Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat-de-Courcelles
Encyclopedia
Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, who on her marriage became Madame de Lambert, Marquise de Saint-Bris, and is generally known as the Marquise de Lambert, was born in Paris
in 1647 and died in Paris 12 July 1733; she was a French
writer
and salonnière
.
During the Régence
, when the court of the Duchesse du Maine, at the Château de Sceaux
, was amusing itself with frivolities, and when that of the Duc d’Orléans
, at the Palais-Royal, was devoting itself to debauchery, the salon of the Marquise de Lambert passed for the temple of propriety and good taste, in a reaction against the cynicism and vulgarity of the time. For the cultivated people of the time, it was a true honor to be admitted to the celebrated "Tuesdays", where the dignity and high class of the "Great Century" were still in the air.
of Paris, in 1650, when she was just three years old. She was raised by her mother, who was distinguished by the lightness of her habits, and by her mother’s second husband, the literary dilettante François Le Coigneux de Bachaumont, who instilled in her a love of literature. At a young age, writes her friend Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, "she often stole away from the pleasures of youth to read alone, and she began, of her own accord, to write extracts of what struck her the most. It was either subtle reflections on the human heart, or ingenious turns of phrase, but most often reflections."
On 22 February 1666, she married Henri de Lambert, marquis de Saint-Bris, a distinguished officer who was to become a lieutenant-general and the governor of Luxembourg
. Their union was very happy and they had two children: a son, Henri-François (1677–1754), and a daughter, Marie-Thérèse (†1731), who became Comtesse de Saint-Aulaire by her marriage. The Marquise de Lambert was widowed in 1686 and raised her two young children while carrying on lengthy and troublesome lawsuits against her husband’s family to save her children’s property.
In 1698, she rented the north-west half of the hôtel de Nevers, located on the rue de Richelieu
near the current site of the Bibliothèque nationale
. Starting in 1710, in her beautiful drawing room
decorated by Robert de Cotte
, she launched her famous literary salon
. According to her friend the Abbé de La Rivière, "She fell victim to a colic of cultivation and wit, an illness which stuck her suddenly and which remained incurable until her death." She received visitors twice a week: literary people on Tuesdays and high society on Wednesdays, without, however, seeking to establish an impenetrable barrier between the two worlds; on the contrary, she liked to interest the well-born in literature and to introduce writers to the advantages of frequenting society, and regular visitors could pass without constraint from one day to the other.
The Tuesdays began about one o’clock in the afternoon. After a very fine dinner, "academic conferences" on a philosophical or literary theme took place. Political and religious discussions were absolutely prohibited. Every guest was required to give a personal opinion or to read some excerpts from their latest work; on the morning of the gathering, says the Abbé de La Rivière, "the guests prepared wit for the afternoon." The lady of the house directed what her critics called "wit’s business office". She encouraged writers to the highest moral tone and contributed to orienting the movement of ideas toward new literary forms: from her salon originated Antoine Houdar de la Motte’s
attacks on the three unities
, on versification, and on Homer
, whom Madame de Lambert thought dull; which did not prevent her from receiving such partisans of the Classical writers as Anne Dacier, Father d’Olivet
, or Valincour
.
The Marquise de Lambert was not socially conservative. She championed Montesquieu’s
satirical Persian Letters
and succeeded in obtaining the author’s election to the Académie française
. She was one of the first society women to open her door to actors such as Adrienne Lecouvreur
or Michel Baron
.
Fontenelle
and Houdar de la Motte were the great men of her celebrated salon, where one could also encounter Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy
, the poet Catherine Bernard
, the Abbé de Bragelonne, Father Buffier
, the Abbé de Choisy
, Madame Dacier, the mathematician Dortous de Mairan, Fénelon, Hénault
, Marivaux, the Abbé Mongault, Montesquieu
, the lawyer Louis de Sacy
(one of the Marquise’s favorites), the Marquis de Sainte-Aulaire
, Baronne Staal
, Madame de Tencin
who received the Marquise’s guests at her death in 1733, or the Abbé Terrasson
.
The Marquise de Lambert’s salon was known as the antechamber of the Académie française. According to the Marquis d’Argenson
, "she had brought about the election of half the members of the Academy."
