Marie de Gournay was a French writer, who wrote a novel and a number of other literary compositions, including two proto-feminist works, The Equality of Men and Women (1622) and The Ladies' Grievance (Les femmes et Grief des dames, 1626). In her novel Le Promenoir de M. de Montaigne qui traite de l’amour dans l’œuvre de Plutarque

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

she explored the dangers women face when they become dependent on men. She insisted that women should be educated.

She was also an editor and commentator of Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne

Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...

. Having read his works in her teens, Gournay travelled to meet him and eventually became his "fille d'alliance" (roughly "adopted daughter"). She receives her name from the Château de Gournay in Gournay-sur-Aronde

Gournay-sur-Aronde

Gournay-sur-Aronde is a small village in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.Gournay-sur-Aronde is best known for a Late Iron Age sanctuary that dates back to the 4th century BCE, and was burned and levelled at the end of the 1st century BCE. ...

 (in the Ile-de-France Province

Île-de-France (province)

The province of Île-de-France or Isle de France is an historical province of France, and the one at the centre of power during most of French history...

) that her father, Guillaume Le Jars, bought shortly before dying in 1578.

After Montaigne's death, Gournay edited the third edition of the Essays

Essays (Montaigne)

Essays is the title given to a collection of 107 essays written by Michel de Montaigne that was first published in 1580. Montaigne essentially invented the literary form of essay, a short subjective treatment of a given topic, of which the book contains a large number...

in 1595 and it is for this that she is best known.

Life

Marie de Gournay met Montaigne in Paris in 1588, when she was 23 and Montaigne 55 years old. He later visited her at her residence in the Château de Gournay. The first literary reference to Marie as Montaigne's "fille d'alliance" is in the Essays (chap. XVII, II). After her mother's death in 1591, Marie moved to Paris, leaving the family home to her brother Charles, who was forced to sell it in 1608. Montaigne died the following year, and his widow, Françoise de Montaigne, provided Gournay with a copy of the Essays and charged her with its publication. Marie de Gournay did so, publishing the first posthumous edition of the Essays with a long preface praising Montaigne's ideas. Her translation of the Essays, is remarkable for fidelity in translating Latin sentences and Montaigne's highly specific references to classical and sometimes obscure texts.

In Paris, Marie de Gournay met Henri Louis Haber de Montmort and the scholar Justus Lipsius

Justus Lipsius

Justus Lipsius was a Southern-Netherlandish philologist and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be compatible with Christianity. The most famous of these is De Constantia...

 presented her to Europe as a woman of letters. Gournay found herself protectors by writing for Queen Margo

Marguerite de Valois

Margaret of Valois was Queen of France and of Navarre during the late sixteenth century...

, Henry IV of France

Henry IV of France

Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....

, Marie de Médicis, Louis XIII, the marquise de Guercheville, the ministers Villeroy

Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy

Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy was a secretary of state under four kings of France: Charles IX, Henry III, Henry IV, and Louis XIII. The most distinguished of all sixteenth-century French secretaries, Villeroy rose to prominence during the French Wars of Religion, a period of almost...

 and Jeannin

Pierre Jeannin

Pierre Jeannin was a French statesman.He was born at Autun. A pupil of the great jurist Jacques Cujas at Bourges, he was an advocate at Dijon by 1569 and became councillor and then president of the parlement of Burgundy. He unsuccessfully opposed the massacre of St Bartholomew in his province...

, and Richelieu. She thus obtained the privilege of being able to publish her own work from Richelieu and awarded her a modest royal stipend. As a woman, Marie de Gournay was often subject to both personal attacks and unfounded criticism of her work. She never married and supported herself through her inheritance and work.

As a Catholic, she was hostile to the Protestant movement but remained close to libertine

Libertine

A libertine is one devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behavior sanctified by the larger society. Libertines, also known as rakes, placed value on physical pleasures, meaning those...

s such as Théophile de Viau

Théophile de Viau

Théophile de Viau was a French Baroque poet and dramatist.Born at Clairac, near Agen in the Lot-et-Garonne and raised as a Huguenot, Théophile de Viau participated in the Protestant wars in Guyenne from 1615-1616 in the service of the Comte de Candale. After the war, he was pardoned and became a...

, Gabriel Naudé

Gabriel Naudé

Gabriel Naudé was a French librarian and scholar. He was a prolific writer who produced works on many subjects including politics, religion, history and the supernatural. An influential work on library science was the 1627 book Advice on Establishing a Library...

 and François La Mothe Le Vayer, to whom she would leave her library, which she herself had received from Montaigne (who in turn had inherited it from La Boétie). In 1610 she engaged in the debate on the assassination of Henry IV, strongly defending the Jesuits.

Marie de Gournay was self-taught in Latin and Greek. She translated works by Sallust

Sallust

Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust , a Roman historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines...

, Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

, Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

, and Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

. She wrote verses about her cat Léonore (also the name of Montaigne's daughter) and Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc

Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...

, adapted Ronsard, wrote on the instruction of princes, and criticized the Précieuses

Précieuses

The French literary style called préciosité arose in the 17th century from the lively conversations and playful word games of les précieuses , the witty and educated intellectual ladies who frequented the salon of Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet; her Chambre bleue offered a...

. She died on 13 July 1645, aged 79 and is buried at the Saint-Eustache Church

Église Saint-Eustache, Paris

L’église Saint-Eustache is a church in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, built between 1532 and 1632.Situated at the entrance to Paris’s ancient markets and the beginning of rue Montorgueil, the Église de Saint-Eustache is considered a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture...

 in Paris.

Quotes

• "Happy are you, reader, if you do not belong to this sex to which all good is forbidden"

Works

• Adieu de l'ame du Roy de France et de Navarre Henry le Grand à la Royne, avec la defence des Peres Jesuistes / par la damoiselle de G.
• L'ombre de la damoiselle de Gournay (1626, 1634 and 1641)
• Les advis ou Les présens de la demoiselle de Gournay (1634)
• Les essais de Michel seigneur de Montaigne : nouvelle édition exactement purgée des défauts des precedentes, selon le vray original, et enrichie & augmentée aux marges du nom des autheurs qui y sont citez, & de la version de leurs passages, avec des observations très importantes & necessaires pour le soulagement du lecteur, ensemble la vie de l'auteur, & deux tables, l'une des chapitres, & l'autre des principales matières, de beaucoup plus ample & plus utile que celles des dernieres éditions / [Henri Estienne] ; [Marie de Jars de Gournay]
• First volume of her complete works (1641) was published in 1997 by Rodopi
  Rodopi
  Rodopi may refer to:* Rodopi * Rodopi Peak* Rhodope Mountains, a mountain range in Southeastern Europe* Rhodope Prefecture, in Thrace, Greece* Rodopi Municipality, a municipality in Plovdiv Province, Bulgaria...
  
  

External links

• Works accessible on Gallica's website
• Biography