Marie-Thérèse Lucidor Corbin

Marie-Thérèse Lucidor Corbin (1749–1834) was an 18th-century French Creole activist. She celebrated the abolition of slavery in the French colonies by delivering a speech and singing a hymn to coloured citizens, set to the tune of La Marseillaise.

Marie-Thérèse was arrested in November 1792, and accused of involvement in the theft of the French crown jewels from the Garde Meuble. Claiming that the Interior Minister, Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière, and the Mayor of Paris, Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve, had instructed her to try to find the thieves, she was released. In February 1793 she petitioned the National Convention to clear her name, arguing that her association with the thieves – while successful in bringing some of them to trial – had resulted in her losing her apartment and custody of her children.

She then sang a 'hymn of the coloured citizens' to the tune of La Marseillaise: Free people come to this Temple throwing flowers on these heroes They have freed their country from the shameful irons of slavery In February 1795 she published a long text on national education in the French colonies. The text's close familiarity with Saint-Domingue suggests others like Julien Raimond or Léger-Félicité Sonthonax may have helped her write it. She continued to appeal for public assistance, presenting herself as a refugee to claim aid, and may have continued to work as a police informer.

Her daughter Marie-Constance entered the Conservatoire de Paris along with the future opera singer Alexandrine-Caroline Branchu, another mixed race student. However Marie-Constance did not achieve success as a singer, and died in 1808. Marie-Therese was admitted to the Hospice des Incurables on the Rue de Sèvres, where she died on 31 January 1834, aged 81.

Works Discours de la citoyenne Lucidor F. Corbin, créole, républicaine, prononcée par elle-même au Temple de la Raison, l'an 2e de la liberté. Paris: Coutubrier. Hymne des citoyens de couleurs. 1794. Aperçu d’une Républicaine Française sur les colonies pour y établir des éducations nationales. Fait par la Citoyenne Lucidor femme Corbin, créolle. 1795.