ABSTRACT
Most historical analysis of French nationalism to date have had one feature in common-they have been male-centred stories. For decades historians simply took for granted that nationalist discourse was ipso facto a form of male discourse, by virtue of its foreign and military policy perspective on national power. What is hidden by this approach is that although the designers, practitioners and critics of foreign and military policy have been exclusively male, the components of national power have not. Domestic policy and the conflicts that it entails constitute an essential (though often unexamined) element; moreover, the contributions to national power of women-as half the population (as childbearers, as participants in the labour force, as supporters and sustainers of men as well as independent actors)—have far too often been silently assumed. Yet women are not-and have not always been willing to be-men’s cyphers; they may have distinct interests and points of view. This essential fact has become increasingly apparent in the late twentieth century as historians of women have retrieved and investigated nineteenth-century women’s writing, activities and organizations, including that of the French feminist movement, and have introduced a feminist critique of earlier historiography, embracing that of French nationalism.1