Madame de Lambert, says Fontenelle, "was not only ardent to serve her friends, without waiting for their request, nor the humiliating exposition of their need; but a good deed to be done, even for someone she had no connection with, always interested her intensely, and the circumstances had to be especially contrary, for her not to succumb. Some bad outcomes of her generosity had not reformed her, and she always remained equally ready to risk doing good."
. She wrote Advice from a mother to her son (1726) and Advice from a mother to her daughter (1728) which are full of nobility and a great elevation of thought, and whose debt to the maxims of Fénelon
she recognized: "I found the precepts which I gave to my son in Telemachus and the counsels to my daughter in L'Éducation des filles."
Her "Reflections on Women" were not intended to be printed, and when they were published from copies intended for friends of the author, she was greatly upset and believed herself dishonored. She bought up a large part of the edition to destroy it, which did not prevent several clandestine reprintings and even a translation into English. This text finely evokes the paradoxes of the feminine condition:
Without rejecting the attractions of femininity, the author revolts against the emptiness of women’s education, reproaching Molière
with '"having attached to learning the shame which was the lot of vice." It is inner emptiness, she believes, which leads to moral corruption : enhanced education is therefore a bulwark against vice.
She also wrote essays on Friendship and on Old Age, as well as depictions of the guests at her salon and pieces to be read at these gatherings.
She had a true talent for crafting maxims with a new and original turn : "It is often well thought," writes the nineteenth-century critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
, "but it is even better said." Sometimes erring by an excess of refinement, she often shows energy and concision. Her writings are remarkable, according to Fontenelle, "for the tone of amiable virtue that reigns throughout," and, according to Louis Simon Auger, "for the purity of the style and the morality, the elevation of the sentiments, the fineness of the observations and the ideas."
The Marquise de Lambert was not very devout, even if she condemned irreligion as in bad taste; "Mme de Lambert’s religion," notes Sainte-Beuve, "is more of an elevated intellectual form than an interior and habitual spring flowing from the heart, or than a positive revelation." In this way, she was a forerunner of the Enlightenment and its philosophical ideas.
The Marquise de Lambert's Works were published a number of times, beginning in 1747; besides the pieces listed above, they contained Dialogue entre Alexandre et Demosthène sur l’égalité des biens [Dialogue between Alexander and Demosthenes on the Equality of Happiness]; Psyché, en grec Âme [Psyche, Soul in Greek]; La Femme ermite, nouvelle [The Female Hermit]; letters, portraits, and discourses.
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1647 and died in Paris 12 July 1733; she was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and salonnière
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
.
During the Régence
Régence
The Régence is the period in French history between 1715 and 1723, when King Louis XV was a minor and the land was governed by a Regent, Philippe d'Orléans, the nephew of Louis XIV of France....
, when the court of the Duchesse du Maine, at the Château de Sceaux
Château de Sceaux
The Château de Sceaux is a grand country house in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, not far from Paris, France. Located in a park laid out by André Le Nôtre, it houses the Musée de l’Île-de-France, a museum of local history. The former château was built for Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's minister of...
, was amusing itself with frivolities, and when that of the Duc d’Orléans
Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
Philippe of France was the youngest son of Louis XIII of France and his queen consort Anne of Austria. His older brother was the famous Louis XIV, le roi soleil. Styled Duke of Anjou from birth, Philippe became Duke of Orléans upon the death of his uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans...
, at the Palais-Royal, was devoting itself to debauchery, the salon of the Marquise de Lambert passed for the temple of propriety and good taste, in a reaction against the cynicism and vulgarity of the time. For the cultivated people of the time, it was a true honor to be admitted to the celebrated "Tuesdays", where the dignity and high class of the "Great Century" were still in the air.
Biography
The only daughter of Étienne de Marguenat, Seigneur de Courcelles, and his wife, Monique Passart, Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles lost her father, an officer of the fiscal courtChambre des comptes
Under the French monarchy, the Courts of Accounts were sovereign courts specialising in financial affairs. The Court of Accounts in Paris was the oldest and the forerunner of today's French Court of Audit...
of Paris, in 1650, when she was just three years old. She was raised by her mother, who was distinguished by the lightness of her habits, and by her mother’s second husband, the literary dilettante François Le Coigneux de Bachaumont, who instilled in her a love of literature. At a young age, writes her friend Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, "she often stole away from the pleasures of youth to read alone, and she began, of her own accord, to write extracts of what struck her the most. It was either subtle reflections on the human heart, or ingenious turns of phrase, but most often reflections."
