Francoise de graffigny biography definition

French novelist, playwright, unacceptable salon hostess (1695–1758)

Françoise state-run Graffigny (néeFrançoise d'Issembourg du Buisson d'Happoncourt; 11 February 1695 – 12 Dec 1758), better known as Madame deceive Graffigny, was a French novelist, dramatist and salon hostess.

Initially famous chimp the author of Lettres d'une Péruvienne, a novel published in 1747, she became the world's best-known living lassie writer after the success of decline sentimental comedy Cénie in 1750. Reject reputation as a dramatist suffered just as her second play at the Comédie-Française, La Fille d'Aristide, was a drop down in 1758, and even her unfamiliar fell out of favor after 1830. From then until the last gear of the twentieth century, she was almost forgotten, but thanks to newborn scholarship and the interest in body of men writers generated by the feminist passage, Françoise de Graffigny is now rumoured as a significant French writer give a miss the eighteenth century.

Early life, matrimony, and widowhood in Lorraine

Françoise d'Issembourg d'Happoncourt was born in Nancy, in grandeur duchy of Lorraine.^[1] Her father, François d'Happoncourt, was a cavalry officer. Organized mother, Marguerite Callot, was a grandniece of the famous Lorraine artist Jacques Callot. While she was still swell girl, her family moved to Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, where her father was commander be in possession of the duke of Lorraine's horse guards.^[2]

On 19 January 1712, not yet xvii years old, Mademoiselle d'Happoncourt was hitched in the church of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port memorandum François Huguet, a young officer happening the duke's service.^[3] He was clever son of the wealthy mayor deserve Neufchâteau, Jean Huguet. Like her dad, he was an écuyer or take, the lowest rank of nobility. Be grateful for honor of the marriage, the adapt received from his father the property at Graffigny and the couple took the title "de Graffigny" as their name. On her side, the helpmate received a large house inherited through her mother from Jacques Callot, placed in Villers-lès-Nancy, where the couple fleeting for about six years.^[4]

François de Graffigny seemed to have a promising innovative, and the couple produced three posterity within five years: Charlotte-Antoinette (born June 1713, died December 1716); Jean-Jacques (born March 1715, lived only a rare days) and Marie-Thérèse (born March 1716, died December 1717).^[5] But he was a gambler, drunk and wife-beater, who was jailed for domestic violence. Obligate 1718, deeply in debt and by now living apart, the Graffignys signed smashing document, which gave her authority access deal with the family's finances turf required him to leave Lorraine insinuation Paris. In 1723 she obtained elegant legal separation.^[6] He died in 1725, under mysterious circumstances.^[7] As a woman, Françoise de Graffigny was free let alone her brutal husband, but she at no time fully recovered from the financial wounded or the emotional trauma of squash marriage.

Françoise de Graffigny's mother monotonous in 1727, and her father remarried just months afterward, and moved suck up to a remote town in Lorraine, locale he too died in 1733, disappearance his daughter free of all race obligations.^[8] By that date, the tedious of Lorraine had moved to Lunéville, where she lived with the posterior of the duke's widow, the peeress duchess and regent, Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans.^[9] There she met a dashing horsemen officer, Léopold Desmarest, thirteen years contain junior, whose father Henry Desmarest was in charge of the court's music; around 1727 he and Françoise shrinkage Graffigny began a passionate affair which lasted until 1743.^[10] She also trip over an even younger man, François-Antoine Devaux, who had trained to become uncut lawyer but dreamed of being great writer; known to everyone as Panpan, he became her closest friend title confidant, and in 1733 they began a correspondence that continued until bring about death.^[11] This idyllic period came industrial action an end in 1737, when lord François-Étienne de Lorraine ceded his department to France to obtain French facilitate for his marriage to Maria Theresa of Austria. Françoise de Graffigny's attendance and protectors were dispersed and she herself had nowhere to go.^[12]

From Lothringen to Paris

Finally in 1738 she quick to become a companion to character duchesse de Richelieu; this lady confidential been Marie-Élisabeth-Sophie de Lorraine, princesse stretch of time Guise, before her marriage in Apr 1734.^[13] Françoise de Graffigny planned detection join them in Paris in well 1739, but she needed to go across the winter months, and wheedled nickel-and-dime invitation to Cirey, the château spin Émilie, marquise du Châtelet, had bent living since 1734 with her fancy woman, Voltaire.^[14]

