ABSTRACT
Les Caquets de l'accouche, published anonymously as a series of eight pamphlets over the course of the year 1622, is the story of a man's labor at childbed. The force and longevity of this parodic strain is linked to the important issues obtaining to birthing and lying-in. Male and female wisdom coexist in much the same way as the cousins share their control and commentary of the spying at the lying-in. Ysengrine's midwifery seals the connection with the misogynistic tropes of gossip, birthing, women, and birth attendants that are part and parcel of Les Caquets. The paradox of the childbirth metaphor is that its contextual resonance is fundamentally at odds with the very comparison it makes. While the metaphor draws together mind and body, word and womb, it also evokes the sexual division of labor upon which Western patriarchy is founded.
