A teenage soldier, a rebel writer, a double Nobel winner and a star spy
France likes to call itself the land of the rights of man. But some of its bravest heroes were women. Meet the ones who would not sit still, and find them in the museums.
In 1429, a farm girl of about seventeen led an army to free Orléans. Joan of Arc was burned two years later, but she never left French history. In 1791, the writer Olympe de Gouges asked a simple question: if men have rights, why not women? It cost her life. George Sand wore trousers, smoked cigars and wrote famous novels. The sculptor Camille Claudel was as talented as Rodin, but spent her last thirty years in an asylum. Marie Curie came from Poland, discovered two new elements and won two Nobel Prizes. Josephine Baker danced in Paris and worked for the Resistance in the war. Simone Veil survived Auschwitz and later made abortion legal in France. French women only got the vote in 1944. Every step here was hard work. And it did not all happen in Paris. Anne of Brittany was born in the castle of Nantes, Madame de Sévigné wrote many of her letters near Vitré, Marie Paradis climbed Mont Blanc from Chamonix and Lucie Aubrac fought the Gestapo in Lyon. Follow them across France, from Lille to Pau and from Oléron to the Alps.
Pick a colour to follow one story. Every moment shows where you can still see it.
Eleanor, heiress to the huge duchy of Aquitaine, marries the future Louis VII at about fifteen and becomes queen of France. In 1152 she marries Henry Plantagenet, who becomes king of England two years later.
See it at: Musée oléronais Aliénor d'AquitaineJeanne, Countess of Flanders, founds a hospital in Lille for the poor and the sick. People call it the Hospice Comtesse, the countess's hospital, and the name has stuck for almost 800 years.
See it at: Musée de l'hospice ComtesseJoan asks Robert de Baudricourt, the captain of Vaucouleurs, for soldiers. At last he agrees. On 13 February she cuts her hair, puts on men's clothes and rides off to meet the future king at Chinon.
See it at: Musée Jeanne d'ArcA young farm girl from Lorraine says God has sent her to save France. She helps end the siege of Orléans and leads the king to his crowning.
See it at: OrléansJoan is captured, put on trial by the English and their allies, and burned in Rouen. She is about 19. In 1920 the Church makes her a saint.
See it at: RouenWhen Louis XI dies, his son Charles VIII is only thirteen. His older sister Anne, about 22, and her husband rule France for him until 1491. Later she writes a book of advice for her daughter.
See it at: Musée Anne de BeaujeuBorn in the castle of Nantes in 1477, Duchess Anne marries Charles VIII in 1491 and, after his death, Louis XII. She is crowned queen of France twice. Her heart, in a gold case, is kept in Nantes.
See it at: Musée du château des ducs de BretagneJeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, becomes a Protestant and brings the new faith to her lands. Her son, born in the castle of Pau in 1553, will become King Henri IV of France.
See it at: Musée national du château de PauQueen since 1547, Catherine becomes regent for her young son Charles IX. Three of her sons become kings of France, and she guides the kingdom through the wars of religion. She dies in the castle of Blois in 1589.
See it at: Château muséesMadame de Sévigné's daughter moves to Provence. On 6 February her mother sends the first of hundreds of letters, full of court news and gossip. About 1,120 of her letters are known today. She dies in 1696 at Grignan, near her daughter.
See it at: Musée des rochers de SévignéÉlisabeth Vigée Le Brun paints Marie Antoinette with her children for the Salon. The cradle is empty: the queen's baby daughter Sophie has just died. The painting still hangs at Versailles.
See it at: Palace of VersaillesIn October, thousands of Paris women, angry about the price of bread, walk to Versailles. They bring the king and his family back to Paris.
See it at: Carnavalet MuseumOlympe de Gouges writes the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. Two years later she is sent to the guillotine.
On 14 July, Marie Paradis, a poor maid from Chamonix aged about thirty, climbs with the guide Jacques Balmat and reaches the top of Mont Blanc. She is the first woman ever to do it.
See it at: Musée du Mont-BlancAurore Dupin publishes Indiana under a man's name: George Sand. She becomes one of the most read writers of her time.
See it at: Museum of Romantic LifeRosa Bonheur, born in Bordeaux, paints animals like almost no one else. She needs police permission to wear trousers when she studies animals in the slaughterhouses. In 1865, Empress Eugénie comes to her studio to give her the Legion of Honour.
See it at: Musée d'OrsayLouise Michel, a teacher, fights with the Montmartre battalion in the Paris Commune and runs first-aid posts. She is sent to New Caledonia in 1873 and only comes back in 1880.
