I'm John Bachelors speaking with Professor Anne Higginay at Barnard College of Art History.

Liberty Quality Fashion is her new book, The Women Who Stiled the French Revolution.

It is now the directory in Paris. I believe the year is 95, might be 96, the professor will

help me. And Terracea, who has emerged from the terror and is now Madame Talion, is holding a salon as she usually does,

gathering all the very well-spoken men of the directory and their hangars on, men who were in prison and now emerged, there's sort of a

bond between everybody who thought they were going to be executed every morning and the people

who learned from them what it was like.

But the director is very powerful.

France is gaining money again.

They were in Paris.

And Tresia and Rose are pals, friends, and they're circling these men together.

Remember, they need to find a way to get money.

Women are not necessarily empowered to have their own finances in 1795 and in walks a course again in shoddy clothes and

terracea gave him money believe, to help him dress better. Was he insulted by that?

No. We'll never know. He certainly was subjugated by her beauty and her style. So much so that he also

became entranced with her best friend who had less of the beauty but

just as much of the style and that's the beginning of the legendary relationship between Napoleon and Josephine.

It's hard to believe it was a moment, but it's like the moment out of the prison.

It happened. Everybody talked about it afterwards for years. Well, several

centuries later we're talking about it. Now what's important here is why these

women are becoming the center of interest of all these men. It has to do with style and

with making necessity turn into fashion. That's chamise that Theresa was wearing when she emerged from the prison. That was meant

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