Madam de Sévigné

Works

The correspondence of Madam de Sévigné with her daughter, Madam de Grignan, was carried out about during thirty years by writing each week to him three to four letters. The letters of Madam de Sévigné were unfortunately initially the object a first clandestine edition in 1725, including/understanding 28 letters or extracts of letters. It was followed from two others, in 1726. Pauline de Simiane, grand-daughter of the interested party, then decided to make officially publish the correspondence of her grandmother. She entrusts this responsibility to an editor of Aix-en-Provence, Denis-Marius Perrin. This one publishes 614 letters in 1734 - 1737, then 772 in 1754. The letters were altered and selected according to the instructions of Madam de Simiane: all those touching of too close with the family, or those whose literary level appeared poor. The remaining letters often were the rewriting object to follow the last style.

The question of the authenticity thus arises in a crucial way for these letters. On the 1120 known ones, only 15% come from the autographs, which were almost completely destroyed after use. Nevertheless, in 1873, a batch of handwritten copies, according to the autographs, was found in an antique dealer. It covers approximately half of the letters addressed to Madam de Grignan.

Characteristics of its work

Madam de Sévigné and mondanity

Second half of the XVIe century and first half of the 17th century marked an upheaval within the identity of the French Noblesse. Deprived of a series of Privilege S policies and social and undergoing a financial crisis, the nobility sought a form of defense while putting forward its superiority of chalk-lining; but she also sought to keep her identity with regard to the court and to thus escape the claws from the absolutist projects from Richelieu and Mazarin. It is in this manner that the " bienséances" became values for this Aristocratie in full crisis of identity: the banter, the naturalness (or negligence) and the entertainment provided them before all a certain form of freedom.

During first half of the 17th century, a whole literature - at the same time as the saga novels of Honore d' Urfé and Miss de Scudéry - exalte these features suitable for the Nobility and the society men mediums. The influence came mainly from the Italy: the Book of the courtier of Baldassare Castiglione, the Galatée or the manner of living in the world of Giovanni Beyond Put and the Civilian Conversazione of Stefano Guazzo will inspire the French society men; Vincent Conveys, in his Poésie S and its letters, was the first into practice to put in the living room of Madam de Rambouillet her gifts of Badinage and Galanterie, then Antoine Gombaud, knight of Mother, the father Jésuite Dominique Bouhours, the Abbé Charles Cotin, or Miss de Scudéry transcribed in work-handbooks this concern of liking, of informing and of diverting all at the same time while rejecting " all that holds of the study because that is almost always badly received (Anthology, the art of the conversation, ED. of Jacqueline Hellegouarc' H, Paris, Dunod, coll " Traditional Garnier" , 1997, p. 65). All these esthetic concepts readily let us find we them in the letters of Madam de Sévigné, who has the concern of pointing out her origins peerage-books proudly. She did not want to escape this ambient Esthétique which enabled him to deploy all the arrogance of its chalk-lining and its indisputable talent of narrator and writer. Just like the society men and the well-read men who attended the living room of Madam de Rambouillet and who sought to preserve their independence with regard to a court more and more absolutist, Madam de Sévigné adopted these esthetic principles as a kind of rampart which protected it from the difficulties of the existence. In “badinant” on the death of the others and his, it takes distance compared to a subject that all its century fears: fear of the Damnation. While seeking “always not to annoy”, she is opposed in any point so that Blaise Pascal recommends in his Thoughts; with knowknowing that the entertainment diverts the man of his own miserable condition and prevents it from looking towards God, that whose Madam de Sévigné is unable.

The intellectual framework of the Letters of Madam de Sévigné

The statute of the letter at the 17th century is completely particular. If our modern classification of “epistolary kind” did not exist, there was on the other hand a whole series of handbooks which sought to codify the letter: the beginning, the length, the compliments, the final formula, gave finally well to the letter little freedom. That was not, of course, of the taste of the well-read men aristocrats and society men, who on the contrary will divert these epistolary rules and will adapt them to their literary ambitions within the framework of the fashionable values of the negligence and the entertainment.

