Rachilde

Early life

Marguerite Eymery was born in February 1860 to Joseph and Gabrielle (Feytaud) Eymery. Marguerite was born with one leg shorter than the other, giving her a lifelong limp that set her apart from others from the very start. She grew up on the estate of le Cros as an only child. She was unwanted by her parents and received less affection from them than did the family's pet monkey, who was even granted such social graces as a seat at the table. She received some affection from her maternal grandmother, but Gabrielle taught the child to dismiss her grandmother as frivolous and simple. Nevertheless, it was her grandmother and her grandfather who encouraged Marguerite's imagination through play and reading, and offered her glimpses of fantastical escape.

Joseph Eymery was a soldier, and that had a distinct impact on his wife and daughter, through various absences and stresses. At the extreme end, Joseph was imprisoned for dueling for four months in 1867 and then was imprisoned as an enemy soldier by the Prussians from 1870 to 1871 after surrendering his unit to them. During this separation, at least in Marguerite's mind, the distance between uninterested wife and unfaithful husband became wider and more permanent. Both offered her abuse, but her father's abuse had a perverse hope at the end of it.

At twelve, Marguerite began writing anonymous pieces in the local newspaper. She then asked her father to read to her, an indication of her split relationship with herself that would be the hallmark of her life. Even at a young age, some of what she wrote was inappropriately decadent. She began to write on a commission at fifteen, taking on the name Rachilde for the first time and creating a new persona for herself.

As a bold young woman with a passion for writing, she wrote to idol Victor Hugo and received encouraging words in reply. This fueled in her a desire to move to Paris and become part of the literary culture there. Her father did not understand that, and it appears that in the mid-1870s he tried to set up an engagement for her as an alternative to literary pursuits. She rejected that engagement. Perhaps linked to this, she later claimed to have attempted suicide around this time.