Footnotes

1. One thinks immediately of the correspondence between Elizabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes; Chris-tina of Sweden and Descartes; Damaris Masham and G. W. Leibniz; and Mary Astell and John Norris; or the Mary Wollstonecraft and Edmund Burke debates.

2 Except as noted, all biographical information found in Papillon.

3 Bertolini reports that no official records of the rescript nor the arrest have yet been found in the religious order, Vatican, or Dijon archives (“Gabrielle Suchon” 293-295).

4 Auffret (“El Neutre”) reads much into this genderless pseudonym: it may be to recall Sophie Germain; it could be a trick to overcome any censor’s worry about the gender of the author; it more probably had for Suchon, writes Auffret, “un efecte signifactiu: apel•la a un món future, on les obres del pensament no serien autoàmaticament abocades a la contingència – restrictiva – del gènere sexuat” (99-100).

5.Traité de la morale et de la politique divisé en trois parties, scavoir la liberté, la science, and l’autorité ou l’on voit que les personnes du Sexe pour en étre privées, ne laissent pas d’avoir une capacité naturelle, qui les en peut rendre participantes. Avec un petit traité de la foiblesse, de la legerté et de l’inconstance qu’on leur attribuë mal à propos [sic] and Du célibat voluntaire ou La vie sans engagement. English trans-lations of both works are already under preparation; any translations appearing here are our own.

6. Le Dœuff, however, suggests that Jean-Jacques Rousseau may have been a careful reader of Suchon and incorporated her ideas (without naming her, of course) into his own work (“Feminism” 251).

7. Salic law prevented any woman from ascending to the throne or taking any position of political authority.

8. To date, only the first part of Suchon’s Treatise has been reprinted; thus a good part of her works remain inaccessible to most scholars who are unable to access France’s Bibliothèque Nationale or other rare ar-chives where the full Treatise may be held.

9. See, for example, Christine de Pizan’s Le livre du trésor de la cite des dames, Paris: Antoine Vérard, 1497; Paris: Michel Le Noir, 1503; and Paris: Denys Janot/Jehan André, 1536. Nubola (“Libertà, cultura”) notes three Italian women who were active before Suchon: Moderata Fonte (1555-1592), Lucrezia Marinelli (1571-1653) and Arcangela Tatbotti (1604-1652) (334). Densain notes where Suchon herself names (by work, not author) François Poullain de la Barre’s De l’égalité des deux sexes, discours physique et moral où l’on voit l’importance de se défaire des préjugés, 1673; Père Le Moyne’s Gallerie des femmes.fortes, 1647; Madeleine de Scudéry’s Les Femmes illustres ou Les Harangues héroïques de Monsieur de Scudéry, 1642; and Jacques Du Bosc’s L’Honnête Femme, Paris: P. Billaine (1632) within her Treatise (151). She also makes a convincing case that Suchon heavily relied on Nicolas Caussin’s La vie de Sainte Isabelle, Paris: C. Sonnius, 1643. Other early and contemporary works can be found listed in Timmermans (827-865). 10. This phrasing almost immediately recalls contemporary American usage that refers to people from non-Eurpoean backgrounds as “people of color.” More will be said on this later in the essay.

11. See Pageau 43-45.

12. See also Pageau where she claims that Suchon uses feminine language to rethink classical philosophical problems (15). Renzeaud (“La Femme”) also points out that Suchon sees that language portrays women as somehow less than fully human (30).

13. “L’originalitat de Gabrielle Suchon és alliberar el neutre de la seva negativitat d’origen, considerar-lo com un enllà, i no com en unçà de la diferència i de la determinació” (Auffret, “El Neutre” 92).

14. Suchon recounts several examples of those who have preferred death to a life without freedom in Chapter 4 of her Traité.

15. Pace Geffriaud Rosso (670), Desnain argues that the term “neutraliste” is not original to Suchon but in-stead is found in the title of Nicolas Caussin’s earlier work, La Vie Sainte Isabelle, which Suchon seems to have known quite well (152). Suchon’s choice of this term argues well for our present reading since while its gender in French grammar is feminine, it applies equally well to both women and men.

16. Suchon deals at length with angelic freedom in the first chapter of her Traité.

17.“Un don précieux que la libéralité Divine fait aux créatures raisonnables et intelligentes, par le moyen duquel elles sont rendues maîtresses de toutes leurs actions.” Need we remark that it is probably not a mere happenstance that Suchon uses feminine nouns to describe a creature’s (créature, feminine noun) becoming its own mistress (maîtresse) rather than a being’s (être, masculine noun) becoming its own master (maître)?

