Despite critical interest in the role of women in the French Revolution, there is no single, comprehensive study of the works of the two most prolific women writers of the period--Olympe de Gouges and Manon Roland. At a time when politicians were molding public policy concerning life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and constituting criteria for citizenship, increasing numbers of women in Paris were clamoring for rights. New medical and philosophical theories redefining female nature were trotted out to justify women's continued exclusion from full political participation. Such theories...