Olympe de Gouges was born Marie Gouze in Monauban, a small town north of Toulouse in 1748. Her father, Pierre Gouze, was a butcher and her mother, Anne-Olympe Mouisset, came from a family of drapers. It is possible that de Gouges was the illegitimate daughter of Jean-Jacques Lefranc, the Marquis de Pompignan, a minor playwright—a rumor that she encouraged and may even have started.
