Marie de Sévigné

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MS , who lived and wrote in seventeenth-century France, is widely regarded as one of the world's great letter-writers. The standard scholarly edition contains 1,372 letters.
Head-and-shoulders painting of Marie de Sévigné by Claude Lefèbvre, c. 1665. She is in half-mourning, in a pale low-necked gown with puff sleeves and a lacy neckline tied with a dark bow. A grey scarf is tucked in. She has pearl ear studs, a pearl necklace, and dark curls around her face. She wears a slight smile. Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Milestones

5 February 1626

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal (later MS ) was born in Paris.
Ojala, Jeanne, and William Ojala. Madame de Sévigné: A Seventeenth-Century Life. Berg.
13, 16
Williams, Charles G. S. Madame de Sévigné. Twayne.
17

15 March 1648

MS wrote the first of her extant letters: to her most famous cousin, the writer of romans à clef who is generally known as Bussy-Rabutin .
Some editions place this letter in 1647, as a result of confusion over the Old Style calendar (in which the year began on the 25th of March).
Sévigné, Marie de. Correspondance. Editor Duchêne, Roger, Gallimard.
1: 7, 1439
Sévigné, Marie de. Letters of Madame de Sévigné to her Daughter and her Friends. Editor Aldington, Richard, George Routledge.
1: 1, 2: 207

6 April 1696

Eleven days before her death, MS wrote the last of her extant letters: to her cousin Madame de Coulanges .
Sévigné, Marie de. Correspondance. Editor Duchêne, Roger, Gallimard.
3: 1153, 1884

17 April 1696

MS died at Grignan in Brittany.
Biographers Jeanne and William Ojala give the year of her death as 1691. This must to be a misprint, however, as they correctly date her fatal illness to April 1696.
Ojala, Jeanne, and William Ojala. Madame de Sévigné: A Seventeenth-Century Life. Berg.
172
Williams, Charles G. S. Madame de Sévigné. Twayne.
chronology

Biography

Birth and Family

5 February 1626

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal (later MS ) was born in Paris.
Ojala, Jeanne, and William Ojala. Madame de Sévigné: A Seventeenth-Century Life. Berg.
13, 16
Williams, Charles G. S. Madame de Sévigné. Twayne.
17

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