Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 89

Château-Regnault, Fortunée Hamelin, Aimée de Coigny, and salonnière
Juliette de Récamier—became shorthand for the period as a whole. To make
reference once again to the Kardashians, they sometimes seemed famous
simply for being famous. But there was also a political intent in the carefully
honed performances of the Merveilleuses, who were, in some cases, suspected
of royalist sympathies. Aileen Ribeiro has argued that the revealing outfits
that fashionable women wore in the years following the Reign of Terror
“were a direct mockery of established morality and the almost bourgeois
virtues advocated by Robespierre during the Terror” (Ribeiro ����:���).
Further, the choice of these women to showcase cosmetics, expensive
clothing, and other luxurious items was also a political statement, seconding
the efforts of the French political elite to revive the national economy and
lighten the political mood at a time of war and deprivation (Note �). They
promoted the conspicuous consumption that undergirds a capitalist society,
and the display of their almost naked bodies in their transparent dresses
was a new kind of “authenticity.” Fervent Jacobins, who resented the frivolity
and overt sexuality that replaced earlier Revolutionary mores, fulminated
against Madame Tallien’s “illegitimate” control over public opinion in late
����, (Note �) and the Merveilleuses played an important role in the salons
that continued to proliferate under the Directory. Until Napoleon Bonaparte
came to power in ���� and limited the social and political influence of women,
the Merveilleuses occupied an important political and cultural position.
To come back to the issues of performance, display and authenticity, I began
this essay by suggesting that this notion of life as performance is nothing
new; William Shakespeare famously wrote “All the world’s a stage,” even
before French courtiers wrote about the “theater of the court.” Although most
individuals are conscious that they perform for others, they tend to behave
in ways that social pressures dictate. It is when an individual’s performance
is new or challenges those norms that we take notice; when Qandeel Baloch
asserted her right to perform sexuality, Pakistanis and the world were riveted.
For the individual, a transgressive performance may be more “authentic”
than adherence to social norms, and is often empowering and politically
resonant. But “empowering and politically resonant,” especially in the hands
of women, can be threatening, especially at particular historical moments.
Revolutionary France was a particularly fraught historical moment, and
it’s not surprisingly that the new and visible role that women asserted for
themselves under the Directory created a backlash in some circles. More
generally, the efforts of the Merveilleuses to draw attention to themselves and
to insert themselves into the cultural and political arena undercut the clear
gender boundaries that male revolutionaries had tried to draw at the very
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