Isabelle de Charrière - Quentin de La Tour

Self-portrait in a Straw Hat by Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun

Women letter writers in early modern Europe created lengthy correspondences, where they expressed their intellect and their creativity; in the process, they also left a rich historical legacy. Over time, a large number of women's correspondences have been made the subject of publications. Some among them ignored the literary value of these missives that were sometimes circulated by their recipients. Some correspondences were, on the other hand, strictly private and their literary value—and historic value, as well—was not revealed until the rediscovery of these letters, perhaps long after the death of their authors, as in the case of

Élisabeth Bégon Élisabeth Bégon née Marie-Isabelle-Élisabeth Rocbert de la Morandière (born in Montréal in 1696, died in 1755), was a French-Canadian letter writer. She is known for the correspondence she wrote to her widowed son-in-law Honoré-Gabriel Miche ...

, whose correspondence was not discovered until 1932 in the archives of the French Ministry of the Navy. It is usually agreed that what makes these letters distinctive emanates from their spontaneity.

Marie de Sévigné Marie may refer to: People Name * Marie (given name) * Marie (Japanese given name) * Marie (murder victim), girl who was killed in Florida after being pushed in front of a moving vehicle in 1973 * Marie (died 1759), an enslaved Cree person in Tro ...

was the incarnation of this quality, to the point of becoming considered by many as the archetype of the woman letter writer, and an altogether literary author, even among her contemporaries, such as

Suzanne Curchod Suzanne Curchod (1737 – 6 May 1794) was a French-Swiss salonist and writer. She hosted one of the most celebrated salons of the Ancien Régime. She also led the development of the Hospice de Charité, a model small hospital in Paris that still ...

: In 1669, the famous ''

Letters of a Portuguese Nun The ''Letters of a Portuguese Nun'' (French: ''Les Lettres Portugaises'', literally ''The Portuguese Letters''), first published anonymously by Claude Barbin in Paris in 1669, is a work believed by most scholars to be epistolary fiction in the for ...

'' appeared, presented as a translation of five letters sent by a Portuguese nun to a French officer. For a long time, these letters were accepted as authentic letters written by Mariana Alcoforado, before being definitively shown by a modern critic to be a work of literary fiction, attributed to Gabriel de Guilleragues. The frontier between reality and fiction becomes blurry between literature and correspondence, above all when novelists turned this writing technique into a literary device that would become the epistolary novel, a genre that reached its peak during the

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

when writers tried to persuade readers that between their hands was a real correspondence, which is what Jean-Jacques Rousseau more or less achieved with '' Julie, or the New Heloise''.

Some famous women letter writers

* Juliette Adam * Jeanne d'Albret * Sophie Arnould * Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine * Louisa Dow Benton * Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon * Catherine de Bourbon * Adélaïde de la Briche * Cécile Bruyère * Marie-Angélique de Coulanges *

Christine de Pisan Christine de Pizan or Pisan (), born Cristina da Pizzano (September 1364 – c. 1430), was an Italian poet and court writer for King Charles VI of France and several French dukes. Christine de Pizan served as a court writer in medieval France ...

Zulma Carraud Zulma Carraud (24 March 1796 – 24 April 1889) was a French author. She is best known for her children's books and textbooks particularly ''La Petite Jeanne ou le devoir'' and ''Maurice ou le travail''. Early and family life Carraud was born o ...

Marquise de Caylus Marthe-Marguerite Le Valois de Villette de Mursay, marquise de Caylus (1673–1729), was a French noblewoman and writer. Born in Poitou, she was the daughter of vice-admiral Philippe, Marquis de Villette-Mursay, and Marie-Anne de Châteauneuf, w ...

* Isabelle de Charrière *

Anastasie de Circourt Anastasie is a French feminine given name derived from the Ancient Greek name Anastasíā. Notable people with this name include the following: *Anastasie Brown (1826 – 1918), American Roman Catholic nun *Anastasie Crimca (c. 1550 – 1629), Ro ...

* Mary Clarke * Sophie Cottin * Hélisenne de Crenne *

* Madeleine Des Roches * Catherine Des Roches *

Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand (25 September 1696 – 23 September 1780) was a French hostess and patron of the arts. Life Madame du Deffand was born at the Château de Chamrond, in Ligny-en-Brionnais, a village near Charolle ...

* Louise d'Épinay *

Marie-Madeleine de La Fayette Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette (baptized 18 March 1634 – 25 May 1693), better known as Madame de La Fayette, was a French writer; she authored ''La Princesse de Clèves'', France's first historical novel and one ...

* Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin * Françoise de Graffigny *

Marie-Madeleine Hachard Marie-Madeleine Hachard née Hennebont (17 February 1704, Rouen - 9 August 1760, New Orleans) was a French letter writer and abbess of the Ursuline order. She was one of the first members of the first Ursuline Convent in New Orleans in French Lou ...