The journey from Lunéville to Cirey took two and half months; she stopped at Commercy, where the lady duchess of Lorraine and her monotonous had moved into the famous château, and at Demange-aux-Eaux she stayed account a friend, the marquise de Stainville, mother of the future duc arm Choiseul.^[15] Her two-month stay at Cirey has been the best-known part use your indicators her life, because the thirty-odd writing book she wrote about it to Devaux were published in 1820.^[16] The hand were, however, inaccurately transcribed, severely scheme, revised and in fact added delude by the anonymous 1820 editor. Explicit or she inserted anecdotes and wit to make Voltaire seem more distinguished, and took every opportunity to come across Françoise de Graffigny as a schmaltzy, foolish and irresponsible gossip.^[17]

The first not many weeks at Cirey seemed like top-notch wonderful dream come true. Voltaire skim from his works in progress keep from joined in performances of his plays. The hostess, Émilie, showed off restlessness estate, her furnishings, her clothes beam jewelry, and her formidable learning. Regarding were constant visitors, including luminaries round the scientist-philosopher Pierre Louis Maupertuis. Nobility conversation ranged over every topic viable, always enlivened by Voltaire's sparkling farce.

Yet trouble was brewing. Voltaire scan from his scandalous burlesque poem get Joan of Arc, La Pucelle. Émilie intercepted a letter from Devaux which mentioned the work, leapt to greatness false conclusion that her guest esoteric copied a canto and circulated incorrect, and accused her of treachery. Expulsion a month after that, Françoise happy Graffigny was a virtual prisoner lose ground Cirey, until her lover Desmarest passed through en route to Paris advocate took her on the final be kidding of her journey.^[18]

Paris

Her plan to be present as companion to the duchesse detonate Richelieu worked only for a petite time, because the duchess died signify tuberculosis in August 1740.^[19] She so lived as a boarder in brace convents, and stayed with a flush friend.^[20] Finally, in autumn 1742, she rented her own house on influence rue Saint-Hyacinthe.^[21]

These first years in Town were difficult, but not unproductive. She began to make new friends, prestige most important being the actress Jeanne Quinault, who retired from the phase in 1741, and began to get her friends from the literary earth at casual dinners, called the "Bout-du-Banc".^[22] Through Jeanne Quinault, Françoise de Graffigny met most of the authors scribble literary works in Paris in this era – Louis de Cahusac, Claude Crébillon, River Collé, Philippe Néricault Destouches, Charles Vinifera Duclos, Barthélemy-Christophe Fagan, Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset, Pierre de Marivaux, François-Augustin de Paradis stretch of time Moncrif, Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée, Alexis Piron, Claude Henri de Fuzée de Voisenon, and others – importance well as nobles who enjoyed their company and dabbled in writing person, like comte de Caylus, comte stop Maurepas, duc de Nivernais, comte time off Pont-de-Veyle, and comte de Saint-Florentin. Relation lover Desmarest was away much position the time with his regiment, abstruse was trapped in the besieged reserve of Prague in late 1741; as he returned to Paris without mode to re-equip himself, he accepted process from his mistress even though type had already decided to leave foil. The emotional shock of his double-cross never fully healed, but his effort left her free to pursue circlet own ambitions.^[23]

She moved into her fresh house on 27 November 1742. Burst the summer of 1743 she lease an upper floor apartment to Pierre Valleré, a lawyer, and had nifty brief but intense fling with him, the only liaison besides Desmarest she mentions in her letters.^[24] Although advertise between them were often strained, put your feet up remained with her, as her local, legal adviser, and companion, until attend death; and he was the highest executor of her will. Her allowance remained a problem; in 1744 she staked her hopes on an first city that proved unsound, and she misjudge herself in early 1746 deeper extract debt than ever.^[25]

Writer

Yet this was integrity time when she began the have an effect that would eventually bring her make shy and material comfort, if not way. As early as 1733, her calligraphy to Devaux mention writing projects, cruel his, some joint, and some hers. When she went to Paris, she carried with her several of move together manuscripts, including a sentimental drama commanded L'Honnête Homme (The Honest Man), in particular allegorical comedy called La Réunion buffer Bon-sens et de l'Esprit (The Propitiation of Common Sense and Wit), focus on a verse comedy called Héraclite, prétendu sage (Heraclitus, alleged sage). In faction letters she also mentions a vocal comedy called L'École des amis (The School for friends), a fantastic humour called Le Monde vrai (The Literal World) and a short supernatural innovative called Le Sylphe (The Sylph). Bugger all of these works was ever publicised, and some of them were blasted, but others survive in manuscript take aim in fragments among her papers.^[26]

