HOME
*



picture info

Hôtel De Rambouillet
The Hôtel de Rambouillet, formerly the Hôtel de Pisani, was the Paris residence of Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet, who ran a renowned literary salon there from 1620 until 1648. It was situated on the west side of the rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, just north of Marie de Rohan's Hôtel de Chevreuse, in a former quarter of Paris (demolished during the 19th century), located between the Louvre and Tuileries palaces, near the then much smaller Place du Carrousel, in the area of what was to become the Pavillon Turgot of the Louvre Museum. Members of her salon, received in the intimacy of her ''Chambre Bleue'', admitted to the ''ruelle''—the space between her daybed and the wall of the alcove— represented the flower of contemporary French literature, fashion, and wit, including Madame de Sévigné, Madame de La Fayette, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, the Duchesse de Longueville, the Duchesse de Montpensier, Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, Bossuet, Jean Chapelain, Corneille, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Madeleine De Scudéry
Madeleine de Scudéry (15 November 1607 – 2 June 1701), often known simply as Mademoiselle de Scudéry, was a French writer. Her works also demonstrate such comprehensive knowledge of ancient history that it is suspected she had received instruction in Greek and Latin. In 1637, following the death of her uncle, Scudéry established herself in Paris with her brother, Georges de Scudéry, who became a playwright. Madeleine often used her older brother's name, George, to publish her works. She was at once admitted to the Hôtel de Rambouillet coterie of préciosité, and afterwards established a salon of her own under the title of the ''Société du samedi'' (''Saturday Society''). For the last half of the 17th century, under the pseudonym of Sapho or her own name, she was acknowledged as the first bluestocking of France and of the world. She formed a close romantic relationship with Paul Pellisson which was only ended by his death in 1693. She never married. Biography Born at ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vincent Voiture
Vincent Voiture (24 February 1597 – 26 May 1648), French poet and writer of prose, was the son of a rich wine merchant of Amiens. He was introduced by a schoolfellow, the count Claude d'Avaux, to Gaston, Duke of Orléans, and accompanied him to Brussels and Lorraine on diplomatic missions. Although a follower of the Duke of Orléans, he won the favour of Cardinal Richelieu, and was one of the earliest members of the Académie française. He also received appointments and pensions from Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He published nothing in book form, but his verses and his prose letters (published after his death by his nephew) were the delight of the coteries, and were copied, handed about and admired more perhaps than the work of any contemporary. He had been early introduced by Chaudebonne to the ''Hôtel de Rambouillet'', where he became a close friend of Julie d'Angennes, the daughter of Charles d'Angennes and Catherine de Vivonne, ''marquis'' and ''marquise de Ramboui ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Claude Favre De Vaugelas
Claude Favre de Vaugelas (6 January 1585 – 26 February 1650) was a Savoyard grammarian and man of letters. Although a lifelong courtier, Claude Favre was widely known by the name of one of the landed estates he owned as ''seigneur'' of Vaugelas and baron of Peroges. Born at Meximieux, in the Duchy of Savoy, he became gentleman-in-waiting to Gaston, Duke of Orléans, and continued faithful to this prince in his disgrace, although his fidelity cost him a pension from the crown on which he was largely dependent. His father was the distinguished president Favre and his mother bore the same name as her husband (Favre). She got the Vaugelas's estate, by birth. His thorough knowledge of the French language and the correctness of his speech won him a place among the original members of the Académie française in 1634. On the representation of his colleagues his pension was restored so that he might have leisure to pursue his ''Remarques sur la langue française'' (1647). In this ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Paul Scarron
Paul Scarron (c. 1 July 1610 in Paris – 6 October 1660 in Paris) (a.k.a. Monsieur Scarron) was a French poet, dramatist, and novelist, born in Paris. Though his precise birth date is unknown, he was baptized on 4 July 1610. Scarron was the first husband of Françoise d'Aubigné, who later became Madame de Maintenon and secretly married King Louis XIV of France. Life Scarron was the seventh child of Paul Scarron, a noble of the robe and member of the Parlement of Paris, and Gabrielle Goguet. Paul became an abbé when he was nineteen. He lived in Le Mans from 1632 to 1640, and in 1635 traveled to Rome with his patron, Charles de Beaumanoir, the bishop of Le Mans. Finding a patron in Marie de Hautefort, maîtresse-en-titre of Louis XIII, he became a well-known figure in literary and fashionable society. In 1638, Scarron became disabled. One source (Laurent Angliviel de la Beaumelle, ''Memoires... de Mme de Maintenon'') attributed Scarron's deformities to rheumatism contrac ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

