Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve

Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot, Dame de Villeneuve (born November 28, 1685 in Paris , † December 29, 1755 in Paris) was a French writer . She is best known as the author of the earliest version of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast ( La Belle et la Bête ).

life and work

Little is known about the early life of Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve. She was the daughter of the low nobleman Jean Barbot, Seigneur de Romagné et des Mothais, who came from La Rochelle , and Suzanne Allaire. On February 9, 1706, in La Rochelle, she married a lieutenant colonel in the infantry, Jean-Baptiste de Gaalon de Barzay, Seigneur de Villeneuve. Through his marriage, he received the rule of Villeneuve as a dowry from the Barbot family, but since he squandered it through his gambling addiction, his wife achieved a separation of property in November 1706. Nevertheless, the daughter Marie Louise Suzanne, born on February 13, 1708, emerged from the marriage.

After the death of her husband in Pamplona on June 14, 1711 , Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve found herself in a financially difficult position. More than a decade later, she settled in Paris and began writing to supplement her small income. Her first literary products brought her to the attention of Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon , who became friends with her and in whose household she worked as governess. She died in Paris at the end of 1755.

Villeneuve wrote novels and short stories . Her novel Le Phénix conjugal (1733) and her most successful work La Jardinière de Vincennes (1753) concentrate on the position of women in society and portray women of the lower classes as sensitive, admirable heroines. Villeneuve also wrote works, in which framework actions provide the impetus for storytelling. These internal narratives represent fairy tales that revolve around the endangered love between a prince and a princess. In Villeneuve's work La Jeune Américaine et les Contes marins (1740–41), the three fairy tales La Belle et la Bête , Les Naïades and Le Temps et la Patience are told to a young lady on the way to Santo Domingo for her marriage . Similarly, in Les Belles solitaires (1745) several stories such as Papa-Joli are supposed to entertain two girls who moved to the country. The fairy tale La Belle et la Bête (Eng. Beauty and the Beast ) retained lasting fame. However, it was only widely known in the shortened and edited version published in Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's magazine Magasin des enfants, ou dialogues entre une sage gouvernante et plusieurs de ses élèves in 1756 . Since then, it has seen countless adaptations as a play and in films.

Works

Many of Villeneuve's works were published anonymously ( signed Mme de V *** ), which often makes a reliable attribution difficult:

• Le Phénix conjugal, nouvelle du temps , 1733
• La Jeune Américaine et les Contes marins , The Hague 1740–41 (new edition under the title Le Temps et la patience , 2 vols., 1768)
• Gaston de Foix , quatrième du nom, nouvelle historique, galante et tragique , 2 vols., 1741
• Les Contes de cette année, ou le Loup galeux et la Jeune vieille , 1744 (new edition under the title Contes de Mme de Villeneuve , 1765)
• Les Belles solitaires , 3 vols., Amsterdam and Paris 1745
• Le Beau-Frère supposé , 4 vols., 1752
• La Jardinière de Vincennes, ou Les Caprices de l'Amour et de la Fortune , Paris 1753
• Le Juge prévenu , 2 vols., Paris 1754
• Anecdotes de la cour d'Alphonse XI, roi de Castille , 1755
• Mesdemoiselles de Marsanges , Paris 1757

literature

• Raymonde Robert: Villeneuve, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de . In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales, Vol. 14 (2014), Col. 214f.
• Paula Morris: Villeneuve, Gabrielle-Suzanne de . In: Anne Commire (Ed.) Women in World History , Vol. 16 (2002), p. 35.

Remarks

1. ↑ Dates of birth according to Raymonde Robert, Enzyklopädie des Märchen , Vol. 14, Col. 214.