An Alternative Enlightenment: The Moral Philosophy of Jeanne Marie Le Prince de Beaumont (1711-1780)

The ceuvre of Jeanne Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, the public intellectual whose
pedagogical journals and epistolary novels were routinely shelved in private eighteenthcentury
libraries alongside the works of the period's most famous philosophes, today
remains virtually unknown. Beyond the scant available studies limited to her pedagogy
and fairy tales, it is time to explore the theoretical aspects of those and other of her texts
as significant alternatives to traditional Enlightenment discourse as epitomized in the
contemporary philosophes.
Through her personal roles of governess to British and French aristocracy, editor
of a French-language periodical featuring such contributors as Voltaire and Graffigny, and author of internationally recognized pedagogical manuals, the most famous of which
included her timeless version of "Beauty and the Beast," Beaumont challenged a nascent
female audience to actively participate in the intellectual discourse of their society, and
used her real-world experience to develop a pedagogical methodology founded on the
ideals of thought, debate, and action ("penser, parler, agir"). A Cartesian insistence on
the separation of mind and body informed much of her argument in favor of women's
intellectual capacity, and carried through to her discussion of such socio-political topics
as women's equality, agrarian reform, religious tolerance, and social stratification. Not
just a gatekeeper of information or a synthesizer of male-produced theories on education
and other issues of social concern, she was rather an innovative thinker advancing active,
personal commitment to public issues at all levels regardless of gender or social status.
Also, promoting theories rooted in the mentoring of women by women as a means of
personal realization, Beaumont further advanced French Enlightenment universalism
through debate, reason, and action.