Gournay, Marie le Jars, demoiselle de (c. 1566-1645). Independent writer and the ‘fille d'alliance’ (adopted daughter) of Montaigne, she was born into the minor nobility, taught herself Latin, and was so uplifted by her reading of the Essais that she made contact with their author and arranged that he should visit her. After his death she was entrusted, together with the poet Pierre de Brach, with the edition of the final version of the Essais. In 1596 she moved to Paris, and remained there until her death, living in reduced circumstances on the margins of the fashionable literary world. She was the butt of a number of malicious practical jokes and was subjected to satire both for her defence of the Jesuits and for her spirited advocacy of the language of Ronsard and Montaigne. She published at her own expense a feminist tract, occasional verse, moral essays, and some translation, which she collected together in her Ombre (1626), later revised and renamed Les Avis et presents (1634, 1641). She is remembered today for her Égalité des hommes et des femmes (1622), her derivative short story, Le Promenoir de M. de Montaigne (1594), and her views on style.
[Ian Maclean]
