Magdeleine Neveu

Entry by Anne R. Larsen, 2004

The "Dames des Roches," mother and daughter, lived in a middle class humanist environment. Both were born in Poitiers and both died there around November 30 1587, during the plague. According to their cousin Scévole de Sainte-Marthe, they "wished for nothing more passionately than to live and die together" (Éloges des hommes illustres, see infra, f.341). Madeleine Neveu, who owes the name "des Roches" to a property belonging to her family, was born around 1520. We know very little of her education. According to Joseph-Juste Scaliger, she was the most educated person, to only know one classical language, (Latin), in Europe (cited by G. Diller, Dames des Roches, see infra, «choix bibliographique», p.13). Around 1539, she married the prosecutor André Fradonnet. Of their 3 children born between 1540 and 1547, only Catherine survived infancy. Around 1550, Madeleine was married for a second time to François Eboissard, lord of La Villée, attorney to the council of Poitiers. After having assured a comfortable life for his wife and daughter, he died in 1558. Madeleine, who dedicated herself to the education of her daughter, sparked ambitions to literary glory in her early years. Catherine mastered Latin and Italian. She translated several Latin texts, two of which were unpublished in translation: Pythagoras' "Symbols" and the "Rape of Proserpine" by Claudien. During the years 1560-1570, the Dames des Roches encountered legal difficulties, aggravated by the partial destruction of their property in the course of the civil wars. Towards 1570, they founded a literary circle, following the example of elite Parisian women, and composed works on various current happenings and affairs related to their circle. At the time of the visit of the Court to Poitiers, during the summer of 1577, their desire to be better known moved them to compose poems in honour of Henry III, Louise de Lorraine and Catherine de Medici. It is doubtless at this period that Catherine composed her "Mascarade des Amazones" and her "Chanson des Amazones," this myth being one of the favourite subjects of court entertainments. The "Dames des Roches" published these poems in the first edition of their Oeuvres, with the Parisian bookseller Abel l'Angelier. This edition was quickly followed by a second, the original poems accompanied by a petition "Au Roy" and six of Madeleine's sonnets, and, by Catherine, "One act of the tragicomedy of Tobie," six sonnets and a lyric. The reputation of the two scholars was affirmed in a spectacular way during the Grands Jours de Poitiers from September 10 to December 18,1579, during which Parisian parliamentarians frequented their salon. In the course of a visit from Étienne Pasquier and Antoine Loisel, counselors to the king, Pasquier, catching sight of a flea on the breast of Catherine, proposed that he and she write a poem in honour of this flea. These poems figure at the beginning of the famous collection "La Puce de Madame des Roches" published three years later in Paris and reprinted the following year. To follow were two more volumes from the women from Poitier, the "Secondes oeuvres" and "les Missives." Madeleine and Catherine des Roches encouraged women to write and especially to produce "a book," according to Evelyne Berriot-Salvadore («La problématique histoire...», see infra, p.13). They often address obstacles to women who dare to publish. Thus, Madeleine des Roches answers women who advise her "silence, ornement de la femme [...] qu'il peut bien empescher la honte, mais non pas accroistre l'honneur" [that silence, the ornament of woman, can certainly prevent shame, but not increase honor] (Oeuvres, p.79-80). Catherine demands, through the intermediary of her slandered heroine Agnodice, the right of women to letters. Catherine's love poetry also reveals a new, rebellious spirit. In her love sonnets and in the Dialogue of Sincero and Charite(Oeuvres, p.251-288), she expresses a profound skepticism regarding arguments used to justify the gratification of male desire. Thus, it is scarcely surprising that in real life, she had, like Charite, rejected passion and marriage to devote herself to writing. Enthusiastic disciples of Ronsard, the Dames des Roches tried all poetic genres; they published dialogues, letters, a tragi-comedy and translations. Madeleine's favored genres were odes in six, eight and ten syllables, and sonnets in decasyllabic lines or alexandrines; restraint and formal regularity characterize her verses. Catherine's works reveal a great variety of genres: especially sonnets, lyrics, dialogues and narrative poems. Mother and daughter are also the first women to publish an authentic correspondence albeit reworked for publication. After a last edition of both the Oeuvres and Secondes oeuvres appeared in Rouen in 1604, the writings of the Dames des Roches were more or less forgotten. They themselves, in contrast, were lauded in bibliographic works for centuries for the strength of their union and for having preserved the "modesty of their sex." It has been only recently that they have received any critical attention. Today they figure in the debate on the relationship between female authors of the Rennaissance and literary creation, as well as on the contribution of their circle to social history and to French literature.

