The King's Midwife: A History and Mystery of Madame du Coudray

by Nina Rattner Gelbart

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520924109
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	04/28/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	358
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Who Is Mme du Coudray?	1
1. The Portrait, Paris, Summer 1985	3
2. Biography as History and Mystery, Los Angeles and
France, 1986-1996	6
3. The National Midwife's Mission Statement, Clermont, 1
August 1760	15
1. From Private Practice to Public Service	23
A Parisian Midwife
4. Hanging Her Shingle, Paris, 22 February 1740	25
5. A Birth, Paris, January 1744	31
6. The Petition, Paris, 17 May 1745	36
7. Apprentices and Associates, Paris, 22 January 1751	44
Teaching in Auvergne: The Depopulation Issue
8. Break to the Provinces, Thiers-en-Auvergne, 1
October 1751	54
9. "The Stories They Told Me," Clermont, 9 May 1755	57
10. The "Machine," Paris, 13 May 1756	60
11. Early Lessons, Clermont, July 1757	64
12. A Future Hero, Chavaniac, 7 September 1757	71
13. Textbook as Patriotism, Clermont, January 1759	72
14. Protest from a Village Matron, Plauzat, 12 June
1759	79
2. Saving Babies for France	89
15. Royal Brevet: "Sent by the King," Versailles, 19
October 1759	91
16. Traveling for His Majesty, Moulins, November 1761	96
17. Boasts, Rebuffs, and Boutin, Chalon-sur-Saone, 19
March 1763	100
18. Turgot, Tulle, 29 December 1763	103
19. "Her Unendurable Arrogance," Angouleme, 30 July
1764	106
20. The Thrifty Laverdy, Fontainebleau, 16 October
1764	108
21. Sounding Her Mood, Bourdeilles, 12 December 1764	111
22. Delivering "Like a Cobbler Makes Shoes,"
Poitiers, February 1765	112
23. Surgeons of the King's Navy, Rochefort-sur-Mer,
30 April 1766	115
24. Brevet No. 2: The Royal Treasury, Compiegne, 18
August 1767	119
25. The Bien(s) de l'Humanite, Montargis, 30
September 1767	120
26. The Students--"Mes femmes," Bourges, All Saints'
Day 1767	122
27. "A Furious Disgust," Bourges, 9 February 1768	125
28. Prize Pupil, Issoudun, 2 August 1768	132
29. New Edition, Strong Words, Perigueux, 4 September
1769	135
30. The Kindness of Strangers, Agen, 30 November 1769	138
3. Forging Farther Afield--Friends, "Family," and Foes	141
New Strains, Private Needs
31. Friendship and Fortification, Bordeaux, Spring
1770	143
32. The Suitor and Other Calamities, Auch, 19
December 1770	146
33. Coutanceau, "Provost" and Partner, Montauban,
Winter 1771	151
34. "Happy as a Queen," Grenoble, 16 June 1772	152
35. Networks, Newspapers, and Name Games, Besancon,
16 November 1772	155
36. Flirtation in Champagne, Chalons-sur-Marne, March
1773	162
37. "I Cost Nothing," Verdun, 17 June 1773	165
38. She "Partakes of the Prodigious," Neufchateau,
Fall 1773	169
Designing a Dynasty
39. Romance in the Entourage, Nancy, 27 February 1774	172
40. Brevet No. 3: The Succession, Versailles, 1 March
1774	174
41. "A Reward So Justly Deserved," Amiens, 15 April
1774	175
42. Overtures Beyond the Border, Lille, 24 December
1774	180
43. A Wedding Across the Flemish Frontier, Ypres, 28
February 1775	183
44. Ministerial Mutiny? Caen, 2 July 1775	187
45. A Newborn and a Wet Nurse, Rennes, 8 January 1776	190
46. "Attend, Monsieur, to My Little Interests,"
Nantes, Summer and Fall 1776	196
Detractors, Defenses, Dazzling Displays
47. The Attack, Paris, 5 March 1777	201
48. Counterattack: "It Is the King Who Pays Me,"
Evreux, 27 October 1777	207
49. Courting the Neckers, Paris, 31 December 1777	212
50. Pandemonium, Le Mans, 11 January 1778	213
51. The Niece's Rest Cure, Forges-les-Eaux, Spring
1778	217
52. Class/Mass/Vacation, Angers, 1 July 1778	219
4. Delivering the Goods	223
53. Protecting du Coudray's Method, Marly, 7 May 1779	225
54. Women and Cows, Alfort near Charenton, October
1780	226
5. Turning over the Keys	235
55. "My Age and My Infirmities," Bourges, 25 December
1781	237
56. Family Separation, Belley, 30 December 1782	243
57. Cunning and Calonne, Paris, 12 July 1785	246
58. Rumblings and Discontent, Sarlat, March 1787	251
6. Citoyenne Midwives and the Revolution	257
59. As the Bastille Falls, Castillones, 14 July 1789	259
60. The Lafayette Connection, Paris, Fall 1790	260
61. What Treasury Will Pay? Bordeaux, 1 July 1791	265
62. Mme Coutanceau's Clinic, Bordeaux, 30 August 1793	268
63. Du Coudray, Casualty of the Terror, Bordeaux, 28
Germinal An II (17 Apri 1 1794)	271
Epilogue: Paris and Los Angeles, 1994-1996	277
Abbreviations	285
Notes	287
Bibliography	321
List of Illustrations	335
Acknowledgments	336
Index	337

