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RAMBOUILLET, CATHERINE DE VIVONNE, MA...

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 874 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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RAMBOUILLET, See also:CATHERINE DE VIVONNE, MARQUISE DE (1588-1665) , a See also:lady famous in the See also:literary See also:history of See also:France, was See also:born in 1588. She was the daughter and heiress of See also:Jean de Vivonne, See also:marquis of ,See also:Pisani, and her See also:mother Giulia was of the See also:noble See also:Roman See also:family of Savelli. She was married at twelve years old to See also:Charles d'Angennes, See also:vidame of Le Mans, and after-wards marquis of Rambouillet. The See also:young marquise found the coarseness and intrigue that then reigned in the See also:French See also:court little to her See also:taste, and after the See also:birth of her eldest daughter, Julie d'Angennes, in 1607, she began to gather See also:round her the circle afterwards so famous. She established herself at the HOtel Pisani, called later the Had. de Rambouillet, the site of which is See also:close to the Grands Magasins du Louvre. Mme de Rambouillet took See also:great trouble to arrange her See also:house for purposes of reception, and devised suites of small rooms where visitors could move easily, and could find more privacy than in the large reception rooms of the See also:ordinary house. The hotel was rebuilt on these lines in 1618. It maintained its importance as a social and literary centre until 1650. Almost all the more remarkable personages in French society and French literature frequented it, especially during the second See also:quarter of the See also:century, when it was at the height of its reputation. There is abundant testimony to Mme de Rambouillet's beauty, though no portrait of her is known to exist. Her success as a hostess was due to many causes. Her natural abilities had been carefully trained, but were not extraordinary.

Many See also:

people were, however, like herself, disgusted with the intrigues at court, and found the See also:comparative austerity of the HOtel de Rambouillet a welcome See also:change. The marquise had genuine kindness and a lack of See also:prejudice that enabled her to entertain on the same footing princes and princesses of the See also:blood royal, and men of letters, while among her intimate See also:friends was the beautiful Angelique See also:Paulet. The respect paid to ability in her See also:salon effected a great See also:advancement in the position of French men of letters. More-over, the almost See also:uniform excellence of the See also:memoirs and letters of 17th-century Frenchmen and Frenchwomen may be traced largely to the development of conversation as a See also:fine See also:art at the HOtel Rambouillet, and the consequent See also:establishment of a See also:standard of clear and adequate expression. Mme de Rambouillet was known as the " incomparable Arthenice," the name being an See also:anagram for Catherine, devised by See also:Malherbe and See also:Racan. Among the more noteworthy incidents in the See also:story of the Hotel are the See also:sonnet See also:war between the Uranistes and the Jobistespartisans of two famous sonnets by Voiture and Benserage—and the See also:composition by all the famous poets of the See also:day of the Guirlande de Julie, a collection of poems on different See also:flowers, addressed in 1641 to Julie d'Angennes, afterwards duchesse de See also:Montausier. Julie herself was responsible for a See also:good See also:deal of the preciosity for which the Hotel was later ridiculed. Charles de Sainte Maure, who become in 1664 duc de Montausier, had been wooing her for seven years when he conceived the See also:idea of the famous See also:garland, and she kept him waiting for four years Wore. The Precieuses, who are usually associated with See also:Moliere's avowed caricatures and with the extravagances of Mlle. de See also:Scudery, but whose name, it must be remembered, Madame de See also:Sevigne herself was proud to See also:bear—insisted on a ceremonious gallantry from their suitors and friends, though it seems from the See also:account given by See also:Tallemant See also:des Reaux that See also:practical jokes of a mild See also:kind were by no means excluded from the Hotel de Rambouillet. They especially favoured an elaborate and quintessenced kind of colloquial and literary expression, imitated from See also:Marini and Gongora, and then fashionable throughout See also:Europe. The immortal Precieuses ridicules of Moliere was no doubt directly levelled not at the Hotel de Rambouillet itself, but at the numerous coteries which in the course of years had sprung up in See also:imitation of it. But the See also:satire did in truth See also:touch the originators as well as the imitators,—the former'more closely perhaps than they perceived.

The Hotel de Rambouillet continued open till the See also:

death of its See also:mistress, on the 2nd of See also:December 1665, but the troubles of the See also:Fronde diminished its See also:influence. The See also:chief See also:original authorities respecting Madame de Rambouillet and her set are Tallemant des Reaux in his Historiettes, and See also:Antoine Baudeau de Somaize in his See also:Grand Dictionnaire des Precieuses (166o). Marty See also:modern writers have treated the subject, notably See also:Victor See also:Cousin, La Societe francaise au xvii° siecle (2 vols., 1856), and C. L. Livet, Precieux et Precieuses . . . (1859). There is an admirable edition (1875) of the Guirlande de Julie by O. Uzanne.

End of Article: RAMBOUILLET, CATHERINE DE VIVONNE, MARQUISE DE (1588-1665)

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