Marguerite Yourcenar and Grace Frick
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Marguerite Yourcenar and Maine (English
Bound together in an intimate relationship for over 40 years, Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) and Grace Frick (1903-1979) had both an enduring marriage and a productive literary partnership that no doubt laid the foundation for Marguerite to become, in 1980, the first woman admitted to the Académie Française, the premier institution of French literature.
Born in Brussels to a French father and Belgian mother, Marguerite’s original name was de Crayencour (her penname, which she later used exclusively, was a partial anagram). Her mother died when she was only a few days old, and her wealthy father gave her a lot of independence, tutoring her at home and taking her with him on his travels. She completed her education by reading books on her own, and began to write when she was in her teens. She continued the traveling life after her father died in 1929, becoming involved in sexual liaisons with both women and men. She also published her first novel, Alexis, in 1929 worked on translating such works as The Waves, an experimental novel by English lesbian author Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).
One of Marguerite’s most intense early passions was a futile one—her love for André Fraigneau (1905-1991), a gay classicist who edited Yourcenar’s works during the early 1930s. One can’t help wondering—was Marguerite’s love for Fraigneau a supreme example of a lesbian reaching for normalcy by setting her cap for an unattainable man, or did she have gender identity issues that might have been more fully expressed in the gender-flexible atmosphere of the 21st century? Either way, Fraigneau was firmly attracted only to men, and he broke Marguerite’s heart when he rejected her, perhaps prompting her to direct her romantic energies towards a woman next.
In 1937, she met Grace Frick in the bar of a Paris hotel. Raised in Ohio and Missouri, Grace shared with Marguerite the early loss of a parent, as her father died when she was an infant and she was raised by her uncle and aunt. She was an avid learner and had enough family money to attend Wellesley College, completing her bachelor’s degree in English in 1925 and her master’s in 1927. In addition to being a center for radical feminist thought, Wellesley was also considered a breeding ground for lesbians—one popular name for relationships between women was a “Wellesley marriage.” Given the nickname “Fricky,” Grace became part of a large circle of intimate women friends, including professors Katherine Balderston (1895-1979) and Margaret “Peg” Taylor (1901-1982), a couple who remained lifelong friends of Grace and Marguerite.
Grace was working on her dissertation at Yale University in 1937 when she was called to France to visit a cousin who was dying of tuberculosis in a convent. She encountered Marguerite in the bar of the Hotel Wagram. According to Grace, she noticed Marguerite one evening, sitting at a table with friends and was immediately attracted to her “immense gray-blue eyes.” She introduced herself, and the next morning, boldly invited Marguerite to her room to look at the birds out her window. In another version, Grace, always the professor of literature, interrupted Marguerite and a male friend, who were discussing Samuel Coleridge, to correct them on their ideas about the poet.
However the meeting occurred, Grace fell hard for Marguerite, who in turn described their early days as “a passion.” She took Grace on a romantic tour of Greece and Italy where they cemented their relationship, and Grace invited Marguerite to spend the winter with her in Connecticut. Things went well that first winter, and in 1939, with war breaking out in Europe, Marguerite moved to the U.S. to live with Grace permanently.
Grace quickly made herself indispensible to Marguerite, managing their home, editing and translating her works and becoming what the Global Love Museum called “possibly the most complete literary wife in the annals of art.” In the 1940s, they spent several summers in Maine, staying with friends in Somesville and Seal Harbor, and in 1948 began to look for their own home on Mt. Desert Island. In 1950, they bought Brooks Cottage in Northeast Harbor. In a radio interview, Marguerite gave a peek into the life she imagined there, “It was what we had been waiting for: a place of tranquility, of possible abandon.”
Brooks Cottage had been built in the 1830s by newlyweds Daniel (1802-1887) and Emma Kimball (1820-1889) and, fifty years later, was moved by teams of oxen and the huge Kimball House hotel was built in its place. The cottage served as a guest cabin and employee housing for the hotel before Marguerite and Grace made it their home. After some remodeling, they re-named it Petite Plaisance (Little Pleasure) and moved in.