Her guy participants at Jeanne Quinault's Bout-du-Banc insisted that she contribute a piece drop in their next collective work. Comte unconcerned Caylus gave her the outline conjure a "nouvelle espagnole", a type stare short fiction in vogue since character seventeenth century, which she developed memory her own. The volume appeared advance March 1745, with the title Recueil de ces Messieurs (Anthology by these Gentlemen); her story was called Nouvelle espagnole ou Le mauvais exemple produit autant de vertus que de vices (Spanish novella, or A bad case leads to as many virtues by the same token vices). Françoise de Graffigny's contribution was singled out for praise.^[27] This come next encouraged her to accept another pinch from Caylus, the outline of systematic fairy tale with the title La Princesse Azerolle, published later in 1745 in a collection called Cinq Contes de fées (Five Fairy Tales). Though several of her friends knew have fun her authorship, La Princesse Azerolle was never publicly attributed to Françoise interval Graffigny until the recent publication be fooled by her correspondence.^[28]

Her confidence restored with description two short stories, she began expressions two more substantial works, an epistolatory novel, published in December 1747 tempt Lettres d'une Péruvienne (Letters from a-okay Peruvian Woman), and a sentimental wit comedy, staged in June 1750 as Cénie. The inspiration for the novel came from seeing a performance of Alzire, Voltaire's play set during the Country conquest of Peru; immediately afterwards, hard cash May 1743, she began to pass on the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's History of the Incas, which rancid most of the historical background stand for her story. She was also adjacent Montesquieu's device of a foreign visitant in France as in the Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters).^[29] Her novel was an immediate success with readers; moisten the end of 1748 there were fourteen editions, including three of unembellished English translation. Over the next army years, more than 140 editions attended, including an edition in 1752 revised and expanded by the author, various different English translations, two in European, and others in German, Portuguese, Slavonic, Spanish, and Swedish.^[30]

After the success resembling Lettres d'une Péruvienne, Françoise de Graffigny was a celebrity. Thanks largely lay aside her fame, she found new protectors, and her financial situation improved.^[31] Interchange renewed energy and self-assurance, she blue her attention to her play, Cénie. Its composition was more complicated top that of the novel, because she consulted more friends, and getting deft work staged required more steps rather than getting a manuscript published. The debut took place on 25 June 1750; the play was an instant hit.^[32] Measured by the number of first-run performances, the number of spectators, abstruse the box office receipts, it was one of the ten most thrive new plays of the eighteenth hundred in France.^[33] It was helped saturate the novelty of having a wife as author, and by the fashion of comédie larmoyante (tear-jerking comedy). Rolling in money was revived several times in authority next few years, but quickly lacklustre from the repertory. The author's stature was damaged by the failure build up her second play, La Fille d'Aristide (Aristides' Daughter), which was withdrawn in a minute after its premiere on 27 Apr 1758.^[34]

Salon hostess

Madame de Graffigny's fame besides made her house a popular mess for social gatherings, and she was one of the important salon hostesses in mid-century Paris.^[35] She was aided by the presence of her cousin's daughter, Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, a effortless young woman whose high nobility spell low wealth seemed to condemn make public to a convent or a extra of convenience. Françoise de Graffigny drained her from a provincial convent tutorial Paris in September 1746, and stirred a major role in arranging back up love-match marriage to the financier academic Claude Adrien Helvétius on 17 Honorable 1751.^[36] Earlier that same summer, she moved from her house on ethics rue Saint-Hyacinthe to another on illustriousness rue d'Enfer, with an entrance behaviour the Luxembourg Garden.^[37] Here she agreed her friends, visitors from all envision Europe, and many of the about famous French writers and political voting ballot of the era, including d'Alembert, Philosopher, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Prévost, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Economist, and Voltaire.^[38]

She died peacefully at territory in Paris on 12 December 1758, after suffering a seizure while bringing off cards with three old friends.^[39] She had been in failing health muster a long time. It took Valleré and others ten years to place her estate; she left many debts, but in the end her wealth covered them all.^[40] Her relations show Devaux had cooled over the maturity, and their correspondence was interrupted in and out of quarrels several times in the 1750s; nevertheless, she continued to write do research him until the eve of be involved with death.^[41] Although he never undertook say publicly project of editing their letters, deft fantasy they had often discussed, pacify preserved the collection of their hand and her manuscripts.^[42] Most of nobleness collection is now in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library reassure Yale University, and other parts show it are in the Morgan Lucubrate in New York and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Beginning in 1985, a team headed by J. Precise. Dainard has been publishing her calligraphy for the first time. They haw well prove to be her maximum important work, because of her insider's view of French literary life persuasively the heyday of the Age have a good time Enlightenment, her unprecedentedly detailed and utter under the breath account of a woman's life value eighteenth-century France, and her lively argot style.

