DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0046
20 THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
times. The bad and the good—King’s mistresses and high-
hearted spinsters—seem to have divided its duties. The
great Diane de Poitiers was the Dorcas of her almshouses
at Anet. Old maids formed convent schools, often in the
teeth of opposition. 1 In the sixteenth century there was
but one Ursuline school; in the middle of the seventeenth
there were three hundred and ten.
Letters even more than philanthropy were the general
resource of able women. The pursuit of the classics was no
longer exceptional, but an ordinary element of feminine
education; and Brantome complains that the customary
schoolroom reading of Virgil and Ovid frequently corrupted
the imagination of young girls. There were many erudite
rhymers—there were many agreeable Minervas. More than
one princess figured among their ranks and helped to make
literature fashionable. Anne de Bretagne, though she could
not read Latin, liked nothing better than to talk about
Livy and to have learned works dedicated to her. Margaret
1 There was Mademoiselle Sainte-Beuve, who took a lodging
opposite the school she had built, from which she could watch
her “bees,” as she called them. The children were so fond of
her that for a year after her death, they laid her plate at
their table and begged that a picture of her at her window
might be painted.
There was also Mademoiselle Saintonge, who was opposed by
her father and stoned by the children of the town for her
intention of founding a school. Undaunted she left her home
and, followed by five little girls, she moved into a garret,
though she had no money either for food or firing. Ten years
afterwards she was leading a procession through the streets
to honour the opening of her big new Convent-school.
times. The bad and the good—King’s mistresses and high-
hearted spinsters—seem to have divided its duties. The
great Diane de Poitiers was the Dorcas of her almshouses
at Anet. Old maids formed convent schools, often in the
teeth of opposition. 1 In the sixteenth century there was
but one Ursuline school; in the middle of the seventeenth
there were three hundred and ten.
Letters even more than philanthropy were the general
resource of able women. The pursuit of the classics was no
longer exceptional, but an ordinary element of feminine
education; and Brantome complains that the customary
schoolroom reading of Virgil and Ovid frequently corrupted
the imagination of young girls. There were many erudite
rhymers—there were many agreeable Minervas. More than
one princess figured among their ranks and helped to make
literature fashionable. Anne de Bretagne, though she could
not read Latin, liked nothing better than to talk about
Livy and to have learned works dedicated to her. Margaret
1 There was Mademoiselle Sainte-Beuve, who took a lodging
opposite the school she had built, from which she could watch
her “bees,” as she called them. The children were so fond of
her that for a year after her death, they laid her plate at
their table and begged that a picture of her at her window
might be painted.
There was also Mademoiselle Saintonge, who was opposed by
her father and stoned by the children of the town for her
intention of founding a school. Undaunted she left her home
and, followed by five little girls, she moved into a garret,
though she had no money either for food or firing. Ten years
afterwards she was leading a procession through the streets
to honour the opening of her big new Convent-school.