Dressed like bohemians in loose pants, colorful shawls, and turbans, and taking walks with their arms wrapped around each other, the couple made quite a splash in the sleepy Mt. Desert Island community. They had frequent visitors, who came to lunch or tea, while Marguerite controlled the conversation and Grace controlled the household. Their unusual appearance led some local children to call them “the witches,” a characterization intensified by Marguerite’s Gallic aloofness and Grace’s tendency to alienate the neighbors with complaints and bossy advice. Nonetheless, the couple viewed Petite Plaisance as a little island of European grace in the crass American wilderness and, between trips to the real Europe, they were happy there.
Despite the fact that Marguerite had liked to tease Grace about the six-month difference in their ages by calling her “a friend older than myself,” Grace died almost a decade before Marguerite, succumbing to a long struggle with cancer. Marguerite grieved terribly, and placed her own gravestone beside Grace’s in Brookside Cemetery on Mt. Desert Island, with only the date of death left off. Before she died, Grace had matched Marguerite up with a sort of replacement wife. Perhaps knowing Marguerite’s soft spot for young gay men, she recommended Jerry Wilson (1949-1986), a 30-year-old photographer, to be her secretary. Marguerite and Jerry became partners of a sort—friends, travelling companions, possibly lovers—with an intimate, if tempestuous relationship. Her romantic obsession with Jerry (and Jerry’s own hostility) alienated many of Marguerite’s friends, with the result that she was left even more alone when Jerry died of AIDS in 1986. Sad and exhausted, Marguerite had a stroke and died a year later, on December 17, 1987, at home at Petite Plaisance. She ordered that her personal papers, including her correspondence with Grace, be sealed until 2037.
More reading about Marguerite and Grace:
Acocella, Joan. “Becoming the Emperor: How Marguerite Yourcenar Reinvented the Past.” The New Yorker, February 7, 2005.
Howard, Joan E. We Met In Paris: Grace Frick and Her Life with Marguerite Yourcenar
“Marguerite Yourcenar and Grace Frick.”
Global Love Museum. https://globallovemuseum.net/portfolio-items/marguerite-yourcenar-and-grace-frick/
Sarnecki, Judith Holland. “When Our Gender is a Lie: Marguerite Yourcenar's ‘Achille ou le mensonge’ (Achilles or The Lie).” Women in French Studies, Volume 4, Fall 1996, pp. 80-87.
Savigneau, Josyane, translated by Joan E. Howard. Marguerite Yourcenar: Inventing a Life. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993.
Born in Brussels to a French father and Belgian mother, Marguerite’s original name was de Crayencour (her penname, which she later used exclusively, was a partial anagram). Her mother died when she was only a few days old, and her wealthy father gave her a lot of independence, tutoring her at home and taking her with him on his travels. She completed her education by reading books on her own, and began to write when she was in her teens. She continued the traveling life after her father died in 1929, becoming involved in sexual liaisons with both women and men. She also published her first novel, Alexis, in 1929 worked on translating such works as The Waves, an experimental novel by English lesbian author Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).
One of Marguerite’s most intense early passions was a futile one—her love for André Fraigneau (1905-1991), a gay classicist who edited Yourcenar’s works during the early 1930s. One can’t help wondering—was Marguerite’s love for Fraigneau a supreme example of a lesbian reaching for normalcy by setting her cap for an unattainable man, or did she have gender identity issues that might have been more fully expressed in the gender-flexible atmosphere of the 21st century? Either way, Fraigneau was firmly attracted only to men, and he broke Marguerite’s heart when he rejected her, perhaps prompting her to direct her romantic energies towards a woman next.
In 1937, she met Grace Frick in the bar of a Paris hotel. Raised in Ohio and Missouri, Grace shared with Marguerite the early loss of a parent, as her father died when she was an infant and she was raised by her uncle and aunt. She was an avid learner and had enough family money to attend Wellesley College, completing her bachelor’s degree in English in 1925 and her master’s in 1927. In addition to being a center for radical feminist thought, Wellesley was also considered a breeding ground for lesbians—one popular name for relationships between women was a “Wellesley marriage.” Given the nickname “Fricky,” Grace became part of a large circle of intimate women friends, including professors Katherine Balderston (1895-1979) and Margaret “Peg” Taylor (1901-1982), a couple who remained lifelong friends of Grace and Marguerite.
