Abstract

In this article I consider the intersections between the legal last will and testament of Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin d'Estampes, marquise de La Ferté-Imbault, and her epistolary testament, a series of twelve intimate letters written by the marquise to a close friend. I examine the concepts of lineage, legacy, and inheritance; demonstrate how the marquise challenged these concepts; and suggest the possibility of a politics of what I have termed "recuperative autobiography," through which the marquise was able to use the various resources she had at her disposal to craft an alternative legacy founded not on traditional understandings of kinship, but rather, on the principles of moral justice.

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