Catherine Des Roches

Who was Catherine Des Roches?

Catherine Fradonnet, called Catherine Des Roches, was a French woman writer of the Renaissance.

She was the daughter of Madeleine Des Roches, née Madeleine Neveu and of André Fradonnet, seigneur Des Roches, the procurer of Poitiers. Catherine was educated by her mother and was taught poetry, literature and ancient languages. Wanting to invest all her time in her intellectual pursuits, Catherine Des Roches never married. Both mother and daughter died of an epidemic on the same day.

Contemporaries of Pierre Ronsard, and friends of the humanist Estienne Pasquier, Catherine Des Roches and her mother were the center of a literary circle based in Poitiers between 1570 and 1587, and which included the poets Scévole de Sainte-Marthe, Barnabé Brisson, René Chopin, Antoine Loisel, Claude Binet, Nicolas Rapin and Odet de Turnèbe. The circle is most well known for a collection of gallant verse entitled La Puce de Madame Des Roches in which the poets, inspired by an original poem by Pasquier, wrote on the theme of a flea upon Catherine's throat.