Skip to Main Content

French Women & Feminists in History: A Resource Guide

Louise Dupin

Louise Dupin's Work on Women : selections. Edited and translated by Angela Hunter and Rebecca Wilkin, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023). Library of Congress General Collections.

Madame Dupin (1706-1799), known as Louise Marie Madeleine Fontaine before her marriage, was nicknamed by the great thinker Voltaire as the "goddess of beauty and music." She briefly employed the renowned Jean-Jacques Rousseau as a tutor to her son, and later hired him as a secretary-a position that he kept for six years and wherein he advised Dupin on her Ouvrage sur les femmes. Her beauty made a noted impression upon him. Her intelligence, sociability and natural charm attracted philosophers and scholars, as well as nobility. It was at the Hotel de Vins on rue Plâtrière in Paris that Madame Dupin hosted her popular salon. Guests included Voltaire, Montesquieu, and the Comte de Buffon,  as well as members of the nobility such as the Princess of Monaco and Madame du Deffand. Her political savvy helped her to survive the French Revolution unharmed, and even exert enough influence to keep her beloved château from being destroyed. For images of the famed castle search the Library's digital collections under Chenonceaux, France or Château de Chenonceau.

Louise Dupin was an ardent advocate for gender equality. Her major, though unfinished, work, Ouvrage sur les femmes, calls out the sexist bias of ancient and contemporary scientists, historians, jurists, and moralists. She denies the universality of women’s subordination to men and argues that women’s legal and economic dependence was a recent creation by self-interested jurists. She narrates the history of famous women and discusses women's roles in all areas including science, religion, history, law, education and social mores. In many ways her ideas on differences between genders predate the assertions made by the modern 20th-century feminist Simone de Beauvoir. In very concrete, and until recently unacknowledged ways, her work also influenced the political thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau himself, even though he disavowed the feminism he had supported as her secretary. Beyond this work, her great-great nephew, le Comte de Villeneuve-Guibert published Le Portefeuille de Madame Dupin, Dame de Chenonceaux External in the 19th century. This was a collection of shorter essays in a moralist genre more acceptable for women at the time. Her works are somewhat clouded by what is viewed by scholars as a difficulty reconciling her belief that women be empowered, with her world view on the nature of social hierarchy. She supported the monarchy, as is evident in her writings, and probably due to her status and her upbringing. Her Ouvrage, which was not published during her lifetime, and was long neglected by scholars, has recently been reconstructed from manuscript drafts. Her work contains an incisive critique of the non-education of girls and describes marriage as the usurpation of women’s assets and freedom. Her work shows a dedication to lifting the status of women and proposes concrete ideas on how to reform society for the better.

For digitized sources on women of this time period see Digitized Sources: La Renaissance & Ancien Régime.

Print & Digital Resources