Madame Mentelle Event
When: 3:00 p.m. and 3:45 p.m on Sunday, November 12, 2023
Cost: FREE
Madame Mentelle is portrayed by Dr. Simonetta Cochis, Professor of French and Spanish at Transylvania University.
Did you know that Mary Todd Lincoln’s favorite teacher was French? Visit her childhood home to see a special Kentucky Humanities Kentucky Chautauqua© presentation of “Madame Mentelle: Educating Young Women” and explore other French influences in Mary Todd Lincoln’s life.
Fleeing her native Paris during the French Revolution, Charlotte Victoire LeClerc Mentelle undertook the ocean crossing alone in 1794, to join her husband, Augustus Waldemar Mentelle, who had reached America four years earlier.
After living on the frontier in Ohio and Northern Kentucky, the Mentelles arrived in Lexington, Kentucky in 1798 and taught dance and French at Transylvania Seminary. Madame Mentelle eventually opened her own school in 1820, Mentelle’s School for Young Ladies, where she taught a rigorous curriculum that included French, geography, literature, social etiquette and dancing. Attending the Mentelle school prepared young Mary Todd for her future role as first lady.
Madame Mentelle was often labeled eccentric and could be seen vigorously walking down the streets of Lexington while reading, wearing a man’s shirt collar, many claiming she was “too masculine.” Her intelligence and culture, paired with the freedom she found in America, encouraged her to teach young women at a time when the education of girls was often neglected. Madame Mentelle believed in liberty and equal rights for women; she sought to help young ladies become educated, disciplined, and accomplished women who would make a difference in society.
Madame Mentelle is portrayed by Dr. Simonetta Cochis, Professor of French and Spanish at Transylvania University. She has directed and acted in farces around the world as part of a troupe of scholars and teachers, La Compagnie Gaillarde. She also performs the narrative lays of medieval author Marie de France, both in Old French and in modern English. She earned a B.A. in political science from SUNY at Stony Brook, an M.A. in French and Italian Literature from SUNY at Stony Brook, and a Ph.D. in French Literature from New York University. Dr. Cochis began teaching at Transylvania University in 1997.
Kentucky Chautauqua is an exclusive presentation of Kentucky Humanities with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and from: Christina Lee Brown and the Carson-Myre Charitable Foundation.