Marc de Montifaud

Marc de Montifaud (2 April 1845 – 24 September 1912), born Marie-Amélie Chartroule de Montifaud, was a French art critic and writer.

Life and education Marie-Amélie Chartroule de Montifaud was born in Paris in 1845 to Paul Chartroule de Montifaud, a physician, and a Catholic mother, Angélina Armande Charlotte d'Archies. As a child, her mother educated her in the principles of the catechism while her father, a free-thinker, introduced her to philosophy. Marc was trained in art in the studio of the painter Jean-Baptiste-Ange Tissier. At the age of 19, she married Spanish noble Juan Francis Léon de Quivogne, Comte de Luna. They had one child, Marc, born in 1874. This gender non-conforming writer as well as wife and mother, died in Neuilly-sur-Marne on 24 September 1912.

Career In 1865, at the age of 16, Montifaud began writing under the name Marc de Montifraud as an art critic for the journal L'Artiste, covering art, music and literature over a period of 12 years. One of her earliest assignments was to review the prestigious Salon, the premier annual art exhibition in Paris. and likely also dressed in men's clothing to attend the Salon and other art exhibitions in the course of her work as a critic. The prevalence of such themes in her writing caused her to be condemned as pornographic or anti-clerical by the French authorities, leading to censorship of her works and legal charges of indecency. She was required to change the title of her first publication to eliminate the word "courtesans." She was fined and even imprisoned for four of her works. She was sentenced to eight days in Saint-Lazare, a women's forced-labor prison, as punishment for "offense to public decency" in her publication Alosie, or The Loves of Madame de M.T.P. (1876), a re-publication of a work by Pierre-Corneille Blessebois. She managed to escape to Brussels and was able to convince the authorities to convert the sentence into a stay in a mental hospital, Maison Dubois. The following year she published Les Vestales de l’Église (The Vestal Virgins of the Church), which earned her another sentence at Saint-Lazare, this time for three months. She once again persuaded the court to carry out the sentence at Maison Dubois. Throughout these trials, she argued that she was being treated more harshly than her male literary counterparts such as Charles Baudelaire or Gustave Flaubert who were charged with the same offense.

Selected works

Histoire d'Héloise et d'Abailard, suivie des lettres les plus mémorables des deux immortels amants, 1873 Les Triomphes de l'Abbaye des conards, avec une notice sur la fête des fous, 1874 Les Vestales de l'Église, 1877 Racine et La Voisin, 1878 Les Romantiques, 1878 Les Dévoyés, 1879 Madame Ducroisy, la presse et la justice, 1879 Les Courtisanes de l'Antiquité. Marie-Magdeleine, 1879 Les Nouvelles drolatiques, 10 vol., 1880-1881 Entre messe et vêpres, ou les Matinées de carême au faubourg Saint-Germain, 1880-1881 Marc de Montifaud devant l'opinion publique. Sa justification. Lettre à M. Félix Delhâsse, 1882 Sabine, 1882 Les Joyeuses Nouvelles, 1882 Les Cent Nouvelles, 2 vol., 1884 Les Folles Journées, 1884 Monsieur Mystère, 1885 Les Sous-officiers français, 1890 Celles qui tuent: la baronne de Livry, 1890 Entre messe et vêpres, 4 vol., 1894 Un sérail à vendre, nouvelles drolatiques, 1895 La Chaste Suzanne, nouvelles drolatiques, 1895 Le Jugement de Paris, nouvelles drolatiques, 1898 La Nourrice sèche, nouvelles drolatiques, 1898 La Chair qui aime, la Chair qui tue, 1900 La Fille de Rodin, [n. d.]