Françoise Bertaut de Motteville (c. 1621 – 1689) was a French

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...

writer.

Biography

She was the daughter of Pierre Bertaut, a gentleman of the king's chamber, and niece of the bishop-poet

Jean Bertaut Jean Bertaut (1552 – 8 June 1611), French poet, was born at Caen. Life He figures with Philippe Desportes in the disdainful couplet of Boileau on Ronsard: "''Ce poëte orgueilleux, trébuché de si haut,'' ''Rendit plus retenus Desport ...

. Her mother, a

Spaniard Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both ind ...

, was the friend and private secretary of

Anne of Austria Anne of Austria (french: Anne d'Autriche, italic=no, es, Ana María Mauricia, italic=no; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was an infanta of Spain who became Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XIII from their marriage in 1615 unti ...

, wife of

Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...

. At the age of seven Françoise was also made a member of the queen's household and given a pension. The influence of Richelieu, however, who wished to separate the queen from her Spanish connections, exiled mother and daughter to

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

, where in 1639 the young girl was married to Nicolas Langlois, seigneur de Motteville, president of the ''

Chambre des Comptes Under the French monarchy, the Courts of Accounts (in French ''Chambres des comptes'') were sovereign courts specialising in financial affairs. The Court of Accounts in Paris was the oldest and the forerunner of today's French Court of Audit. ...

'' of

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...

. He died two years later at the age of eighty-two, and in 1642 the queen summoned Mme de Motteville to court, being now her own mistress by the death of Richelieu and Louis XIII. Through all the intrigues and troubles of the

Fronde The Fronde () was a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. King Louis XIV confronted the combined opposition of the princes, the nobility, the law cour ...

Mme de Motteville preserved the honourable reputation of being devoted to her mistress without any party ties or interests. Some letters of hers are preserved, especially a curious correspondence with Anne, Duchess of Montpensier "''La Grande Mademoiselle''" on marriage, but her chief work is her ''Mémoires'', which are in effect a history of Anne of Austria, written briefly till the date of Mme de Motteville's return to court, and then with fullness. They give a faithful picture of the life of the court at that time. The best edition of her ''Mémoires'' is that of M. F. Riaux (2nd ed., Paris, 1891, 4 vols.), containing the essay by Sainte-Beuve from vol. v. of his ''Causeries du lundi''. The ''Mémoires'' were translated into English in 1726 and again by KP Wormeley in 3 vols., 1902. For details concerning her family see ''Recherches sur Madame de Motteville et sur sa famille'', by Charles de Beaurepaire (Rouen, 1900).

Bibliography

* Oliver Mallick, "Rien n'est permanent sous le ciel." Mme de Motteville am französischen Hof (1622-1666), in: ''Zeitsprünge'', vol. 18, no. 3 (2014), p. 257-312. * Jean-Pascal Gay, "Françoise de Motteville. Une expertise indéfinie ou comment ne pas être théologienne. Autour d'une "dissertation" féminine sur la divinité du Christ", in : Source(s), n°8-9, 2016, p. 39-73.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Motteville, Francoise Bertaut de 1621 births 1689 deaths French untitled nobility 17th-century French writers French memoirists French ladies-in-waiting French women memoirists 17th-century French women writers 17th-century letter writers 17th-century memoirists