“They say that all women have the same apprehension”: Anxiety and Isolation in Seventeenth-Century Pregnancy

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On August 19th, 1620, a young noblewoman sat alone in her château in Bayon, Lorraine. She was heavily pregnant with her first child, her isolation heightening her fears of the impending delivery. She had recently suffered “little labor warnings,” but neither her mother nor her midwife had arrived yet for the birth. In one of many letters to her absent husband, Geneviève d’Urfé wrote:

It seems that I am approaching the end of my term, God be thanked, but I admit that I am extremely apprehensive about the passage. I see myself here without any sort of assistance, in a thing in which I am completely new and ignorant. To tell you the truth, I believe surely that I will die … though it may not come to that, because they say that all women have the same apprehension.^[1]

In early modern Europe, “mortality in childbirth was a reality that haunted pregnant women … there were no princesses who did not know an aunt, cousin, or sister who had died following a bad delivery.”^[2] Among noblewomen, who commonly experienced as many as 10 or 12 pregnancies during their life, at least one in ten died in the pursuit of motherhood.^[3] The joy of expecting a child was therefore tinged with foreboding. Geneviève’s letters and her fear of facing labor alone illustrate the importance of female networks to support women through pregnancy and childbirth. Geneviève considered the neglect of her family to be a threat to her safety, her emotional health intrinsically linked to her physical wellbeing.

Geneviève d’Urfé was not used to spending so much time alone when she married and moved to Lorraine. She was raised in the household of Queen Marie de Medici of France, where she was surrounded by scores of women who acted as companions and mentors.^[4] Her marriage into the prominent Croÿ family in 1617 marked a drastic change from the busy and social atmosphere of the French court. Her husband, Charles-Alexander de Croÿ, was a member of Archduke Albert’s royal household in the Netherlands, as well as a military officer and a sovereign count in Lorraine. As such, the Duke of Croÿ spent much of his career away from home; even when he had the leisure to return home, he did not often prioritize visiting his wife.^[5]

Most married noblewomen would be familiar with some degree of isolation. Many oversaw the management of the family estates, châteaus, finances, staff, and clients, particularly when their husbands traveled in the service of war or politics. But the first pregnancy of a marriage was a time for celebration, support, and reassurance from one’s community. And while some attentive husbands did return to their wives’ sides for the birth of their children, they would not usually be in the room for the delivery itself. That type of close care was provided by women.

Many sisters, mothers, and daughters took great pains to attend each other’s labors and lying-ins. For example, sisters of the Dutch Orange-Nassau family and their stepmother, Princess Louise de Coligny, corresponded consistently, sharing words of comfort, informative anecdotes, recipes, and methods to manage pain during pregnancies. They considered it a tragedy when one could not attend a delivery in person, their letters expressing their deepest regrets.^[6] The women of the Italian Medici family did the same, sending medical advice, gifts, and ointments to soothe pregnancy symptoms, and even referrals for specific doctors to provide their loved ones’ care.^[7]

This stands in sharp contrast to Geneviève’s experience. Charles-Alexander neglected to visit or write regularly during Geneviève’s pregnancy, and she lacked female support and companionship, as well. One of her sisters-in-law was pregnant in the same period, which may explain why no evidence survives of visits from the women of the Croÿ family, who were in a position to check on Geneviève and presumably concerned for the first child of their elder brother. But a later reference to a malicious rumor one sister-in-law had started, “that I was never pregnant and had not given birth, that our son is a child imposter,” puts their absence in a more hostile light.^[8]

So Geneviève made preparations for the birth on her own. She chose a midwife and a priest to attend her, and she expressed satisfaction with the service of both.^[9] She wrote to Charles-Alexander with suggestions for who might serve as godparents: of course, the Holy Roman Emperor was the obvious choice should she bear a son.^[10] She also requested that her mother, father, and siblings come to Bayon. She expected her mother would support her through the delivery and postpartum lying-in period, providing advice and practical guidance to her daughter.^[11] Geneviève’s younger siblings would be companions and helpers, too young to have any personal experience with the process, but a comfort all the same. Similar to her husband, Geneviève’s parents proved less dependable than she had hoped.

Marie de Neufville, the Marquise d’Urfé, repeatedly delayed her departure, citing an ongoing legal suit in France which demanded her attention. Geneviève worried that her family might even miss her delivery, lamenting “it is clear that [my mother] cares more for her affairs than for me, as I will be testing fortune if I am not assisted in my labors by anyone.”^[12] Geneviève’s father decided to forgo the trip to Bayon completely. Marie de Neufville explained that “if [Charles-Alexander] were here he would come, but he does not want to make the journey for [Geneviève] alone.”^[13]

The neglect of Geneviève’s parents was not usual for her time, particularly for her mother, especially given that this would be their first grandchild. But the claim that their indifference was “testing fortune” is striking. After all, Geneviève would not have to give birth completely unattended – she had her priest and midwife, and her staff would be present, at least two of whom were women. In a unique reference to a visit from her husband, she wrote: “I have not seen a living soul since you left, except my ladies of Anrecourt and Andre” (emphasis mine).^[14] It seems that her complaints were more about emotional support than the physical benefit of having helping hands.

