Antoinette Deshoulieres(du Ligier de la Garde), a French authoress, born in Paris about 1634, died there, Feb. 17, 1694. She was the daughter of a maitre d' hotel of Maria de' Medici and Anne of Austria, and was early noted for beauty and wit. She began to write verses when very young. In 1651 she was married to Guillaume de la Fon de Boisguerin, seigneur des Houlieres, who in the troubles of the Fronde embraced the party of the prince of Conde, and was exiled. She subsequently joined her husband at the court of Brussels, where she became an object of suspicion, and was imprisoned in 1657 in the castle of Vil-voorden, where she read the Scriptures and fathers of the church. She was rescued by her husband after eight months, and on her return to France after the amnesty became a favorite at the court of Anne of Austria. She wrote poems in almost all styles, from madrigal to tragedy; but her idyls, especially those entitled Les moutons and Les fleurs, were most admired, and gained her the appellation of the tenth muse and the French Calliope. The subsequent ill success of her tragedies caused this advice to be given her, Retournez a vos moutons.

She became a member of the academy of the Ricovrati of Padua in 1684, and of the academy of Aries in 1689. Like Mine, de Sevigne, she belonged to the literary clique hostile to Racine. Voltaire said that of all French ladies who had cultivated poetry, Mme: Deshoulieres had succeeded best, since more of her verses than those of any other were known by heart. The principal editions of her works are those of 1747 and 1799, each in 2 vols.