Revisiting the Élégantes of the Directory: Resisting and Revising Nineteenth-Century Narratives

Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the elegant women of the Directory, known as the Merveilleuses, came to define the era in the French historical imaginary. The Goncourt brothers and other historians labeled them “queens of the Directory,” led by celebrity women such as Thérésia Tallien. Historians associated them with the regime’s decadence, but also its shimmer and style. They refashioned the Directory as vibrant and pleasurable as well as corrupt, an image that mirrors the contradictory French attitude towards women and their role in France’s political history. As Third Republic historians looked back to France’s failed First Republic they grappled with the legacy of women’s political and cultural role and what it meant for their own society. I will consider how historians today need to rethink and challenge those 19th century narratives about the Directory’s élégantes that reflected their own preoccupations rather than the reality of these women’s lives.