Louise Labé

Louise Labé
Louise Labé; engraving by Pierre Woeiriot, 1555
Born	1524 Lyon
Died	25 April 1566 Parcieux-en-Dombes
Language	French
Nationality	French

Louise Labé, (c. 1524, Lyon – 25 April 1566, Parcieux), also identified as La Belle Cordière (The Beautiful Ropemaker), was a female French poet of the Renaissance born in Lyon, the daughter of wealthy ropemaker Pierre Charly and his second wife, Etiennette Roybet.

Louise Labé was born into a family of ropemakers, surgeons, and butchers. Her father, Pierre Charly, was a successful ropemaker, who started a business on rue de l'Arbre sec, at the base of Saint Sébastien Hill in Lyon. When his first wife died in 1515, he married Etiennette Roybet, and had five children: Barthélemy, Francois, Mathieu, Claudine, and Louise. It is presumed that Louise Labé was born at some point between her father's wedding in 1516 and her mother's death in 1523.

Records show that Labé's father, despite his humble beginnings, eventually achieved some social prestige. For example, in 1534, he was summoned before the Assemblée de Consuls of the city of Lyon to approve and participate in the founding of a relief agency for the poor.

At some point, perhaps in a convent school, Labé received an education in foreign languages (Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish) and music, specifically the lute.

As a young woman, she was acclaimed as an extraordinary horsewoman and archer. Her early biographers called her "la belle Amazone" and report that she dressed in male clothing and fought as a knight on horseback in the ranks of the Dauphin (afterwards Henry II) at the siege of Perpignan. She was also said to have participated in tournament jousts performed in Lyon in honor of Henry II's visit.

Between 1543 and 1545 she married Ennemond Perrin, also a Lyon ropemaker, a marriage dictated in her father's will, and which established the succession of the rope manufacturing business he was involved in. The business must have been prosperous, since the couple purchased a townhouse with a large garden in 1551, and, in 1557, a country estate at Parcieux-en-Dombes near Lyon.

Lyon was the cultural centre of France in the first half of the sixteenth century and Labé hosted a literary salon that included many of the renowned Lyonnais poets and humanists, including Maurice Scève, Clement Marot, Claude de Taillemont, Pontus de Tyard, and Pernette du Guillet.