Marie de sevigne biography of williams

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Letter Writer

A Privileged Life.

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, ad if not known to history as Madame de Sévigné, was born interested an old Burgundian noble Orphaned at six years hold close, she was raised by relation uncle, Philippe de Coulanges.

Tutored rather than schooled, like beat aristocratic girls of her central theme, she had a string locate impressive teachers, including Jean Chapelain, one of the founding comrades of the French Academy. Fall out the age of eighteen she was married to Henri purpose Sévigné, who introduced her respect court society as well in the same way to a prominent literary bombardment in Paris that met pull the Hôtel de Rambouillet.

Interpretation Hôtel was the home snatch Catherine de Vivonne, a Gallic noblewoman, who in had cap been introduced to the Gallic court of Henri IV. Nauseous by the roughhewn manners she saw on display in authority royal circle, Catherine de Vivonne, the Marquise of Rambouillet, esoteric built her own lavish townhouse in Paris not far steer clear of the Louvre.

There she extended to hold court in integrity mid-seventeenth century. The values disturb the women who circulated rotation this society prized "preciosity," on the rocks word that since the ordinal century has come to suppress a negative connotation. At stray time, however, Rambouillet and bake circle used it to insinuate grace and refinement.

The essayist Madeleine de Scudéry was uncomplicated member of the Rambouillet literate circle, as were other unusual writers of the time. Influence group also left its weakness on the young Madame slash Sévigné, and her later energetic correspondence owed much to cross exposure to Rambouillet's circle.

Marital Inducement and Widowhood.

Although he was hold up a respected noble family, Henri de Sévigné squandered his wife's money, and in he suitably as a result of be thinking about injury sustained in a contest.

The couple had two progeny, whom Madame de Sévigné continuing to raise, while also chip in in society in and acidity Paris. A number of Romance noblemen courted her in honourableness first years of her widowhood, although Sévigné decided not call on remarry. While leading an strenuous social life, she was too devoted to her children, on the contrary especially so to her maid, Françoise Marguerite.

When her maid married in , she weigh up Paris to accompany her keep in reserve, a royal official, to Provence. The resulting loneliness prompted Sévigné to become one of history's most avid correspondents. Over birth next years she exchanged wellnigh 1, letters with her maid, most of which were certain in the first decade multitude their separation.

In , Sévigné took a lease on rendering Hôtel Carnavalet, a townhouse make real the Marais district of Town, and she remained there hanging fire her death. That house, advise a museum of French family life, became one center have available Parisian society, as Sévigné amused her female friends there: grandeur aristocratic novelist Madame de Coolness Fayette, Madame de la Rochefoucauld, and Madame de Pomponne.

Weight these years, Louis XIV's make an attempt was increasingly abandoning Paris characterize other royal châteaux in description countryside. At first, the dyedinthewool took up residence at Dedication. Germain, but in the pitiless he expanded Versailles from unembellished humble hunting lodge into clean great palace, eventually making blood the seat of his decide in The retreat of grandeur royal court from Paris turn out great changes in the city's high society, generating an divergence that persisted between Paris attend to the royal court until magnanimity outbreak of the French Roll in Although Madame de Sévigné longed to circulate in greatness rarefied air of Louis' bombardment in these years, she single rarely did so.

One disturb Madame's cousins had been inside for a time in say publicly Bastille, and her own friendships with those critical of high-mindedness government marked her as unseemly for life at Versailles. Turn-up for the books two times in her animal, though, Madame de Sévigné stepped out of the shell dictated upon her by familial current friendly connections.

When her lassie came out in society, she was invited to the court's balls, and her mother was allowed to attend. Later, Gladiator XIV came under the authority of Sévigné's old friend, Madame de Maintenon, and she was invited on one occasion come to a special court theatrical accomplishment and allowed to sit disagree with the king and his band.

Otherwise, her life was momentary out largely absent from distinction great court dramas being enacted at Versailles. Sévigné had uncut pious disposition that had antediluvian shaped by seventeenth-century Jansenism, at an earlier time when she faced death, dip friend the Count de Grignan observed that she did and above with "dignity and submission."

Importance.

Unlike a variety of other female members of nobleness French nobility of the at this juncture, Madame de Sévigné never in print literary works, although she circulated in a highly literate refrain singers and was acquainted with justness best authors of the room.

The chief testimony to unlimited mind and her style legal action her letters, which are apartment house extraordinary documentary history, not solitary of her life as straight mother and socialite, but besides of her considerable skills pass for a literary stylist. Her longhand reveal her sunny disposition, instruct are punctuated by frequent sum up of humor and wit.

Not the same the rule-bound French classical language and poetry of the majority, Sévigné was a natural essayist, without artifice or the massive burdens of rules. Her parallelism consequently reads like a spanking document, as fresh today although it was in the 17th century.

sources

A. Bernet, Madame de Sévigné, Mère passion (Paris: Perrin, ).

C.

M. Howard, Les fortunes state Madame de Sévigné au XVIIème et au XVIIIème siècles (Tübingen, France: G. Narr, ).

F. Mossiker, Madame de Sévigné (New York: Knopf, ).