Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: SĂ©es, Normandy, France
About Marthe Cosnard
- Marthe Cosnard, baptised in SĂ©es 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.
- In 1650, aged 36, she brought out her tragedy under the patronage of Pierre Corneille whom she probably frequented.
- The playwright paid her a tribute ending with the lines: Ne te lasse donc point d’enfanter des merveilles, De prêter ton exemple à conduire nos veilles, Et d’aplanir à ceux qui l’auront imité, Les illustres chemins à l’immortalité.Her play was dedicated to Anne of Austria, the wife of King Louis XIII of France.
- 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 Léon de La Sicotière, the influence of Polyeucte, published in 1641, is undeniable.
- The play, which probably wasn't presented, was repeatedly printed or counterfeit, indicating a "very successful reading and selling".Other plays have been attributed to Marthe Cosnard but without convincing evidence: Les filles généreuses - undated, le martyre de Saint Eustache - 1643 and le martyre de Sainte Catherine - 1649.
- On the other side, it would be proved that she is the author of the collection of short pieces La grande Bible renouvelée, wrongly attributed to Françoise Pascal.
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