ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a more complete historical and literary framework. It is hoped that it will contribute to further studies on the life and work of a remarkable early modern woman intellectual. Meanwhile, in contrast to the Netherlands, important historical developments in France included the increasing political peril to the French Huguenots, the cultural decline of the universities, and the concomitant rise of the court and urban salons. The savante Marie de Gournay confronted directly in her Ladies' Complaint the dual masculine monopolization of savoir and pouvoir. The designation savante as an umbrella term described a number of different groups, from cultivated salonnires and female writers to rudites distinguished for philosophical and scientific learning. The fundamental difference for Scudry between the femme savante and the cultivated woman is perceptible, in Guillaume Colletet's translation of Van Schurman's letters on women's education and in the history of her reception in France.
