A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Houlieres, (Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde, Madame des)
Was so highly distinguished for her poetical talents, as to be ranked among the first of the French poets. She was well versed in Latin, Italian, and Spanish, in each of which she wrote with facility and elegance. She attached herself more particularly to the study of her own language and the rules of French poetry, her taste for which commenced at an early age; and though she possessed great beauty, both of face and figure, and was perfectly elegant and pleasing in her manners, she seemed ambitious only of acquiring that kind of admiration which flatters great minds.
But with all these advantages, Madame des Houlieres was far from being happy. Her works breathe every where murmurs against fortune. In 1651, at the age of eighteen, her parents married her to M. des Houlieres, lieutenant-colonel in the service of the Prince of Conde, who was obliged shortly after to accompany that prince in his expedition to Rocroi, which was attended with success, and by which Monsieur des Houlieres was raised in the army; but being led into extraordinary expences to support his newly-acquired honours, his affairs were thrown into the utmost embarrassment, and most, of his effects seized. To add to bis misfortunes, his pay was also stopped; upon which, Madame des Houlieres went in person to court, and presented a petition in behalf of her husband; but no notice being taken of it, she made loud complaints, which was looked upon as a crime, and for which she was arrested, and conducted a prisoner to the castle of Vilvorden, two leagues from Brussels.
As soon as M. des Houlieres was informed of his wife's confinement, he solicited her liberty; but finding there were little hopes of obtaining it, marched to Vilvorden with some soldiers, forced the fortress, and carried her off in triumph; but he would undoubtedly have suffered for this resolute action, had not a general pardon been at that very time proclaimed, of which he opportunely took advantage. He, however, obtained soon after employment in the king's service, and his wife pursued her poetical studies. The earliest of her works that remain are of the year 1658. She composed a number of elegies, epigrams, songs, madrigals, odes, sonnets, idyls, and tragedies, but her idyls and moral reflections are the most esteemed. For a long time she contented herself with shewing her works to friends, who spread their reputation abroad; but, on their solicitation, she printed a volume in 1688, which met with general applause from people of taste. She was preparing a second when she died in the beginning of the second year of her widowhood, aged 56.
In the pastoral stile of writing, Madame des Houlieres has shewn uncommon genius. She was honoured with the friendship and esteem of the first personages of the age in which she lived, among whom were the dukes de Saint Agnan, de Montausier, de la Rochefoucault, de Nevers, the marshal de Vivonne, and the bishop of Nismes. Her talents procured her all the literary honours to which she was so justly entitled, being admitted into the academy of Aries, in Provence, and in that of the Ricovrati, at Padua; and the praises she gave to Louis XIV. in many of her works, obtained from this prince a pension of two thousand livres, which made her spend the evening of her days in comfort.
Her daughter inherited her mother's poetical talents, but in an inferior degree. Their works are usually bound up together.