of her birth, October 6, 1565, Charles IX was King of France. Her life extended through the troublesome reigns of Henri III and Henri IV. Louis XIII and Richelieu "gained in royal prerogatives while she frequented their court." She saw the beginning of the era of Le Grand Monarch, Louis XIV. She died July 13, 1645, aged 79 years. Her literary work, as we can readily see belongs to that period of transition; from the thought and style of Rabelais and Montaigne to that of Malherbe, Balzac and the great Classicists of l'Age d'Or of French literature.
Marie's father was a country nobleman who died early, leaving his widow with six children. She withdrew with them into Picardie, to an old chateau of her husband's, at Gournay-sur-Aronde, near Campiègne. Her limited means forced her to bring up her family in a most frugal way. The eldest daughter, Marie, grew up there. She was, from the first, a studious child, much to the disgust of her mother. Marie had no teachers, but showed here, as she did in all her after life, a strong will to attain her heart's desire. She taught herself. She learned Latin alone—without a grammar—by comparing the original with a translation. She tried to learn Greek the same way, but failed. Later some one offered to help her with the study of that language. In her autobiography, she gives us a portrait of herself as she was in her youth.
I was of medium size, well built, with clear though dark complexion, chestnut colored hair, round face—which cannot be called either beautiful or ugly (ni beau ni laid).
Those who knew her later seem to lay the emphasis more on the laid than on the beau.
It was near 1585, she was then nineteen years of age, that the first two books of the Essays (Edition, 1580) of Michel de Montaigne fell into her hands. Such was the impression they made upon her, that the young girl was carried away with enthusiasm. "This book," she says, "revealed me to myself. I was dazzled by it, and was seized with a desire greater than all else in the world to know the author. I had faith in him and made of him my mental guide (directeur) even before I knew him."
