Madam of Fayette

See also: Lafayette

Marie-madeleine Picks of the Alder , countess of Fayette, more known under the name of Madam of Fayette , is a French Woman of letters . She was born the March 16th 1634 with Paris, died the May 25th 1693. She wrote the first French historical novel, the Princess of Clèves , often considered as the first modern novel.

Biography

Marie-madeleine Pioche of the Alder was born in a family from rich minor nobility but, which revolves in the entourage of the cardinal of Richelieu. His/her mother, girl of a doctor of the king, is with the service of the duchess Marie-madeleine d' Aiguillon, who is it since her birth. His/her father, Marc Picks of the Alder, rider of the king, dies whereas it is only fifteen years old. The following year, it becomes lady-in-waiting of the queen Anne of Austria. It also starts to acquire a literary education with Ménage which teaches the Italian to him and the Latin . This last then introduces it into the literary living rooms in vogue of Catherine of Rambouillet, of the Marquise of the Plessis-Suspension brace and Madeleine de Scudéry. In 1650, his/her mother remarie with Renaud de Sévigné, the uncle of Marie de Sévigné; the two women will become “the dearest friends of the world” for always. In 1655, it marries, at the 22 years age, a Auvergnat eighteen years its elder, François Motier, count of Fayette of which it will have two wire. She accompanies it in her family fields in Auvergne and in the Bourbonnais although she frequently goes back to Paris where she starts to be introduced into the company of the court and to open her own living room successfully. Their marital happiness seems to have sunk after a few years of marriage, after the birth of their sons, dates where François of Fayette literally seems to have disappeared. the Heather summarized this strange situation thus: “We find now a woman who eclipsed her husband so much, that we do not know if he died or in life…”

One counts, among knowledge of Marie-madeleine of Fayette, Henriette of England, future duchess of Orleans, which required of him to be its biographer; Large Arnauld and French principal authors Isolated woodland and Huet whose Traité origin of the novels will be published in foreword of sound Zayde . With the whole beginning of the Sling, it also was near to the cardinal of Retz.

Established in a final way in Paris in 1659, it makes anonymously appear to the Princess of Montpensier in 1662. Of 1655 with 1680, it will be closely dependant with Rochefoucauld (the author of the Maximes ), of which it will say: “Mr. of Rochefoucauld gave me spirit, but I reformed his heart. ” Rochefoucauld introduces Marie-madeleine of Fayette to many literary great minds of time, including Racine and Boileau. 1669 sees the publication of the first volume of Zaïde , a novel hispano-Moorish published under the signature of Isolated woodland but almost certainly due with Fayette. The second volume appeared in 1671. Zaïde was the object of republications and translations in particular thanks to the foreword of Huet.

The most famous novel of Marie-madeleine of Fayette is the Princess of Clèves , initially anonymously published in March 1678. This work, whose success was immense, often passes to be the first true French novel and a prototype of the beginning of the psychological novel.

The death of Rochefoucauld in 1680 then of her husband in 1683 leads it to carry out a less active social life in its last years. It was clearly withdrawn from the fashionable life, in order to prepare with death, with a eschatologic prospect, very present at the time.

Three of its works were published on a purely posthumous basis: the Countess of Tightens (1718), Histoire of Henriette of England (1720) and Mémoires of the Court of France (1731).

The judgment of its pars

  • “ Mrs. of Fayette, is the woman who writes best and who has the most spirit. ” Boileau
  • “ Its Princess of Clèves and its Zaïde was the first novels where one saw manners of the decent people, and the natural adventures described with grace. Before it, one wrote of a bombastic style of the not very probable things. ” Voltaire, the century of Louis XIV (1751).
  • “Its simplicity real is in its design of the love; for Mrs. of Fayette, the love is a danger. It is its postulate. And what one feels in any sound delivers ( the Princess of Clèves ) like besides in the Princess of Montpensier , or the countess of Tightens , it is a constant mistrust towards the love (what of course is the opposite of the indifference). ” Albert Camus, Notebooks (1964).
  • “All in it attracts us, the rare distinction of its spirit, the firm uprightness of its feelings, and especially, perhaps, which we guess with deepest of his heart: a hidden suffering which was the source of its genius. ” Morillot, the novel of the 17th century.

Works

  • the princess of Monpensier , Paris, C. of Sercy, 1662
  • Zayde, Spanish history , volume 1, volume 2, Paris, Claude Barbin, 1671
  • the princess of Clèves , In Paris, at Claude Barbin, May 16th, 1678. Translated into English in 1689, London.
  • Romance and new , Paris, Traditional Garnier, 1989, ISSN 0750-2176
  • '' the Countess of Tightens '' (1718), posthumous
  • Histoire of Mrs Henriette of England, first woman of Philippe de France, Duc of Orleans , Amsterdam, M. - C. Cène, 1720
  • Mémoires of the court of France for the years 1688 and 1689 , Paris, Foucault, 1828

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