Henriette-Julie de Murat

Henriette-Julie de Murat (1668 in Paris – 9 September 1716 in Château de la Buzardière) was an aristocratic French writer of the late 17th century, associated with the Baroque Précieuses movement, and one of the leading members of the French Salons who created the fairy tale genre. She was considered to be part of les conteuses.

Life She most likely spent most of her childhood in Paris after having been born there on 14 October 1668 to Louise-Marie Foccault de Daugnon from Limousin, daughter of Louis Foucault, Count de Daugnon, and Michel de Castelnau from Bigorre, colonel and governor of Brest, and son of Jacques de Mauvissiere, Marquis de Castelnau. Her father died on 2 December 1672, when she was only four years old, from wounds incurred in the Franco-Dutch war. Salonnieres Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force and Louise de Bossigny were both her cousins.

As the daughter of a marquis, she was officially presented at the court of Versailles in 1686. In 1691 she married Nicholas de Murat, Count de Gilbertez, colonel of an infantry regiment.

In 1699 she also published A Trip to the Country, which was particularly popular, going through multiple editions right up to the 1789 Revolution and extending the fairy tale genre into a contemporary setting with a cross over to the ghost story genre.

That same year Murat was elected to the Accademia degli Ricovrati (Academy of the Sheltered) of Padua, along with de La Force and Bernard, joining the salon hostesses d’Aulnoy, L’Heritier, Scudery and Antoinette Deshoulieres. Another recognition she received was one of the Academy of Toulouse's Floral Games prizes for excerpts from a volume of her poetry, which is now lost.

In December 1699 she was involved in a scandal when a report was circulated accusing her of "shocking practices and beliefs" including lesbianism. From 1698-1702 Murat was the subject of police reports on her activities by the Lieutenant General of the Paris Police, Marc Rene, Marquis de Voyer d'Argenson with his report of 6 December 1699 of her ‘shocking practices and beliefs’ bringing matters to crisis point. ‘The crimes that are attributed to Madame de Murat are not of a kind to be easily proven by way of information, because they deal with domestic impiety and a monstrous attachment to people of her own sex. However, I would very much like to know what she would say to the following facts; a portrait pierced several times with a knife, an act caused by her own jealousy towards a woman she loved and then left a few months ago only to become attached to Madame de Nantiat, another woman of the greatest dissoluteness, known less for the fines she incurred for her gambling than for her moral disorder. That woman, who is housed by [Murat] is the object of her perpetual adorations even in the presence of some valets and pawnbrokers.’She was estranged from her husband and disinherited by her mother, which forced her to stop publishing. It appears she spent the next year in the Limousin region staying with Diane-Marie de Pontcharraud, who was a year or two older than Murat, and who had married the Baron de Nantiat when she was just fourteen.