A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Dupre, (Maria)

by Mary Matilda Betham

DUPRE, (MARIA) a Parisian of the seventeenth Century; surnamed the Cartesian, from her Attachment to the Philosophy of Descartes; was Daughter of John and Niece of Roland Desmaretz.

This learned man having remarked the aptitude of his niece to acquire knowledge, undertook himself the care of her education, he remarked, that she avoided the ordinary amusements of childhood; that she had a good memory, and soon acquired a complete knowledge of French literature; on which he determined to teach her the dead languages; in which she made a rapid progress, not only acquiring Latin and Greek, but excelling in poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy. After she lost her uncle, in 1653, she also studied Italian; she held a correspondence with all the literati of that age, and wrote in her own language with the same purity and elegance with which she spoke it.

F. C.