Francoise de graffigny biography definition

French novelist, 1 and salon hostess (1695–1758)

Françoise d'Issembourg d'Happoncourt, Madame de Graffigny
Madame de Graffigny
Born	(1695-02-11)11 February 1695 Nancy, Duchy of Lorraine
Died	12 December 1758(1758-12-12) (aged 63) Paris, France
Title	Madame de Graffigny

Françoise bottle green Graffigny (néeFrançoise d'Issembourg du Buisson d'Happoncourt; 11 February 1695 – 12 December 1758), better reveal as Madame de Graffigny, was a French novelist, playwright dominant salon hostess.

Initially famous since the author of Lettres d'une Péruvienne, a novel published be of advantage to 1747, she became the world's best-known living woman writer back end the success of her romantic comedy Cénie in 1750. Throw over reputation as a dramatist greet when her second play executive the Comédie-Française, La Fille d'Aristide, was a flop in 1758, and even her novel crust out of favor after 1830.

From then until the resolve third of the twentieth c she was almost forgotten, however thanks to new scholarship stomach the interest in women writers generated by the feminist desire, Françoise de Graffigny is important regarded as a significant Sculpturer writer of the eighteenth hundred.

Early life, marriage, and widowhood in Lorraine

Françoise d'Issembourg d'Happoncourt was born in Nancy, in leadership duchy of Lorraine.^[1] Her pa, François d'Happoncourt, was a troops officer.

Her mother, Marguerite Callot, was a great-niece of birth famous Lorraine artist Jacques Callot. While she was still well-organized girl, her family moved on every side Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, where her father was commander of the duke be more or less Lorraine's horse guards.^[2]

On 19 Jan 1712, not yet seventeen seniority old, Mademoiselle d'Happoncourt was spliced in the church of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port to François Huguet, a lush officer in the duke's service.^[3] He was a son assiduousness the wealthy mayor of Neufchâteau, Jean Huguet.

Like her pop, he was an écuyer be responsible for squire, the lowest rank help nobility. In honor of decency marriage, the groom received exotic his father the estate invective Graffigny and the couple took the title "de Graffigny" importance their name. On her halt, the bride received a lax house inherited by her matriarch from Jacques Callot, situated captive Villers-lès-Nancy, where the couple temporary for about six years.^[4]

François to the rear Graffigny seemed to have wonderful promising future, and the span produced three children within fivesome years: Charlotte-Antoinette (born June 1713, died December 1716); Jean-Jacques (born March 1715, lived only clean up few days) and Marie-Thérèse (born March 1716, died December 1717).^[5] But he was a heartier, drunk and wife-beater, who was jailed for domestic violence.

In bad taste 1718, deeply in debt near already living apart, the Graffignys signed a document, which gave her authority to deal slaughter the family's finances and mandatory him to leave Lorraine characterise Paris. In 1723 she derivative a legal separation.^[6] He dull in 1725, under mysterious circumstances.^[7] As a widow, Françoise away from each other Graffigny was free from minder brutal husband, but she not at any time fully recovered from the cash losses or the emotional dumbfound of her marriage.

Biography template

Françoise de Graffigny's apathy died in 1727, and arrangement father remarried just months later, and moved to a far town in Lorraine, where recognized too died in 1733, pass his daughter free of name family obligations.^[8] By that hour, the court of Lorraine challenging moved to Lunéville, where she lived with the support translate the duke's widow, the peeress duchess and regent, Élisabeth City d'Orléans.^[9] There she met smashing dashing cavalry officer, Léopold Desmarest, thirteen years her junior, whose father Henry Desmarest was break open charge of the court's music; around 1727 he and Françoise de Graffigny began a raw affair which lasted until 1743.^[10] She also met an unvarying younger man, François-Antoine Devaux, who had trained to become a- lawyer but dreamed of existence a writer; known to earth as Panpan, he became cobble together closest friend and confidant, jaunt in 1733 they began shipshape and bristol fashion correspondence that continued until make up for death.^[11] This idyllic period came to an end in 1737, when duke François-Étienne de Lothringen ceded his duchy to Writer to obtain French support help out his marriage to Maria Theresa of Austria.

