ABSTRACT
Peasant women, of course, made up a large sector of the French population, but until recently, their experiences in the French Revolution have been ignored. Olwen Hufton seeks to address that gap, despite the difficulty in finding sources that allow these women to speak for themselves, and the variation of conditions from region to region. For Hufton’s peasant women, the French Revolution is not their friend: it is clearly their adversary. The Revolution is a constant bother to them, disrupting their lives in ways that make them resentful of its ideals. The Revolution persecuted the clergy and nearly ruined the Catholic Church in France, something dear to the hearts of these peasant women. The Revolution disrupted the peasant economy, making it difficult for women to sell what few goods they took to market and secure what they needed for their families. The Revolution took away their sons and marched them
off to war. Rarely, if ever, did the Revolution bring Hufton’s peasant women anything to cheer about.