Madam de Sévigné yielded with conventions of the letter when she wrote with people who were higher to him in row or when she recalled - with her daughter in particular - not to forget to write at particular times of the life like a Naissance, a Mariage or a Décès. But if Madam de Sévigné complies with these rules of sociability, she acknowledges that “it is a pleasant thing to observe that the pleasure which one takes to speak, though by far, with a person which one likes, and strange gravity that one finds to write with the others”. Because it is especially in the letters with his/her daughter, once released of the yokes of the rules, that Madam de Sévigné can deploy all the talent of “feather which goes like thoughtless”. But if the original intention of the letter were to communicate with absent, it very often replaced the conversation and became a means of assessing literary qualities. The letter was not limited only to only one recipient, it was read and commented on in a circle of amateurs or experts with the mounting of beautiful turnings but also in search of entertainment. The esthetics of the letters of Madam de Sévigné has another expensive characteristic with the society men: variety. With an aim of not annoying the reader, our épistolière changes subject quickly. This is especially visible in the letters addressed to his/her daughter, because it knew that in a correspondence as important as theirs, the manner of telling and the variety of the covered subjects were essential to maintain a dynamic exchange and thus not to fall into monotony. Often this change is done with a warning of the marchioness when the subject is prolonged: “I do not want to further push this chapter”, “I mortally hate to speak to you about all that; why do you speak to me about it? my feather goes like thoughtless” or simple “a my basta” (" but suffit" in Italian).

Religious banter

The religious readings of the marchioness nourished its banter as well as its spirituality, because our épistolière in general keeps a free attitude vis-a-vis the religion. Indeed, one notices his share a desacralization of the religious language. Thus for example, it expresses its feelings with her daughter in a formula which points out that of the gun of the mass: “We love you in you, and for you, and by you”. It makes use of the lexicon augustinien for situations Profane S: “I am terrified predestination of this Mr. Desbrosses”, “predestination” being synonymous with destiny. The marchioness also uses the lexicon which opposed Jansenists and Jesuits on the grace given by God to carry out a pleasant word game: “Mr. Nicole is very divine. Really, is needed well that it is helped of the sufficient grace, which is not enough, but for me, she is enough for me, because it is the efficacious grace in covered words”. Some of its images mix with the biblical passages and of the representations Romanesque S. For example she teases Madam de Grignan from the point of view which the child of which she soon will be confined that is to say a girl: “I will help you to expose it on the the Rhone in a small rush basket, and then it will approach in some kingdom where its beauty will be the subject of a novel”. She borrows images of the Évangile: “My kingdom starts not to be more this world” (Jean, XVIII, XXXVI), or it parodies biblical entreaty “Have pity of me”. She writes with her daughter: “Mr. of Rochefoucauld you mande that there is a certain apostle who runs after his coast” by referring to the coast of Eve. The marchioness makes fun of the devotion of the princesses of Conti and Longueville by calling them “the Mothers of the Church”, as well as momentary impotence of her Charles son: “I was delighted that it was punished by where it had sinned”. Many turnings of the marchioness to the address of his/her daughter showed with some exégètes a kind “of love passion” such as for example “the north wind of Grignan hurts me with your chest”; “My God, my good, that your belly weighs to me” during the pregnancy of his/her daughter, or: “The weather must be hot in Aix, I choke some”. One must rather see there a parody of the lexicon of the mystics, which assumed the suffering of others. Always in the examples, Madam de Sévigné often borrows the vocabulary of Christian morals and substitutes it for completely profane remarks: " I bought to be made a dressing gown a fabric like your last skirt. It is admirable. There is a little green, but the purple one dominates, in a word, I succumbed. One wanted me to make it double color of fire, but I found that had the air of a final impénitence. The top is pure brittleness, but the lower part had been a given will which appeared to me against the moralities, I threw itself in the taffeta blanc".

Epistolary art of the marchioness finds a perfect example in these frivolous considerations, like the purchase of a fabric, where it utilizes a religious vocabulary that it controls to perfection with an aim of causing by contrast a comic effect. The examples to be quoted would be numerous. They show the ease of the marchioness on the field of the religion. Madam de Sévigné particularly loved the authors and the thought of the Jansenist S, but its attitude was incompatible in all connections with their austere Doctrine. Such an ambiguity of behavior does nothing but invite us to question us on his true position.

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