About

Born Anne-Josèphe Terwagne at Marcourt in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, Théroigne came to Paris in 1789 and regularly attended the Assembly’s debates at Versailles. Her public visibility and distinctive riding dress made her a frequent target of the royalist press, which added “de Méricourt” to her name and attributed violent revolutionary exploits to her. Her rooms became a meeting place for several deputies, and in 1790 she helped Gilbert Romme establish the Amis de la loi, a short-lived society intended to publicise the Assembly’s proceedings. Arrested near Liège in 1791 and imprisoned by the Austrian authorities at Kufstein, she returned to Paris after her release and in March 1792 called upon women to organise for the armed defence of the nation. She participated in the insurrection of 10 August and later received a civic crown. In May 1793, women hostile to her association with Brissot and his allies publicly stripped and beat her outside the Convention. Placed under guardianship and confined from 1794, she entered the Salpêtrière in 1807 and died there in 1817.