Marie de Gournay’s parisianism

This article explores a little-known aspect of Marie de Gournay's political and linguistic thought: her praise of the city of Paris as a place of knowledge, and of the supposedly pure language spoken by its inhabitants. While she is usually considered an anti-purist, Marie de Gournay actually reflected on the norms of good usage, defending the idea that the king's court should not decide on its own, but rather ally themselves with the intellectual elite of Parisian parliamentarians to prescribe its laws.