Claudine Guérin de Tencin

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Claudine Guérin de Tencin (around 1740)

Claudine Alexandrine Guérin, Marquise de Tencin (born April 27, 1682 in Grenoble , † December 4, 1749 in Paris ) was a well-known French salonnière in Paris during the Age of Enlightenment . She was the daughter of Antoine Guérin, a high civil servant who had been at the Parliament (Court of Justice) of Grenoble since 1684 conseiller au parlement de Grenoble, conseiller du roy en ses conseils, président à mortier au parlement de Grenoble and from 1692 premier président au senat de Chambery worked. Her mother Louise de Buffévent (1651-1718) married the Marquis de Tencin in Grenoble in 1675. Claudine Guérin de Tencin was the birth mother of the mathematician and pioneer of the Enlightenment Jean Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert .

Her sister Marie-Angélique, Countess von Ferriol, was an influential figure in Paris' political circles; her brother François was appointed President of the Grenoble Parliament (Court of Justice); her second sister was Marie-Françoise Countess von Grôlée and her second brother Pierre Guérin de Tencin (1679–1758) cardinal, minister, rector of the Sorbonne and archbishop of Embrun, later of Lyon.

Life

Claudine Alexandrine Guérin de Tencin in her younger years
The Grand Châtelet de Paris (1785)
Title page of the novella Les Malheurs de l'amour (1747)

The grandfathers both came from families of lawyers, for example, the Marquis de Tencin's father François Guérin had been conseiller du roy en la cour de Grenoble since 1637 and Abel de Buffévent, seigneur de Bussière († 1675) conseiller du roy en ses conseils d ' Etat et privées, President en la chambre des comptes de Dauphiné .

Claudine Alexandrine Guérin had, as was often the case at the time, to bow to her family and enter a monastery . She came to the Dominican monastery of Montfleury, monastère royal de Montfleury near her home town, from which she fled to Paris with the help of her brother Pierre after the death of her father, Antoine Guérin, sieur de Tencin († 1705). In 1712 she was absolved of her vows by papal dispensation . Her mother was Louise de Buffévent (1651-1718), married to her father, Antoine Guérin, sieur de Tencin (1641-1705) since September 22, 1673. Claudine Alexandrine had two sisters and two brothers, Marie-Angélique Guérin de Tencin (1674–1736), François Guérin de Tencin (1676–1742), Françoise Guérin de Tencin (* 1678), Pierre Guérin de Tencin (1680–1758) .

In Paris, she quickly became the center of attention thanks to her spirit and her beauty and became famous for her lively love life. She first lived in the house of her sister Marie-Angélique Guérin de Tencin - through her marriage to Augustin de Ferriol, comte de Pont-de-Vesle (1653–1736), later Madame de Ferriol - and founded after she enriched herself on the wave of speculation that led to Law 's banking crash, had a literary salon in her own house in 1718 on rue Saint-Honoré , a street parallel to rue de Rivoli and not far from the Café de la Régence . Her admirers included the Marquis d'Argenson and the Minister and Cardinal Guillaume Dubois . As a result, she had political influence and used it to enrich herself and to help her brother Pierre, who rose to become cardinal and minister, to succeed. After the death of Cardinal Dubois († 1723) it lost its influence.

Three years later, she was imprisoned in Châtelet prison and in the Bastille for a few weeks because her lover Charles-Joseph de La Fresnaye (1694–1726) had shot himself in her home in a state of emotional emergency. From the general of artillery Louis Camus Destouches she had a natural son, and in 1717 as an infant before the church St-Jean-le-Rond de Paris exposed . This later came to fame under the name Jean Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert as a mathematician and encyclopaedist .

In her literary salon, she adopted the style and visitors of the Marquise de Lambert's salon, but also visitors to the Marquise du Deffand's salon . Among the famous contemporaries who frequented her were the enlighteners Claude Adrien Helvétius , Lord Bolingbroke , Montesquieu , Marivaux and Fontenelle . When the latter heard of Madame Tencin’s death, he declared unmoved: “Well, now I will dine with Madame Rodet Geoffrin on Tuesdays ”.

Works

As a writer, she wrote romances, including the following:

  • Mémoires du Comte de Comminge . 1735.
  • Le Siège de Calais . 1739 ( French text as HTML ).
  • Les Malheurs de l'amour . 1747.
  • Anecdotes de la cour et du règne d'Edouard II, Roi d'Angleterre . 1776.

literature

  • Hannah Lund: "The whole world on her sofa". Women in European salons . trafo, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89626-456-7 .
  • Marianna D'Ezio, ed., Claudine Alexandrine Guérin de Tencin, The History of the Count de Comminge, translated by Charlotte Lennox, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011

Web links

Commons : Claudine Guérin de Tencin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ D'anciennes sources au XIX e peuvent thunder l'année 1681. Cependant après consultation des registres de baptême, l'ensemble des biographes modern donnent la date de 1682. Voir par example pour l'année de naissance erronée Bibliothèque du Dauphiné, contenant l'histoire des habitants de cette Province qui se sont distingués par leur génie, leurs talents et leurs connaissances , by Guy Allard (1797, éditeur Giroud & fils), p. 304 .
  2. ↑ or 1746
  3. ^ Genealogy of Antoine Guérin, sieur de Tencin (1641–1705)
  4. ↑ Family genealogy
personal data
SURNAME Guérin de Tencin, Claudine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guérin Marquise de Tencin, Claudine Alexandrine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French salonière, birth mother of Jean Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1682
PLACE OF BIRTH Grenoble
DATE OF DEATH December 4, 1749
Place of death Paris