1. Lecture 1: introduction and a first foray into Louise Bourgeois
In the family way
Lecture 1: introduction and a first foray into Louise Bourgeois

2. Today’s plan: Intro to our texts and to the 17th C
Private and public lives: major political and social movements
Our case study: birth, sex, death and the family and ways of analysing this
Louise Bourgeois: introduction…

3. Louise Bourgeois (1563 – 1636)
Observations diverses sur la stérilité, perte de fruicts, foecondité, accouchements, et maladies des femmes et enfants nouveaux naiz. 1st edition published 1609

4. Pierre Corneille (1606 – 1684)
Rodogune (1644; published in 1647)

5. Madame de Sévigné (1626 – 1696)
Correspondance (largely with her daughter, begun in 1671)

6. Jean Racine (1639 – 1699)
Athalie (1696)

7. Charles Perrault (1628 – 1703)
Histoires et contes du temps passé (1697)

8. Genres
Autobiography / personal testimony
Classical drama
Contes

9. Writing about family… Pre-text: source of inspiration
Ideological purpose
Communal purpose

10. The politics of 17th century France
Rubens, The Medici Cycle: Henri IV Leaving for the War and Bestowing the Government to Marie de Medici 1610
Marie de Médicis and Henri IV
Henri IV rules c – 1607
Louis XIII comes to throne as minor
Regency of Marie de M: 1607 – 1614

11. Louis XIII 1614 Majority of Louis XIII
1615 marriage of Louis XIII to Anne of Austria
1624 Richelieu becomes chef du conseil du roi
1638 : birth of future Louis XIV

12. Anne of Austria 1643 Louis XIII dies ; succeeded by Louis XIV
Anne of Austria by Rubens, c. 1625
1643 Louis XIII dies ; succeeded by Louis XIV
1643 – 1651: regency of Anne of Austria; ministry of Mazarin
1648 – 49: Fronde parlementaire
1650 – 53: Fronde des princes

13. Louis XIV 1660 ff: personal reign of Louis XIV
Louis XIV (1638–1715), by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701)
1660 ff: personal reign of Louis XIV
1660 – married Marie-Thérèse
1683: death of Marie-Thérèse
Oct 1683 Louis marries Françoise d’Augbigné, marquise de Maintenon in secret (open secret)
1715 : death of Louis XIV

14. Influential public and private spaces
Theatre see Henry Phillips, The Theatre and its Critics in Seventeenth-Century France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980)
Church see Henry Phillips, Church and Culture in Seventeenth-Century France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)
Court
Salon see Carolyn C Lougee, Le Paradis des femmes : women, salons, and social stratification in  seventeenth-century France (Princeton ; Guildford : Princeton University Press, 1976)
Market place / commerce see Richard E Goodkin, Birth marks : the tragedy of primogeniture in Pierre Corneille, Thomas Corneille, and Jean Racine (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2000).

15. Our analysis: birth, sex, death and the family

16. Case study 1: Louise Bourgeois
Observations (Ist bk) pub'd 1609
Observations diverses (bk 2) 1617, including the Instruction à ma fille and the the Recit veritable, giving account of the royal births
Obs diverses (bk 3) 1626, including the Instruction and the Récit.
Apologie de Louise Boursier 1627
Recueil des secrets 1635.

17. The Observations: case studies
The Birthing Tales website carries a number of examples of case studies from the Observations, translated into English.
Click here to access these.

18. Récit véritable … names
Martin Boursier: LB’s husband
Ambroise Paré: first surgeon to Henri IV
Mme Dupuis: royal midwife before Louise Bourgeois
Gabrielle d’Estrees. Henri IV’s mistress
Catherine de Bourbon: Henri IV’s sister
Madame de Nemours: prominent courtier
Jacques Auguste de Thou: advisor to Henri IV
Heilly family 18

19. Early Modern Birthing Chair

20. Birthing chair in use.
. 16th century woodcut from Eucharius Roslin The Garden of Roses
Image taken from:

21. Rubens
La Naissance de Louis XIII (1621 – 1625)
See for more details