So why did Geneviève find her family’s disregard to be reckless, rather than simply inconsiderate? In early modern medicine, emotional distress was considered a threat to the health of pregnant women and their fetuses. Advice manuals consistently warned against subjecting a pregnant woman to any news or actions that might shock, stress, or even surprise her.^[15] This fact puts Geneviève’s suffering in a new light, and she likely believed her premature contractions were related to her emotional distress. Although her mother and siblings did arrive in time, the disappointments continued, as her mother “indicated that she would depart immediately after my labors.”^[16]

Geneviève had a successful, if difficult, delivery in the early morning of October 4, 1620. It was over two weeks later that she finally had the strength to write to her husband in her own hand. She wrote: “Here I am, thank God I have survived… though I came right to the gates of death, I have been spared this time.”^[17] Not only was the baby healthy, but it was a boy – a triumph for the firstborn child of a firstborn son. However, this did not spare her from the trouble she had with the birth, nor from persistent exhaustion and rheumatism in the weeks that followed. Still, her relief and ongoing convalescence put her in a celebratory mood. But again, Charles-Alexander did not come home until a month after her childbirth, even though she continuously begged him to meet his heir sooner.

The happy delivery of a healthy child does not take away from the constant fears that Geneviève endured alone in the months leading up to her labors. Her letters provide a rare testimony to the beliefs that underpinned early modern childbirth. The fact that she wrote so often of these concerns to her uncompanionable husband proves how little support she had from women in her life, those who traditionally would support her at such a time. Geneviève was an unfortunate exception to the rule; her letters illustrate the importance of women supporting each other with advice, comfort, and companionship in pregnancy. From Geneviève’s perspective, the neglect of her family network was central to her fears for the success of the delivery.

The dangers did not end for the child with their birth, and Geneviève’s son suffered repeated bouts of ill health, dying in 1622 at around two years old. No letters survive to explain the tragedy, or to illuminate Geneviève’s response to it. But two years later, Charles-Alexander himself was dead, murdered by a disgruntled servant in his Brussels residence. Geneviève soon returned to France, rejoining Marie de Medici’s household and the lively atmosphere of the royal court. She remarried and delivered four more children, three of whom survived to adulthood. We can presume that Geneviève enjoyed more support during her subsequent pregnancies, being closer to her mother, her sisters having grown older, and being surrounded once again with courtly companions. The lack of a female support network, it seems, was not something that Geneviève would have to endure again.

Notes

1. Archives Générales du Royaume (Hereafter AGDR) (Brussels, Belgium), Papiers de l’État et l’Audience T 276 / 1469 / 2 (August 19, 1620) no. 22. All translations by the author. All letters written by Geneviève d’Urfé to Charles-Alexander de Croÿ unless otherwise stated. ↑
2. Fanny Cosandey, Reines et Mères: Famille et Politique dans la France d’Ancien Régime (Paris: Fayard, 2022), 107. ↑
3. Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe 4^th ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 97. ↑
4. Louis Barriffol, Marie de Médicis and the French Court in the XVII Century (Chatto & Windus, 1908), 77. ↑
5. Auguste Bernard de Montbrison, Les d’Urfé: souvenirs historiques et littéraires du Forez au XVI et au XVII siècle, avec fac-similié (1839), 68-69; Violet Soen, “Négocier la paix au-delà des frontières pendant les guerres de religion: Le parcours pan-européen de Charles-Philippe de Croÿ, marquis d’Havré (1549-1613),” in Noblesses Transrégionales: Les Croÿ et les frontières pendant les guerres de religion, Soen & Junot, eds. (Brepols: 2021), 255. ↑
6. Jane Couchman, “‘Is it possible that my sister […] has had a baby?’ The Early Years of Marriage as a Transition from Girlhood to Womanhood in the Letters of Three Generations of Orange-Nassau Women” in Cohen and Reeves, eds., The Youth of Early Modern Women (Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 196; Susan Broomhall and Jacqueline Van Gent, “Corresponding Affections: Emotional Exchange Among Siblings in the Nassau Family, Journal of Family History 34, no. 2 (April 2009), 149. ↑
7. Brian Sandberg, “‘All the Many and Varied Remedies and Secrets’: Sexual Practices and Reproductive Knowledge in the Renaissance,” Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, no. 5 (2010), 235-242. ↑
8. AGDR T 276 / 1462 / 2 (October 22, 1620) no. 30. ↑
9. AGDR T 276 / 1469 / 2 (August 19, 1620) no. 22. ↑
10. AGDR T 276 / 1469 / 2 (September 5, 1620), no. 26. ↑
11. Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe 4^th ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 94; A History of Women in the West: III. Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, Davis and Farge, eds. (Harvard University Press, 1993), 385. ↑
12. AGDR T 276 / 1469 / 2 (July 30, 1620) no. 18. ↑
13. AGDR T 276 / 1469 / 2 (September 5, 1620) no. 26. ↑
14. AGDR T 276 / 1469 / 2 (July 30, 1620) no. 18. ↑
15. Fanny Cosandey, Reines et Mères: Famille et Politique dans la France d’Ancien Régime (Paris: Fayard, 2022), 125; Clodagh Tait, “Safely Delivered: Childbirth, Wet-Nursing, Gossip-Feasts and Churching in Ireland, c. 1530-1690,” Irish Economic and Social History 30 (2003), 17. ↑
16. AGDR T 276 / 1469 / 2 (September 5, 1620) no. 26. ↑
17. AGDR T 276 / 1462 / 2 (October 22, 1620) no. 30. ↑

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Featured image caption: A woman giving birth in an elaborate room aided by a midwife and a nun and surrounded by her husband and family. Engraving by A. Bosse, between 1610-1676. (Courtesy Wellcome Collection)