Rabutin-Chantal, Marie de, Madame de Sevigne, 1626-1696

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal was born on February 5, 1626, in Place des Vosges (Place Royale), Paris, to Celse Benigne de Rabutin, Baron de Chantal, and Marie de Coulanges. She became an orphan at the age of seven and was raised by her uncle, Christophe de Coulanges, abbe of Livry. Under his guidance, she received a very good education. She married Henri, Marquis de Sevigne on August 4, 1644. Together they had a daughter and a son. She was twenty-four when her husband died in a duel over a mistress, and Madame de Sevigne never remarried. She became a devoted mother and prolific epistolarian, the majority of her letters coming after her daughter’s marriage. Her letters were copied and read throughout the aristocracy of France and they detailed life among that same aristocracy, including the trial and execution of Madame de Brinvilliers and the resulting Affair of the Poisons. She died on April 17, 1696, and was buried at Grignan, her daughter’s house. Of her letters, 1,372 have been inventoried and over 1,100 officially published.