The Art of Childbirth

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
A Midwife’s Life and Work
Who Was Marie Baudoin?
Marie Baudoin as a Jansenist Woman
Clermont-Ferrand: Hospitals and Jansenists
Mme Baudoin’s Career at the Hôtel-Dieu in Clermont-Ferrand
Communities: Religious, Scientific, Financial, and Emotional
A Physician, a Midwife, and Their Jansenist Networks
A Woman of Means: Mme Baudoin’s Credit Networks and Financial Acumen
Midwifery in Early Modern France
Midwifery Texts in Seventeenth-Century France
Midwifery Training in Mid-Seventeenth-Century France
Midwifery Work and Practice in Seventeenth-Century France
Surgical Instruments and the Performance of Expertise
The Treatise in a Letter
Epistolary Midwifery
The Letter as Material Object
Unseen and Unpublished: The Hidden Treatise
Vallant’s Portefeuilles: Record-Keeping and Archival Afterlives
Why Did the Treatise Remain Unpublished?
Reception and Afterlife of the Treatise
Notes on the Transcription and Translation
Transcription
Translation
Key to Transcription and Translation
Translation of Mme Baudoin’s Epistolary Treatise
Transcription of Mme Baudoin’s Epistolary Treatise
Bibliography
Index