A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Heritier de Villandon, (Mary Jane l')
HERITIER DE VILLANDON (MARY JANE L'), Born at Paris 1664; died 1734;
Received from her father, who was a man of learning, an education conformable to his own taste, and her progress more than equalled his expectations. She won prizes in several academies, was received into that of the Ricovrati, in Padua, and composed many works popular in her day. She was not only celebrated for her literary talents, but for the sweetness of her disposition, the elegance of her manners, and her unaffected modesty. She opened her house twice a week for the reception of company, but being rather straitened in her income, M. de Chauvelin, then minister of state, made a little addition to it, by procuring her a pension of four hundred livres from the crown. She translated sixteen of Ovid's Epistles into French verse; and amongst her prose writings are, La Tour Tenebreuse, or History of Richard, King of England, some Memoirs, and little historical anecdotes. In her poetry there is a sonnet, said to have been written by the above prince in his confinement and to have fallen into her hands.