Sophie de Grouchy (1764 – 1822), or Madame de Condorcet, was a French intellectual, woman of letters and translator who held an important salon from the French Revolution until her death.
Great mental alertness
Sophie Marie Louise de Grouchy was born in 1764 in Meulan-en-Yvelines, in Île-de-France, in a noble family. His father, François Jacques de Grouchy, was a marquis; Her mother, Marie Gilberte Henriette Fréteau de Pény, was an intellectual and encouraged her daughter's education. In particular, she encourages Sophie to follow the courses given to her brothers by tutors; the girl thus receives a quality education, generally reserved for boys at the time. She learns in particular German, English, Latin, literature, philosophy.
Very quickly, Sophie stood out for her lively mind, her great education and her subtle writings. It feeds on the writings of Rousseau, Diderot, philosophers of the Enlightenment who attach themselves to freedom of the spirit. At almost twenty, she rejects religion and returns an atheist from a compulsory stay in a convent. In the living room of her uncle, Charles Dupaty, Sophie meets the philosopher and mathematician Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet. Quickly seduced by the finesse of mind and the beauty of the young woman, 21 years his junior, Nicolas de Condorcet asks her to marry him; Sophie accepts, and marries her in 1786. Despite their age difference, the marriage seems to have been happy, built in particular around many common intellectual interests. In 1790, they had a daughter, Louise-Alexandrine called Liza.
Sophie's living room
At the dawn of the French Revolution, Sophie de Grouchy fully integrated Parisian intellectual circles. At the Hôtel des Monnaies, she held a philosophical salon which attracted great names of the Enlightenment, including women including Olympe de Gouges and Germaine de Staël. Pierre Beaumarchais, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, Charles Stanhope, Chamfort, Cheniers, Morellet, Grimm, Thomas Paine are among those who frequent Sophie's salon. She is particularly passionate about the writings of Adam Smith; believing that his book Theory of Moral Sentiments was mistranslated, she undertakes to translate it again adding her philosophical comments. She also translates works by Thomas Paine, and writes her own essays.
Open to feminist ideas, Sophie welcomes the Cercle Social, of which Olympe de Gouges is a member, which defends equal rights between women and men. She probably influenced her husband's ideas on equality, and his essay "On the Admission of Women to Citizenship", written in July 1790. She and her husband also called for the abolition of slavery .
French Revolution
The political opinions of the Condorcet couple quickly earned them, and as the French Revolution continued, the enmity of the nobility who accused them of betraying their class, while the revolutionaries remained suspicious. A Girondin deputy, Nicolas opposed the constitution of 1793 and this opposition earned him a conviction for treason. Warned by an acquaintance, he hides for nine months – during which his wife visits him – but ends up being arrested. He died two days later in his cell, under mysterious circumstances.
The conviction and death of her husband left Sophie in a delicate financial situation. To earn a living and support her little Liza, as well as her sister Charlotte de Grouchy, Sophie opened a lingerie shop and painted portraits. For some time, she put aside her writings and her translations. In 1795, she published her translation of the Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith, with eight letters of her own. In 1799, she managed to have the Eloges des Académiciens of her husband and reformed in Auteuil a new salon for intellectuals. Between 1801 and 1804, she worked to publish the entirety of Nicolas' work in 21 volumes. His literary salon became a hotbed of resistance to the Empire.
Sophie de Condorcet died of illness in Paris, in September 1822, at the age of 58.