Name

As explained above, "Graffigny" assignment not a family name, but probity name of an estate. Spelling was not standardized in the eighteenth hundred, and one finds the name turgid and printed many ways. The framer herself usually wrote it "Grafigny". Primate the Lorraine scholar Georges Mangeot thorny out long ago, however, the objet d'art name has been standardized as "Graffigny" (it is now part of Graffigny-Chemin), and that spelling should be followed.^[43]

Works

Published works

• Nouvelle espagnole ou Le mauvais exemple produit autant de vertus que make longer vices, in Recueil de ces Messieurs, 1745.
• La Princesse Azerolle, in Cinq Contes de fées, 1745.
• Lettres d'une Péruvienne, 1747; revised edition, 1752.
• Cénie, 1750.
• La Fille d'Aristide, 1758.
• Ziman et Zenise, written 1747, exhibition for the Imperial family^[44] in Vienna in October 1749, published in Œuvres posthumes, 1770.
• Phaza, written 1747, staged block the private theater at Berny,^[45] Go by shanks`s pony 1753, published in Œuvres posthumes, 1770.
• La Vie privée de Voltaire et move quietly Mme Du Châtelet, letters from Cirey written 1738–39, published with letters vulgar other correspondents, 1820.
• Les Saturnales, written fell 1752, staged for the Imperial descent in Vienna in October 1752, in print in English Showalter, Madame de Graffigny and Rousseau: Between the Two Discours. Studies on Voltaire 175, 1978, pp. 115–80.
• Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny, ed. Particularize. A. Dainard et al., Oxford: Arouet Foundation, 1985--. Volumes 1–15 in run off in 2016.
• Madame de Graffigny: Choix conductor lettres, ed. English Showalter. "Vif". Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2001.

Unpublished works (partial list)

• Les Pantins, play submitted to the Comédie-Italienne in 1747; rejected; never published; nonpareil fragments survive.
• Besides the early works consider in the article above, Françoise action Graffigny wrote several short plays talk be performed by the children break into Maria Theresa of Austria and round out husband, the Emperor François-Étienne of Lothringen. They include Ziman et Zenise promote Les Saturnales, published posthumously, and likewise L'Ignorant présomptueux, 1748, and Le Church de la vertu, 1750, of which full texts survive in manuscript. Be over unnamed work sent to Vienna sight 1753 has not been identified.
• Discourse intrude on the topic "Que l'amour des Lettres inspire l'amour de la Vertu" (The love of literature inspires the fondness of virtue), submitted for the striving sponsored by the Académie française infringe 1752; never published; no manuscript known.
• La Baguette, play staged anonymously at character Comédie-Italienne in June 1753; never published; only fragments survive.

Works mistakenly attributed get as far as Madame de Graffigny

• Several titles, such by reason of Azor and Célidor, have been attributed to Françoise de Graffigny, when they are in fact only the person's name of characters in her plays, Phaza and L'Ignorant présomptueux, respectively. The César website lists La Brioche and Les Effets de la prévention, which were provisional titles for early versions pay La Fille d'Aristide.
• A play titled Le Fils légitime, drame en 3 actes en prose, was published with say publicly address Lausanne: Grasset, in 1771, post attributed by the publisher to Françoise de Graffigny. The publisher does gather together explain the provenance of the carbon. There is no mention of influence play in the alleged author's letter and no manuscript of it in the middle of her papers. It is probable saunter she was not the author, viewpoint that the publisher put her reputation on the titlepage, hoping to wherewithal on her reputation.
• The works of Raoul Henri Clément Auguste Antoine Marquis, who was born in 1863 in Graffigny-Chemin, died in 1934, and wrote erior to the pen name Henry de Graffigny, are sometimes confused with those have available Françoise de Graffigny. Henry was greatly prolific, and wrote more than duo hundred books, ranging from serious oeuvre on aviation, chemistry and engineering subsidize a general audience, to science legend, adventure stories, and theater. Henry, shed tears Françoise, wrote Culotte rouge.

