Marie de Romieu

Entry by Claude La Charité, 2004

The facts regarding the life of Marie de Romieu are unclear. La Croix du Maine, the first and main source for her, appears not to have known her directly. The information given about her in his Bibliothèque seems to be based solely on knowledge of her works. He must have concluded that she was noble from the term «MaDamoiselle» which figures in the title of her work, and that she was born in Viviers (Ardèche) from the dedication inscribed at the beginning of the «Discourse regarding the excellence of woman which surpasses that of man». The only apparently certain fact, according to which the poet was still living in 1584, may also be the fruit of conjecture: it was in 1584 that Les Melanges by her brother Jacques de Romieu were published, with a French translation by Marie de Romieu. Meanwhile, this scholar unhesitatingly attributed to her both l'Instruction pour les jeunes dames (1572) and the collection Premieres oeuvres poetiques, which Lucas Breyer published for her brother in 1581. Critics have subsequently repeated these elements, even adding to them by careful reference to the texts. Thus, Colletet (ca. 1650) presumed that she was married based on the household tasks she evokes in the epistle to her brother, and that she had a child, from a poem significantly entitled «A son fils». The study by Auguste Le Sourd (1924) reconsiders the case for the noble origins of the Romieu family, using archival documents to demonstrate that the Romieus came from a non-noble background, Estienne II Romieu being heir to a dynasty of bakers located in Viviers since the beginning of the century. How did it come about that La Croix du Maine attributed an aristocratic genealogy to two children of «workers», and how could Marie de Romieu claim the title of «Mademoiselle»? The role in this of her brother Jacques, who figures on the frontispiece of her Melanges as «ordinary secretary of the King's chamber», must be taken into consideration. This office, if only because of the priviledged access to the king that it assured, was undeniably attended by considerable social prestige. Whence the temptation to claim noble origins, the more so as title-holders benefitted from exemption from taxation, the most noble of all privileges. In tune with the social ambitions of her brother, and unlike their parents, both Romieu poets added the particle « de » to their patronymic which, without actually being an attribute of aristocracy, still created that illusion. Clearly, the future canon of Viviers already shows a level of opportunistic skill worthy of a courtier when in the publication of his sister's collection, he argues a fortiori his talents as a teacher, based on the praise for his pupil ( see «jugements»). Moreover, Marie enjoyed a rapid social climb just as much as her brother. Although her first tongue was undoubtedly Provençal French, she acquired an enviable literary culture, with such facility that she composed poetry in French and neo-Latin and, as well, was the first to translate Alessandro Piccolomini's dialogue from the Italian. Judging by her dedications (to Charles de Lorraine; the maréchal de Retz and his wife Claude-Catherine de Clermont-Dampierre, who held a famous salon; René de Birague, chancelor of France; Hippolyte Scaravelli, lady-in-waiting of Catherine de Medicis...), she undoubtedly aspired to obtain the patronage of the high nobility of her time. The modest daughter of a baker put into practice the advice of Rafaella in the Dialogo de la bella creanza de le donne by imposing on herself the image of a perfect «damoiselle», which La Croix du Maine would unwittingly confirm. Aside from a few bibliographers (the abbé Goujet) and dictionary authors (V.-L. Saulnier, who repeated the error of her aristocratic ancestry in 1951), Marie de Romieu has provoked a mostly female response (Louise de Keralio, Fortunée Briquet, Lula McDowell Richardson). At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the next, she was also the object of occasional contributions by historians of the area around Viviers, notably Auguste Le Sourd who, because of the absence of archival documentation relative to the poet, concluded that she did not exist; this unlikely hypothesis has been echoed even in very recent contributions.

