Marge Piercy brings to vibrant life three of the women who played prominent roles in the most tumultuous turning point in European history, and tells the intimate stories of the men whose names we know so well.

Claire Lacombe escapes the grinding poverty of Pamiers by joining a traveling theatrical troupe as an actress. Defiantly independent, strikingly beautiful, she will become a symbol to many as she tests her theory: if men can make things happen, perhaps women can too...Manon Philipon, a jeweler's daughter, worships Rousseau and the life of the mind.

When she marries Jean Roland, a minor provincial bureaucrat, she finds she has a talent for politics - albeit as the ghostwriter of her husband's speeches, and the hostess of his salon...Pauline Leon, owner of a chocolate shop in Paris, witnesses the torture and execution of common people who riot for bread. As the Revolution gathers momentum, Pauline is certain of one thing: the women must apply the pressure, or their male colleagues will let them starve.

And so the Revolutionary Republican Woman are born...