(translated by Hannah Fournier)

Works

- 1578 : Histoire et Amours pastoralles de Daphnis et de Chloé escrite premierement en grec par Longus et maintenant mise en françois. Ensemble un debat judiciel de Folie et d'Amour, fait par dame L.L.L.[Loyse Labé Lyonnoise].Plus quelques vers françois, lesquels ne sont pas moins plaisans que recreatifs, par M.D.R., Poictevine[Madame des Roches], Paris, Jean Parent (il s'agit de l'«Hymne de l'Eau à la Roine» de Catherine des Roches).
- 1578 : Les Oeuvres de Mes-dames des Roches de Poetiers, Mere et Fille, Paris, Abel L'Angelier.
- 1579 : Les Oeuvres de Mes-dames des Roches de Poetiers, Mere et Fille.Seconde edition, corrigée et augmentée de la Tragi-comedie de Tobie et autres oeuvres poétiques, Paris, Abel L'Angelier -- Les Oeuvres, éd. Anne R. Larsen. Genève, Droz, 1993.
- 1579 : Onze poèmes des dames Des Roches, in La Puce de Madame des Roches. Qui est un recueil de divers poemes Grecs, Latins et François, composez par plusieurs doctes personnages aux Grands Jours tenus à Poitiers l'an M. D. LXXIX, Paris, Abel L'Angelier, 1582.
- 1581-1582 : Deux dialogues: le premier traicte de Placide et Severe, le deuxiesme traicte d'Iris et Pasithée, in Les Secondes oeuvres..., voir infra.
- 1583 : Les Secondes oeuvres de Mes-dames des Roches de Poictiers, Mere et Fille, Poictiers, Nicolas Courtoys (dont neuf poèmes du volume précédent) -- Les Oeuvres, éd. Anne R. Larsen, Genève, Droz, 1998.
- 1586 : Les Missives de Mes-dames des Roches de Poitiers, Mere et Fille, avec le Ravissement de Proserpine prins du Latin de Clodian. Et autres imitations et meslanges poëtiques. Paris, Abel L'Angelier -- Les Missives, éd. Anne R. Larsen, Genève, Droz, 1999.

Selected bibliography

- Berriot-Salvadore, Evelyne. Les Femmes dans la société française de la Renaissance. Genève, Droz, 1990, p.455-463.
- Id. «La Problématique histoire des textes féminins», in Jean-Philippe Beaulieu et Hannah Fournier (dir.), Femmes et textes sous l'Ancien Régime: ouverture en kaléidoscope, Atlantis, 19, 1993, p.8-15.
- Diller, George. Les Dames des Roches. Étude sur la vie littéraire à Poitiers dans la deuxième moitié du XVIe siècle. Paris, Droz, 1936.
- Larsen, Anne R. «La réfléxivité dans les dialogues de Catherine des Roches (1583)», in Jean-Philippe Beaulieu et Diane Desrosiers-Bonin (dir.), Dans les miroirs de l'Écriture. La réfléxivité dans les textes des femmes écrivains sous l'Ancien Régime. Montréal, Université de Montréal, 1998, p.61-71.
- Yandell, Cathy. Carpe Corpus. Time and Gender in Early Modern France. Newark, University of Delaware Press, 2000, p.175-211.

Selected bibliography of images

- Anonyme. Les Dames des Roches (gravure du XVIIIe siècle). Bibliothèque Nationale (Estampes collection Laruelle, t.106).
- Anonyme. Catherine des Roches (gravure du XVIIIe siècle). Bibliothèque Nationale (Estampes collection Laruelle, t.106).

Reception

- «Magdeleine Neveu, Dames DES ROCHES, en Poictou, mère de Catherine des Roches, toutes deux si doctes et si sçavantes, que la France peut se vanter les ayant engendrées, d'avoir produit en elles les deux perles de tout le Poictou, qui est une région abondante en toutes choses, et sur-tout en personnes d'esprit, entre lesquelles celles-ci doivent obtenir le premier rang pour leur sçavoir.» (François de La Croix du Maine et Antoine du Verdier, Les Bibliothèques [1584,1585], Paris, Saillant et Nyon, 1772, t. II, p.71).
- (à propos de Catherine des Roches) «Je ne vis jamais esprit si prompt ny si rassis que le sien. C'est une Dame qui ne manque point de response: et neantmoins il ne sort d'elle aucun propos qui ne soit digne d'une sage fille. Brief, je vous pleuvis sa maison pour une vraye escole d'honneur [...].» (Étienne Pasquier, Les Lettres, Paris, Abel l'Angelier, 1586, f.192v).
- (à propos de Madeleine des Roches) «Ce nom est de si grande réputation non seulement en France mais encore par toute l'Europe polie qu'il semble porter son Eloge avec lui-même si bien qu'en le proférant ce n'est pas tant proférer un nom vertueux que le nom de la même vertu» (Guillaume Colletet, Vies des poetes François [v.1650], BNF, ms NAF 3073, f.383).
- «[...] En effect la maison de ces deux illustres Dames estoit à Poitiers, une academie d'honneur, où se trouvoient tous les jours plusieurs excellents hommes, et où tous ceux qui faisoient profession des belles lettres estoient reçeus avec caresse, et avecque joye. Et l'on peut dire en verité, que pas un n'y estoit introduict, pour docte et pour poly qu'il fust, qu'il n'en sortist avec plus de doctrine et plus de politesse.» (Scévole de Sainte Marthe, Eloges des Hommes illustres, Paris, Antoine de Sommaville, 1644, p.340).