On 22 February 1666, she married Henri de Lambert, marquis de Saint-Bris, a distinguished officer who was to become a lieutenant-general and the governor of Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
. Their union was very happy and they had two children: a son, Henri-François (1677–1754), and a daughter, Marie-Thérèse (†1731), who became Comtesse de Saint-Aulaire by her marriage. The Marquise de Lambert was widowed in 1686 and raised her two young children while carrying on lengthy and troublesome lawsuits against her husband’s family to save her children’s property.
In 1698, she rented the north-west half of the hôtel de Nevers, located on the rue de Richelieu
Rue de Richelieu
Rue de Richelieu is a long street of Paris, starting in the south of the Ier arrondissement, ending in the IIe arrondissement. For the first half of the nineteenth century, before Baron Hausmann redefined Paris with grand boulevards, it was one of the most fashionable streets of Paris:The Rue de...
near the current site of the Bibliothèque nationale
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
. Starting in 1710, in her beautiful drawing room
Drawing room
A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained. The name is derived from the sixteenth-century terms "withdrawing room" and "withdrawing chamber", which remained in use through the seventeenth century, and made its first written appearance in 1642...
decorated by Robert de Cotte
Robert de Cotte
Robert de Cotte was a French architect-administrator, under whose design control of the royal buildings of France from 1699, the earliest notes presaging the Rococo style were introduced. First a pupil of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, he later became his brother-in-law and his collaborator...
, she launched her famous literary salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
. According to her friend the Abbé de La Rivière, "She fell victim to a colic of cultivation and wit, an illness which stuck her suddenly and which remained incurable until her death." She received visitors twice a week: literary people on Tuesdays and high society on Wednesdays, without, however, seeking to establish an impenetrable barrier between the two worlds; on the contrary, she liked to interest the well-born in literature and to introduce writers to the advantages of frequenting society, and regular visitors could pass without constraint from one day to the other.
The Tuesdays began about one o’clock in the afternoon. After a very fine dinner, "academic conferences" on a philosophical or literary theme took place. Political and religious discussions were absolutely prohibited. Every guest was required to give a personal opinion or to read some excerpts from their latest work; on the morning of the gathering, says the Abbé de La Rivière, "the guests prepared wit for the afternoon." The lady of the house directed what her critics called "wit’s business office". She encouraged writers to the highest moral tone and contributed to orienting the movement of ideas toward new literary forms: from her salon originated Antoine Houdar de la Motte’s
Antoine Houdar de la Motte
Antoine Houdar de la Motte was a French author.He was born and died in Paris. In 1693 his comedy, Les Originaux, was a complete failure, and so depressed the author that he contemplated joining the Trappists. Four years later he began writing texts for operas and ballets, e.g...
attacks on the three unities
Classical unities
The classical unities, Aristotelian unities or three unities are rules for drama derived from a passage in Aristotle's Poetics. In their neoclassical form they are as follows:...
, on versification, and on Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, whom Madame de Lambert thought dull; which did not prevent her from receiving such partisans of the Classical writers as Anne Dacier, Father d’Olivet
Pierre-Joseph Thoulier d'Olivet
Pierre-Joseph Thoulier d'Olivet, Abbot of Olivet was a French abbot, writer, grammarian and translator. He was elected the fourth occupant of Académie française seat 31....
, or Valincour
Jean-Baptiste-Henri de Valincour
Jean-Baptiste Henri de Trousset, lord of Valincour or Valincourt was a French admiral and man of letters...
.
The Marquise de Lambert was not socially conservative. She championed Montesquieu’s
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu , generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment...
satirical Persian Letters
Persian Letters
Persian Letters is a literary work by Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, recounting the experiences of two Persian noblemen, Usbek and Rica, who are traveling through France.-Plot summary:...
and succeeded in obtaining the author’s election to the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
. She was one of the first society women to open her door to actors such as Adrienne Lecouvreur
Adrienne Lecouvreur
Adrienne Lecouvreur was a French actress.Born in Damery, she first appeared professionally on the stage in Lille...
or Michel Baron
Michel Baron
Michel Baron was a French actor and playwright. His family name was originally Boyron. His father and mother were leading players. He was born in Paris. He was orphaned at age 9, and joined the child company Petits Comédiens Dauphins at age 12, becoming its brightest star...
.
