ABSTRACT

In spite of all these controversies, Marie de Goumay succeeded in having a collection of her works published in 1626, under the title UOmbre de la Demoiselle de Goumay. Having moved from her “garret” on the rue de 1’Arbre Sec, where she lived with her servant Nicole Jamyn, to an apartment on the rue Saint Honore, she became instrumental in the creation of the French Academy. Thanks to a small pension from Richelieu, she was able to prepare the 1635 edition of Montaigne’s Essays. Her last collected work, LesAdvis ou les presens de la Demoiselle de Gournay (1641), shows that she was, until the end, a professional writer preoccupied with the production, presentation, and reception of her work. When she died in 1645, the dutiful adopted daughter had become, through the obstinate writing of her life and times, one of the mothers of French feminism.