306 Appendix 1
famous work, Gulliver’s Travels (1726), and also appears to pay rhe-
torical homage to the dark wit of A Modest Proposal in critiquing the
disenfranchisement of working-class men.
Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de (1754 –1838). French politician
and diplomat. Wollstonecraft dedicated the Rights of Woman to Talley-
rand, who published Report on Public Education in 1791. In this work
Talleyrand defends the importance of education for all people. He is ex-
plicit that this should include both sexes, and even includes a proposal
for poor orphan girls to be educated by the state to prevent their entry
into prostitution. However, he suggests that women and men should
be educated separately and perhaps be taught on the basis of differ-
ent principles. As he does not outline the specifi c contents of female
education, Wollstonecraft moves beyond him to apply the revolutionary
principles of freedom and equality in defending a universal human right
to primary education supported by the state in chapter twelve of the
Rights of Woman.
Talleyrand had an extensive political career before and after the
French Revolution. He was ordained by the Catholic Church in 1775
and became the Bishop of Autun in 1788. He represented the clergy in
the Estates-General of 1789, during which he advocated for the con-
fi scation of church property. He was excommunicated in 1791, and he
remained in exile from France in Britain and the United States from
1792 to 1796. Upon his return to France he was made minister of for-
eign affairs (1797) and served as the grand chamberlain to Napoleon in
- Ultimately Talleyrand opposed Napoleon, represented France at
the Congress of Vienna, and helped to restore the Bourbons after Napo-
leon’s fall from power.
Telemachus. In Homer’s Odyssey, the son of Odysseus and Penelope. In
Rousseau’s Emile, the tutor treats Telemachus as a paragon of virtue and
has both Sophie and Emile read François Fénelon’s novel, Telemachus
(1699). Sophie falls in love with the character and Emile carries the
novel with him on his travels.
Tully. See Cicero.
Washington, George (1732–1799). Commander of the Continental Army
during the American Revolutionary War and fi rst president of the
United States. Wollstonecraft celebrates General Washington’s modesty
and uses his greatness to illustrate a distinction between a modest man
“conscious of his own strength” and a man too humble to accept the
“command of the American forces.” She also praises him, along with