DES ROCHES, MADELEINE

(c. 1520-1587)

The Dames des Roches, mother and daughter, were members of France's upper middle class who hosted a salon, or gathering of scholars and artists. They were authors of epistolary poems, verse dialogues, and lyric and narrative poems that exhibit their knowledge of classical authors as well as current debates.

Both Madeleine and Catherine were born and lived their lives in and around the French city of Poitiers. The mother, Madeleine, instructed herself and her daughter, Catherine, in the arts and sciences of the time. In order to better pursue a life of learning with her mother, Catherine des Roches chose not to marry, despite her many suitors. The salon gatherings attracted suitors among the many writers and scholars in attendance.

Madeleine des Roches wrote three particularly noteworthy pieces: "Epistle to the Ladies," "Epistle to My Daughter," and an "Ode." In the "Epistle to the Ladies," she describes a community of educated women readers, perhaps asso­ciated with the court of the queen mother Catherine de' Medici.* She warns the ladies against heeding the virtue of silence in women, a virtue that was highly admired by many people of the time. Instead of silence, she argues, women's honor should be associated with reason, which distinguishes humans from ani­mals and is articulated through speech. It is this same advice she passes on to her daughter in the "Epistle to My Daughter." This letter to her daughter is written in verse and wishes her the best in her scholarly endeavors. Peppered with numerous classical references, her "Ode" further discussed the current quer­elle des femmes, in which the virtues and vices of the female gender were hotly debated. Madeleine encourages the implied female reader to undertake learning despite considerable opposition she will encounter due to gender expectations.

Madeleine's daughter, Catherine, wrote about a wide variety of gender-based topics, from Amazons to distaffs to dialogues concerning family relations. In her poems on Amazons, Catherine resurrects this classical myth about women warriors from a female point of view. Her Amazons are chaste and learned as well as strong, virtues she may well have possessed herself. In a poem written to her distaff, she compares the two instruments—her distaff and her pen - equally and favorably. The distaff, or spindle, represents the traditional female occupation of spinning, whereas the pen, which was not a traditionally female implement, receives equal honors. This poem, like others she wrote, can be read as conciliatory in the querelle about women's roles: women can embrace both conventional roles and scholarship.

Unlike some other women writers, but like their Lyon contemporary, Louise Labe,* the Dames des Roches were published in their lifetime: Les oeuvres (1578 and 1579), Les secondes oeuvres (1583), and Les missives (1586). Mad­eleine was fervently nationalistic; France was superior to all other nations. Both mother and daughter opposed the Protestant Reformation, yet they maintained friendly relations with Protestant humanists.

A. Larsen, "Les Dames des Roches," in Women Writers of the Renaissance and Refor­mation, ed. K. M. Wilson, 1987.

(1520-1587), and Catherine (1542-1587)

   French poets, mother and daughter. Madeleine from her youth showed an interest in literature, and she transmitted it to her daughter. From about 1570 they became active as writers. Their careers developed together, and the closeness is symbolized by their death on the same day during an epidemic. Madeleine Neveu was born near Châtellerault into a family of judicial officials (gens de robe) and married twice, first to a legal procurator named André Fradonnet about 1539 at Poitiers and, after his death in 1547, to another French legal official, François Eboissard, seigneur de la Villée et des Roches. Catherine was a child of the first marriage but took her stepfather's surname.

   From about 1570 mother and daughter held a literary salon at Poitiers and developed reputations as poets. Their friends included a prominent kinsman, Scévole de Sainte-Marthe, the great French humanist Josephus Justus Scaliger, and the poet Pierre de Ronsard. The residence of the royal court in Poitiers in 1577 and the national assembly of legal officers (Grands Jours) there in 1579 spread their literary reputation to other parts of France. Their first collection of poetry, Les oeuvres de Mesdames des Roche, mère et fille, was published in 1578, shortly after the death of Madeleine's second husband; a second edition appeared in 1579. Another collection, Secondes oeuvres, appeared in 1585, followed the next year by Missives de Mesdames Desroches, in which they published not only poems but also literary letters. Madeleine's poems are full of sadness and demonstrate that she sought consolation in religion and Platonic philosophy. Catherine's poems are more moralizing and didactic. Catherine never married but devoted her life to her literary work and her close companionship with her mother.