(translated by Hannah Fournier)

Works

- 1572 : Instruction pour les jeunes dames (première traduction-adaptation française du Dialogo de la belle creanza de le donne d'Alessandro Piccolomini), Paris, s.n. -- Éd. Concetta Menna Scognamiglio, Paris-Fasano, Nizet-Schena, 1992. Cette édition donne comme texte de base la réédition de 1597.
- 1581 : Les Premieres OEuvres poetiques de MaDamoiselle Marie de Romieu Vivaroise, Paris, L. Breyer -- Éd. André Winandy, Genève, Droz, 1972.
- 1584 : Les Melanges de Jaques de Romieu Vivarois, Lyon, B. Rigaud. La «Traduction du latin de M. de la Val» et le «Sonnet [...] à Monsieur de Tournon, luy offrant l'oeuvre presente en bonne Estrene» sont de Marie de Romieu.

Selected bibliography

- Costa, Daniela. «La réception française de la Raffaella d'Alessandro Piccolomini: version "urbaines" et lectures "érotiques"». Nouv. Revue du Seizième siècle, 14, 1996, p.237-246.
- La Charité, Claude. «"Ce male vers enfant de ta verve femelle": les destinataires féminins de la lyrique amoureuse de Marie de Romieu». Nouv. Revue du Seizième siècle, 18, 2000, p.81-94.
- La Charité, Claude. «L'Instruction pour les jeunes dames (1572) de Marie de Romieu: la femme machiavélienne comme contre-modèle de la femme chrétienne et de la donna di palazzo». Franco-Italica, 15/16, 1999, p.65-85.
- Larsen, Anne R. «Paradox and the Praise of Women: From Ortensio Lando and Charles Estienne to Marie de Romieu». The Sixteenth Century Journal, 28, 1997, p.759-774.
- Le Sourd, Auguste. Recherches sur Jacques et Marie de Romieu poètes vivarois, Villefranche, Imprimerie du Réveil du Beaujolais, 1924.

Reception

- Ma soeur vous a fait voir que sa ville portoit
Des filles, où l'honneur et le scavoir étoit.
Penseries vous (mon Duc) que je fus moindre qu'elle?
C'est moy qui l'ai conduite a une oeuvre nouvelle,
C'est moi qui l'enseigné la guidant au beau train,
Qui du nombre divin suit le troupeau neuvain. (Jacques de Romieu, in Les Melanges... voir supra).
- «Elle composa encore en prose française une Instruction pour les jeunes dames [...] Mais je conseille à celles qui voudront conserver leur innocence et vivre dans la pureté de consulter d'autres oracles que ceux-là [...] c'est plutost une instruction à bien faire l'amour qu'à vivre dans la retenüe: et certes, si nos écrits sont ordinairement les vifs tableaux de nos moeurs, cet ouvrage me feroit volontiers douter qu'elle estoit un peu sujette à ses passions et que la vertu dont elle parle si souvent dans ses vers résidoit plustot sur ses lèvres que dans son coeur» (Guillaume Colletet, Histoire des Poëtes françois, manuscrit BNF Ms NAF 3073, v.1650).
- «À mesure qu'on pénètre davantage dans l'étude des oeuvres de Marie de Romieu, on s'aperçoit que c'est l'analyse aiguë de sa propre personnalité qui lui inspire ses plus beaux vers» (Émile Bourras, «Essai sur Marie de Romieu», Revue du Vivarais, 9, 1901, p.460).
- «Marie de Romieu n'a pas existé» (Auguste Le Sourd, Recherches sur Jacques et Marie de Romieu poètes vivarois, Villefranche, Imprimerie du Réveil du Beaujolais, 1924, p.95).
- «Sa poésie amoureuse se caractérise [...] par une certaine impersonnalité, une absence presque totale d'allusions précises. C'est que, comme Desportes, Romieu chante des amours de commande ou s'essaye à des exercices littéraires» (André Winandy, in Marie de Romieu, Premières oeuvres poétiques, voir supra, p. XXIX).
- «Marie de Romieu trouve une grâce incontestable et des accents modernes pour chanter la force de l'amour [...]. Cependant, une excessive pudeur l'empêche de parler elle-même et la pousse à confier ses paroles à l'amant» (Voichita Sasu, «Idéologie amoureuse dans le lyrisme féminin français du XVIe siècle», dans La Femme à la Renaissance, Lodz, Acta universitatis lodziensis, Folia litteraria 14, 1985, p.170).