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16 Dicta 217 (1939)
The Lady Whom a Supreme Court Called a Naked Prostitute

handle is hein.journals/denlr16 and id is 239 raw text is: THE LADY WHOM A SUPREME COURT CALLED A NAKED PROSTITUTE By FRANK SWANCARA, of the Denver Bar N Updegraph v. Com., 11 S. V R. 394, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania declared that every debating club per- mitting free speech on theological subjects might dedi- cate the club-room to the worship of the Goddess of Reason, and adore the deity in the person of a naked prostitute. In the light of the phraseology used and the stories then current of the French Revolution of 1789, it is certain that the court was alluding to the leading lady in the Festival of Reason conducted in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris on November 10, 1793. The festival was the result of the Worship of Reason instituted by the Convention a few days earlier, but the ceremony had no Goddess of Reason. There was an impersonation of the Goddess of Liberty. The court's choice of words was the result of some tales orig- inating with enemies of the French Revolution, and not to be found in Carlyle's French Revolution. There is an old history by Thomas Henry Dyer, LL.D., and it contains this state- ment: * * * a prostitute, dressed up as the Goddess of Liberty, came forth from the temple. The lady was not a naked prostitute as the American court implied, nor even one dressed up as Mr. Dyer wrote. Consult the modern historians: Henri Martin in History of France, writes: 'Reason, represented by Mademoiselle Maillard, a famous singer, ** * She wore a white robe and sky-blue mantle, * * *. Gottschalk, American writer on French history, uses these words: Reason-impersonated, some say. by a street-walker, but more probably, by the wife of Hebert's right-hand man, Momaro-was en- throned in the temple. The last quotation is evidence that some have said, and even now some say that the First Lady on the historic occasion was a street-walker. If any one was ever so sure of the identity of the lady to know that she was a naked prostitute, as the American court intimates, why the dis- agreement among the historians as to whether she was 217

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