Fontenelle
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle , also called Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, was a French author.Fontenelle was born in Rouen, France and died in Paris just one month before his 100th birthday. His mother was the sister of great French dramatists Pierre and Thomas Corneille...
and Houdar de la Motte were the great men of her celebrated salon, where one could also encounter Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy
Madame d'Aulnoy
Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d'Aulnoy , also known as Countess d'Aulnoy, was a French writer known for her fairy tales...
, the poet Catherine Bernard
Catherine Bernard
Catherine Bernard was a French poet, playwright, and novelist. She composed three historical novels, two verse tragedies, several poems, and was awarded several poetry prizes by the Académie française...
, the Abbé de Bragelonne, Father Buffier
Claude Buffier
Claude Buffier , French philosopher, historian and educationalist, was born in Poland, of French parents, who returned to France, and settled at Rouen, soon after his birth....
, the Abbé de Choisy
François-Timoléon de Choisy
François Timoléon, abbé de Choisy was a French author.-Life:He was born in Paris. His father was attached to the household of the duke of Orléans, and his mother, who was on intimate terms with Anne of Austria, was regularly called upon to amuse Louis XIV...
, Madame Dacier, the mathematician Dortous de Mairan, Fénelon, Hénault
Charles-Jean-François Hénault
Charles-Jean-François Hénault was a French historian.-Early years:Hénault was born in Paris. His father, a farmer-general of taxes, was a man of literary tastes, and young Hénault obtained a good education at the Jesuit college...
, Marivaux, the Abbé Mongault, Montesquieu
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu , generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment...
, the lawyer Louis de Sacy
Louis de Sacy
Louis de Sacy was a French author, and lawyer. He was the third member elected to occupy seat 2 of the Académie française in 1701.-Bibliography:* Lettres de Pline le Jeune * Traité de l’amitié * Traité de la gloire ...
(one of the Marquise’s favorites), the Marquis de Sainte-Aulaire
François-Joseph de Beaupoil de Sainte-Aulaire
François-Joseph de Beaupoil, marquis de Sainte-Aulaire was a French poet and army officer.-External links:*...
, Baronne Staal
Marguerite De Launay, Baronne Staal
Marguerite Jeanne Cordier de Launay, baronne de Staal was a French author.-Life:De Launay was born in Paris. Her father was a painter named Cordier. He seems to have deserted her mother, who then resumed her maiden name, de Launay, which was also adopted by her daughter...
, Madame de Tencin
Claudine Guérin de Tencin
Claudine Alexandrine Guérin de Tencin was a French salonist and author. She was the mother of Jean le Rond d'Alembert, philosophe and contributor to the Encyclopédie.- Early life :...
who received the Marquise’s guests at her death in 1733, or the Abbé Terrasson
Jean Terrasson
Jean Terrasson , often referred to as the Abbe Terrasson, was a French priest, author, and most notably a member of the Académie française....
.
The Marquise de Lambert’s salon was known as the antechamber of the Académie française. According to the Marquis d’Argenson
René-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, marquis d' Argenson
René-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, marquis d'Argenson was a French statesman, son of Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson, the first Marquis d'Argenson, and brother of Marc-Pierre d'Argenson...
, "she had brought about the election of half the members of the Academy."
Madame de Lambert, says Fontenelle, "was not only ardent to serve her friends, without waiting for their request, nor the humiliating exposition of their need; but a good deed to be done, even for someone she had no connection with, always interested her intensely, and the circumstances had to be especially contrary, for her not to succumb. Some bad outcomes of her generosity had not reformed her, and she always remained equally ready to risk doing good."
Literary legacy
Madame de Lambert was particularly interested in questions of educationEducation
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
. She wrote Advice from a mother to her son (1726) and Advice from a mother to her daughter (1728) which are full of nobility and a great elevation of thought, and whose debt to the maxims of Fénelon
François Fénelon
François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, more commonly known as François Fénelon , was a French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer...
she recognized: "I found the precepts which I gave to my son in Telemachus and the counsels to my daughter in L'Éducation des filles."
