Born: 5 February 1626, France
Died: 17 April 1696
Country most active: France
Also known as: Marie de Rabutin-Chantal marquise de Sévigné
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Madame de Sévigné, a French writer, celebrated for her Letters, chiefly written to her daughter. Her maiden name was Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, and at eighteen she married the Marquis de Sévigné, by whom she had a son and a daughter.
The marquis, in 1651, was killed in a duel by a rival in a sordid intrigue, and Mme. de Sévigné at the moment of her widowhood was but twenty-five, brilliant in her beauty and fascination. Yet she never married again, and without hesitation embraced the holy vocation of motherhood to which she was to give such complete and exquisite impression.
After her daughter’s marriage to Count de Grignan, Governor of Provence, Mme de Sévigné began to write those famous letters from Paris which have come down to us; letters unrivaled for their fresh charm, shrewd wit, and easy gayety [sic] of heart. They form an almost complete and familiar chronicle of the court and high society of the time (1669 – 1695), during the reign of Louis XIV.
Thomas Davidson says:
“Madame de Sévigné’s twenty-five years of letters to her daughter reveal the inner history of the time in wonderful detail, but the most interesting thing in the letters remains herself. In the midst of an age of gilded corruption, her name remains without a stain. Her heart was occupied by an intense devotion to her children, and a warmth of friendship almost beyond example. For no one ever had so many and such devoted friends – no woman ever knew like her how to transform a lover into a friend.”
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Madame de Sevigne was early left an orphan and married when she was eighteen, becoming a widow when she was twenty-five. Her love for her daughter, the Countess de Grignan, is one of the most famous examples of maternal devotion in history. It was this daughter who was the recipient of the greater part of those letters which brought Madame de Sevigne fame as an epistolary writer. It is to be remembered that, aside from the glory which the letters brought her, she set a wonderful example by proving the possibility of making life enjoyable to those to whom happiness was denied. A philosopher, she had a great love of life, and her pleasant disposition and kind heart made her many friends. These qualities, added to her talent and to her gift as a grande-dame, give her a place of honor among the most charming people of the XVIIth century. Her letters are still read in French schools. The secret of her abiding popularity lies, perhaps, in her belief that “The true mark of a good heart is its capacity for loving.”