Grace was working on her dissertation at Yale University in 1937 when she was called to France to visit a cousin who was dying of tuberculosis in a convent. She encountered Marguerite in the bar of the Hotel Wagram. According to Grace, she noticed Marguerite one evening, sitting at a table with friends and was immediately attracted to her “immense gray-blue eyes.” She introduced herself, and the next morning, boldly invited Marguerite to her room to look at the birds out her window. In another version, Grace, always the professor of literature, interrupted Marguerite and a male friend, who were discussing Samuel Coleridge, to correct them on their ideas about the poet.
However the meeting occurred, Grace fell hard for Marguerite, who in turn described their early days as “a passion.” She took Grace on a romantic tour of Greece and Italy where they cemented their relationship, and Grace invited Marguerite to spend the winter with her in Connecticut. Things went well that first winter, and in 1939, with war breaking out in Europe, Marguerite moved to the U.S. to live with Grace permanently.
Grace quickly made herself indispensible to Marguerite, managing their home, editing and translating her works and becoming what the Global Love Museum called “possibly the most complete literary wife in the annals of art.” In the 1940s, they spent several summers in Maine, staying with friends in Somesville and Seal Harbor, and in 1948 began to look for their own home on Mt. Desert Island. In 1950, they bought Brooks Cottage in Northeast Harbor. In a radio interview, Marguerite gave a peek into the life she imagined there, “It was what we had been waiting for: a place of tranquility, of possible abandon.”
Brooks Cottage had been built in the 1830s by newlyweds Daniel (1802-1887) and Emma Kimball (1820-1889) and, fifty years later, was moved by teams of oxen and the huge Kimball House hotel was built in its place. The cottage served as a guest cabin and employee housing for the hotel before Marguerite and Grace made it their home. After some remodeling, they re-named it Petite Plaisance (Little Pleasure) and moved in.
Dressed like bohemians in loose pants, colorful shawls, and turbans, and taking walks with their arms wrapped around each other, the couple made quite a splash in the sleepy Mt. Desert Island community. They had frequent visitors, who came to lunch or tea, while Marguerite controlled the conversation and Grace controlled the household. Their unusual appearance led some local children to call them “the witches,” a characterization intensified by Marguerite’s Gallic aloofness and Grace’s tendency to alienate the neighbors with complaints and bossy advice. Nonetheless, the couple viewed Petite Plaisance as a little island of European grace in the crass American wilderness and, between trips to the real Europe, they were happy there.
Despite the fact that Marguerite had liked to tease Grace about the six-month difference in their ages by calling her “a friend older than myself,” Grace died almost a decade before Marguerite, succumbing to a long struggle with cancer. Marguerite grieved terribly, and placed her own gravestone beside Grace’s in Brookside Cemetery on Mt. Desert Island, with only the date of death left off. Before she died, Grace had matched Marguerite up with a sort of replacement wife. Perhaps knowing Marguerite’s soft spot for young gay men, she recommended Jerry Wilson (1949-1986), a 30-year-old photographer, to be her secretary. Marguerite and Jerry became partners of a sort—friends, travelling companions, possibly lovers—with an intimate, if tempestuous relationship. Her romantic obsession with Jerry (and Jerry’s own hostility) alienated many of Marguerite’s friends, with the result that she was left even more alone when Jerry died of AIDS in 1986. Sad and exhausted, Marguerite had a stroke and died a year later, on December 17, 1987, at home at Petite Plaisance. She ordered that her personal papers, including her correspondence with Grace, be sealed until 2037.
More reading about Marguerite and Grace:
Acocella, Joan. “Becoming the Emperor: How Marguerite Yourcenar Reinvented the Past.” The New Yorker, February 7, 2005.
Howard, Joan E. We Met In Paris: Grace Frick and Her Life with Marguerite Yourcenar
“Marguerite Yourcenar and Grace Frick.”
Global Love Museum. https://globallovemuseum.net/portfolio-items/marguerite-yourcenar-and-grace-frick/
Sarnecki, Judith Holland. “When Our Gender is a Lie: Marguerite Yourcenar's ‘Achille ou le mensonge’ (Achilles or The Lie).” Women in French Studies, Volume 4, Fall 1996, pp. 80-87.
Savigneau, Josyane, translated by Joan E. Howard. Marguerite Yourcenar: Inventing a Life. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993.