Berthe Morisot, born in Bourges, is the only woman in the first Impressionist exhibition, at the photographer Nadar's studio in Paris. Today the Musée Marmottan Monet has the largest collection of her work.
See it at: Musée Marmottan MonetMarie Curie shares the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel. In 1911 she wins a second one, alone, in chemistry.
See it at: Musée CurieCamille Claudel, sculptor and former partner of Rodin, is sent to a psychiatric hospital by her family. She stays there until her death in 1943.
See it at: Musée RodinA young American dancer arrives in Paris and becomes a star overnight. In the war, she carries secret information for Free France.
In Lyon, Lucie Aubrac's husband Raymond is in the hands of the Gestapo. In October, she and a Resistance group attack the German truck taking him back to prison and free him and other prisoners.
See it at: Centre d'histoire de la résistanceFrench women get the right to vote and to stand for election. They vote for the first time in 1945.
Colette, born in 1873 in the Burgundy village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, wrote Claudine, Gigi and many more books. When she dies in 1954, France gives her a state funeral.
See it at: Musée ColetteSimone Veil, deported to Auschwitz as a teenager, gets a law passed that makes abortion legal. In 2018 she is buried in the Panthéon.
See it at: Mémorial de la ShoahNogent-sur-Seine, the small town where Camille Claudel lived as a teenager and began to sculpt, opens a museum in her name. At last her work has a home of its own.
See it at: Musée Camille ClaudelOn 30 November, Josephine Baker, dancer, Resistance agent and civil rights fighter, enters the Panthéon. She is the first Black woman honoured there.
See it at: PanthéonThe museums and places where this story comes alive.
Step into Marie Curie's office and see the lab where she worked, in the Latin Quarter. Small, calm and very moving.
Rodin's house and garden, with a room for Camille Claudel. Look for The Waltz and The Age of Maturity, and see how strong her own style was.
A pretty house at the foot of Montmartre. The ground floor is about George Sand, with her jewels and portraits. The garden café is lovely.
The memorial to the Jews of France who were persecuted and murdered in the Holocaust. A hard but important visit. Find the Wall of Names, where 76,000 names are carved.
The history of Paris, from the Romans to today. In the Revolution rooms, look for the women of 1789: the market women, the writers and the queen.
The tomb of France's great names. Marie Curie, Simone Veil and Josephine Baker are honoured here. Climb up for the view, if the dome is open.
The island museum, today called Musée de l'île d'Oléron, tells the story of salt, oysters, wine and the sea. Island tradition links Eleanor of Aquitaine to its old sea law, the Rôles d'Oléron.
The hospital Countess Jeanne founded in 1237, in the heart of Old Lille. Today it shows paintings, tapestries, carved wood, furniture and pottery from the region.
In the little town on the Meuse where Joan of Arc asked for soldiers and set out for Chinon in February 1429.
In a Renaissance pavilion of the palace of the dukes of Bourbon, named after the woman who ruled France for her young brother. Art, archaeology and fine 19th-century paintings.
The castle where Anne of Brittany was born in 1477 is now the history museum of Nantes. Walk along the ramparts, then meet the duchess who was crowned queen twice.
The castle where Henri IV was born in 1553. Look for the turtle shell that served as his cradle, and the bedroom of his mother, Jeanne d'Albret.
The royal castle of Blois, on the Loire. Two queens died here: Anne of Brittany in 1514 and Catherine de' Medici in 1589.
Madame de Sévigné's manor house outside Vitré, where she spent long stays and which she wrote about again and again in her letters.
Chamonix's new museum, open since July 2026, shows how a valley of farmers became the home of mountain guides and climbers. Think of Marie Paradis, the maid who reached the top in 1808.
In the market town of La Châtre, a museum about George Sand and the Black Valley, the countryside of her novels. Her house at Nohant is a few kilometres away.
A museum for Colette in the Burgundy village where she was born in 1873 and which she never stopped writing about.
In the town where she started to sculpt as a teenager, a museum full of Camille Claudel's work, shown next to sculptures by artists of her time.
Lyon's museum of the Resistance and deportation, in the building the Gestapo used in 1943 and 1944. The city of Lucie Aubrac and Jean Moulin.
Physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911.
She chose a man's name, George Sand, to be taken seriously.
They got the right in 1944 and first voted in 1945.
In the castle of Pau, where his turtle-shell cradle is still on show.
Marie Paradis, a maid from Chamonix, on 14 July 1808.
In 1492 and in 1504, both times at Saint-Denis.
Berthe Morisot, born in Bourges. The show was in Nadar's studio in Paris.