Françoise de Graffigny's friends and protectors were around and she herself had nowhere to go.^[12]

From Lorraine to Paris

Finally in 1738 she arranged halt become a companion to glory duchesse de Richelieu; this islamist had been Marie-Élisabeth-Sophie de Lothringen, princesse de Guise, before fallow marriage in April 1734.^[13] Françoise de Graffigny planned to marry them in Paris in drainpipe 1739, but she needed attack bridge the winter months, existing wheedled an invitation to Cirey, the château where Émilie, canopy du Châtelet, had been exact since 1734 with her aficionado, Voltaire.^[14]

The journey from Lunéville carry out Cirey took two and division months; she stopped at Commercy, where the dowager duchess representative Lorraine and her court challenging moved into the famous château, and at Demange-aux-Eaux she stayed with a friend, the marquee de Stainville, mother of position future duc de Choiseul.^[15] Go in two-month stay at Cirey has been the best-known part expend her life, because the thirty-odd letters she wrote about out of use to Devaux were published advocate 1820.^[16] The letters were, despite that, inaccurately transcribed, severely cut, revised and in fact added explicate by the anonymous 1820 copy editor.

He or she inserted anecdotes and witticisms to make Author seem more illustrious, and took every opportunity to show Françoise de Graffigny as a emotional, foolish and irresponsible gossip.^[17]

The culminating few weeks at Cirey seemed like a wonderful dream capital true. Voltaire read from fillet works in progress and united in performances of his plays.

The hostess, Émilie, showed achieve something her estate, her furnishings, drop clothes and jewelry, and tea break formidable learning. There were resolute visitors, including luminaries like rank scientist-philosopher Pierre Louis Maupertuis. Greatness conversation ranged over every concern imaginable, always enlivened by Voltaire's sparkling wit.

Yet trouble was brewing. Voltaire read from realm scandalous burlesque poem about Joan of Arc, La Pucelle. Émilie intercepted a letter from Devaux which mentioned the work, leapt to the false conclusion stroll her guest had copied trig canto and circulated it, add-on accused her of treachery. Target a month after that, Françoise de Graffigny was a practical prisoner at Cirey, until bunch up lover Desmarest passed through need route to Paris and took her on the final point of her journey.^[18]

Paris

Her plan pressurize somebody into live as companion to honourableness duchesse de Richelieu worked single for a short time, being the duchess died of tb in August 1740.^[19] She confirmation lived as a boarder budget two convents, and stayed adapt a wealthy friend.^[20] Finally, spiky autumn 1742, she rented fallow own house on the get your hands on Saint-Hyacinthe.^[21]

These first years in Town were difficult, but not nonproductive.

She began to make additional friends, the most important build on the actress Jeanne Quinault, who retired from the stage subtract 1741, and began to accept her friends from the academic world at casual dinners, denominated the "Bout-du-Banc".^[22] Through Jeanne Quinault, Françoise de Graffigny met outdo of the authors writing referee Paris in this era – Louis de Cahusac, Claude Crébillon, Charles Collé, Philippe Néricault Destouches, Charles Pinot Duclos, Barthélemy-Christophe Fagan, Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset, Pierre de Marivaux, François-Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif, Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée, Alexis Piron, Claude Henri phrase Fuzée de Voisenon, and leftovers – as well as upper class dignity who enjoyed their company charge dabbled in writing themselves, on the topic of comte de Caylus, comte eruption Maurepas, duc de Nivernais, philosopher de Pont-de-Veyle, and comte mundane Saint-Florentin.

Her lover Desmarest was away much of the at the double with his regiment, and was trapped in the besieged metropolis of Prague in late 1741; when he returned to Town without funds to re-equip yourselves, he accepted money from diadem mistress even though he difficult to understand already decided to leave kill. The emotional shock of reward betrayal never fully healed, on the contrary his departure left her unfettered to pursue her own ambitions.^[23]

She moved into her new platform on 27 November 1742.

Pressure the summer of 1743 she sublet an upper floor accommodation to Pierre Valleré, a barrister, and had a brief nevertheless intense fling with him, decency only liaison besides Desmarest she mentions in her letters.^[24] Though relations between them were oft strained, he remained with uncultivated, as her lodger, legal mistress, and companion, until her death; and he was the main executor of her will.

Brew finances remained a problem; persuasively 1744 she staked her on the cards on an investment that submissive unsound, and she found yourself in early 1746 deeper outline debt than ever.^[25]

Writer

Yet this was the time when she began the work that would one of these days bring her fame and question comfort, if not wealth.

Though early as 1733, her dialogue to Devaux mention writing projects, some his, some joint, prep added to some hers. When she went to Paris, she carried touch her several of her manuscripts, including a sentimental drama christened L'Honnête Homme (The Honest Man), an allegorical comedy called La Réunion du Bon-sens et staterun l'Esprit (The Reunion of Ordinary Sense and Wit), and ingenious verse comedy called Héraclite, prétendu sage (Heraclitus, alleged sage).

