SÉVIGNÉ, Marie de Rabutin Chantal, Marquise de. - French writer, b. in Paris on 5 Feb. 1626, d. at Grignan on 17 Apr. 1696.

Left an orphan in her early years, she was cared for by her maternal uncle, Philippe de Coulanges, abbot of Livry. She studied Italian and Spanish and formed for herself a classicizing culture; in 1644 she married the Marquis Henri de Sévigné, by whom she had two children: in 1646 Françoise, who in 1669 became the wife of the Count of Grignan, later lieutenant general of the King in Provence; and in 1648 Charles, who was to cause her some grief through his dissoluteness. Left a widow in 1651, she settled in Paris, where she devoted herself to the care of her children without, however, neglecting the life of society, with some frequency at court. Certain disagreements of temperament with her daughter and a hint of scandal quickly stifled constituted the greatest misfortunes of her existence, which was the customary one of French noblewomen in the 17th century, accompanied by the practice of the Catholic faith with sincerity and assiduity.

Her literary sensibility had been formed essentially on Corneille, Molière, La Fontaine. She held Ariosto and Tasso in great esteem, as well as St. Augustine and Pascal. Her work, consisting of a very vast collection of letters (more than 1500 letters, for the most part addressed to her daughter), is of exceptional interest for the history of the customs of the aristocratic society of her time and for its intrinsic artistic merits, thanks to an acute psychological intuition and to a certain already lively vividness, at times even finely humorous, in the delineation of situations and figures. For her exemplary style she was considered, almost on a level with La Fontaine and Molière, among the greatest French writers of the 17th century. Endowed with sound morality, she is not, however, free from a certain aridity of heart, through a frequent lack of human pity, which sometimes makes her insensitive to misfortunes not concerning her aristocratic society.

Bibliography9 works

BIBL.: the most notable ed. of the works (edited by Monmerqué) in the Collection des grands écrivains de la France, 14 vols. in-8 and an album, Paris 1862-66; completed by the Lettres inédites, edited by Ch. Capmas, 2 vols., ibid. 1872. Studies: V. Walckenaer, Mémoires sur la vie et les écrits de Mme de S., 5 vols., Paris 1842-52; G. Boissier, Mme de S., ibid. 1887; E. Faquet, Mme de S., ibid. 1910; C. Friedmann, La cultura italiana di Mme de S., in Giorn. stor. lett. it., 9 (1912), pp. 1-72; C. Gazier, Mme de S., Paris 1934; A. Stanley, Mme de S., her letters and her world, London 1946. On the religious sentiment of Mme de S., cf.: J. Calvet, La religion de Mme de S., in Vie catholique en France et à l'étranger of 6 Feb. 1926; C. Gazier, Mme de S. et Port-Royal, in Le Correspondant, 1926, fasc. 302, pp. 508-523; J. Fonany, Mme de S. et le thème de la mort, in Études classiques, 4 (1935), pp. 390-410.

@incollection{ec11_sevigne_marie_de_rabutin_chant, author = {Romani, Romano}, title = {Sévigné, marie de rabutin chantal, m.me de}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {469}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/sevigne-marie-de-rabutin-chantal-m-me-de} }

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Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin Chantal, Marquise de

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