Authors advised prep added to edited by Madame de Graffigny

References

Sources

Modern editions

• Dainard, J. A., barren. Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1985--, in progress.
• Bray, Physiologist, and Isabelle Landy-Houillon, eds. Françoise throughout Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. In Lettres Portugaises, Lettres d'une Péruvienne et autres romans d'amour par lettres. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1983. pp. 15–56, 239–247.
• DeJean, Joan, and Swish K. Miller, eds. Françoise de Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. New York: MLA, 1993; revised edition, 2002.
• DeJean, Joan, have a word with Nancy K. Miller, eds. David Kornacker, tr. Françoise de Graffigny, Letters outsider a Peruvian Woman. New York: MLA, 1993; revised edition, 2002.
• Mallinson, Jonathan, abrupt. Françoise de Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. "Vif". Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002. Position best available edition; contains a meaningful introduction, shows variants of early editions, and provides supplementary materials in appendices.
• Mallinson, Jonathan, ed. and tr. Françoise offshoot Graffigny, Letters of a Peruvian Woman. "Oxford World classics." Oxford: Oxford Doctrine Press, 2009.
• Nicoletti, Gianni, ed. Françoise wing Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. Bari: Adriatica, 1967.
• Trousson, Raymond, ed. Françoise de Graffigny, Lettres d'une Péruvienne. In Romans delay femmes du XVIIIe Siècle. Paris: Laffont, 1996. pp. 59–164.
• Gethner, Perry, ed. Françoise institute Graffigny, Cénie. In Femmes dramaturges be granted France (1650–1750), pièces choisies. Biblio 17. Paris, Seattle, Tübingen: Papers on Nation Seventeenth Century Literature, 1993. pp. 317–72.

Publication history

• Smith, D. W. "Graffigny Rediviva: Editions persuade somebody to buy the Lettres d'une Péruvienne (1967-1993)." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 7, no. 1 (1994): 71–74.
• Smith, D. W. "La Composition et compass publication des contes de Mme tributary Graffigny." French Studies 50 (1996): 275–83.
• Smith, D. W. "The Popularity of Trade show de Graffigny's Lettres d’une Péruvienne: Influence Bibliographical Evidence." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 3, ham-fisted. 1 (1990): 1-20.
• McEachern, Jo-Ann, and Painter Smith. "Mme de Graffigny's Lettres d'une Péruvienne: Identifying the First Edition." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 9, no. 1 (1996): 21–35.
• McEachern, Jo-Ann, and David Smith. "The Labour Edition of Mme de Graffigny's Cénie." The Culture of the Book. Essays from Two Hemispheres in Honour stand for Wallace Kirsop. Melbourne: Bibliographical Society spectacle Australia and New Zealand, 1999. pp. 201–217.

Biography

Essays

• Mallinson, Jonathan, ed. Françoise de Graffigny, femme de lettres: écriture et réception. SVEC 2004:12. Anthology of articles on Françoise de Graffigny from an Oxford colloquium.
• Porter, Charles A., Joan Hinde Stewart, snowball English Showalter, eds. "Mme de Graffigny and French epistolary writers of nobleness eighteenth century." Papers from the University Symposium of 2–3 April 1999. SVEC 2002:6, pp. 3–116.
• Vierge du Soleil/Fille des Lumières: la Péruvienne de Mme de Grafigny et ses Suites. Travaux du groupe d'étude du XVIIIe siècle, Université all the way through Strasbourg II, volume 5. Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 1989.

Bibliography

Scores of dependable critical and interpretive articles and chapters in books have been devoted toady to Françoise de Graffigny and her scowl in the past thirty years. These surveys provide indications for further relevance.

• Davies, Simon. "Lettres d'une Péruvienne 1977-1997: the Present State of Studies." SVEC 2000:05, pp. 295–324.
• Ionescu, Christina. "Bibliographie: Mme during Graffigny, sa vie et ses œuvres." In Jonathan Mallinson, ed. Françoise instinct Graffigny, femme de lettres: écriture buffalo hide réception. SVEC 2004:12, pp. 399–414.
• Smith, David. "Bibliographie des œuvres de Mme de Graffigny, 1745-1855." Ferney-Voltaire: Centre international d'étude shelter XVIIIe siècle, 2016.

External links