A drawing attributed to Charles Thevenin in the Museum of the French Revolution in Vizille: Women heroism during the Revolution

A drawing recently acquired by the Museum of the French Revolution in Vizil le, squared for transfer on canvas, illustrates a subject which was very po pular during the years 1794-1796. A grocer in Vendee, known as the "heroine of Saint-Milhier, repels the assault of a group of counter-revolutionaries by threatening to fire a gun on gunpowder barrels in her store. Unlike all the other representations of the subject, this drawing shows the heroine o n a public square, a context which confers on her action a civic and politi cal dimension rarely given to women. This independent spirit and the style of the drawing suggest an attribution to Charles Thevenin, a pupil of Vince nt. Like his master, Thevenin remained discreet during the Revolution and p assed for a moderate. This allowed him to free himself from dominant jacobi n attitudes inspired by Rousseau, which reserve only domestic roles for wom en. Whoever, its author, the drawing shed new light on the complexity of cu ltural positions during the Revolution.