* Anne-Catherine Helvétius *

Maria Theresa Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position ''suo jure'' (in her own right). ...

* Sophie d'Houdetot *

Alix de Lamartine ''Alix'', or ''The Adventures of Alix'', is a Franco-Belgian comics series drawn in the ligne claire style by Jacques Martin. The stories revolve around a young Gallo-Roman man named Alix in the late Roman Republic. Although the series is re ...

* Ninon de Lenclos * Amélie Lenormant *

Julie de Lespinasse Julie may refer to: * Julie (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the name Film and television * ''Julie'' (1956 film), an American film noir starring Doris Day * ''Julie'' (1975 film), a Hindi film by K. S. Sethumadhava ...

* Blandine Liszt *

Marie Anne de Mailly Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle, duchesse de Châteauroux (; 5 October 1717 – 8 December 1744) was the youngest of the five famous ''de Nesle'' sisters, four of whom would become the mistress of King Louis XV of France. She was his mistress from ...

* Françoise de Maintenon * Sophie de Maraise * Marguerite de Navarre * Mary Montagu * Matilda of Flanders * Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Mothe-Guyon * Juliette Récamier * Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni *

Manon Roland Marie-Jeanne 'Manon' Roland de la Platière (Paris, March 17, 1754 – Paris, November 8, 1793), born Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, and best known under the name Madame Roland, was a French revolutionary, salonnière and writer. Initially she led a ...

* Gabrielle Roy * Madeleine de Sablé * Madame de Saint-Huberty * George Sand *

* Marguerite de Launay, baronne de Staal * Germaine de Staël *

Sophie Swetchine Anne Sophie Swetchine (''née'' Sofia Petrovna Soymonova; 22 November 178210 September 1857), known as Madame Swetchine, was a Russian mystic, born in Moscow, and famous for her salon in Paris. Biography She was born Sofia Petrovna Soymonova ...

Claudine Guérin de Tencin Claudine Alexandrine Guérin de Tencin, Baroness of Saint-Martin-de-Ré (27 April 1682 – 4 December 1749) was a French salonist and author. She was the mother of Jean le Rond d'Alembert, who later became a prominent mathematician, ''philosophe' ...

Marie-Anne de La Trémoille Marie Anne or Marie-Anne is the name of: Aristocrats * Princess Marie Anne of France (1664-1664?), daughter of King Louis XIV of France *Infanta Marie Anne of Portugal (1861-1942), Portuguese infanta and Grand Duchess consort of Luxembourg * Marie ...

* Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun * Jane Vigor *

Sophie Volland Louise-Henriette Volland, known as Sophie Volland (1716-1784), was a correspondent and lover of Denis Diderot. None of the letters she wrote have survived. Biography Louise-Henriette Volland was born November 27, 1716. She met Diderot in the spring ...

References

Sources

*Lettres de femmes: textes inédits et oubliés du XVIe au XVIIIe", (éd.) Elisabeth C. Goldsmith and Colette H. Winn, Paris, H. Champion, 2005, 448 p. * ''L’épistolaire au féminin : correspondances de femmes, XVIIIe au XXe'', (éd.) Brigitte Diaz, Jürgen Siess, Caen, Presses universitaires de Caen, 2006 * Marie-France Silver, Marie-Laure Girou-Swiderski, ''Femmes en toutes lettres : les épistolières du XVIIIe", Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 2000 * Josée Chomel, Philippe Chomel, Michel Cabaud, ''Madame de Sévigné à Grignan, une épistolière en Provence'', Lyon, Aubanel, 1996 * Lionel Duisit, ''Madame Du Deffand, épistolière'', Genève, Droz, 1963 * Daniel Des Brosses, ''La Palatine : l’incorrigible épistolière aux lettres'', Paris, France, 2004 * Rodolphe Trouilleux, ''N’oubliez pas Iphigénie : biographie de la cantatrice et épistolière Sophie Arnould, 1740-1802'', Grenoble, Alzieu, 1999 * Sophie Marcotte, ''Gabrielle Roy épistolière'', Ottawa, Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2003 * Catherine Blondeau, ''

épistolière", 1761-1776'', Lille, A.N.R.T, Université de Lille III, 1994 * Josette Chéry-Sobolewski, ''

Madame Riccoboni Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni (25 October 1713 in Paris - 7 December 1792 in Paris), whose maiden name was Laboras de Mézières, was a French actress and novelist. Early years She was born in Paris in 1713. Career In 1735, she married Antoine Fra ...

épistolière'', Paris, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1993 * Mireille Bossis, Charles. A. Porter, ''L’épistolarité à travers les siècles : geste de communication et/ou geste d’écriture'', Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 1987

Some famous women letter writers

References

Sources

See also