Dear Andrea, The woman mainly dealt with in this article is Charlotte de Mornay, who wrote her memoirs of the time of the St Barthomolews Massacre etc. I include some excerpts from the article (hope I'm not infringing copyright!!) ...women writers of the confession....remained hampered, on the whole, by narrowly-defined gender roles and scripturally-mandated, subservient, silenced status. Thus the stern patriarchy of the Calvinist household, dubbed by Lyndal Roper in her study of Reformation Augsburg as "the holy household," took the power of prayer and preaching out of the hands of the corrupt Catholic clergy and placed it squarely between the palms of the Calvinist patriarch, who emulated his biblical prototypes, exhorting his household flock nightly.(7) There was no room for his wife's self-expression; her voice, like those of her children, day-laborers, or any visitors to the household, was mute before the biblical preachments of the father. So the case of Calvinist France warrants special examination.(14) What was it about the Huguenot dilemma that caused such intense resistance to female expression? How, specifically, were these constraints imposed? When Huguenot women did write, how did they legitimize their speech? What did they have to say for themselves? And, finally, what influence did they have on succeeding generations? ....... .... We begin by noting the scarcity of self-conscious and self-descriptive women writers of the Protestant Reformation in France. Charlotte de Mornay wrote her Memoires in tandem with those of her much more famous husband Philippe, but her self-expression generally seems subordinated to his more prominent public role and persona. Catherine de Parthenay's tragedy, Judith et Holopherne, was written and performed at La Rochelle in 1573, but this play was primarily obedient biblical exegesis. Marie Dentiere delivered capsule narratives of Reformed history, but on the whole these were devoid of autobiographical content. .... ...... [Extracts from a letter to his daughters on women's roles by the French poet Agrippa d'Aubigne] The first model is Marguerite de Navarre, author, noted evangelical, and sister of Francois I. D'Aubigne identifies her in biological fashion by age, function, and affiliation: "fille, femme, et mere de Roy." Only after affixing this tripartite label of biological and historical determinism does he acknowledge her writing. Significantly, he only recognizes her explicitly confessional literature (La Marguerite des Marguerites); he makes no mention of the more secular (and more fictional and creative) Heptameron. A group of women writers follows, including Louise Labe. Several Italian women are mentioned for work characterized by piety. Elsewhere Queen Elizabeth of England deserves mention because of her ability to perform politics like a man: "Such Princesses are obliged by their condition to the care, knowledge, capacities, functions and exercise of authority of men."(25) Authority remains, nonetheless, the rightful province of men alone, as the concluding possessive ("autoritez des hommes") attests. Nevertheless, the Rohan women, including Anne de Rohan, Catherine de Parthenay, and their Soubise cousins, excel through their writing, apparently intimidating male writers: "The writing of these two women has made us hide our pens several times."(26) ...... d'Aubigne speaks of a Genevan woman, Loyse Sarrasin. Although he purports to admire this woman greatly, he nevertheless portrays her as hamstrung by her femininity. [This section finishes with Agrippa and introduces Charlotte in her own right] ..... In Charlotte de Mornay's Memoires de Charlotte Arbaleste sur la vie de Duplessis-Mornay son mari (1549-1602) - roughly contemporary with the time in which d'Aubigne was writing to his daughters about how they should curtail their speech - the problematic aspects of the search for a space for female expression are greatly magnified. Charlotte de Mornay, wife of the illustrious Calvinist statesman Philippe, wrote her memoirs purportedly in tandem with her husband's. We find, however, that she is only able to speak of herself in code, from the barest of margins: her pretext for her speech about the self is her husband's speech. Such a strategy constitutes an interesting inversion of d'Aubigne's texts, in which women are the silent pre-texts for his speech. However, what Charlotte has to say about herself, in the limited space in which she says it, is highly personalized and strong. Even though she whispers from the margins, her voice is heard. And it is heard as distinctly female, worthy in its own right. Charlotte, in many ways ineluctably subordinate to the Calvinist patriarchy, nevertheless expects more of herself and of her voice. However, she is not a revolutionary, either. The strategy she adopts is to speak through the male, as though into a speaking tube. The male's presence provides the acceptable facade, but the voice in which she speaks is very much her own. Jeanette > http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?DOCID=1G1:19793517&refid=holomed_1 > which is titled "Shouting down Abraham: > how sixteenth century Huguenot Women > found their voice". The article was > originally published in 1997 in > Rennaissance Quarterly > >> "Huguenot women writers during the > 16th century Calvinism period have often > been disregarded by Huguenot male > authors. Women were only identified > with household works and their capabilities > for writing were often overlooked. However, > these women writers were able to make > their voices heard as male writers faced > certain obstacles to self-expression. > Although few in number and troubled by > gender roles and scriptually-mandated > status, Huguenot women's works were > still able to influence literature by > describing a new relationship with the > scripture." > >