Citoyennes: Women and the Ideal of Citizenship in Eighteenth-Century France by Annie K. Smart

Abstract

instance, who are only briefly mentioned. Reading this honest and transparent account of the existence of a quadriplegic is a rare experience, and Francophiles may recall an earlier memoir, Le scaphandre et le papillon by Jean-Dominique Beauby. The book by Pozzo invites the reader into the feelings of the tétraplégique at a deeper and more personal level. His honesty in discussing his depression and suicide attempt lends a degree of credibility to the narrative. The delirium and hallucinations induced by his medications furnish scenes both frightening and bizarre, while increasing our empathy for Pozzo. The extensive care provided for those needing physical therapy is a credit to the French healthcare system . Pozzo eloquently describes his task of writing, with a clear purpose in mind: “Se remémorer, centimètre par centimètre, souvenir après souvenir, les perceptions d’un corps atomisé, c’est déjà survivre. À partir de mon immobilité actuelle, reconstituer une chronologie dans un chaos de sensations défuntes, c’est me réapproprier le passé, raccorder deux vies jusque-là dissociées” (22). The book is recommended as an antidote to the `feel-good-movie,’ by showing how two men, marginalized from society—one by his physical situation, the other due to his ex-con life-style—develop a relationship based on mutual concern, with both deriving the benefit of a more meaningful life. Messiah College (PA) Lois Beck SMART, ANNIE K. Citoyennes: Women and the Ideal of Citizenship in Eighteenth-Century France. Newark: UP of Delaware, 2011. ISBN 978-1-61149-354-2. Pp. xii + 259. $75. In recent years, abundant scholarship has focused on the historical and structural division between the public and private spheres in eighteenth-century France. Studies generally show home as the realm of motherhood and private life, devoted to domestic care and concerns; while the public sphere is where citizens engage in debating matters of public interest and authority, and where public opinion is formed. Women govern the former, but are excluded from the latter. In fact, it seems the notion of citizenship was alien to women, as the word “citoyenne” is absent from the Encyclopédie. However, based on her experience growing up in a family where political ideas and values were debated and discussed , where everyone was actively engaged in political campaigns, Smart came to realize that home is where one learns the importance of “becoming informed, and acting as a watchdog for the public good,” and where political identities are formed; in short, home is “an important site of civic action” (xii). As a scholar, she could not accept the polarized views of separate spheres for women and men that she found in her readings. She set out to study the literature and art of the period, reevaluated the role of eighteenth-century mothers, and developed a more inclusive definition of citizenship—one showing home as the birthplace of civic virtue, where citoyennes create “the bonds that attach all citizens to the state,” and where they act “as the linchpin for the ideal state grounded in the principles of social contract and equality” (3). Smart compares and contrasts her position and interpretations with those of scholars whose publications she thoroughly analyzes and quotes. To support her thesis, Smart focuses on some well-known authors and works, as well as some lesser-known. In a few instances, it is reasonably easy to convince readers that women are indeed portrayed as moral individuals committed to Reviews 1281 instilling the essential values of good citizenship in their families. Such is the case in the chapters on Félicité de Genlis, Olympe de Gouges, or Condorcet. In “Rereading Rousseau’s Émile,” however, it is more challenging “to show that Rousseau constructs a civic identity for women and that he conceives of the intimate sphere as an important location for civic formation” (27). Smart must admit that “while Sophie is not certainly the most robust female character in Émile, it would be a mistake to reduce Rousseau’s views on women to Sophie” (52). Readers interested in discovering lesser-known aspects of eighteenth-century literature will welcome the discussion of Sébastien Mercier’s L’an 2440, a utopian...