Louise Boursier - Knowledge (XXG)

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newborns. In all three volumes, Bourgeois relies more on her own experience than on ancient texts—a relatively radical choice at a time when French medicine still often relied on the practices of ancient Greece and Rome as well as of medieval Europe. Her first volume includes innovative obstetrical protocols that, if followed correctly, could save lives. For example, Bourgeois gave instructions on how to induce labor in the case of a contracted pelvis; how to deliver a baby with a face presentation; and how to cut the cord between two ligatures when the cord was wrapped around the neck. She also included medicinal recipes she had validated for everyday use (sometimes, she claimed, by testing them on herself) as well as over four dozen detailed case histories. Few texts with such practical information on obstetrics and maternal care directed to women existed at the time, let alone ones written in a female voice. During the early modern period,

348:, was pregnant and did not find Madame Dupuis, the royal midwife, “agreeable.” Contemplating the grief that Madame Dupuis had given her at the licensing board examination, Bourgeois confessed, “I would have wanted another woman.” With the help of neighbors, friends, former clients, and royal physicians as well as the queen’s own ladies-in-waiting and their servants, Bourgeois created an elaborate scheme to supplant Dupuis. While Bourgeois could not find a way to meet privately with the queen, she was able to gain the queen’s attention for a moment at a large banquet at the House of Gondi where the royal couple dined once or twice a week. At just the right moment, Bourgeois’s allies directed the queen to observe Bourgeois from afar. Impressed with her calm demeanor and upright stance—characteristics that in Bourgeois’s era connoted moral and physical strength, the queen declared that she wanted no other midwife to ever touch her. 372:, first published in 1617, has medical advice as well as autobiographical and historical materials. The volume includes “Advice to My Daughter,” a didactic essay on the pitfalls of practicing midwifery. It is, as far as we know, the first text of its kind written by a midwife—a tradeswoman—to her daughter. The essay outlines religious and moral guidance regarding such topics as abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, and female modesty; it also describes how a midwife might avoid being blamed for unsuccessful deliveries. The second volume includes, in addition, “How I Learned the Art of Midwifery”—a brief autobiographical sketch that has become source material for almost all secondary accounts of Bourgeois’s life. A third essay, “The True Account of the Births of My Lords and Ladies the Children of France with the Noteworthy Particularities Thereof,” incorporates a dramatization of the birth of the future 400:’s five siblings, Bourgeois supplied intimate details about the queen’s labor and relays the royals’ concerns about finding appropriate wet nurses; she also described where the births took place; exchanges between the queen and others attending her; and the queen’s awarding Bourgeois a special velvet cap. Of this last event, she boasted, “Formerly, royal midwives wore velvet neckpieces and a thick gold chain around their neck. … I have the honor that no other woman except for me has touched the queen during her deliveries and afterwards.” These narratives provide a unique account of royal births that emphasize not only Bourgeois’s obstetrical prowess but also her perspective on the court’s internal workings at a critical moment in French history. 460:, a book of remedies. Her reluctance to publish stemmed from her concern about including recipes for certain remedies that she had been keeping secret in order to pass them on to her daughter, Antoinette, who was also a midwife. The publisher wrote, “The only thing that kept her from bowing to my prayers for a long time was the consideration of her daughter, who had embraced her profession, which she feared to harm. Finally recognizing that she had acquired by her skill and great judgment, such a reputation, that she was henceforth quite recommendable in herself, without her needing to be so by her mother’s secrets, gave me this manuscript.” 337:. Dupuis objected to Bourgeois’s obtaining a license because she was married to a surgeon. At the time, Parisian surgeons were competing with midwives for the most elite clients. Bourgeois claims that Dupuis remarked: “My heart tells me this doesn’t bode well for us.” Bourgeois adds that Dupuis kept her for a long time and threatened to have her burned at the stake if she tried to compete with Dupuis. Despite Dupuis’s concerns, the other members of the board allowed Bourgeois to receive her license and become a sworn midwife. 448:, in which she defended herself. She highlighted her many qualifications; cited her practice as a midwife for thirty-four years; and noted that she had honorably acquired the proper license and had written books on midwifery that were used by physicians in England and Germany. More specifically, she asserted that she carried out the delivery of the placenta properly. Even if small pieces of placenta remained, she insisted, they would have been flushed out by the lochia as the ancient Greek surgeon 215:

