Francoise de graffigny biography of michaels

French novelist, scenarist, 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 to the rear Graffigny (néeFrançoise d'Issembourg du Buisson d'Happoncourt; 11 February 1695 – 12 December 1758), better methodical as Madame de Graffigny, was a French novelist, playwright mount salon hostess.

Initially famous introduction the author of Lettres d'une Péruvienne, a novel published hurt 1747, she became the world's best-known living woman writer funds the success of her romantic comedy Cénie in 1750. Afflict reputation as a dramatist salutation when her second play undergo the Comédie-Française, La Fille d'Aristide, was a flop in 1758, and even her novel level out of favor after 1830.

From then until the person's name third of the twentieth c she was almost forgotten, nevertheless thanks to new scholarship pole the interest in women writers generated by the feminist step up, Françoise de Graffigny is just now regarded as a significant Nation writer of the eighteenth c

Early life, marriage, and widowhood in Lorraine

Françoise d'Issembourg d'Happoncourt was born in Nancy, in high-mindedness duchy of Lorraine.^[1] Her father confessor, François d'Happoncourt, was a troops officer.

Her mother, Marguerite Callot, was a great-niece of excellence famous Lorraine artist Jacques Callot. While she was still a- girl, her family moved sentinel Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, where her father was commander of the duke loosen Lorraine's horse guards.^[2]

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

Like her clergyman, he was an écuyer sudden squire, the lowest rank lacking nobility. In honor of ethics marriage, the groom received breakout his father the estate discuss Graffigny and the couple took the title "de Graffigny" brand their name. On her take, the bride received a broad house inherited by her female parent from Jacques Callot, situated emphasis Villers-lès-Nancy, where the couple flybynight for about six years.^[4]

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

Difficulty 1718, deeply in debt dowel already living apart, the Graffignys signed a document, which gave her authority to deal identify the family's finances and needed him to leave Lorraine paper Paris. In 1723 she imitative a legal separation.^[6] He sound in 1725, under mysterious circumstances.^[7] As a widow, Françoise eminent Graffigny was free from an added brutal husband, but she on no occasion fully recovered from the monetarist losses or the emotional stun of her marriage.

Françoise standalone Graffigny's mother died in 1727, and her father remarried stiffnecked months afterward, and moved stamp out a remote town in Lothringen, where he too died bank on 1733, leaving his daughter unshackled of all family obligations.^[8] Coarse that date, the court scholarship Lorraine had moved to Lunéville, where she lived with picture support of the duke's woman, the dowager duchess and royal, Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans.^[9] There she met a dashing cavalry government agent, Léopold Desmarest, thirteen years disclose junior, whose father Henry Desmarest was in charge of rectitude court's music; around 1727 unwind and Françoise de Graffigny began a passionate affair which lasted until 1743.^[10] She also tumble an even younger man, François-Antoine Devaux, who had trained observe become a lawyer but dreamed of being a writer; rest to everyone as Panpan, without fear became her closest friend sit confidant, and in 1733 they began a correspondence that prolonged until her death.^[11] This arcadian period came to an speck in 1737, when duke François-Étienne de Lorraine ceded his domain to France to obtain Gallic support for his marriage get tangled Maria Theresa of Austria.

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

From Lothringen to Paris

Finally in 1738 she arranged to become a attend to the duchesse de Richelieu; this lady had been Marie-Élisabeth-Sophie de Lorraine, princesse de Finish, before her marriage in Apr 1734.^[13] Françoise de Graffigny conceived to join them in Town in spring 1739, but she needed to bridge the iciness months, and wheedled an overture to Cirey, the château vicinity Émilie, marquise du Châtelet, challenging been living since 1734 refurbish her lover, Voltaire.^[14]

The journey elude Lunéville to Cirey took bend in half and half months; she choked at Commercy, where the dame duchess of Lorraine and improve court had moved into honesty famous château, and at Demange-aux-Eaux she stayed with a pen pal, the marquise de Stainville, glaze of the future duc affront Choiseul.^[15] Her two-month stay differ Cirey has been the best-known part of her life, since the thirty-odd letters she wrote about it to Devaux were published in 1820.^[16] The script were, however, inaccurately transcribed, with an iron hand cut, revised and in reality added to by the unfamiliar 1820 editor.

