DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0047
WOMEN OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE 21
of Angouleme had the real love of the Muses and was
capable of sacrifice for their sake. So was her niece, Margaret
of Savoy, the gracious friend of poets. There was also their
cousin, Renee of Ferrara, daughter of Louis XII—a sumpt-
uous young scholar with Protestant leanings, divided between
Olympus and Geneva. They wrote, they learned, they listen-
ed. Literature and art were de bon ton. Every grandee
had a crowd of poetasters dependent on his purse-strings,
and the most modest government official felt himself bound
to become a patron or an author. The Poetry of those days
was no strain upon feeling or imagination. Metrical ex-
pression of fictitious sentiments was all that was required,
and elegance covered a multitude of sins.
The swarm of contemporary minor poetesses is only to be
outdone by the swarm of minor poets in our own day.
Louise Labe whose lyre had a human chord—Margaret of
Angouleme who could be both tender and graceful—are the
only ones that detach themselves from the rest. An amiable
host has been drowned in the kindly waves of oblivion.
Now and then an expert tries to revive one or two of them,
but the task is hardly worth the pains, and next to nothing
can be known about them. There was a mystic sonneteer,
Madame d’Entragues, in Louis XII’s reign: there was a
Viscountess who wrote plays (she seems to have existed at
all times), and translated the Precepts of Socrates. There
were sometimes whole families of mothers and daughters-
Catherines, Antoinettes, Dianes and Lucreces—who pursued
an indefatigable course of high-minded verse. 1
1 The famous Mademoiselle de Gournai, Montaigne’s friend, is
outside the period we are considering. His Essays were not
of Angouleme had the real love of the Muses and was
capable of sacrifice for their sake. So was her niece, Margaret
of Savoy, the gracious friend of poets. There was also their
cousin, Renee of Ferrara, daughter of Louis XII—a sumpt-
uous young scholar with Protestant leanings, divided between
Olympus and Geneva. They wrote, they learned, they listen-
ed. Literature and art were de bon ton. Every grandee
had a crowd of poetasters dependent on his purse-strings,
and the most modest government official felt himself bound
to become a patron or an author. The Poetry of those days
was no strain upon feeling or imagination. Metrical ex-
pression of fictitious sentiments was all that was required,
and elegance covered a multitude of sins.
The swarm of contemporary minor poetesses is only to be
outdone by the swarm of minor poets in our own day.
Louise Labe whose lyre had a human chord—Margaret of
Angouleme who could be both tender and graceful—are the
only ones that detach themselves from the rest. An amiable
host has been drowned in the kindly waves of oblivion.
Now and then an expert tries to revive one or two of them,
but the task is hardly worth the pains, and next to nothing
can be known about them. There was a mystic sonneteer,
Madame d’Entragues, in Louis XII’s reign: there was a
Viscountess who wrote plays (she seems to have existed at
all times), and translated the Precepts of Socrates. There
were sometimes whole families of mothers and daughters-
Catherines, Antoinettes, Dianes and Lucreces—who pursued
an indefatigable course of high-minded verse. 1
1 The famous Mademoiselle de Gournai, Montaigne’s friend, is
outside the period we are considering. His Essays were not