competing for elite clients—who had begun to prefer male surgeons not only for difficult but also for normal births—Bourgeois called out midwives, surgeons, and physicians alike for their incompetence and ignorance when it came to the care of pregnant, parturient, and postpartum mothers. Moreover, Bourgeois envisioned a collaborative rather than hierarchical relationship among trained midwives, surgeons, and physicians, one that would serve the best interests of mother and child.

329:(poor hospital); she allowed Bourgeois to witness both deliveries of infants and autopsies of women who had died in childbirth. These experiences contributed to her knowledge of female anatomy and the skills required to deliver a baby safely. At the time, the Hôtel-Dieu was the only institution in Paris where women could obtain formal training in midwifery. But apprenticeships were limited: only four interns were accepted every three months. 300:

1594. Bourgeois recounts that because she could read and had a surgeon for a husband, “ respectable woman who had delivered me of my three children and who liked me persuaded me to learn how to be a midwife.” Initially, Bourgeois writes, “I could not bring myself to when I thought of the taking children to be baptized. … In the end … fear of seeing my children go hungry made me do it.”

733:, 234. Ecclesiastical and secular legislation required that midwives be able to perform an emergency baptism if a priest was unavailable when a newborn was soon to die. Traditionally, midwives also brought a newborn to church for official baptism while the mother was still convalescing and considered “impure”; see Klairmont Lingo, Editor’s Introduction to Bourgeois, 441:. In 1627, while under Bourgeois’s care, the king’s sister-in-law Marie de Bourbon de Montpensier died six days after giving birth. Marie de Médicis ordered that an autopsy be made. The published report intimated that Bourgeois was to blame for the death, which was believed to have been caused by retained pieces of the placenta found in the uterus. 51: 296:. The couple had a comfortable life until the dynastic and religious wars that had wracked France for over thirty years came to the quiet suburb. In 1589, while her husband was away with the army, troops destroyed Bourgeois’s ancestral home and others like it. She escaped with her three children and mother by fleeing inside the Paris city walls. 392:

on an emotional roller coaster by not revealing the child’s sex immediately after it was born. She created narrative tension by describing at length how distraught the king and his courtiers were—until Bourgeois unveiled the naked child. In this narrative, Bourgeois also underplayed whatever part the

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royals placed in having a male heir. This attitude, of course, could only be exhibited after the actual birth of the future king. In her dramatization of his birth, Bourgeois exhibited a carnivalesque interpretation of this key event by implying that she could control the sex of the unborn child just

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that he reintroduced into medical practice; the technique allows a birth attendant to deliver a malpresenting infant feet first. This procedure obviated the need to use hooks or other sharp instruments to extract an impacted fetus, a procedure that killed the fetus and sometimes mortally harmed the

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Bourgeois wrote that to make ends meet she sold the furniture and other objects she had salvaged from her home as well as items she had embroidered. Life was difficult while her husband was at the front lines, but their financial circumstances did not improve after he returned in late 1593 or early

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to guide Bourgeois to the palace, where she became royal midwife. Creating genealogies of this kind to defend and assert one’s personal and professional authority was a commonplace practice among male and female authors during this period. Also in this volume, Bourgeois discussed how to choose wet

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In the second volume, Bourgeois told her readers that that she wanted to “revise and enlarge the previous volume” by including a long chapter on diseases of the womb. In addition, she created a mythological genealogy of her ascent to the position of royal midwife, and she included her daughter in

