Anne Heurgon-Desjardins (born 1899 – 1977,

Manche Manche (, ) is a coastal French département in Normandy, on the English Channel, which is known as ''La Manche'', literally "the sleeve", in French. It had a population of 495,045 in 2019.Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle The Château de Cerisy-la-Salle, located in the French commune of Cerisy-la-Salle (in the Manche ''département'', region of Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Norma ...

Biography

The daughter of professor and journalist Paul Desjardins, founder of the at the abbaye de Pontigny in the

Yonne Yonne () is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in France. It is named after the river Yonne, which flows through it, in the country's north-central part. One of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté's eight constituent departments, it is l ...

department, Anne Heurgon-Desjardins married the scholar

Jacques Heurgon Jacques Heurgon (25 January 1903 – 27 October 1995) was a French university, normalian, Etruscan scholar and Latinist, professor of Latin language and literature at the Sorbonne. Married to Anne Heurgon-Desjardins, founder in 1952, of the Ce ...

(1903–1995) in 1926, a former student of her father. After the death of her father in 1940, she decided with her mother to sell the abbaye de Pontigny in order to renovate the château of

Cerisy-la-Salle Cerisy-la-Salle () is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France.Royaumont Royaumont Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey, located near Asnières-sur-Oise in Val-d'Oise, approximately 30 km north of Paris, France. History It was built between 1228 and 1235 with the support of Louis IX. Several members of the Fren ...

, whose Board of Administration she was a member, she resumed, with the help of and , the idea of the "Décades" and "libres entretiens" imagined by her father at the Abbaye de Pontigny, first by moving them to the abbaye de Royaumont (

Val-d'Oise Val-d'Oise (, "Vale of the Oise") is a department in the Île-de-France region, Northern France. It was created in 1968 following the split of the Seine-et-Oise department. In 2019, Val-d'Oise had a population of 1,249,674.

). In 1949, she sold a part of her father's library, which was bought by and Isabel Goüin, then founded the Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle and the association of the friends of Pontigny-Cerisy in 1952. In this place, she welcomed writers such as

Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his 19 ...

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th ce ...

Francis Ponge Francis Jean Gaston Alfred Ponge (; 27 March 1899 – 6 August 1988) was a French essayist and poet. Influenced by surrealism, he developed a form of prose poem, minutely examining everyday objects. He was the third recipient of the Neustadt Inter ...

Raymond Queneau Raymond Queneau (; 21 February 1903 – 25 October 1976) was a French novelist, poet, critic, editor and co-founder and president of Oulipo ('' Ouvroir de littérature potentielle''), notable for his wit and cynical humour. Biography Queneau w ...

, Eugène Ionesco and

Alain Robbe-Grillet Alain Robbe-Grillet (; 18 August 1922 – 18 February 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the '' Nouveau Roman'' (new novel) trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and ...

. Upon her death, her daughters Catherine and Edith Heurgon Peyrou in turn kept on perpetuating these meetings.

External links

''Une bibliothèque dans un jardin'', Bibliothèque Henry et Isabel Goüin

Site des colloques de Cerisy

Correspondance avec Paul Desjardins, Jacques Heurgon et Anne Heurgon-Desjardins

College Anne Heurgon-Desjardins Cerisy la salle
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heurgon-Desjardins, Anne French patrons of the arts 1899 births 1977 deaths 20th-century philanthropists