Attitudes toward Women in Two Eighteenth-Century French Periodicals

Abstract

Attitudes toward Women in Two Eighteenth-Century French Periodicals KA Y WILKINS Research dealing specifically with the study of women in eighteenth-century France (whether from an historical, sociologi­ cal, or literary viewpoint) is of relatively recent vintage.1 In the past an occasional female scholar would turn her attention to a woman author—Emily Crosby’s Une Romanciere oubliee: Madame Riccoboni (1924) is a case in point. But with the growth of women’s studies, a fresh enthusiasm and realization of the paucity of our knowledge about this area has led to such works as Pierre Fauchery’s monumental study of literary portrayals of women in the eighteenth-century European novel, La Destinee feminine dans le roman europeen du XVIIIe siecle: Essai de gynecomythie romanesque, 1713-1807 (1972), to the four-volume Histoire mondiale de la femme (1965-66), to Bardeche’s two-volume Histoire des femmes (1968), and to such related studies as Philip Stewart’s Le Masque et la parole: Le Langage de Vamour au XVIIIe siecle (1973). Two recent American Ph. D. dissertations have dealt with Diderot and women, another with Voltaire and women, and three more with a reappraisal of the fortunate Madame Riccoboni.2 My own attempt is limited in scope but 393 394 / KAY WILKINS nevertheless yields some interesting conclusions. I have examined two runs of different periodicals, the Mercure de France (1720-25) and the Journal encyclopedique (1780-83), and have analyzed the depiction of women in them. Although I am aware that the periodicals are of different types and that any conclusions repre­ sent only a small insight into a vast area of study, it is apparent that attitudes changed to some degree in the sixty-year period separating the two series I examined. The Mercure de France was a highly successful periodical which made sufficient profit to be able to provide substantial pensions to men of letters. It aimed at a sophisticated audience interested in court affairs, social and foreign events, and the latest cultural activities in Paris. A typical number (Jan. 1720) included an article analyzing the attribution of the title “tres chretien” to the king, a letter about America, a harangue to the king by a missionary to the Algonquins, a list of royal edicts and laws, some very mediocre verse, a short story, reviews of the latest French and English theater presentations, an historical account of the Compagnie des Indes de France, some enigmas and songs, details of notable births, marriages, and deaths, foreign news, the Paris journal, and some advertizements, such as news of a powder which causes a nursing mother to lose her milk within forty-eight hours (a product that will not be advertized in the post-Rousseau climate of the Journal encyclopedique). The qualities of the ideal woman for the editors and contribu­ tors to the Mercure de France seem to be summed up in the funeral eulogy of a royal princess: “Epouse, elle fut fidele; mere, elle fut tendre; Princesse, elle sacrifia tout aux interets de l’Etat; veuve, elle ne songea plus a plaire; chretienne, elle remplit les devoirs de la Religion” (Jan. 1723, p. 97). Constancy and strength in the face of adversity are also desirable qualities—in a rare moment of praise for the female sex, the editors include a letter from the French envoy to Algeria relating the courage of one Miss Bourk (of Irish family) who coped bravely with capture and imprisonment by barbarians (March 1720, pp. 84-92). Above all, Attitudes toward Women in Two Periodicals I 395 however, woman is valued for her reproductive and nourishing faculties; the Jan. 1722 Mercure includes a letter praising the king’s nurse for her fine body and good health, which have ensured Louis’ well-being. The many poems and speeches cele­ brating the king’s marriage remark on the queen’s virtue which should be rewarded by “la douce humanite,/La sainte piete, la modeste prudence,/Et l’heureuse fecondite” (Oct. 1725, pp. 2356-57). Women are admired for their devotion to religion—one Mademoiselle de la Baronie was posthumously praised for spend­ ing whole winters without a fire so as to meditate and study religion without any...