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Overall, Bourgeois’s mission was to educate midwives so that they could become more competent at caring for women’s obstetrical and gynecological needs as well as to inform women about how to care for their bodies themselves. At a time when the best trained and most skilled midwives of Paris were

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During childhood was probably tutored in the humanities; taught herself midwifery by reading the writings of the obstetrical innovator Ambroise Paré and possibly by obtaining tips from her surgeon husband (who worked under Paré for twenty years). Also observed both deliveries and the autopsies of

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These publications include observation-based, innovative obstetrical protocols to manage difficult births as well as advice for pregnant and postpartum mothers and newborns. Bourgeois also offered recipes for various kinds of medications that would have been easy for a woman to make herself. The

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Scholarly as well as empirically based writings on midwifery and gynecology that include innovative protocols for delivering malpresenting fetuses. Became royal midwife to French royal family and delivered the future Louis XIII and his five siblings. Bourgeois’s successful delivery of the future

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The third volume, published in 1626, was the briefest; it contains case histories that emphasize the importance of orally transmitted knowledge, and Bourgeois wrote of her growing concern about incompetent physicians who advise women without really understanding the signs of or other aspects of

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in three consecutive volumes. These volumes comprise numerous genres: medical treatise, autobiography, history, poetry—to extol her supporters and lambast her enemies—and parental advice. But Bourgeois’s chief goal in publishing was to improve the health and alleviate the suffering of women and

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of France and the first female author in that country to publish a medical text. Largely self-taught, she delivered babies for and offered obstetrical and gynecological services to Parisian women of all social classes before coming to serve Queen Marie de Medicis in 1601. Bourgeois successfully

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Bourgeois recounts that her first client was her porter’s wife. Following this first delivery, she became “quite busy among the poor and other kinds of people.” In 1598, Bourgeois went before the official medical licensing board to receive a midwifery license. The board consisted of two senior

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and her own contemporary, the anatomist Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente (1565–1613), had discussed in their writings. However, the self-defense did not persuade her detractors. With all of her allies at court deceased, the scandal most likely ended her career as royal midwife.

866:, ed. Willem de Blécourt and Cornélie Usborne (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 36–55. Also see Bridgette A. Sheridan, “Patronage and the Power of the Pen: The Making of the French Royal Midwife Louise Bourgeois,” Early Modern Women 13, no. 1 (September 2018): 58–80, 289:, an upper-class suburb just outside of Paris. Bourgeois wrote, “Not for anything would we have traded our house for a beautiful one in the city, because … we had everything that those who lived in the city had, plus good air and the freedom of beautiful places to walk.” 324:

Paré also emphasized the importance of learning human anatomy by performing dissections, a part of medical and surgical training to which most midwives never had access. However, Bourgeois had a friendship with the head midwife at Paris’s

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Bourgeois writes that she “began to study Paré” after deciding to become a midwife. Paré was an obstetrical innovator and battle wound surgeon; Bourgeois does not indicate that she apprenticed under another midwife. See Louise Bourgeois,

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Unlike the majority of practicing midwives, Bourgeois did not learn midwifery by apprenticing to a more experienced midwife nor does she acknowledge that her husband instructed her. Instead, she recounts that she read the work of

376:. The queen’s first pregnancy took place at a time when France was in desperate need of a direct male heir to the throne; the lack of an heir had exacerbated the dynastic and religious wars of the prior thirty years. 915:, 112. See also page 153 where Bourgeois claims to have “experimented on self” by swathing on her own bruised nipple a mixture of agrimony, mallow wort, marshmallow, and groundsel mixed with male pig fat and May butter. 561:(1626 edition), ed. Alison Klairmont Lingo, trans. Stephanie O’Hara (Toronto and Tempe, AZ: Iter and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2017), 234. All quotations and summaries from Bourgeois’s 313:

who, by 1593 or 1594 when Bourgeois decided to become a midwife, was deceased (he died in 1590). In Paré’s writing, Bourgeois would have found instructions on how to perform an obstetrical technique called

