Catherine Bernard

Catherine Bernard (1662 – 16 September 1712) was a French poet, playwright, and novelist. She composed three historical novels, two verse tragedies, several poems, and was awarded several poetry prizes by the Académie française. Bernard established the fundamental aesthetic principle of the French literary conte de fées popular in the salons of the late seventeenth century with the dictum: "the [adventures] should always be implausible and the emotions always natural". Her works are appreciated today for their psychological nuance.

Catherine Bernard was born in 1662 in Rouen to a Huguenot family of wealth and comfort. She was related through her mother to the brothers Pierre and Thomas Corneille. Bernard was precocious and began writing at a young age, earning praise from her cousin, the author and critic Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle. At eighteen, she left her home in Rouen to pursue a literary career in Paris.

In 1685 at the age of twenty-three, she converted to Catholicism and was well enough known at that time to have received notice in the Mercure galant for her "ouvrages galants". The romance Frédéric de Sicile (1680, by Pradon?) was attributed to her as well as her cousin's L'Ile de Bornéo.

Bernard produced three historical novels, two verse tragedies, and several poems. She was saved from abject poverty by monetary prizes awarded her work. She died 16 September 1712. Her works continue to be appreciated for their stylistic and psychological depth.

Bernard's first novel Eléonore d'Yvrée was published in 1687 with a dedication to Louis, Grand Dauphin and a moralizing preface. In its use of history, narrative structure, and theme of dutiful sacrifice of passion, the novel followed in the tradition of Madame de La Fayette's La Princesse de Clèves. In the Mercure galant of 16 September 1687, Fontenelle praised its economy of plot and structure, its concise style, and its psychological nuance. The book was followed by Le Comte d'Amboise in 1689 and her last and most adventurous novel Inès de Cordoue in 1696. Both elaborated upon the "sacrifice of passion for duty" theme. All three novels were reprinted in the Bibliothèque de campagne in 1739 and 1785.

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