ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that a gendering of the concepts of innocence and virtue took place during the Jacobin regime, both complicating the determination of guilt and contributing to the crisis of truth, language, and law that characterized Year II. The outcry over Paméla undoubtedly reflects the profound political rifts that were occurring in France at the time, as well as the potential perils of liberal virtue's journey to the Continent in 1793. The chapter argues that the stakes in the foment surrounding François de Neufchâteau's Paméla cannot be reduced to a textual debate over sentimental versus republican principles, but necessarily entails consideration of performance and the different rules governing theater and print. The reprisal of the anti-Pamelist debate in France during the Terror was inscribed in the legal and political, rather than strictly social and literary, milieux of revolutionary Paris, and involved many of the main figures, political institutions, and legislative acts of the period.
