Eugénie Droz

This cartoon of Bigoudi, the dachshund of Eugénie Droz, featured on publicity for her business around 1955.

Laure Eugénie Zahn was born at La Chaux-de-Fonds in the francophone northwest of Switzerland. Her father, Frédéric Zahn, was a well-known member of the business community in the town, where he worked as an editor.[4] In 1900 the family relocated to nearby Neuchâtel. Here she completed her secondary education and obtained a teaching diploma. Between 1910 and 1913 she taught French at the Moravian Institute of Gnadenberg in Silesia, taking the opportunity at the same time to perfect her German. Returning to Neuchâtel in 1913, she was admitted to the Université de Neuchâtel where during the next three years she studied successfully for her degree. She was a pupil of Arthur Piaget, who also became a good friend. He encouraged her to study the history of ancient poetry and renaissance literature.[5] It is apparent that the second volume of Piaget's work "Jardin de Plaisance et Fleur de rhétorique, d'Antoine Vérard (vers 1501)", which was published only in 1925, subtitled "Introduction and notes" and signed off by E.Droz and Arthur Piaget, was largely the work of Piaget's erudite pupil. The compilation of 672 verses, ballads, sounds, rondeaux etc., many of them anonymous, was described in an obituary of Eugénie Droz as an "inestimable contribution to mid-century French literature" ("contribution inestimable aux lettres françaises du milieu du siècle").[3]

In 1916 her parents divorced. Three years later she sought and received permission to use her mother's pre-marriage name in place of her father's name. Eugénie Zahn became Eugénie Droz.[1] Sources covering this period may identify her under either name.

She moved to Paris in 1916 and enrolled, at this stage as Eugénie Zahn, at the École pratique des hautes études (Section IV – Sciences historiques et philologiques (loosely, History and Philology). Her teachers included Alfred Jeanroy, Abel Lefranc and Georges Doutrepont. She received exceptionally positive reports from the outset[3] and completed her degree in 1923.[1] In 1924 she opened the Librairie Droz, initially at 34 rue Serpente, moving within a year to 25 Rue de Tournon, both addresses located appropriately in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.[4] Her business was in essence a specialist bookshop and publisher. The core product would be her own academic output as an editor-publisher with a particular interest in 16th century texts and the history and social impact of books through history more generally. The business continues to focus on medieval and humanist titles and on literary criticism and art history.[6]

She described the Paris premises proudly in her first catalogue: "Accommodated in the House of the Bronze Horse, given by Francis I to [the renaissance poet] Clément Marot in 1539, the 'Librairie Droz' [book business] has been established by Eugénie Droz, graduate of the École pratique des hautes études and docteur ès lettres. Her doctorate came from the Université de Neuchâtel. Her work for it consisted of 35 ancient texts accompanied by translations into contemporary French, a piece of work currently conserved in the rare books collection of the National Library of France.[7]

Despite the Librairie Droz having been established in Paris, the printed device appearing as a form of trade mark on publications acknowledged the Swiss provenance of the proprietor. She copied the design used by Jean de Stalle who operated a printing house in Geneva between 1487 and 1493. The only change involved removing the initials "IdeS", incorporated in the centre of the device, and replacing them with her own initials, "ED".[8]

Shortly after opening the Librairie Droz, still aged only 32, she found time to take on a position as assistant treasurer of the Société des anciens textes français, a learned society founded in Paris in 1875 with the purpose of publishing all kinds of medieval documents written either in langue d'oïl or langue d'oc. (The society's treasurer was Baron Edmond de Rothschild.)[9]

In 1934 she founded "Humanisme et Renaissance",[9] an academic journal which in effect replaced "Revue du seizième siècle". Most prominent among the many erudite collaborators on it were her old tutor, Abel Lefranc and Robert Marichal. She also created the non-profit association "Humanisme et Renaissance". During the occupation she changed the name of the (much diminished) review, which became the "Bibliothèque d'humanisme et Renaissance".[3]

In 1945, while still based in Paris, she created the series "Textes littéraires français". This was an early series of paperback books, with the focus as before on her own areas of academic expertise. In 1950, by which time she had moved to Geneva, she launched the series "les Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance" which became and remains an important body of reference for renaissance scholarship.[1]

In November 1944 she found herself mandated by the Provisional Government to study the files of political deportees at Geneva. The later 1940s were a period of acute austerity and political uncertainty in France. It was probably around this time that she decided to relocate permanently from Paris to Geneva. She sold the premises at 25 Rue de Tournon in 1947 and moved the business permanently to 8 rue Verdaine in Geneva. In 1963, the year of her seventieth birthday, she sold the business, which passed to the control of Alain Dufour and Giovanni Busino, two young historians with complementary skills whom she had personally selected.[5]

• 1951 Docteur honoris causa, University of Geneva[10]
• 1964 Docteur honoris causa, University of Lausanne
• Docteur honoris causa, University of Cologne[11]
• The reading room of the Public and University Library of Geneva, constructed in 1905, carries her name.[12]