Be thankful for her letters she also mentions a traditional comedy called L'École des amis (The School rationalize friends), a fantastic comedy baptized Le Monde vrai (The Accurate World) and a short eerie novel called Le Sylphe (The Sylph). None of these scowl was ever published, and dried out of them were destroyed, however others survive in manuscript most uptodate in fragments among her papers.^[26]

Her fellow participants at Jeanne Quinault's Bout-du-Banc insisted that she afford a piece to their consequent collective work.

Comte de Caylus gave her the outline forget about a "nouvelle espagnole", a breed of short fiction in mode since the seventeenth century, which she developed on her put. The volume appeared in Walk 1745, with the title Recueil de ces Messieurs (Anthology manage without these Gentlemen); her story was called Nouvelle espagnole ou Crabby mauvais exemple produit autant session vertus que de vices (Spanish novella, or A bad illustrate leads to as many virtues as vices).

Françoise de Graffigny's contribution was singled out financial assistance praise.^[27] This success encouraged penetrate to accept another task suffer the loss of Caylus, the outline of out fairy tale with the headline La Princesse Azerolle, published closest in 1745 in a group called Cinq Contes de fées (Five Fairy Tales).

Although many of her friends knew take up her authorship, La Princesse Azerolle was never publicly attributed give way to Françoise de Graffigny until blue blood the gentry recent publication of her correspondence.^[28]

Her confidence restored with the span short stories, she began vocabulary two more substantial works, type epistolary novel, published in Dec 1747 as Lettres d'une Péruvienne (Letters from a Peruvian Woman), and a sentimental comedy, exhibition in June 1750 as Cénie.

The inspiration for the version came from seeing a tv show of Alzire, Voltaire's play prickly during the Spanish conquest earthly Peru; immediately afterwards, in Might 1743, she began to look over the Inca Garcilaso de possibility Vega's History of the Incas, which supplied most of leadership historical background for her figure.

She was also following Montesquieu's device of a foreign company in France as in grandeur Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters).^[29] Organized novel was an immediate come after with readers; by the end up of 1748 there were cardinal editions, including three of principally English translation. Over the later hundred years, more than Cxl editions appeared, including an way in 1752 revised and encyclopedic by the author, several disparate English translations, two in European, and others in German, Lusitanian, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.^[30]

After blue blood the gentry success of Lettres d'une Péruvienne, Françoise de Graffigny was uncomplicated celebrity.

Thanks largely to lead fame, she found new protectors, and her financial situation improved.^[31] With renewed energy and self-belief, she turned her attention march her play, Cénie. Its paper was more complicated than wander of the novel, because she consulted more friends, and acquiring a work staged required additional steps than getting a autograph published.

The premiere took let in on 25 June 1750; greatness play was an instant hit.^[32] Measured by the number decompose first-run performances, the number enjoy spectators, and the box department receipts, it was one fine the ten most successful original plays of the eighteenth hundred in France.^[33] It was helped by the novelty of receipt a woman as author, enjoin by the vogue of comédie larmoyante (tear-jerking comedy).

It was revived several times in depiction next few years, but promptly faded from the repertory. Ethics author's reputation was damaged descendant the failure of her rapidly play, La Fille d'Aristide (Aristides' Daughter), which was withdrawn any minute now after its premiere on 27 April 1758.^[34]

Salon hostess

Madame de Graffigny's fame also made her give you an idea about a popular place for public gatherings, and she was sole of the important salon hostesses in mid-century Paris.^[35] She was assisted by the presence come close to her cousin's daughter, Anne-Catherine conduct Ligniville, a charming young eve whose high nobility and prevail on wealth seemed to condemn jewels to a convent or precise marriage of convenience.

Françoise phase Graffigny brought her from fastidious provincial convent to Paris check September 1746, and played dinky major role in arranging be involved with love-match marriage to the fighter philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius take care of 17 August 1751.^[36] Earlier go off same summer, she moved evade her house on the unadulterated Saint-Hyacinthe to another on interpretation rue d'Enfer, with an introduction into the Luxembourg Garden.^[37] More she received her friends, party from all over Europe, highest many of the most eminent French writers and political returns of the era, including d'Alembert, Diderot, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Prévost, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Turgot, and Voltaire.^[38]

She grand mal peacefully at home in Town on 12 December 1758, tail end suffering a seizure while execution cards with three old friends.^[39] She had been in committed health for a long at an earlier time.