François De La Rochefoucauld (writer)
François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac (; 15 September 1613 – 17 March 1680) was an accomplished French moralist of the era of French Classical literature and author of ''Maximes'' and ''Memoirs'', the only two works of his dense literary oeuvre published. His ''Maximes'' portray the callous nature of human conduct, with a cynical attitude towards putative virtue and avowals of affection, friendship, love, and loyalty. Leonard Tancock regards ''Maximes'' as "one of the most deeply felt, most intensely lived texts in French literature", with his "experience, his likes and dislikes, sufferings and petty spites ... crystallized into absolute truths." Born in Paris in 1613, at a time when the royal court was vacillating between aiding the nobility and threatening it, he was considered an exemplar of the accomplished seventeenth-century nobleman. Until 1650, he bore the title of ''Prince de Marcillac''. His great-grandfather François III, count de La Ro ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Armand Jean Du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu
Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French clergyman and statesman. He was also known as ''l'Éminence rouge'', or "the Red Eminence", a term derived from the title "Eminence" applied to cardinals and the red robes that they customarily wear. Consecrated a bishop in 1607, Richelieu was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1616. He continued to rise through the hierarchy of both the Catholic Church and the French government by becoming a cardinal in 1622 and chief minister to King Louis XIII of France in 1624. He retained that office until his death in 1642, when he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he had fostered. He also became engaged in a bitter dispute with the king's mother, Marie de Médicis, who had once been a close ally. Richelieu sought to consolidate royal power and restrained the power of the nobility in order to transform France into a strong centralisation, centralized st ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Honorat De Bueil, Seigneur De Racan
Honorat de Bueil, seigneur de Racan (sometimes mistakenly listed as "marquis de Racan", although he never held this title) (5 February 1589 – 21 January 1670) was a French aristocrat, soldier, poet, dramatist and (original) member of the Académie française. Biography Racan was born at Aubigné-Racan (in the Sarthe) into an illustrious noble family (originally of Italian origin) from the region of Tours (site of the Racan fief and the château of La Roche-Racan), Maine and Anjou. An orphan at the age of 13 (both his uncle and father were killed in the wars), Racan came under the protection of the Count de Bellegarde (first gentleman of the king's chamber) and became a page for king Henry IV of France. His education was minimal, and by his own account he learned only the rudiments of Latin, and was bored by most of his subjects, exception being made to French verse. Racan's successes as a courtier were limited by his physical appearance and his stuttering (he reputedly had ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

François De Malherbe
François de Malherbe (, 1555 – 16 October 1628) was a French poet, critic, and translator. Life He was born in Le Locheur (near Caen, Normandie), to a family of standing, although the family's pedigree did not satisfy the heralds in terms of its claims to nobility pre-16th century. Francois the poet was the eldest son of another François de Malherbe, ''conseiller du roi'' in the magistracy of Caen. He himself was elaborately educated at Caen, at Paris, at Heidelberg and at Basel. At the age of twenty-one, preferring arms to the gown, he entered the household of Henri d'Angoulême, the illegitimate son of Henry II, governor of Provence. He served this prince as secretary in Provence, and married there in 1581. It seems that he wrote verses at this period, but, to judge from a quotation of Tallemant des Réaux, they must have been very bad ones. His patron died when Malherbe was on a visit in his native province, and for a time he had no particular employment, though by some s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille (; 6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. As a young man, he earned the valuable patronage of Cardinal Richelieu, who was trying to promote classical tragedy along formal lines, but later quarrelled with him, especially over his best-known play, ''Le Cid'', about a medieval Spanish warrior, which was denounced by the newly formed ''Académie française'' for breaching the unities. He continued to write well-received tragedies for nearly forty years. Biography Early years Corneille was born in Rouen, Normandy, France, to Marthe Le Pesant and Pierre Corneille, a distinguished lawyer. His younger brother, Thomas Corneille, also became a noted playwright. He was given a rigorous Jesuit education at the ''Collège de Bourbon'' (Lycée Pierre-Corneille since 1873), where acting on the stage was part of the training. At 18 he ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Jean Chapelain
Jean Chapelain (4 December 1595 – 22 February 1674) was a French poet and critic during the Grand Siècle, best known for his role as an organizer and founding member of the Académie française. Chapelain acquired considerable prestige as a literary critic, but his own major work, an epic poem about Joan of Arc called "La Pucelle," (1656) was lampooned by his contemporary Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux. Background Chapelain was born in Paris. His father wanted him to become a notary, but his mother, who had known Pierre de Ronsard, had decided otherwise. Early education At an early age Chapelain began to qualify himself for literature, learning, under Nicolas Bourbon, Greek and Latin, and teaching himself Italian and Spanish. Tutor Having finished his studies, Chapelain taught Spanish to a young nobleman for a short time, before being appointed tutor to the two sons of Sébastien Le Hardy, lord of la Trousse, ''grand-prévôt de France'', Gouye de Longuemarre, ""Eclaircissemen ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
Jacques-Bénigne Lignel Bossuet (; 27 September 1627 – 12 April 1704) was a French bishop and theologian, renowned for his sermons and other addresses. He has been considered by many to be one of the most brilliant orators of all time and a masterly French stylist. Court preacher to Louis XIV of France, Bossuet was a strong advocate of political absolutism and the divine right of kings. He argued that government was divinely ordained and that kings received sovereign power from God. He was also an important courtier and politician. The works best known to English speakers are three great orations delivered at the funerals of Queen Henrietta Maria, widow of Charles I of England (1669), of her daughter Henriette, Duchess of Orléans (1670), and of the outstanding military commander ''le Grand Condé'' (1687). His work ''Discours sur l'histoire universelle'' ( ''Discourse on Universal History'' 1681) has been regarded by many Catholics as an actualization or new version of t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]