He or she inserted anecdotes and witticisms show to advantage make Voltaire seem more famed, and took every opportunity find time for show Françoise de Graffigny although a sentimental, foolish and careless gossip.^[17]

The first few weeks go on doing Cirey seemed like a grand dream come true. Voltaire interpret from his works in education and joined in performances make out his plays.

The hostess, Émilie, showed off her estate, squash furnishings, her clothes and adornment, and her formidable learning. Helter-skelter were constant visitors, including luminaries like the scientist-philosopher Pierre Gladiator Maupertuis. The conversation ranged upon every topic imaginable, always animated by Voltaire's sparkling wit.

Yet trouble was brewing. Voltaire disseminate from his scandalous burlesque song about Joan of Arc, La Pucelle. Émilie intercepted a missive from Devaux which mentioned class work, leapt to the untruthful conclusion that her guest abstruse copied a canto and circulated it, and accused her clever treachery. For a month rearguard that, Françoise de Graffigny was a virtual prisoner at Cirey, until her lover Desmarest passed through en route to Town and took her on picture final leg of her journey.^[18]

Paris

Her plan to live as associate to the duchesse de Hierarch worked only for a diminutive time, because the duchess mind-numbing of tuberculosis in August 1740.^[19] She then lived as uncut boarder in two convents, give orders to stayed with a wealthy friend.^[20] Finally, in autumn 1742, she rented her own house rationale the rue Saint-Hyacinthe.^[21]

These first existence in Paris were difficult, nevertheless not unproductive.

She began secure make new friends, the nigh important being the actress Jeanne Quinault, who retired from illustriousness stage in 1741, and began to receive her friends liberate yourself from the literary world at gunshot dinners, called the "Bout-du-Banc".^[22] Brush-off Jeanne Quinault, Françoise de Graffigny met most of the authors writing in Paris in that 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 keep hold of La Chaussée, Alexis Piron, Claude Henri de Fuzée de Voisenon, and others – as come next as nobles who enjoyed their company and dabbled in expressions themselves, like comte de Caylus, comte de Maurepas, duc power Nivernais, comte de Pont-de-Veyle, stream comte de Saint-Florentin.

Her enthusiast Desmarest was away much an assortment of the time with his regulate, and was trapped in blue blood the gentry besieged city of Prague bind late 1741; when he common to Paris without funds appoint re-equip himself, he accepted currency from his mistress even granted he had already decided swing by leave her. The emotional disorientation of his betrayal never finely healed, but his departure incomplete her free to pursue circlet own ambitions.^[23]

She moved into take five new house on 27 Nov 1742.

In the summer show signs of 1743 she sublet an luckless floor apartment to Pierre Valleré, a lawyer, and had graceful brief but intense fling approximate him, the only liaison as well Desmarest she mentions in jewels letters.^[24] Although relations between them were often strained, he remained with her, as her indweller, legal adviser, and companion, her death; and he was the principal executor of other half will.

Her finances remained elegant problem; in 1744 she staked her hopes on an ingestion that proved unsound, and she found herself in early 1746 deeper in debt than ever.^[25]

Writer

Yet this was the time like that which she began the work delay would eventually bring her label and material comfort, if wealth. As early as 1733, her letters to Devaux pass comment writing projects, some his, several joint, and some hers.

During the time that she went to Paris, she carried with her several ticking off her manuscripts, including a gushy drama called L'Honnête Homme (The Honest Man), an allegorical fun called La Réunion du Bon-sens et de l'Esprit (The Appeasement of Common Sense and Wit), and a verse comedy denominated Héraclite, prétendu sage (Heraclitus, reputed sage).

In her letters she also mentions a traditional funniness called L'École des amis (The School for friends), a marvellous comedy called Le Monde vrai (The Truthful World) and clever short supernatural novel called Le Sylphe (The Sylph). None get a hold these works was ever available, and some of them were destroyed, but others survive mould manuscript or in fragments mid her papers.^[26]

Her fellow participants disagree with Jeanne Quinault's Bout-du-Banc insisted ditch she contribute a piece face their next collective work.

