Eloquence Unchained: Women, Poetry, and Politics during the Fronde

In Le Bonheur de la France, ou la malice decouverte,¹ a laudatory poem Charlotte Hénault addressed to François de Vendôme, Duc de Beaufort, a leader of the massive rebellion against royal authority in early modern France that is known as the Fronde (1648–1653), Hénault alludes to constraints that politics have placed upon her writing. She observes in a prefatory letter to Beaufort that she finds herself unable to speak "without riddle," and she ends her letter abruptly with the remark, "I break here for fear of being impolitic."² In the poem itself, she observes similarly,

Les raisons de la PolitiqueFatale[s] à la veritéOstent à ma sinceritéUn ample sujet heroïque:Mon eloquence sous les fersN'a point la liberté des vers… .

(ll. 131–36)

The reasons of Politics / Fatal to truth / Take away from my sincerity / An ample heroic subject: / My eloquence in chains / Lacks the [usual] freedom of verse. …

The image of eloquence "in chains" is apt here, since throughout this poem of praise, which appeared in 1650, Hénault celebrates the fact that the well-known prison at the Château de Vincennes just outside Paris, from which Beaufort himself had escaped in 1648, now contains his rival, Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé.³ As for Hénault, however, although she may not have been able to express herself as freely as she wished, the volatile political environment of the Fronde ultimately provided her with an unparalleled opportunity for creative work, and she composed and published at least eight pamphlets during this period, including two in verse.

This essay brings to new light the verse of Charlotte Hénault (active 1649–1650), Renée de Monterbault Bouju (active 1649–1651), and Marie Ducosso (active 1651), three women who wrote sophisticated and stirring poetry in support of the Fronde but whose literary output has been largely forgotten, despite recent interest in women's participation in the Fronde and in their contributions to its political propaganda. The Fronde was a significant effort in mid-seventeenth-century France to curb the expanding reach of monarchical power, as wielded by Anne d'Autriche, regent for her young son King Louis XIV, and her chief minister Cardinal Jules Mazarin. Beginning with a popular uprising sparked by the arrest in August 1648 of Pierre Broussel, a respected and elderly member of the Parlement of Paris, and spreading from Paris to provincial cities such as Aix-en-Provence, Rouen, and Bordeaux, as well as from parlements and common people to high-ranking nobles, the Fronde, which went through several distinct phases, lasted until July 1653, when the crown regained control of Bordeaux.⁴ During these turbulent years, more than five thousand pamphlets either defending or condemning the Fronde appeared. Irrespective of their political position, these pamphlets are called collectively "Mazarinades" after the satirical La Mazarinade (1651), which targets Mazarin and is attributed to poet, playwright, and novelist Paul Scarron.⁵ Most Mazarinades were published anonymously.⁶ A handful of women, however—Suzanne de Nervèze and Élisabeth Salète in addition to Hénault, Monterbault Bouju, and Ducosso—signed their names to Mazarinades. All together, these five women authored at least thirty-three pamphlets during the Fronde, including seven in verse.⁷

Many scholars, most notably Sophie Vergnes in recent years, have analyzed women's involvement in the Fronde, generally focusing on the activities of eminent noblewomen like Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon, Duchesse de Longueville, and Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, Duchesse de Montpensier.⁸ A renewed interest in Mazarinades, inspired by the work of Christian Jouhaud and Hubert Carrier, has led scholars of early modern women's writing to consider pamphlets by women.⁹ This scholarship not only expands knowledge of early modern French women's writing, but also contributes to an understanding of women's political writing that extends beyond national borders. Potential comparisons to works by women during the civil wars and interregnum in England that were contemporaneous with the Fronde in France are especially intriguing. Marcus Nevitt has...