Pauline Léon

Pauline Léon was born in 1768 in Paris to a family of chocolate makers.  When her father died she struggled alongside her mother to support her five other siblings.  It was during this time period that she heard of various revolutionaries being shot during a bread riot.

She had a full Revolutionary life being a frequent attendee at the Cordeliers Club and even addressing the Legislative Assembly in 1791 demanding that Parisian women be allowed to create a female militia.  She was seen as the female leader of the sans-culottes and was often to be seen patrolling the streets of Paris enforcing the compulsory wearing of the Revolutionary Cockade.  She founded the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women with Claire Lacombe and was president for a while however this was quickly shut down by the Jacobins who opposed women’s involvement in politics.  She was placed in prison in 1794 but was released during the Thermidorian Reaction.

Little is known about her later life other than she was a primary school teacher for a while.  She lived until 1838.