Marie de Vichy Chamrond

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Madame du Deffand

Marie de Vichy-Chamrond (or Champrond), marquise du Deffand (born September 25, 1697 at Chamrond Castle near Charolles , † August 23, 1780 in Paris ), known as Marquise du Deffand, was a French salonnière in the Age of Enlightenment .

Live and act

Marie comes from a French aristocratic family, her father was Gaspard de Vichy, Comte de Champrond (* 1665), captain lieutenant of the gendarme des Duc de Berry and his wife Anne Brûlart (* 1670). She received her school education in a monastery. As a young girl, you noticed her wit and audacity that the perplexed nuns called in Bishop Massillon , who, however, enjoyed the conversation with the pretty girl very much.

In 1718 she married the officer Marquis du Deffand (1688–1750), whom she soon left to go to the court of the Duke of Orléans . For a short time she is said to have been the regent's mistress. After her divorce, she opened a salon in Paris that was popular with both social and intellectual figures. With Charles-Jean-François Hénault , who had been widowed since 1728, she began a permanent partnership in 1731.

She was in an eager correspondence with the enlighteners Voltaire , Montesquieu and D'Alembert , who, like most of the encyclopedists , also frequented her salon.

In 1753 she went blind and took her niece Julie de Lespinasse in as a partner, but ten years later they fell out and Lespinasse opened its own salon , supported by Madame Geoffrin . She took most of the Marquise's clientele with her, and with that Madame du Deffand's salon almost completely lost its appeal. She was bitter, but fell in love with the writer Horace Walpole at the age of almost 70 , with whom she was in lively correspondence from 1766 and who also helped her out of financial emergency.

Her clever, culturally and historically valuable letters not only went down in literary history, but also identify her as one of the most astute minds of her century.

Works

  • Lettres . Edition Slatkine, Geneva 1971 (Repr.d. Edition Paris 1876)
  • Anecdotes and judgments about strange people German translation of the letters by Meta Forkel-Liebeskind . In: Morgenblatt für educated stands No. 199, p. 795, No. 200, p. 799 f., No. 201, p. 803 and No. 202, p. 806, year 1812

literature

  • Benedetta Carveri: Madame du Deffand and her world . Halban Books, London 2002, ISBN 1-870015-79-7 .
  • Lionel Duisit: Madame de Deffand . Edition Droz, Geneva 1963.
  • Inès Murat: Madame de Deffand . Perrin, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-262-01255-5 .
  • Lytton Strachey: French Paradises. Voltaire, Madame de Deffand, Mademoiselle de Lespinasse and Stendhal . Wagenbach, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-8031-1209-5 .

Web links

Commons : Marie de Vichy Chamrond  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Family genealogy
  2. ^ Genealogy of the first spouse
personal data
SURNAME Vichy Chamrond, Marie de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marquise du Deffand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French salonière
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1697
PLACE OF BIRTH Chamrond Castle near Charolles
DATE OF DEATH August 23, 1780
Place of death Paris