A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Deshoulieres, Antoinette Ligier de la Garde
DESHOULIERES, ANTOINETTE LIGIER DE LA GARDE,
Was born at Paris, in 1638. At that period the education of young ladies was very carefully attended; usage required them to be instructed in many subjects that are not always open to their sex. Mademoiselle de la Garde evinced a brightness of mind, and love for study, at a very early age. Her taste for poetry manifested itself almost in infancy; she "lisped in number." Henault, a poet of some reputation, was a friend of the family, and he took pleasure in instructing this charming damsel in the rules of versification; it has even been said that he sacrificed some poems of his own to add to the celebrity of his pupil. Mademoiselle de la Garde added the charms of beauty, and pleasing manners, to her literary abilities. Perhaps her admirers, who were many, would have expressed it—her beauty rendered her charming in spite of her literary abilities. In 1651 she became the wife of the Seigneur Deshoulières, a Lieutenant-colonel of the great Conde. He participated actively in the civil war of the Fronde, and becoming obnoxious to the Queen-regent, suffered a confiscation of his property. Madame Deshoulières, who had accompanied her husband through the changes and chances of a soldier's life, went to Brussels, where a Spanish court resided, to obtain some claims which the colonel was not himself at leisure to pursue: this step resulted in an arbitrary imprisonment. She was confined in a state prison, for eight months, and at the end of that time with difficulty released, by the exertions of her husband. At the close of the civil wars, M. Deshoulières obtained an office in Guienne, where he retired with his family. At this time Antoinette had the opportunity of visiting Vaucluse: the scene of Petrarch's inspiration; and here it was that she composed her happiest effusions. Her pastorals, particularly "Les Moutons" and "Le Ruisseau," are universally allowed to be among the very best of that sort of writing in the French language. Some of her maxims are still frequently cited.
Madame Deshouliferes was made a member of the Academy of Aries, and of that of the Ricoveratl in Padua. She numbered among her friends many of the most distinguished persons of the day The two Corneilles, Flechier, Quinault, the Duke of Nevers, and La Rochefoucault, professed for her the highest esteem as a woman and as an authoress. The great Condé appears to have entertained for her a more tender sentiment—his rank, power, and many dazzling qualities, might have proved dangerous to a lighter mind; but her firm principles of virtue, and love for her husband, preserved her from the shadow of reproach. She had several children—a daughter, Antoinette, who inherited some of her mother's poetical talent; she took a prize at the French Academy, though Fontenelle was her competitor.
Madame Deshouliferes achieved her literary reputation, not by isolating herself from the duties of society, which poets have deemed necessary to the development of the poetic temperament. A tender mother, an active friend, as we have seen above, she did not hesitate to plunge into the difficulties of diplomacy, when called upon to aid her husband,—proving that the cultivation of the mind is by no means incompatible with attention to the minute and daily duties of the mother of a family. And those ladies who affect to despise feminine pursuits, or who complain of the cramping effect of woman's household cares, may learn from the example of this successful authoress, that neither are obstacles in the path of real genius, but rather an incentive to call forth talents, by developing the character in conformity with nature. Madame Deshoulières had studied with success geometry and philosophy, and was well versed in the Latin, Italian, and Spanish languages. She died in 1694.