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Against marriage
In seventeenth-century France, aristocratic women were valued by their families as commodities to be married off in exchange for money, social advantage, or military alliance. Once married, they became legally subservient to their husbands. The duchesse de Montpensier—a first cousin of Louis XIV—was one of very few exceptions, thanks to the vast wealth she inherited from her mother, who died shortly after Montpensier was born. She was also one of the few politically powerful women in France at the time to have been an accomplished writer. In the daring letters presented in this bilingual edition, Montpensier condemns the alliance system of marriage, proposing instead to found a republic that she would govern, \"a corner of the world in which . . . women are their own mistresses,\" and where marriage and even courtship would be outlawed. Her pastoral utopia would provide medical care and vocational training for the poor, and all the homes would have libraries and studies, so that each woman would have a \"room of her own\" in which to write books. Joan DeJean's lively introduction and accessible translation of Montpensier's letters—four previously unpublished—allow us unprecedented access to the courageous voice of this extraordinary woman.
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Mademoiselle de Montpensier : writings, châteaux, and female self-construction in early modern France
\"Mademoiselle de Montpensier : Writing, Châteaux, and Female Self-Construction in Early Modern France examines questions of self-construction in the works of Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, Duchesse de Montpensier (1627-1693), the wealthiest unmarried woman in Europe at the time, a pro-women advocate, author of memoirs, letters and novels, and the commissioner of four châteaux and other buildings throughout France, including Saint-Fargeau, Champigny-sur-Veude, Eu, and Choisy-le-roi. An NEH-funded project, this study explores the interplay between writing and the symbolic import of châteaux to examine Montpensier's strategies to establish herself as a woman with autonomy and power in early modern France\"--Provided by publisher.
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Early Modern French Autobiography
This book offers a survey of the constitution of the French memoir tradition, and explores in detail the works of four representative authors: Philippe de Commynes, Louise de Savoie, Philippe de Cheverny, and François de Bassompierre. Works of self-writing were usually printed under the title of \"memoirs\" and have been often considered a uniform genre. These early forms of self-writing were in fact highly heterogenous works at the crossroads of multiple genres, from the account book to the astrological diary. Their writing, printing, and circulation challenge modern notions of autobiographical genres: their authorship is often questionable and collective, and they tended to be compiled in large collections for political ends, without regard to the authors' intention.
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The kings' mistresses : the liberated lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and her sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin
The little-known story of two spirited sisters who flaunted every social convention of 17th century Europe in their determination to live independently.
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Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves
Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves brings to life the unique contribution by French women during the early nineteenth century, a key period in the history of colonialism and slavery. The book enriches our understanding of French and Atlantic history in the revolutionary and postrevolutionary years when Haiti was menaced with the re-establishment of slavery and when class, race, and gender identities were being renegotiated. It offers in-depth readings of works by Germaine de Staël, Claire de Duras, and Marceline Desbordes-Valmore. In addition to these now canonical French authors, it calls attention to the lives and works of two lesser-known but important figures—Charlotte Dard and Sophie Doin. Approaching these five women through the prism of paternal authority, Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves explores the empathy that daughters show toward blacks as well as their resistance against the oppression exercised by male colonists and other authority figures. The works by these French women antislavery writers bear significant similarities, which the book explores, with twentieth and twenty-first century Francophone texts. These women’s contributions allow us to move beyond the traditional boundaries of exclusively male accounts by missionaries, explorers, functionaries, and military or political figures. They remind us of the imperative for ever-renewed gender research in the colonial archive and the need to expand conceptions of French women’s writing in the nineteenth century as being a small minority corpus. Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves contributes to an understanding of colonial fiction, Caribbean writing, romanticism, and feminism. It undercuts neat distinctions between the cultures of France and its colonies and between nineteenth and twentieth-century Francophone writing.
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The Wandering Life I Led
This book of essays brings together international scholars working on the literary, visual, musical, and theatrical representations and reception of Hortense Mancini, Duchess Mazarin, an early modern woman whose literalgeographicalborder crossings serve here as the starting point for an investigation of her and others elisions and transgressions of borders of all kinds. The authors lay out strategies for exploring the ways in which she crossed geographical, gendered, cultural, andin sch.
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The Kings' Mistresses
The Mancini Sisters, Marie and Hortense, were born in Rome, brought to the court of Louis XIV of France, and strategically married off by their uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, to secure his political power base. Such was the life of many young women of the age: they had no independent status under the law and were entirely a part of their husband's property once married. Marie and Hortense, however, had other ambitions in mind altogether. Miserable in their marriages and determined to live independently, they abandoned their husbands in secret and began lives of extraordinary daring on the run and in the public eye. The beguiling sisters quickly won the affections of noblemen and kings alike. Their flight became popular fodder for salon conversation and tabloids, and was closely followed by seventeenth-century European society. The Countess of Grignan remarked that they were traveling \"like two heroines out of a novel.\" Others gossiped that they \"were roaming the countryside in pursuit of wandering lovers.\" Their scandalous behavior-disguising themselves as men, gambling, and publicly disputing with their husbands-served as more than just entertainment. It sparked discussions across Europe concerning the legal rights of husbands over their wives.Elizabeth Goldsmith's vibrant biography of the Mancini sisters-drawn from personal papers of the players involved and the tabloids of the time-illuminates the lives of two pioneering free spirits who were feminists long before the word existed.
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Friendship and Betrayal: The Duchesse de Berry, Simon Deutz, and Modern France’s First Anti-Semitic Affair
Tipped off as to her whereabouts by one of the Duchess's confidants, a Jewish convert to Catholicism whom the Duchess had befriended in exile, soldiers ransacked the house while the Duchess, along with three accomplices, hid in a secret closet behind the fireplace in the attic, originally created during the Reign of Terror to shield refractory priests from the guillotine. After sixteen hours of searching, the agents were about to give up when one of the soldiers standing guard in the room decided to light a fire, filling the secret compartment with smoke and rendering its walls burning hot. In 1820, after only a few years of marriage, her husband was assassinated outside the Paris Opera by an anti-monarchist named Louvel and bled to death in her arms. Since there were no other Bourbon heirs capable of producing children, the assassin believed he had ended the French royal bloodline once and for all. According to accounts by her other associates, the Duchess approved of Deutz's newfound zeal for both Catholicism and the legitimist cause, and was flattered by the awe he displayed in her presence.
Journal Article
The love of a prince : Bonnie Prince Charlie in France, 1744-1748
The product of a decade of research in the Stuart Papers at Windsor Castle, this revealing history of Bonnie Prince Charlie brings to light a fascinating new details of the prince's life, including evidence of a short-lived son, born in Paris scarcely two years after the royal fugitive escaped to France following the unlucky Battle of Culloden.
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