Thieme sorts three centuries of Frenchwomen by the kind of power they held: the queens who stood for family and religion, the mistresses who ran politics without office, and the writers and salon hostesses who effectively directed French literary life — Rambouillet and Sévigné, Maintenon, du Deffand, de Staël.
Three centuries of Frenchwomen who governed without being allowed to. Download the free EPUB.