Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/246

 DACIER, ANNE, Was daughter of Tanneguy le Fevre and Marie Oliver his wife. Anne was born at Saumur, in 1661. Her father, it is related, had an acquaintance who practised judicial astrology, and who, on the birth of the infant, desired he might be allowed to cast her nativity. After finishing his figures, he told M. le Fevre there must have been some mistake respecting the exact instant of the birth of the child, since her horoscope promised a future and fame quite foreign to a female. This story must be left to the faith of the reader; but, whatever might be its truth, it is certain that an incident occurred, when Mademoiselle le Fevre was about ten years of age, which determined her father, who was professor of Belles-Lettres at Saumur, to give her the advantage of a learned education.

M. le Fevre had a son whom he instructed in the classics; and to whom he usually gave lessons in the room in which his daughter worked in tapestry. The youth, whether from incapacity or inattention, was sometimes at a loss when questioned by his father: on these occasions his sister, who appeared to be wholly occupied with her needles and her silks, never failed to suggest to him the proper reply, however intricate or embarrassing the subject. M. le Fevre was, by this discovery, induced to cultivate the talents of his daughter. Mademoiselle le Fevre afterwards confessed that she felt, at the time, a secret vexation for having thus betrayed her capacity, and exchanged the occupations and amusements of her sex, under the eye of an indulgent mother, for the discipline of her father, and the vigilance and application necessary to study.

After having learned the elements of the Latin language, she applied herself to the Greek, in which she made a rapid progress, and at the end of eight years no longer stood in need of the assistance of a master. As her mind strengthened and acquired a wider range, she emancipated herself from the trammels of authority, and laid down plans of study which she pursued with perseverance. She now read and thought for herself: and frequently, though with the utmost modesty and deference, presumed to differ, on subjects of literature and criticism, from her respectable father, who died in 1673, and the following year Mademoiselle le Fevre went to Paris, and took up her residence in that city. She was then engaged on an edition of "Callimachus," which she published in 1674. Some sheets of that work having been shown to M Huet, preceptor to the dauphin, and other learned men, a proposal was made to her to prepare some Latin authors for the dauphin's use; which proposal she accepted, and published an edition of "Florus" in 1674.

Her reputation being now spread all over Europe, Christina of Sweden ordered a present to be sent to her, in her name; upon which Mademoiselle le Fevre sent the queen a Latin letter, with her edition of "Florus." Her majesty not long after wrote to her, to persuade her to abandon the Protestant faith, and made her considerable offers to settle at court. But this she declined, and continued to publish works for the use of the dauphin. "Sextus Aurelius Victor" came out under her care, at Paris, in 1681; and in the same year she published a French translation of the poems of Anacreon and Sappho, with notes, which were so much admired as to make Boilean declare that it ought to deter any from attempting