18. While Pageau, Auffret (“Gabrielle Suchon” 23), and Bertolini (“Gabrielle Suchon” 300) read Suchon as a modern philosopher in the rationalist tradition, Hoffman (270) and Geffriaud Rosso (675) might place her rather more within the scholastic tradition if not in thought then in method and style. Indeed, the Traité itself does make distinction upon distinction about the kinds of freedom (formal, absolute, conditioned, weak and enfeebled – chapters 3-4) and then the different ways freedom may be manifested (by profession, choice of vocation, and travel – chapters 5-8). Suchon then continues with distinguishing among freedoms of the mind (chapters 9-11), heart (chapters 12-14), and conscience (chapters 15-17). She relies heavily on the authority of ancient and mediæval philosophers, Church Fathers, Church councils, and the Scriptures, and she rarely acknowledges or even seems cognizant of the “new” and “modern” philosophy, though she certainly is aware of her contemporaries; Desnain offers a plausible explanation for their not being men-tioned by name (159).

19. In this regard, Auffret suggests that Suchon’s Traité seems little different than Spinoza’s political works (“Gabrielle Suchon” 9, 20); Pageau also notes the similarity (92).

20. La servitude est le plus grand de tous les maux, parce que non seulement elle prive les hommes de la liberté, qui est le plus précieux de tous les biens; mais encore elle renferme les services les plus pénibles, les plus vils et les plus abjects, et réduit les hommes à l’usage des choses les plus basses et les plus gros-sières. Ceux qui sont esclaves par la naissance on hérité ce malheur des parents qui leur ont donné la vie; d’autres, par un funeste et aveugle consentement, après avoir engagé leur liberté, se trouvent captifs de la puissance des grands et des riches; de le procèdent les droits de servitude, dont les coutumes et les lois an-ciennes ont pris leur source et leur origine.

21. Bien que ce nom d’esclave s’entende particulièrement de ceux que l’on trafiquait anciennement par tout le monde, et encore à présent dans les Indes, dans la Turquie et en d’autres lieux, il ne laisse pas de renfer-mer encore toutes les personnes qui, par le malheur de leur condition ou de leur conduite se trouvent en-gagées aux mêmes misères et calamités. C’est pourquoi il est permis

22.de s’en tirer par toutes sortes de voies où Dieu n’est point offensé. “Et néanmoins, les stupides et les grossiers qui n’ont guère plus de connaissance que des brutes, excepté l’usage commun de la raison humaine, pourront se sauver par ce même genre de vie ordinaire entre les hommes” (Suchon, Traité 168). Both Auffrett (Traité 168, note 1) and Pageau (97) are reminded here of Alexandre Matheron’s monumental study on Spinoza, Le Christ et le salut des ignorants, Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1971. See also Hoffman (274).

23. Geffriaud Rosso (671-672).

24. See book 2, chapter 3 of Suchon’s Voluntary where Suchon insists that the advantage of the Neutral life is the ability to choose one’s spiritual adviser. On this point, however, Suchon is criticized since she explic-itly sees this adviser as male (Geffriaud Rosso 674). Bertolini, however, claims that “L’audace et le moder-nité de Gabrielle Suchon sont, en définitive, de penser que l’amélioration de la condition féminine ne dé-pend que des femmes” (“Gabrielle Suchon” 303).

25 Her examples include many lesser known characters from the Bible: Anna, Dorcas, and unnamed others from the Bible (Luke 2:36-38; Acts 9:39-41, 2 Maccabees 2:19-21); many lesser known saints: Sts. Magna, Macrina, Astella, Salvine, Marcella, Olympia, et al.; and those from the classic world: Roxanne and Pari-satis. For further examples and details, see Voluntary, book 1, chapters 21-23; LittleTreatise, chapters 8-9.

26. Nubola (“Libertà di rimanere”) points out that in Suchon’s time, there were communities of non-religious, single women in France (perhaps like the Beguines of Belgium), yet Suchon seems not to con-sider such a possibility; Nubola suggests that perhaps Suchon’s bad personal memories of her previous cloistered life or, more charitably, the desire not to be liable to anyone was the chief motive here (303-304).

27. How many of us remember the then polite term “colored”?

28. The author wishes to thank Jessica Davis and Karl Kyler, both of San Diego State University, for their encouragement and example while preparing this essay.

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