Marthe Cosnard

Marthe Cosnard, baptised in Sées on 14 April 1614 and died after 1659, was a 17th-century French playwright. She wrote a Christian tragedy entitled les Chastes Martyrs. She was a member of the "Cercle des femmes savantes" of Jean de la Forge who nicknamed her Kandake. Her choice to remain a virgin earned also her the title of "Our Lady of Sees" in her lifetime.

Coming from a family whose members exercised various professions - lawyers, goldsmiths, apothecaries, doctors - from the 15th century, she was raised in an environment where the theater was particularly honored.

Cosnard's play was dedicated to Anne of Austria, the wife of King Louis XIII. The subject was borrowed from a Christian novel by Jean-Pierre Camus, the Agatonphile, which would also inspire the first play by Françoise Pascal in 1655. According to , the influence of Polyeucte, published in 1641, is undeniable.