ABSTRACT
The author's primary concern is not to judge whether Choderlos de Laclos's idea of a women-led revolution is progressive or not but to understand his analysis of the hierarchy between the sexes. In The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France, Suzanne Desan emphasizes the necessity of analyzing the questions of domesticity, family, and gender roles as these are shaped by, and, in turn, give shape to, the simultaneous changes in state politics. The author demonstrates his critical diagnosis of elite society uses the intellectual and discursive framework that parliamentary deputies would revisit during the 1789 Declaration Debate. The author distinguishes between three kinds of competing social norms, and argues that the novel's social diagnosis resides in its narrative juxtaposition of these forms of sociality. Instead, the rhythm of social men and women is one of perpetual physical inactivity and mental hyperactivity; a state of being that causes an expansion of their temporal experience.
