Rencontre avec Érik Leborgne

Come and talk with Érik Leborgne, senior lecturer at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, about this new edition of the Mémoires de Madame la Marquise de Fresne by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (Classiques Garnier, 2025). The meeting will be chaired by Léa Van den Driessche, co-editor and teacher of modern French literature in collège and lycée

« You have exchanged a husband who was a tyrant for a lover who adores you »: such is the premise of the adventures of the Marquise de Fresne, married to a jealous man who gets rid of his wife by selling her to the privateer Gendron, a Frenchman who proves to be a more honourable man than her dangerous husband.

The marital question is treated here from a specifically feminine angle, through a marquise who is a woman of strong character and learning: she knows how to defend her rights and command respect, at sea as on land.

At Dulcigno, Gendron's lair, she is seen leading the life of a « Princess » of the Adriatic. But when she begins proceedings for separation, she gradually discovers the whole legal face, dark and menacing, of the papacy in all its forms.

As part of the 1-hour cycle, An author from Bibliothèque Sorbonne Nouvelle.