Marie de Régnier (; 20 December 1875 – 6 February 1963), also known by her maiden name Marie de Heredia or her pen-name Gérard d'Houville (), was a French novelist and poet, and closely involved in the artistic circles of early twentieth-century Paris.

Biography Marie de Heredia was the second of three daughters of Cuban-born French poet José-Maria de Heredia, and from an early age she mixed with many writers and artists who came to her father's house, including Leconte de Lisle, Anna de Noailles, Paul Valéry, Pierre Louÿs and Anatole France.Tama Lea Engelking, ‘The Secret Rebellion of a Literary Daughter: The Poetry of Gérard d'Houville’, French Literary Series vol. XVI, 1989

Her private life was somewhat convoluted. She married poet Henri de Régnier, but had a long-term relationship with Pierre Louÿs, who was probably the father of her son Pierre de Régnier (1898–1943). She also took several other lovers, including Edmond Jaloux, Jean-Louis Vaudoyer, Gabriele D'Annunzio (during his exile in Paris from 1910 to 1914), and dramatist Henri Bernstein. Her association with openly lesbian colleagues also led to rumours about her own sexuality.

Works Though sometimes better known for her liaisons with other artists, Marie de Régnier was a very accomplished poet and novelist in her own right, "considered one of the most gifted of the bevy of women writers that her age produced". Her first attempts at poetry were written at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, where her father was a director. He and his friends encouraged her talents from a very young age, and she eventually began publishing under her married name, later taking the masculine-sounding pseudonym "Gérard d'Houville" (derived from the name of a Norman grandmother, "Louise Gérard d'Houville" or "Girard d'Ouville"Norman R. Shapiro (Ed.), French Women Poets of Nine Centuries, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, ). She later said her use of a pen-name was a way of distancing herself from her more famous husband and father, but it was not a serious attempt to disguise her sex: contemporary critics and commentators always referred to "Madame" Gérard d'Houville.

Her work appeared notably in the Revue des deux Mondes from 1894 and was widely admired, with some critics comparing her favourably to Mallarmé. Many of these poems have still not been collected into a modern edition. Her first novel, L'Inconstante, appeared in 1903.

Critical reception and legacy

De Heredia's work was acclaimed throughout her career and she was a popular writer with the public as well as critics. When French newspaper L'Intransigeant asked readers in 1910 to name the top three female writers deserving of a place in the Académie française, "Gérard d'Houville" was placed in top position, above Anna de Noailles and Colette.Jennifer E. Milligan, The Forgotten Generation: French Women Writers of the Inter-war Period, Berg Publishers 1996, In 1918 she was the recipient of the Académie française's inaugural Grand Prix de Littérature, awarded for her fiction, and in 1958 she was also given the Académie's Grand Prix de Poésie for her poetic oeuvre – to this day the only woman to have received both awards.

Several artists and painters of the time took her portrait, including Jacques-Émile Blanche and Jean-Louis Forain. She was also the subject of several of Pierre Louÿs's nude photographs.

Select bibliography L'Inconstante, roman, 1903 Esclave, 1905 Le Temps d'aimer, 1908 Le Séducteur, 1914 Jeune Fille, 1916 Tant pis pour toi, 1921 Le Roman des quatre, 1923 (written in collaboration with Paul Bourget, Henri Duvernois and Pierre Benoit) Le Chou, 1924 Vingt poèmes, 1925 L'Enfant, 1925 La Vie amoureuse de l'Impératrice Joséphine, 1925 Clowns, 1925 Paris et les voyages, 1925 Chez le magicien, 1926 Proprette et Cochonnet, 1926 Opinions candides, 1926 Je crois que je vous aime... Sept proverbes, 1927 Esclave amoureuse, 1927 La Vie amoureuse de la Belle Hélène, 1928 Le Diadème de Flore, 1928 Le Charmant Rendez-Vous, 1929 Les Rêves de Rikiki, 1930 Les Poésies, 1931 L'Impératrice Joséphine, 1933 Peau d'âme, 1935 Le Temps d'aimer, 1935 Enfantines et Amoureuses, 1946

Further reading Dominique Bona, Les yeux noirs : les vies extraordinaires des sœurs Heredia, J-C. Lattès, 1989 Robert Fleury, Marie de Régnier, Plon, 1990 Jean-Paul Goujon, Dossier secret : Pierre Louÿs-Marie de Régnier, Paris, Christian Bourgois, 2002 Robert Fleury, Marie de Régnier, l'inconstante, Omnibus, 2003 Marie de Laubier (dir.), Une muse de la Belle Époque : Marie de Régnier, BNF, 2004

Film 2019 : Curiosa, an erotic French movie directed by Lou Jeunet.

External links Selected poems (in French)

References