Anne-Catherine de Ligniville Helvétius

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anne-Catherine de Ligniville Helvétius

Anne-Catherine de Ligniville Helvétius , b. de Ligniville d'Autricourt (born July 23, 1722 in Nancy , † August 12, 1800 in Auteuil ), known as Madame Helvétius , was an important French salonnière of the Enlightenment . For almost 50 years she ran a prestigious salon where ' philosophes ' frequented: writers, artists, scholars, politicians and other enlightened intellectuals . She was the wife of the philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius .

Life and work

She came from a noble family and was one of 21 children of Chamberlain Jean-Jacques de Ligniville (1694–1769) and his wife Charlotte de Saureau (approx. 1700–1762). Anne-Catherine de Ligniville called "Minette" was the niece of the famous Salonnière Madame de Graffigny and frequented her salon with the famous Enlightenmentists. There she got to know Baron Turgot , who probably proposed marriage to her. On August 15, 1751, however, she married the philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius , whom she had also met in her aunt's salon, by marriage contract, ie without any church ceremony .

Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771)

After Graffigny's death in 1753, she continued to lead her intellectual circle on Rue St. Anne. From 1772, after the death of her husband, the community moved to n ° 59 rue d'Auteuil and since then has also been known as société d'Auteuil (Society of Auteuil) or cercle d'Auteuil (District of Auteuil). Regulars included the Salonnièren Julie de Lespinasse and Suzanne Necker , the writers Fontenelle , Denis Diderot , Nicolas Chamfort , Charles Pinot Duclos , Jean-François de Saint-Lambert , Jean-François Marmontel , and Jean-Antoine Roucher (1745–1794 ), Bernard-Joseph Saurin , André Chénier , the philosophers Condorcet , Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach , Turgot, Constantin François Volney , Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès , Ferdinando Galiani , Destutt de Tracy , Cesare Beccaria , André Morellet , Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon , Étienne Bonnot de Condillac , Guillaume Thomas François Raynal , and the scholars d'Alembert , Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier , Georges Cuvier and Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis . There were also visual artists among the visitors, such as the sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon and the painter Baron Gérard, as well as publishers such as Charles-Joseph Panckoucke and François-Ambroise Didot (1730–1804). Among the politicians who belonged to Anne-Catherine Helvétius' salon were Malesherbes , Talleyrand , Manon Roland and her husband Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière , Thomas Jefferson , Benjamin Franklin , Thomas Paine , Mirabeau , Pierre-Claude Daunou (1761 –1840), François Andrieux , Dominique Joseph Garat , Nicolas Bergasse (1750–1832) and the young Napoléon Bonaparte . She ran her salon for almost 50 years until her death. Her correspondence with her husband became known. After his death she was Grand Master of the female Masonic Lodge attached to Les neuf sœurs .

Anne-Catherine de Ligniville Helvétius died in Auteuil at the age of 78.

literature

  • Peter Allan, Une édition critique de la correspondance de Madame Helvétius: with a biographical introduction, Toronto, University of Toronto, 1975
  • Claude-Adrien Helvétius, Correspondance générale d'Helvétius, eds. David Smith, Peter Allan, Alan Dainard and Jean Orsoni, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1981-2004, ISBN 0-8020-5517-6
  • Jules Bertaut, Égéries du XVIIIe siècle: madame Suard, madame Delille, madame Helvétius, madame Diderot, mademoiselle Quinault, Paris, Plon 1928 JA Dainard, et al., Correspondance de Mme de Graffigny, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1985--, in progress; vol. 13 due in 2010, edition complete in 15 vols.
  • Benjamin Franklin, M. F - n [Franklin] à Madame H - s [Helvétius], Passy, ​​imp. par Benjamin Franklin, 1779.
  • Simone Gougeaud-Arnaudeau: Madame Helvétius (1722-1800). Une femme au temps des Lumières , Paris: L'Harmattan 2020 ISBN 978-2-343-19293-2 .
  • Antoine Guillois, Le salon de madame Helvétius; Cabanis et les idéologues, New York, B. Franklin, 1971

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Chamberlain of the duc de Lorraine (Duke of Lorraine) in Nancy
  2. ↑ Genealogy of the family ( Memento of the original from May 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / gw13.geneanet.org
  3. ↑ (17041772), French writer and historian of the Enlightenment
personal data
SURNAME Ligniville Helvétius, Anne-Catherine de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Madame Helvétius; Ligniville d'Autricourt, Anne-Catherine de (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French salonnière of the Enlightenment
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1722
PLACE OF BIRTH Nancy
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1800
Place of death Auteuil