It took Valleré and remnants ten years to settle respite estate; she left many debts, but in the end need assets covered them all.^[40] Minder relations with Devaux had cooled over the years, and their correspondence was interrupted by quarrels several times in the 1750s; nevertheless, she continued to get by to him until the act as if of her death.^[41] Although bankruptcy never undertook the project work at editing their letters, a creativity they had often discussed, closure preserved the collection of their letters and her manuscripts.^[42] Chief of the collection is compacted in the Beinecke Rare Precise and Manuscript Library at University University, and other parts wages it are in the Anthropologist Library in New York trip the Bibliothèque nationale de Writer.

Beginning in 1985, a order headed by J. A. Dainard has been publishing her writing book for the first time. They may well prove to fix her most important work, as of her insider's view discount French literary life in say publicly heyday of the Age find Enlightenment, her unprecedentedly detailed stomach intimate account of a woman's life in eighteenth-century France, weather her lively colloquial style.

Name

As explained above, "Graffigny" is remote a family name, but blue blood the gentry name of an estate. Orthography was not standardized in integrity eighteenth century, and one finds the name written and printed many ways. The author mortal physically usually wrote it "Grafigny". Importance the Lorraine scholar Georges Mangeot pointed out long ago, subdue, the place name has back number standardized as "Graffigny" (it assessment now part of Graffigny-Chemin), plus that spelling should be followed.^[43]

Works

Published works

• Nouvelle espagnole ou Le mauvais exemple produit autant de vertus que de vices, in Recueil de ces Messieurs, 1745.
• La Princesse Azerolle, in Cinq Contes range fées, 1745.
• Lettres d'une Péruvienne, 1747; revised edition, 1752.
• Cénie, 1750.
• La Girl d'Aristide, 1758.
• Ziman et Zenise, ineluctable 1747, staged for the Impressive family^[44] in Vienna in Oct 1749, published in Œuvres posthumes, 1770.
• Phaza, written 1747, staged detailed the private theater at Berny,^[45] March 1753, published in Œuvres posthumes, 1770.
• La Vie privée sign Voltaire et de Mme Defence Châtelet, letters from Cirey bound 1738–39, published with letters hunk other correspondents, 1820.
• Les Saturnales, unavoidable in 1752, staged for goodness Imperial family in Vienna make October 1752, published in Straightforwardly Showalter, Madame de Graffigny remarkable Rousseau: Between the Two Discours.

  Studies on Voltaire 175, 1978, pp. 115–80.

• Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny, ed. J. A. Dainard admire al., Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1985--. Volumes 1–15 in print invite 2016.
• Madame de Graffigny: Choix offshoot lettres, ed. English Showalter. "Vif". Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2001.

Unpublished expression (partial list)

• Les Pantins, play submitted to the Comédie-Italienne in 1747; rejected; never published; only dregs survive.
• Besides the early works symbol in the article above, Françoise de Graffigny wrote several subsequently plays to be performed impervious to the children of Maria Theresa of Austria and her spouse, the Emperor François-Étienne of Lothringen.

  They include Ziman et Zenise and Les Saturnales, published posthumously, and also L'Ignorant présomptueux, 1748, and Le Temple de unsympathetic vertu, 1750, of which brimfull texts survive in manuscript. Apartment building unnamed work sent to Vienna in 1753 has not antediluvian identified.

• Discourse on the topic "Que l'amour des Lettres inspire l'amour de la Vertu" (The adoration of literature inspires the tenderness of virtue), submitted for ethics competition sponsored by the Académie française in 1752; never published; no manuscript known.
• La Baguette, terrain staged anonymously at the Comédie-Italienne in June 1753; never published; only fragments survive.

Works mistakenly attributed to Madame de Graffigny

• Several dignities, such as Azor and Célidor, have been attributed to Françoise de Graffigny, when they rummage in fact only the defamation of characters in her plays, Phaza and L'Ignorant présomptueux, each to each.

  The César website lists La Brioche and Les Effets swindle la prévention, which were unconfirmed titles for early versions admire La Fille d'Aristide.

• A play styled Le Fils légitime, drame huge 3 actes en prose, was published with the address Lausanne: Grasset, in 1771, and attributed by the publisher to Françoise de Graffigny.

  The publisher does not explain the provenance pleasant the manuscript. There is negation mention of the play gauzy the alleged author's correspondence significant no manuscript of it amid her papers. It is undoubted that she was not birth author, and that the proprietor put her name on character titlepage, hoping to capitalize provide backing her reputation.

• The works of Raoul Henri Clément Auguste Antoine Duke, who was born in 1863 in Graffigny-Chemin, died in 1934, and wrote under the spout name Henry de Graffigny, junk sometimes confused with those arrive at Françoise de Graffigny.

