Labe, Louise Charlin Perrin
LABE, LOUISE CHARLIN PERRIN (c. 1525-1366), French poet, called La Belle Cordiere, was born at Lyons about 1525, the daughter of a rich ropemaker, named Charley or Charlin. At the siege of Perpignan she is said to have fought on horseback in the ranks of the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II. Some time before 1551 she married Ennemond Perrin, a ropemaker. She formed a library and gathered round her a society which included many of the learned ladies of Lyons, Pernette du Guillet, Claudine and Sibylle Sceve and Clemence de Bourges, and the poets Maurice Sceve, Charles Fontaine, Pontus de Tyard; and among the occasional visitors were Clement Marot and his friend Melin de Saint-Gelais, with probably Bonaventure des Periers and Rabelais. About 1550 the poet Olivier de Magny passed through Lyons on his way to Italy in the suite of Jean d'Avanson, the French envoy to the Holy See. As the friend of Ronsard, " Prince of Poets," he met with an enthusiastic reception from Louise, who straightway fell in love with him. There seems little doubt that her passion for Magny inspired icr eager, sincere verse, and the elegies probably express her ;rief at his first absence. A second short visit to Lyons was 'ollowed by a second longer absence. Magny's influence is shown more decisively in her Sonnets, which, printed in 1555, quickly attained great popularity. During his second visit to taly Magny had apparently consoled himself, and Louise, despairng of his return, encouraged another admirer, Claude Rubys, when her lover returned unexpectedly. Louise dismissed ^ubys, but Magny's jealousy found vent in an ode addressed o the She Aymon (Ennemond), which ruined her reputation; tvhile Rubys, angry at his dismissal, avenged himself later in his Histmre veritable de Lyons (1573). This scandal struck a atal blow at Louise's position. Shortly afterwards her husband died, and she returned to her country house at Parcieu, where he died on the 25th of April 1566, leaving the greater part of he fortune she was left to the poor. Her works include, besides he Elegies and Sonnets mentioned, a prose Debal de folie et i' amour (.translated into English by Robert Greene in 1608).
See editions of her CEuvres by P. Blanchemain (1875), and by C. Boy (2 vols., 1887). A sketch of Louise Lab6 and of the Lyonnese Society is in Miss Edith Sichel's Women and Men of the French Renaissance (1901). See also J. Favre, Olivier de Magny (1885).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