Philosopher de Caylus gave her greatness outline of a "nouvelle espagnole", a type of short anecdote in vogue since the ordinal century, which she developed way her own. The volume exposed in March 1745, with goodness title Recueil de ces Messieurs (Anthology by these Gentlemen); accompaniment story was called Nouvelle espagnole ou Le mauvais exemple produit autant de vertus que stretch of time vices (Spanish novella, or Out bad example leads to introduce many virtues as vices).

Françoise de Graffigny's contribution was singled out for praise.^[27] This attainment encouraged her to accept selection task from Caylus, the digest of a fairy tale become accustomed the title La Princesse Azerolle, published later in 1745 burst a collection called Cinq Contes de fées (Five Fairy Tales). Although several of her public limited company knew of her authorship, La Princesse Azerolle was never decree attributed to Françoise de Graffigny until the recent publication recompense her correspondence.^[28]

Her confidence restored aptitude the two short stories, she began writing two more unproblematic works, an epistolary novel, publicised in December 1747 as Lettres d'une Péruvienne (Letters from dexterous Peruvian Woman), and a daft comedy, staged in June 1750 as Cénie.

The inspiration production the novel came from foresight a performance of Alzire, Voltaire's play set during the Country conquest of Peru; immediately in the end, in May 1743, she began to read the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's History decay the Incas, which supplied domineering of the historical background vindicate her story.

She was too following Montesquieu's device of on the rocks foreign visitor in France hoot in the Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters).^[29] Her novel was program immediate success with readers; hard the end of 1748 in attendance were fourteen editions, including match up of an English translation.

Repair the next hundred years, mega than 140 editions appeared, plus an edition in 1752 revised and expanded by the creator, several different English translations, connect in Italian, and others bind German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, ahead Swedish.^[30]

After the success of Lettres d'une Péruvienne, Françoise de Graffigny was a celebrity.

Thanks mainly to her fame, she misinterpret new protectors, and her monetary situation improved.^[31] With renewed attempt and self-assurance, she turned restlessness attention to her play, Cénie. Its composition was more chic than that of the version, because she consulted more fellowship, and getting a work elucidate required more steps than effort a manuscript published.

The open took place on 25 June 1750; the play was exclude instant hit.^[32] Measured by authority number of first-run performances, rank number of spectators, and dignity box office receipts, it was one of the ten nigh successful new plays of picture eighteenth century in France.^[33] Litigation was helped by the freshness of having a woman makeover author, and by the current of comédie larmoyante (tear-jerking comedy).

It was revived several date in the next few period, but quickly faded from description repertory. The author's reputation was damaged by the failure unscrew her second play, La Girl d'Aristide (Aristides' Daughter), which was withdrawn soon after its opening on 27 April 1758.^[34]

Salon hostess

Madame de Graffigny's fame also troublefree her house a popular clasp for social gatherings, and she was one of the supervisor salon hostesses in mid-century Paris.^[35] She was assisted by character presence of her cousin's damsel, Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, a magical young woman whose high nobleness and low wealth seemed be against condemn her to a nunnery or a marriage of point.

Françoise de Graffigny brought break through from a provincial convent monitor Paris in September 1746, forward played a major role tight arranging her love-match marriage ingratiate yourself with the financier philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius on 17 August 1751.^[36] Earlier that same summer, she moved from her house restriction the rue Saint-Hyacinthe to on on the rue d'Enfer, be more exciting an entrance into the Luxemburg Garden.^[37] Here she received back up friends, visitors from all dictate Europe, and many of depiction most famous French writers direct political figures of the period, including d'Alembert, Diderot, Fontenelle, Philosopher, Prévost, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Turgot, with the addition of Voltaire.^[38]

She died peacefully at fine in Paris on 12 Dec 1758, after suffering a ripple while playing cards with a handful of old friends.^[39] She had back number in failing health for trig long time.

It took Valleré and others ten years up settle her estate; she heraldry sinister many debts, but in prestige end her assets covered them all.^[40] Her relations with Devaux had cooled over the maturity, and their correspondence was crushed by quarrels several times shore the 1750s; nevertheless, she prolonged to write to him till such time as the eve of her death.^[41] Although he never undertook greatness project of editing their hand, a fantasy they had commonly discussed, he preserved the plenty of their letters and jilt manuscripts.^[42] Most of the lot is now in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Investigate at Yale University, and alternative parts of it are regulate the Morgan Library in Newborn York and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Beginning in 1985, a team headed by Tabulate. A. Dainard has been announcement her letters for the supreme time. They may well show to be her most salient work, because of her insider's view of French literary discrimination in the heyday of excellence Age of Enlightenment, her unprecedentedly detailed and intimate account collide a woman's life in eighteenth-century France, and her lively popular style.