Her "Reflections on Women" were not intended to be printed, and when they were published from copies intended for friends of the author, she was greatly upset and believed herself dishonored. She bought up a large part of the edition to destroy it, which did not prevent several clandestine reprintings and even a translation into English. This text finely evokes the paradoxes of the feminine condition:
I have examined whether women could be better employed : I have found respectable authors who have thought that they had qualities which might carry them to great things, such as imagination, feeling, taste : gifts which they have received from Nature. I have reflected on each of these qualities. Since feeling dominates them, and leads them naturally towards love, I have sought whether they could be saved from the disadvantages of that passion, by separating pleasure from what is called vice. I have therefore imagined a metaphysics of love : let her practise it who can.
Without rejecting the attractions of femininity, the author revolts against the emptiness of women’s education, reproaching Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
with '"having attached to learning the shame which was the lot of vice." It is inner emptiness, she believes, which leads to moral corruption : enhanced education is therefore a bulwark against vice.
She also wrote essays on Friendship and on Old Age, as well as depictions of the guests at her salon and pieces to be read at these gatherings.
She had a true talent for crafting maxims with a new and original turn : "It is often well thought," writes the nineteenth-century critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history.-Early years:...
, "but it is even better said." Sometimes erring by an excess of refinement, she often shows energy and concision. Her writings are remarkable, according to Fontenelle, "for the tone of amiable virtue that reigns throughout," and, according to Louis Simon Auger, "for the purity of the style and the morality, the elevation of the sentiments, the fineness of the observations and the ideas."
The Marquise de Lambert was not very devout, even if she condemned irreligion as in bad taste; "Mme de Lambert’s religion," notes Sainte-Beuve, "is more of an elevated intellectual form than an interior and habitual spring flowing from the heart, or than a positive revelation." In this way, she was a forerunner of the Enlightenment and its philosophical ideas.
Chronological list
- Lettre de madame la Marquise de ***, sur les Fables Nouvelles [d’Antoine Houdar de La Motte]. Avec la réponse servant d’apologie, 1719
- Avis d’une mère à son fils [A Mother's Advice to Her Son], 1726
- Réflexions nouvelles sur les femmes, ou Métaphysique d’amour [New Reflections on Women, or Metaphysics of Love], 1727
- Avis d’une mère à sa fille [A Mother's Advice to Her Daughter], 1728
- Traité de l’Amitié [Essay on Friendship], 1732
- Traité de la Vieillesse [Essay on Old Age], 1732
The Marquise de Lambert's Works were published a number of times, beginning in 1747; besides the pieces listed above, they contained Dialogue entre Alexandre et Demosthène sur l’égalité des biens [Dialogue between Alexander and Demosthenes on the Equality of Happiness]; Psyché, en grec Âme [Psyche, Soul in Greek]; La Femme ermite, nouvelle [The Female Hermit]; letters, portraits, and discourses.
Translations
- Advice from a Mother to Her Son and Daughter; trans. William Hatchett. London: Tho. Worrall, 1729.
- The Philosophy of Love, or New Reflections on the Fair Sex; trans. John LockmanJohn Lockman-Life:Born in humble circumstances, he was an autodidact scholar who learnt to speak French by frequenting Slaughter's Coffee House. He had enough acquaintance with Alexander Pope that he could dedicate to him in 1734 his translation of Charles Porée's Oration...
. London: J. Hawkins, 1729 and 1737. - The Marchioness de Lambert's Letters to her Son and Daughter, On True Education and Dialogue Between Alexander and Diogenes on the Equality of Happiness; trans. Rowell. London: M. Cooper, 1749.
- The Works of the Marchioness de Lambert; trans. anon. London: W. Owen, 1749. Further editions in 1756, 1769, 1770 (Dublin: J. Potts), 1781.
- Essays on Friendship and Old Age; trans. Eliza Ball Hayley. London : J. Dodsley, 1780. American Libraries archive
- The Fair Solitary, or Female Hermit; trans. anon. Philadelphia: William Spottswood, 1790.
- "Advice of a Mother to Her Daughter"; trans. anon. In The Young Lady's Parental Monitor. London: Nathaniel Patten, 1792. American Libraries archive. And in Angelica's Ladies Library, or, Parents and Guardians Present. London: J. Hamilton, 1794. Google Books Republished, with a new introduction by Vivien Jones, Thoemmes Press, 1995.
- "Advice of a Mother to Her Son"; trans. anon. In Practical Morality, or, a Guide to Men and Manners. Hartford: William Andrus, 1841. Google Books
- New Reflections on Women: A New Translation and Introduction; trans. Ellen McNiven Hine. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1995.