What People are Saying About This

Mary Linderman

Impressively imaginative....The first book-length treatment of a cental figure in French medical and social history and an authentic and immediate view of midwifery in early modern Europe. -- Author of Health and Healing In Eighteenth-Century Germany

Emily Eakin

Gelbart. . .makes a bit too much of de Coudray's feminist convictions. One obstacle. . .is that du Coudray's personal life and private thoughts remain a total mystery. Only the public record. . .survives. And for the most part, Gelbart acquits herself brilliantly with this material. . . -- The New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

Gelbart's ability to relate the mystery, as well as the history, of du Coudray makes this an alluring work.

Journal of the American Medical Association

Wry and intelligent. . .Gelbart acquits herself brilliantly with this material, plumbing du Coudray's deviations from bureaucratic boilerplate for the emotional vicissitudes they surely betray, and showing admirable interpretive restraint where the public mask refuses to yield.
—New York Times Book Review

Emily Eakin

This reconstruction of the life of a woman who began teaching midwifery courses in France in 1759 makes use of an unusual method: brief, dated sections describe du Coudray's activities in the present tense. It's a gamble, but it works. In Gelbart's skilled hands, du Coudray comes alive both as a historical figure and as a woman. While there are still holes in this history (and Gelbart openly admits as much), the material that is presented is absorbing. A description of a 1744 birth with bloodletting and herbal concoctions fascinates, both because of its strangeness and its familiarity. Du Coudray is said to have been responsible for the training of an estimated 10,000 midwives (counting those she trained personally and those in turn trained by her former students) over 35 years. She was also the inventor of obstetrical "machines," anatomical models made of leather encasing real pelvic bones (though later the bones were made of wood and wicker) that made it possible for midwifery students to gain hands-on experience. In 1759 she published a textbook on midwifery that Gelbart describes as France's first how-to manual. Gelbart, a professor of history at Occidental College in L.A., convincingly depicts du Coudray as a woman who saw her teaching as a kind of patriotic duty; and through this portrayal, Gelbart reveals interesting glimpses of late-18th-century France. Jealousy and competition between midwives (who were all female) and surgeons (who were all male) are reported as early as 1743. Plus a change.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This is a fascinating book by a prize-winning historian ("Feminine and Opposition Journalism in Old Regime France", 1987). Beautifully written and rooted in extensive archival research, it recounts the life and work of a Parisian midwife who in 1759 was commissioned by Louis XV to launch a nationwide crusade to professionalize midwifery. Worried about depopulation and informed by the spirit of the Enlightenment, the king named Madame du Coudray as royal emissary charged with traveling throughout France to teach the art of childbirth. Aided by a textbook on obstetrics that she herself had authored and a life-sized obstetrical mannequin also of her own invention, du Coudray taught in nearly 40 cities and reached approximately 10,000 students. This work vividly describes the details and difficulties of early modern childbirth as well as skillfully analyzing the meaning of du Coudray's politics and feminism. Facing political obstacles from hostile doctors, other midwives, and local religious authorities, du Coudray worked within the system to create a reputation and role for herself and the niece who would be her successor. Highly recommended for specialists in women's history, French history, and the history of medicine. Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ

Library Journal

Her book is inviting and engaging; it offers a vivid portrait of how one woman maneuvered her way through a world of extreme privilege, poverty, stench, filth and opulence that we call 18th-century France. -- Women's Review of Books

Londa Schiebinger

Wry and intelligent. . .Gelbart acquits herself brilliantly with this material, plumbing du Coudray's deviations from bureaucratic boilerplate for the emotional vicissitudes they surely betray, and showing admirable interpretive restraint where the public mask refuses to yield. -- The New York Times Book Review

Emily Eakin

[A] wry and intelligent biography... Gelbart equips herself brilliantly with this material.
— New York Times Book Review

Eakin

[A] remarkable analysis of a remarkable woman... [A] reader's joy... Written with extreme confidence and unfailing insight. This is a model biography of a woman whose final epitaph was that she produced babies [like a cobbler produces shoes].
— Times Literary Supplement

Colin Jones