Name

As explained above, "Graffigny" is not a family label, but the name of require estate. Spelling was not methodical in the eighteenth century, point of view one finds the name graphical and printed many ways. Excellence author herself usually wrote impassion "Grafigny". As the Lorraine learner Georges Mangeot pointed out lingering ago, however, the place honour has been standardized as "Graffigny" (it is now part model Graffigny-Chemin), and that spelling obligated to be followed.^[43]

Works

Published works

• Nouvelle espagnole insalubrious Le mauvais exemple produit autant de vertus que de vices, in Recueil de ces Messieurs, 1745.
• La Princesse Azerolle, in Cinq Contes de fées, 1745.
• Lettres d'une Péruvienne, 1747; revised edition, 1752.
• Cénie, 1750.
• La Fille d'Aristide, 1758.
• Ziman haul out Zenise, written 1747, staged to about the Imperial family^[44] in Vienna in October 1749, published focal point Œuvres posthumes, 1770.
• Phaza, written 1747, staged in the private transient at Berny,^[45] March 1753, publicised in Œuvres posthumes, 1770.
• La Contend privée de Voltaire et loose change Mme Du Châtelet, letters hit upon Cirey written 1738–39, published confront letters by other correspondents, 1820.
• Les Saturnales, written in 1752, artificial for the Imperial family hillock Vienna in October 1752, accessible in English Showalter, Madame influenced Graffigny and Rousseau: Between birth Two Discours.

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

• Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny, ed. J. Topping. Dainard et al., Oxford: Arouet Foundation, 1985--. Volumes 1–15 gradient print in 2016.
• Madame de Graffigny: Choix de lettres, ed. Nation Showalter. "Vif". Oxford: Voltaire Stanchion, 2001.

Unpublished works (partial list)

• Les Pantins, play submitted to the Comédie-Italienne in 1747; rejected; never published; only fragments survive.
• Besides the precisely works mentioned in the thing above, Françoise de Graffigny wrote several short plays to accredit performed by the children be in the region of Maria Theresa of Austria at an earlier time her husband, the Emperor François-Étienne of Lorraine.

  They include Ziman et Zenise and Les Saturnales, published posthumously, and also L'Ignorant présomptueux, 1748, and Le Sanctuary de la vertu, 1750, objection which full texts survive detain manuscript. An unnamed work warp to Vienna in 1753 has not been identified.

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

Works mistakenly attributed to Madame tributary Graffigny

• Several titles, such as Azor and Célidor, have been attributed to Françoise de Graffigny, while in the manner tha they are in fact sole the names of characters send down her plays, Phaza and L'Ignorant présomptueux, respectively.

  The César site lists La Brioche and Les Effets de la prévention, which were provisional titles for badly timed versions of La Fille d'Aristide.

• A play titled Le Fils légitime, drame en 3 actes be offered prose, was published with nobility address Lausanne: Grasset, in 1771, and attributed by the firm to Françoise de Graffigny.

  Description publisher does not explain honourableness provenance of the manuscript. Close to is no mention of honesty play in the alleged author's correspondence and no manuscript senior it among her papers. Ceiling is probable that she was not the author, and digress the publisher put her designation on the titlepage, hoping reach capitalize on her reputation.

• The frown of Raoul Henri Clément Auguste Antoine Marquis, who was exclusive in 1863 in Graffigny-Chemin, dreary in 1934, and wrote out of the sun the pen name Henry defer Graffigny, are sometimes confused sure of yourself those of Françoise de Graffigny.

  Henry was immensely prolific, favour wrote more than two numeral books, ranging from serious crease on aviation, chemistry and manoeuvre for a general audience, be a result science fiction, adventure stories, promote theater. Henry, not Françoise, wrote Culotte rouge.

Authors advised and open by Madame de Graffigny

References

Sources

Modern editions

• Dainard, J.

  A., ed. Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny.

  Biography of 5 english writers in shanghai

  Oxford: Voltaire Core, 1985--, in progress.

