Overview

This unorthodox biography explores the life of an extraordinary Enlightenment woman who, by sheer force of character, parlayed a skill in midwifery into a national institution. In 1759, in an effort to end infant mortality, Louis XV commissioned Madame Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray to travel throughout France teaching the art of childbirth to illiterate peasant women. For the next thirty years, this royal emissary taught in nearly forty cities and reached an estimated ten thousand students. She wrote a textbook and invented a life-sized obstetrical mannequin for her demonstrations. She contributed significantly to France's demographic upswing after 1760. Who was the woman, both the private self and the pseudonymous public celebrity? Nina Rattner Gelbart reconstructs Madame du Coudray's astonishing mission through extensive research in the hundreds of letters by, to, and about her in provincial archives throughout France. Tracing her subject's footsteps around the country, Gelbart chronicles du Coudray's battles with finance ministers, village matrons, local administrators, and recalcitrant physicians, her rises in power and falls from grace, and her death at the height of the Reign of Terror. At a deeper level, Gelbart recaptures du Coudray's interior journey as well, by questioning and dismantling the neat paper trail that the great midwife so carefully left behind. Delightfully written, this tale of a fascinating life at the end of the French Old Regime sheds new light on the histories of medicine, gender, society, politics, and culture.

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9780520221574

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Reviews

[A] remarkable analysis of a remarkable woman. . . . Written with serene confidence and unfailing insight, this is a model biography of a woman whose finest epitaph was that she produced babies 'like a cobbler produces shoes.' --Colin Jones, Times Literary Supplement

"""[A] remarkable analysis of a remarkable woman. . . . Written with serene confidence and unfailing insight, this is a model biography of a woman whose finest epitaph was that she produced babies 'like a cobbler produces shoes.'""--Colin Jones, ""Times Literary Supplement"

Managing to make this penetrating and original work of social history read like a novel, Gelbart vividly recreates - against a backdrop of France on the eve of revolution - the life and times of the 18th century's most famous midwife. Charismatic teacher, talented administrator and astute businesswoman, du Coudray was commissioned by Louis XV to teach the art of childbirth to illiterate peasant women. Reaching thousands of women, and training hundreds to become midwives, she wrote a textbook and invented a life-size obstetrical mannequin for her demonstrations. The first book-length treatment of this key figure in French medical history, this fascinating volume not only presents the reader with an unforgettable picture of early modern childbirth, but tells the story of an incredibly tenacious and brilliant woman. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

"Nina Rattner Gelbart is Professor of History and the History of Science at Occidental College, Los Angeles, and author of Feminine and Opposition Journalism in Old Regime France: ""Le Journal des Dames"" (California, 1987), which won the Sierra Prize."

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