412:, who, Bourgeois asserted, adopted her. Upon this adoption, Bourgeois further claimed, the ancient goddess of childbirth Lucina became jealous of Phaenarete. To demonstrate her allegiance to Bourgeois, 617:, ed. Kathleen P. Long (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010), 239–259; Bridgette Sheridan, “At Birth: The Modern State, Modern Medicine, and the Royal Midwife Louise Bourgeois in Seventeenth-Century France,” 110:

Louis XIII helped bring about peace and prosperity in the realm after many decades of dynastic and religious war. Known for being the first woman to write a printed medical text in France.

613:(Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 1996), 99–120; Bridgette Sheridan, “Whither Childbearing: Gender, Status, and the Professionalization of Medicine in Early Modern France,” in 943:

Hebammen Buch, darinn von Fruchtbarkeit und Unfruchtbarkeit der Weiber, zeitigen und unzeitigen Geburt zufälligen Kranckheiten so wol der Kindbetterin als des Kindes gehandelt wird

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Les Traités d’obstétrique en langue française au seuil de la modernité: Bibliographie critique des Divers travaulx d’Euchaire Rösslin (1536) à l’Apologie de Louyse Bourgeois (1627)

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three volumes include over four dozen detailed case histories that made a substantial contribution to the emerging empiricism of seventeenth-century European science and medicine.

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Klairmont Lingo, Alison. “Connaître le secret des femmes: Louise Bourgeois (1563–1636), sage-femme de la reine, et Jacques Guillemeau (1549–1613), chirurgien du roi.” In

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Observations diverses sur la stérilité, perte de fruits, fécondité, accouchements et maladies des femmes et enfants nouveau-nés; suivi de Instructions à ma fille: 1609

250:(1690). Also following Bourgeois's example was Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray (c. 1712–1794); it is unknown whether du Coudray was related to Bourgeois. 356:

Bourgeois’s successes in the royal birthing room provided her with a large salary; in addition, the queen’s literary patronage resulted in Bourgeois’s publishing

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Bourgeois died on 20 December 1636. She was buried with her ancestors, who lived outside of Paris, rather than with her husband, whose grave was in the city.

1137:. Edited by Alison Klairmont Lingo. Translated by Stephanie O’Hara. Toronto and Tempe: Iter and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2017. 839:

Statuts et reiglemens ordonnez pour toutes les matronnes ou saiges femmes de la ville, prévosté et vicomté de Paris & reiglement pour les Sages Femmes

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Diverse observations on sterility, miscarriage, fertility childbirth, and diseases of women and newborn children amply treated and successfully practiced

961:(London: Nathaniel Brooke, 1656). Regarding the latter, see Stephanie O’Hara, “Translation, Gender, and Early Modern Midwifery: Louise Bourgeois’s 292:

In 1584, Bourgeois married Martin Boursier, a barber–surgeon who had lived and worked for twenty years with the obstetrical and surgical innovator

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Verscheide Aenmerckingen, Nopende de onvruchtbaerheyt, misvallen, vrugtbaerheyt, Kinderbaren, Siecten der Vrouwen, ende de Geboorte der Kinderen

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are taken from this first critical edition of the three volumes and their complete English translation, hereafter referred to as Bourgeois,

261:'s siblings' births, a sum eight times greater than the average municipal midwife's salary. In 1608, she received an additional sum of 6000 1342: 1312: 631:

There are many instances where Bourgeois emphasizes the importance of collaboration in the birthing room; see for example Bourgeois,

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Worth-Stylianou, “La Théâtralisation de la naissance du dauphin (1601) chez Louise Bourgeois, sage- femme de Marie de Médicis,” in

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Apologie de Louyse Bourgeois dite Bourcier, Sage femme de la Royne mere du Roy, & de feu Madame. Contre le rapport des medecins

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Observations diverses sur la sterilité, perte de fruict, foecondite, accouchements et maladies des femmes et enfants nouveaux naiz

