Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray (1712–1790) was one of the most remarkable women in medical history. Known as the “King’s Midwife” of France, she devoted her life to saving mothers and babies at a time when childbirth was extremely dangerous. She never married but used the title “Madame,” which was traditional for midwives. Very little is known about her personal life—she left no diary and few letters—yet her professional achievements are well recorded.
In the mid-1700s, France faced a crisis. Thousands of women were dying during childbirth each year, especially in rural areas where medical help was limited. In 1759, King Louis XV gave du Coudray an extraordinary mission: travel across the country to train village women as skilled midwives. The king’s reasons were not purely medical—he wanted to increase France’s population for economic and military strength. Fewer maternal deaths meant more healthy citizens and more potential soldiers.
This appointment was groundbreaking. At that time, in England and many other countries, childbirth was increasingly taken over by male doctors known as “man-midwives” or obstetric surgeons. They gained influence by using surgical instruments like forceps, which only they were allowed to operate. In England, female midwives were being pushed aside, but in France, du Coudray rose to the top despite competition from powerful male doctors such as André Levret and Jean-Louis Baudelocque.
One of her greatest strengths was her ability to work with the male medical establishment rather than against it. She designed a revolutionary teaching device called “The Machine”—a life-sized model of the female body and womb, made of cloth, leather, and stuffing. This model allowed students to practice delivering babies safely without risk to a real mother or child. Influential surgeons inspected and approved her invention, which helped spread her fame and gave her official recognition.
Du Coudray also wrote an illustrated medical textbook, Abrégé de l’Art des Accouchements (The Art of Childbirth in Summary), making complex childbirth techniques easier for village women to understand. She traveled for over 25 years in a horse-drawn carriage, carrying her machine from one community to another, personally training more than 4,000 students. Many of these women had no formal education but went on to save countless lives in their own villages.
By 1780, it was estimated that two-thirds of all midwives in France had been trained by Madame du Coudray. Her work dramatically reduced maternal deaths in many regions. She was bold, practical, and determined, often describing herself as a “man of action” and proving she could match the skill and authority of her male counterparts.
Although her career faded into obscurity after the French Revolution, her legacy remains powerful. She was not only a gifted teacher and inventor but also a woman who carved out a position of national importance in an era when most women had little public influence. Madame du Coudray turned knowledge into power, and in doing so, she changed the history of childbirth in France.
