ce of Republicans and Democrats was demanded, women were among the
banished and deported: Jeanne Deroin in 1848, Louise Michel, in 1851 and
1871.

Marie Deraismes, belonging to the wealthy Parisian middle class, appeared
in the sixties as a public speaker. She was a woman's rights advocate.
However, in a still greater degree she was a tribune of the people, a
republican and a politician. Marie Deraismes and her excellent political
adherent, Leon Richer, were the founders of the organized French woman's
rights movement. As early as 1876 they organized the "Society for the
Amelioration of the Condition of Woman and for Demanding Woman's Rights";
in 1878 they called the first French woman's rights congress.

The following features characterize the modern French woman's rights
movement: It is largely restricted to Paris; in the provinces there are
only weak and isolated beginnings; even the Parisian woman's rights
organizations are not numerous, the greatest having 400 members. Thanks to
the republican and socialist movements, which for thirty years have
controlled France, the woman's rights movement is for political reasons
supported by the men to a degree not noticeable in any other country. The
republican majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the republican press, and
republican literature effectively promote the woman's rights movement. The
Federation of French Women's Clubs, founded in 1901, and reputed to have
73,000 members, is at present promoting the movement by the systematic
organization of provincial divisions. Less kindly disposed--sometimes
indifferent and hostile--are the Church, the Catholic circles, the
nobility, society, and the "liberal" capitalistic bourgeoisie. A sharp
division between the woman's rights movements of the middle class and the
movement of the Socialists, such as exists, for example, in Germany, does
not exist in France. A large part of the bourgeoisie (not the great
capitalists) are socialistically inclined. On the basis of principle the
Republicans and Socialists cannot deny the justice of the woman's rights
movement. Hence everything now depends on the _opportuneness_ of the
demands of the women.

The French woman has still much to demand. However enlightened, however
advanced the Frenchman may regard himself, he has not yet reached the
point where he will favor woman's suffrage; what the National Assembly
denied in 1789, the Republic of 1870 has also withheld. Nevertheless
conditions