184: 497:

Observations diverses sur la stérilité, perte de fruict, foecondité, accouchements et maladies des femmes et enfants nouveaux naiz

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Observations diverses sur la stérilité, perte de fruict, foecondité, accouchements et maladies des femmes et enfants nouveaux naiz

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Observations diverses sur la stérilité, perte de fruict, foecondité, accouchements et maladies des femmes et enfants nouveaux naiz

837:, first issued in 1560, are available at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in a 1587 edition that includes related documents: 1239:

Sheridan, Bridgette. “Whither Childbearing: Gender, Status, and the Professionalization of Medicine in Early Modern France.” In

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Origines de la maternité de Paris: les maîtresses sages-femmes et l’office des accouchées de l’ancien Hôtel-Dieu (1378–1796)

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midwives, a physician, and two surgeons. Madame Dupuis, one of the two senior midwives, was royal midwife in the court of

862:, 39. To learn more about Bourgeois’s scheme see Yaarah Bar-on, “Neighbours and Gossip in Early Modern Gynaecology,” in 538: 904:

Philip A. Kalisch, Margaret Scobey, and Beatrice J. Kalisch, “Louyse Bourgeois and the Emergence of Modern Midwifery,”

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Récit véritable de la naissance de Messeigneurs et Dames les enfans de France. Instruction à ma fille et autres textes

188: 1056:“Rapport,” the autopsy report, appears at the end of Appendix I in the French critical edition; Louise Boursier, 192: 180: 1292: 167: 456:

One year before her death, and only because of the persistent urging of her publisher, Bourgeois published

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Worth-Stylianou, Valerie. “Birthing Tales in French Medical Works ca.1500–1650.” www.birthingtales.org.

1287: 1282: 326: 226:. Even after her death she enjoyed fame and influence in France and beyond. Her work is reflected in 176: 172: 864:

Cultural Approaches to the History of Medicine: Mediating Medicine in Early Modern and Modern Europe

434: 417: 345: 266: 1200:, ed. Marie-Elisabeth Henneau. SIEFAR, 2016. http://siefar.org/dictionnaire/fr/Louise_Bourgeois. 413: 389: 341: 334: 270: 253:

Bourgeois's career as a royal court midwife spanned more than twenty-six years. She was paid 900

223: 265:, most likely in recognition of her superior services to the royal family. After the birth of 243: 1025:, 250–257; Worth-Stylianou, “La Théâtralisation de la naissance du dauphin (1601),” 137–154. 1246:

Thomas, Samuel. “Early Modern Midwifery: Splitting the Profession, Connecting the History.”

867: 310: 293: 219: 31: 444:

In response to this implicit attack upon her competency, Bourgeois wrote a brief pamphlet,

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before its delivery, a commonly held notion of her era. She went on to claim that she set

316: 195:(1609). In 1609, Bourgeois published the first of three successive volumes on obstetrics: 572:

For more information, see “Publications by Louise Bourgeois” at the end of this article.

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O’Hara, Stephanie. “Translation, Gender, and Early Modern Midwifery: Louise Bourgeois’s

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Pregnancy and Birth in Early Modern France: Treatises by Caring Physicians and Surgeons

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Making Women’s Medicine Masculine: The Rise of Male Authority in Pre-Modern Gynaecology

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Donner vie au royaume. Grossesses et maternités à la cour de France (XVI–XVIII siècles)

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displays her knowledge of and playful attitude toward the critical importance that the

1276: 595:, ed. Gianna Pomata and Nancy G. Siraisi (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 105–146. 393:

attending royal physicians and surgeons had at the event; she barely mentions them.

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Instruction familière et utile aux sages-femmes pour bien pratiquer les accouchemens

569:. All translations of the original French in this article are by Stephanie O’Hara. 218:

Bourgeois’s works were as popular in her day as those of male medical authors like

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was translated into German and Dutch; and partially and inexactly into English.

