Womens Stories in Le Mercure Galant (1672-1710)

What do women want to read? Jean Donneau de Vis, the founder and editor in chief of Le Mercure Galant, one of Frances first newspapers, was arguably the first journalist to ask this question and to recognize and capitalize upon the influence of female readers and their social networks. By including custom content and performing the act of listening to women, Le Mercure Galant situates itself as an intermediary, using the nouvelle as a vehicle to amplify womens voices. These fictions, presented as true stories, depict incidents and situations that women often bore silently in real life: domestic violence, romantic betrayal, dishonor, or simply loneliness. By publishing these stories alongside its chronicle of historic events, the Mercure lends credence and prestige to depictions of the private life of anonymous individuals, exploiting the ostensibly anodyne genre of womens fiction to disseminate modern ideas about womens agency.