (107). Monterey Institute of International Studies (CA) Michel Gueldry COLE, JOHN R. Between the Queen and the Cabby: Olympe de Gouges’s Rights of Woman. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2011. ISBN 978-0-7735-3886-3. Pp. xiv + 314. $95. Although the title may at first appear puzzling, it is in fact most expressive and fitting. As the subtitle indicates, this book includes an English translation of Olympe de Gouges’s renowned Les droits de la femme. When the latter first appeared in a 1791 French pamphlet, it was located “Between the Queen and the Cabby,” i.e., between two relatively neglected—and routinely omitted—sections: a dedicatory letter to Queen Marie-Antoinette and a lengthy tirade against a taxicab driver who, according to Gouges (1748–93), overcharged her for a ride. Yet more than simply referring to the location of Gouges’s most famous text within her lesser-known pamphlet—included here in its entirety in both English and French—the title also evokes connotations of class and gender. Both of these constitute significant themes in this engaging, highly readable book by John Cole on one of the most revolutionary feminist texts in French history and its context. Cole thus sets out to replace Gouges’s Rights of Woman in its commonly overlooked pamphlet context and to situate it and its author in French Revolutionary history, a goal that he accomplishes admirably. After an introduction where he describes Gouges’s biography as a tragedy in five acts and provides a useful overview of scholarship on the author, Cole offers a faithful English translation of Gouges’s entire pamphlet in which he even copies the successively smaller fonts used originally (also present in the title). He follows the structure of the French version precisely, dutifully indicating the gender of French words when it matters yet would not be apparent from the translation. This constitutes the first English translation of the pamphlet and it will be valuable especially for those who acknowledge its importance and influence beyond France yet are unable to access it in French. Cole subsequently discusses all pamphlet sections systematically and in great detail. Of particular interest are his analyses of the lesser-known sections, such as Gouges’s unconventional dedication to Queen Marie-Antoinette, her revolutionary proposal on behalf of married women, i.e., a democratized social contract between man and woman, another proposal in favor of persons of color and, of course, her incident with the taxicab driver. Cole argues that although Reviews 197 some of these pamphlet sections are not significant in themselves, they did determine why French revolutionaries ignored Gouges’s proposals. Since this offers an answer to a very common question, readers will greatly appreciate this reconstitution , translation, and recontextualization of Gouges’s text. Cole’s assessment of Gouges’s work is not biased by his interest in it and he points out numerous problematic areas, sometimes with wonderful humor (see p. 185, for instance). In a chapter where twelve black and white illustrations show vividly how French revolutionaries mocked their royals, he ascribes “courage to the point of recklessness” (66) to Gouges when she addresses Queen MarieAntoinette . And when comparing the Rights of Woman articles to their 1789 male counterparts from the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, he...