 Although both widowhood and religion were two major avenues through which women gained power in this time period, there is little evidence to indicate that Coignard led anything other than a rather solitary lifestyle, and after her husband's death she essentially fell into obscurity.We do know, however, that she passed on her religious devotion to her two daughters, and she leveraged her elite status to provide them with the educational resources that were often withheld from women in that era.It appears that the gender expectations of early modern France greatly dictated Coignard's life, and her strict adherence to the feminine virtues of silence, piety, and humility encouraged her to refuse to publish her works during her lifetime, going so far as to hide her poetry from her daughters to ensure that this wish was fulfilled.