Marie de Gournay

Marie de Gournay (French pronunciation: [maʁi də ɡuʁnɛ]; 6 October 1565, Paris – 13 July 1645) was a French writer, who wrote a novel and a number of other literary compositions, including two protofeminist works, The Equality of Men and Women (1622) and The Ladies' Grievance (Les femmes et Grief des dames, 1626). In her novel Le Promenoir de M. de Montaigne qui traite de l’amour dans l’œuvre de Plutarque she explored the dangers women face when they become dependent on men. She insisted that women should be educated.

She was also an editor and commentator of Michel de Montaigne. Having read his works in her teens, Gournay travelled to meet him and eventually became his "fille d'alliance" (roughly "adopted daughter"). She receives her name from the Château de Gournay in Gournay-sur-Aronde (in the Ile-de-France Province) that her father, Guillaume Le Jars, bought shortly before dying in 1578.

After Montaigne's death, Gournay edited the third edition of the Essays in 1595, and it is for this that she is best known.

Born in Paris and raised in Gournay-sur-Aronde. Her father, Guillaume Le Jars was treasurer to King Henri III of France. In 1568 he obtained feudal rights to the Gournay estate in Picardy, and in 1573, after he purchased the Neufvy estate, he became Seigneur de Neufvy et de Gournay. Gournay was self-taught in Latin and Greek, translating works by Ovid, Virgil, and Tacitus. In addition to her many poems, literary compositions, and a book on the instruction of princes, she published one of the first psychological novels in France, Le Proumenoir de Monsieur de Montaigne (1594).Marie de Gournay met Montaigne in Paris in 1588, when she was 23 and Montaigne 55 years old. He later visited her at her residence in the Château de Gournay. The first literary reference to Marie as Montaigne's fille d'alliance () is in the Essays:

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. Marie de Gournay did so, publishing the first posthumous edition of the Essays with a long preface praising Montaigne's ideas. Her translation of the Essays is remarkable for fidelity in translating Latin sentences and Montaigne's highly specific references to classical and sometimes obscure texts.

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