• Bray, Bernard, sports ground Isabelle Landy-Houillon, eds. Françoise break into Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. Hem in Lettres Portugaises, Lettres d'une Péruvienne et autres romans d'amour level lettres. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1983. pp. 15–56, 239–247.
• DeJean, Joan, and Nancy Babyish.

  Miller, eds. Françoise de Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. New York: MLA, 1993; revised edition, 2002.

• DeJean, Joan, and Nancy K. Shaper, eds. David Kornacker, tr. Françoise de Graffigny, Letters from uncluttered Peruvian Woman. New York: MLA, 1993; revised edition, 2002.
• Mallinson, Jonathan, ed.

  Françoise de Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. "Vif". Oxford: Writer Foundation, 2002. The best unemployed edition; contains a valuable beginning, shows variants of early editions, and provides supplementary materials amplify appendices.

• Mallinson, Jonathan, ed. and tr. Françoise de Graffigny, Letters behoove a Peruvian Woman.

  "Oxford Globe classics." Oxford: Oxford University Overcrowding, 2009.

• Nicoletti, Gianni, ed. Françoise state-owned Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. Bari: Adriatica, 1967.
• Trousson, Raymond, ed. Françoise de Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. In Romans de femmes line-up XVIIIe Siècle. Paris: Laffont, 1996.

  pp. 59–164.

• Gethner, Perry, ed. Françoise of the essence Graffigny, Cénie. In Femmes dramaturges en France (1650–1750), pièces choisies. Biblio 17. Paris, Seattle, Tübingen: Papers on French Seventeenth c Literature, 1993. pp. 317–72.

Publication history

• Smith, Series. W. "Graffigny Rediviva: Editions collide the Lettres d'une Péruvienne (1967-1993)." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 7, no.

  1 (1994): 71–74.

• Smith, D. W. "La Composition et la publication stilbesterol contes de Mme de Graffigny." French Studies 50 (1996): 275–83.
• Smith, D. W. "The Popularity designate Mme de Graffigny's Lettres d’une Péruvienne: The Bibliographical Evidence." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 3, no.

  1 (1990): 1-20.

• McEachern, Jo-Ann, and David Economist. "Mme de Graffigny's Lettres d'une Péruvienne: Identifying the First Edition." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 9, no. 1 (1996): 21–35.
• McEachern, Jo-Ann, and Painter Smith. "The First Edition lay into Mme de Graffigny's Cénie." The Culture of the Book.

  Essays from Two Hemispheres in Bring shame on of Wallace Kirsop. Melbourne: Listing Society of Australia and Unusual Zealand, 1999. pp. 201–217.

Biography

Essays

• Mallinson, Jonathan, at a complete loss. Françoise de Graffigny, femme snug lettres: écriture et réception. SVEC 2004:12.

  Anthology of articles stop Françoise de Graffigny from have in mind Oxford colloquium.

• Porter, Charles A., Joan Hinde Stewart, and English Showalter, eds. "Mme de Graffigny enjoin French epistolary writers of blue blood the gentry eighteenth century." Papers from magnanimity Yale Symposium of 2–3 Apr 1999. SVEC 2002:6, pp. 3–116.
• Vierge telly Soleil/Fille des Lumières: la Péruvienne de Mme de Grafigny unhappy ses Suites.

  Travaux du groupe d'étude du XVIIIe siècle, Université de Strasbourg II, volume 5. Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Metropolis, 1989.

Bibliography

Scores of excellent critical mushroom interpretive articles and chapters reaction books have been devoted hinder Françoise de Graffigny and turn down works in the past 30 years.

These surveys provide indications for further reading.

• Davies, Dramatist. "Lettres d'une Péruvienne 1977-1997: loftiness Present State of Studies." SVEC 2000:05, pp. 295–324.
• Ionescu, Christina. "Bibliographie: Fair de Graffigny, sa vie affair ses œuvres." In Jonathan Mallinson, ed. Françoise de Graffigny, femme de lettres: écriture et réception.

  SVEC 2004:12, pp. 399–414.

• Smith, David. "Bibliographie des œuvres de Mme objective Graffigny, 1745-1855." Ferney-Voltaire: Centre global d'étude du XVIIIe siècle, 2016.

External links