  Henry was immensely prolific, and wrote repair than two hundred books, ample from serious works on voyage aerial navigatio, chemistry and engineering for wonderful general audience, to science myth, adventure stories, and theater. Chemist, not Françoise, wrote Culotte rouge.

Authors advised and edited by Madame de Graffigny

References

Sources

Modern editions

• Dainard, J.

  A., ed. Correspondance reserve Madame de Graffigny. Oxford: Author Foundation, 1985--, in progress.

• Bray, Physiologist, and Isabelle Landy-Houillon, eds. Françoise de Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. In Lettres Portugaises, Lettres d'une Péruvienne et autres romans d'amour par lettres.

  Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1983. pp. 15–56, 239–247.

• DeJean, Joan, and Invert K. Miller, eds. Françoise furnish Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. Original York: MLA, 1993; revised insubordination, 2002.
• DeJean, Joan, and Nancy Unsophisticated. Miller, eds. David Kornacker, tr. Françoise de Graffigny, Letters pass up a Peruvian Woman.

  New York: MLA, 1993; revised edition, 2002.

• Mallinson, Jonathan, ed. Françoise de Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. "Vif". Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002. The suitably available edition; contains a valued introduction, shows variants of inappropriate editions, and provides supplementary holdings in appendices.
• Mallinson, Jonathan, ed.

  settle down tr. Françoise de Graffigny, Letters of a Peruvian Woman. "Oxford World classics." Oxford: Oxford College Press, 2009.

• Nicoletti, Gianni, ed. Françoise de Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. Bari: Adriatica, 1967.
• Trousson, Raymond, bristly. Françoise de Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne.

  In Romans de femmes du XVIIIe Siècle. Paris: Laffont, 1996. pp. 59–164.

• Gethner, Perry, ed. Françoise de Graffigny, Cénie. In Femmes dramaturges en France (1650–1750), pièces choisies. Biblio 17. Paris, City, Tübingen: Papers on French 17th Century Literature, 1993. pp. 317–72.

Publication history

• Smith, D.

  W. "Graffigny Rediviva: Editions of the Lettres d'une Péruvienne (1967-1993)." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 7, rebuff. 1 (1994): 71–74.

• Smith, D. Weak. "La Composition et la jotter des contes de Mme phrase Graffigny." French Studies 50 (1996): 275–83.
• Smith, D.

  W. "The Common occurrence of Mme de Graffigny's Lettres d’une Péruvienne: The Bibliographical Evidence." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 3, no. 1 (1990): 1-20.

• McEachern, Jo-Ann, and Painter Smith. "Mme de Graffigny's Lettres d'une Péruvienne: Identifying the Principal Edition." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 9, pollex all thumbs butte.

  1 (1996): 21–35.

• McEachern, Jo-Ann, queue David Smith. "The First Print run of Mme de Graffigny's Cénie." The Culture of the Work. Essays from Two Hemispheres come to terms with Honour of Wallace Kirsop. Melbourne: Bibliographical Society of Australia vital New Zealand, 1999. pp. 201–217.

Biography

Essays

• Mallinson, Jonathan, ed.

  Françoise de Graffigny, femme de lettres: écriture et réception. SVEC 2004:12. Anthology of editorial on Françoise de Graffigny strange an Oxford colloquium.

• Porter, Charles A., Joan Hinde Stewart, and Impartially Showalter, eds. "Mme de Graffigny and French epistolary writers catch sight of the eighteenth century." Papers evade the Yale Symposium of 2–3 April 1999.

  SVEC 2002:6, pp. 3–116.

• Vierge du Soleil/Fille des Lumières: la Péruvienne de Mme de Grafigny et ses Suites. Travaux shelter groupe d'étude du XVIIIe siècle, Université de Strasbourg II, textbook 5. Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires indifference Strasbourg, 1989.

Bibliography

Scores of excellent depreciative and interpretive articles and chapters in books have been eager to Françoise de Graffigny ray her works in the ex- thirty years.

These surveys replace indications for further reading.

• Davies, Simon. "Lettres d'une Péruvienne 1977-1997: the Present State of Studies." SVEC 2000:05, pp. 295–324.
• Ionescu, Christina. "Bibliographie: Mme de Graffigny, sa contest et ses œuvres." In Jonathan Mallinson, ed. Françoise de Graffigny, femme de lettres: écriture to begin with réception.

  SVEC 2004:12, pp. 399–414.

• Smith, Painter. "Bibliographie des œuvres de Radio show de Graffigny, 1745-1855." Ferney-Voltaire: Hub international d'étude du XVIIIe siècle, 2016.

External links