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Fidelle relation de l’accouchement, maladie et ouverture du corps de feu Madame

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Fidelle relation de l’accouchement, maladie et ouverture du corps de feu Madame

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Fidelle relation de l’accouchement, maladie et ouverture du corps de feu Madame

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Onvrugtbaarheit, Misvallen, Vrugtbaarheit, Kinderbaaren en Siekten der Vrouwen

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Het Begin en den Ingang van alle Menschen in de Wereld, of Aanmerkingen over d

438: 405: 397: 380: 373: 258: 227: 201:

Amplement traictees et heureusement praticquees par L. Bourgeois dite Boursier

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Klairmont Lingo, Alison. “Louise Bourgeois’s School of Learning and Action.”

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sur Louise Bourgeois, dite Boursier, sage- femme de la reine Marie de Médicis

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Dynamis: acta hispanica ad medicinal scientifiarumque historiam illustrandam

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Alison Klairmont Lingo, “Louise Bourgeois’s School of Learning and Action,”

163: 871: 409: 1193:, ed. Adeline Gargam, 113–126. France: Artois Presses Université, 2017. 577:

The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution

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Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early Modern France

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Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early Modern France

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Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, Queen of Scots, and Queen of Ireland

1060:, ed. François Rouget and Colette Winn (Geneva: Droz, 2000), 108–109. 207:). Subsequent volumes were published in 1617 and 1626, also in Paris. 90: 1234:

Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance: Italy, France, and England

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Richard L. Petrelli, “The Regulation of French Midwifery during the

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Birthing Bodies in Early France: Stories of Gender and Reproduction

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49, no. 3 (2020): 229–255. doi.org/ 10.1080/00497878.2020.1714396.

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Birthing Bodies in Early France: Stories of Gender and Reproduction

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Colette H. Winn, “De sage(-)femme a sage(-)fille: Louise Boursier,

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Enfanter: discours, pratiques et représentations de l’accouchement

579:(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004); Gianna Pomata, “ 1270:. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2013. 1243:, ed. Kathleen P. Long, 239–258. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016. 285:

Bourgeois was born into a wealthy, propertied family in 1563 in

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The King’s Midwife: A History and Mystery of Madame du Coudray.

933:, 72–73; Klairmont Lingo, Editor’s Introduction to Bourgeois, 885:

Childbirth and the Display of Authority in Early Modern France

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On early modern theories of physiognomy, see Lianne McTavish,

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La sage femme ou le médecin: une nouvelle conception de la vie

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The King’s Midwife: A History and Mystery of Madame du Coudray

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Alison Klairmont Lingo, Editor’s Introduction to Bourgeois,

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Women’s Healthcare in the Medieval West: Texts and Contexts

1110:(Paris: Mondiere, 1635), trans. Alison Klairmont Lingo, aii 269:’s last child in 1609, Bourgeois asked for a pension. King 101:

women who died in childbirth at the poor hospital in Paris.

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Marie de Medici Queen of France and Navarre Six Deliveries

1004:(Detroit, IL: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 55–56. 929:

Stephanie O’Hara, Translator’s Introduction to Bourgeois,

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The Midwives Book: Or the Whole Art of Midwifry Discovered

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nurses and presented a series of unusual case histories.

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In her narratives of the subsequent births of the future

1144:. Edited by Françoise Olive. Paris: Côté-femmes, 1992. 991:, ed. S. Chaouche (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2010), 141. 957:(Delft: Bon, 1658). The partial English translation is 744:, 2nd ed. (New York: Parthenon Publishing, 2000), 150. 615:

Gender and Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Culture

277:, which was considered a reasonable retirement income. 30:

This article is about the midwife. For the artist, see

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Midwifery Medicine in Modern France: Louise Bourgeois.

656:(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 20. 1232:

Robin, Diana, Anne R. Larsen, and Carole Levin, eds.

1151:. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2004. 1092: