UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. BEDFORD COLLEGE ILiDAIlE de SEVIGNE AND THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF HER TIIIES A Thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Arts. AIRIL 1956. L.M.B.Cuming, ProQuest Number: 10097228 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10097228 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ACmOWLEDGE«NTS. Ko student can fail be to conscious that every piece of research involves the participation of a great many people. The present study is no exception, and the writer welcomes this opportunity of expressing her gratitude to all those who have contributed their share of help in the work involved. First of all I would like to thank my Religious Superiors for having made possible to me a further period of study, involving among other things a long delay in taking up the teaching activities of the Congregation, and the University of London for the financial assistance which has enabled me to continue academic work. Ly thanks are also due to the staffs of the British Museum and Senate House libraries: to the French staff of Bedford College, whose help during my undergraduate days first prepared me for the work in­ volved in research; and most of all to Professor Spink, for his help in pointing out possible avenues of exploration, and for his generous assistance with books, time and not least, encouragement during the two years spent on this study. CONTENTS. Introduction......................................P . i. Chapter. 1. The Education of Marie de Chantai..............1. 2. Madame de Sévigné and the World of Letters, 1644 - 1669.........47. 3. Madame de Sevigne and the iorld of Letters, 1670 - 1689.........120. 4. Last Years......................................159. 5. Education....................................... 164. 6. Madame de S^vignë and the Doctrines of Port - Royal ....... 206. 7. Madame de Sévignë and the Philosophy Descartes.............. 270. 8. The Medical World of the Seventeenth Century................ 311. 9. Aesthetic Appreciation......................... 354. Conclusion.......................................... 408. Bibliography....................... 418. Bibliography of works read by Madame de Sévigné....424. There should perhaps be some apology for adding 3^et another study of Madame de Sëvignë to the exhaustive list already in existence. Over the last two centuries critics have gleaned from the Corres~•'endance the material for many excellent bioyranhies. not only of the Marquise but of the numerous interesting figures whose lives were interwoven with hers. Her letters have been sifted bare of all information on the men and manners of seventeenth- century France, while every student of classical literature has turned to her in his research for further evidence or for corrobation. It is no accident that so important a position in the biography of the century should be occupied by a woman. The influence of women has been stronger on the literature of France than on that of any other nation in Europe. Particularly is this true of the seventeenth century, where feminine activity begins to pervade every branch of learning. Leaving aside for the moment the question of the importance and influence of préciosité, the literature of the classical era would still owe to the salons of 11 the Grand Siècle a truly inestimable debt. The names of Madame de Rambouillet. Julie d'Angennes, Mademoiselle de dcudery, the Comtesse de la Fayette are inseyarable from the masterpieces of French classicism. If we add those of Ninon de l ’Enclos and Mauame de la Sablière, the field of their influence, is broadened to include that of philosophical speculation, and extended to cover an entiv'e century. Among these brilliant nd cultured women the position occupied by 'ad a me le Sévi. ;ne is itself unique. In the first dace, she was by birth the almost exact contemporary of the greatest figures, and by reason of her long life a witness of the glory and nr'turitp of all but the very youn-gect authors of the Grand diecle. One might indeed say that she is its exact contemporary, providentially placed in the best possible wosition to witness its development; old enough at its beginnings to evaluate its literary productions with an adult mind, and yet young enough and alert enough not to be left behind by the fast-developing national and literary consciousness nor ever to feel herself out of touch with the spirit of her tiiues. She is also the only woman to have left to posterity a day-to-day record of her thoughts and activities, so personal and so comijlete that the reader, three centuries I l l later, is able to for., of the '••arquise an estimate as accurate as if he had been daily and hourly in her coi.rany. It is t^ a adiolly fortuitous circumstance, one so'jeti. iës feels, that we owe this revelation of Madame de Sévirné. Had there not been the accident of her daughter’s absence in Provence, causing her to pour out her most intivnate to.ouMito in a, connected sequence of letters for nearly thirt'.' years, not only sl.o’ld we have lost vrhat is, with the Mémoires of Haint-Sinon, the most comprehensive ricture ’ee eosse-o of the life of the Grand Siècle. i'e should also have lost al]. access to a most interesting mind. For the Marquise’s correspondence is not only a kaleidoscope of incident, bon mot and intrigue. It is also the record of an intelligent, well-educated i/omcin liviipv, the intellectual experience of one of the most fertile periods of French literary history, "nch of her youthful experience wn can only conjecture, from hints gleaned here and there in the letters a.nd contemporary documents. The marquise presents herself to the reader with a mind already furnished, her taste already moulded by the training acquired in youth. For the student, indeed, a great deal of the interest lies in this exploration of’a mind already formed, in an attempt to discover the influences which went to its shaidng. For t ' I.-- IV the llarquise is both the typical product of her age and its acutely critical observer, and one will understand nothing of her literary preferences without talcing both these factors into consideration.' Having then, as it were, reconstructed her mental outlook, one should be the better able to judg.e the impact made on her by the achievements of the century, and to determine how great a part she herself rinyed therein. ..aaame de dévigné’s letters have already been explored for the light they throw on contemporary movements of thought: on Cartesianism, Jansenism and the development of medical theory. She has been called as a witness to the seventeenth-century feeling for nature and as an example of its interest in music; end judgement had frequently been passed on her merits as a literary critic. In the present study the writer has sought to reverse the process, and from the many analyses which have been made to build up a. new synthesis of the Marquise's intellectual experience. The extent of the culture of any individual is necessarily extremely difficult to assess, and much that is significant in Madame de Sévigné’s letters may have been overlooked. Every fresh reading of them reveals some new facet of her mind, until one feels that to probe it to it's depths would require a life-tii e of study and reading. One fact, however, emerges clearly from even & brief study- It is that the Marquise, much more than has been been generally supposed; was living; at the very heart of the intellectual life of her period, and that however much her judgements on it might be coloured by her position in that period and the experiences undergone in youth, , <n she was keenly alive to every smallest manifestation of that extraordinary current of mental energy which flowed with such power through seventeenth-century France- The present study is in no sense intended as a new life of Madame de Sévigné. A great many of the biographical details contained in her letters have of set purpose been omitted. So, with great regret, have many of those vivid accounts of contemporary life which have rightly made the Marquise famous as the most entertaining of correspondents, but which have no place in an assessment of her intellectual experience. It is hoped, however, that this research may have contributed in some measure to the better understanding of her mind, and that the reader of it may be stimulated to r take up and enjoy for himself the pages of the Marquise's --- , correspondence; which is, af#er all, the ,aimi towards fo: which any biographer must work. Editions. 1. Lettres de Madame de Sévigné, de aa famille et de ses smds, recueillies et annotées par M.Monmerque. Nouvelle edition revue sur les autographes, les copies les plus authentiques et les plus anciennes impressions...Paris, Coll. Les Grands Ecrivains de la, France, 1362 - 66. 14 volrmes in -8o. 2.Lettres inédites de Madame de Sévigné à Madame de Grignan sa n u e , extraites d'un ancien manuscrit et publiées. .car Charles Capmas, Paris, Hachette, 1876, 2 volumes in -8o". Chapter I THE EDUCATION OF MARIE de CHAITTAL.