A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Girardin, Delphine de
GIRARDIN, DELPHINE DE,
A daughter of the Celebrated Sophie Gay, and the wife of the poet Girardin, was born in Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1808. She has gained a high reputation among French poets. In 1820, she obtained the prize of the Academic Française; her theme was "An Eulogy on the Sacrifice and Devotion of the French Physicians and Kuns during the prevalence of the Cholera." In 1827, she was chosen a member of the Tiber Academy, at Rome, an honour never before conferred on a woman. Her larger poems are "Le Retour," and "Napoline." A collection of her smaller poems has been published under the title of "Essais Poetiques." But her prose works, written chiefly since her marriage, are now more popular than her poems. Perhaps she has gained, not only in intellectual culture, but in the art of using her resources to the best advantage, by her union with a man of such acknowledged talents as M. Emile de Girardin, who has shewn the real nobleness of genius—that which does not fear a rival in his wife. Certain it is, that her fictitious narratives evince intellectual powers of the highest order. She has a very striking originality of thought, while her skill in the development of characters, her penetration into motives, and her power of unravelling the twisted threads that impel human inconsistency, are really wonderful. "Le Marquise de Pontignac," "La Canne de M. de Balzac," "Contes d'une vielle Fille," and "L'Ecole des Jouraalistes," are among the best of her works.