Marie de Gournay

[3] Her father, Guillaume Le Jars, was treasurer to King Henry III of France.

[3] After her mother's death in 1591, Marie moved to Paris, leaving the family home to her brother Charles, who was forced to sell it in 1608.

Montaigne died the following year, and his widow, Françoise de la Chassaigne, provided Gournay with a copy of the Essays and charged her with its publication.

She published a timely discussion on the education of children in 1608, Bienvenue à Monseigneur le Duc d'Anjou.

Gournay was invited to the Queen's royal salon and received financial support on a quarterly basis.

In 1624 she published a bold revision of Pierre de Ronsard's poem Remerciement, au Roy.

The small pension granted to her by Cardinal Richelieu allowed her to publish a 1635 edition of Montaigne's Essays.

[9] Marie de Gournay is now recognized as the first woman in France to contribute to literary criticism and one of the first to argue forcibly on the equality of men and women.

In The Ladies' Grievance Gournay complained that women did not own property, exercise freedom, or have access to public office.

Like René Descartes she separated the mind from the body, and argued that women were as capable as men.