Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet

Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet (* 1588 in Rome, † December 2, 1665 in Paris) was a French nobleman who became known as the patron of a "Salons " in the humanities and in particular the history of literature.

She was the daughter of the French Marquis Jean de Vivonne and those coming from old Roman nobility Giulia Savelli and had been married very young with the rich Marquis de Rambouillet. She was highly educated and spoke several languages. However, as she was prone to health and spared the regular presence at the royal court in Paris, she created from about 1620 a kind of small private yard in their situated near the Louvre palace, the Hôtel de Rambouillet, which was more or less built according to their plans. Here she led until around 1660 an open house in which mentally interested high aristocrats, including Le Grand Condé, or Cardinal Richelieu with small aristocratic and bourgeois intellectuals also met. At the same time, to have no society of men arise, they cared for the presence of noble ladies as well as aristocratic young girls, including, in addition to their own daughter, Julie, for example, Marie de Rabutin -Chantal, Madame de Sévigné or later Marie -Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, who later became Madame de La Fayette.

The is quite perceptive as elitist and exclusive circle around the Marquise and the imaginative animator Vincent Voiture practiced especially in the art of witty conversation and the gallant occasional poetry. This was developed which in principle egalitarian, ie not bound corporative ideal of honnête homme ( a term that perhaps analogous to " gentilhomme - Edelmann " was created and is translated very inaccurate with " man of honor ").

The conscious art and sophisticated expressions of the circle found strong echoes in the literature of the era, but had also in the Parisian society into it, where they soon partly imitated, but partly also as " precious " (actually " precious " ) have been ridiculed.

After the death voitures ( 1648) and the beginning of the troubles of the Fronde was the heyday of the Hôtel de Rambouillet over. As Molière in 1661 with Les Précieuses ridicules ( The ridiculous precieuses ) caricatured the preciousness in the form of two überkandidelter citizen daughters, she had already become a sort of lost cultural.

Known long-term guests of the Hôtel de Rambouillet were:

  • Le Grand Condé
  • Cardinal Richelieu
  • François de Malherbe,
  • Honoré d' Urfé
  • Roger de Bussy- Rabutin,
  • Pierre Corneille,
  • Madame de Sévigné,
  • Vincent Voiture,
  • Valentin Conrart,
  • Angélique Paulet,
  • Madame de La Fayette,
  • Claude de Malleville,
  • François Maynard,
  • Jean Ogier de Gombauld,
  • Anne Geneviève de Bourbon- Condé,
  • M. de Chaudebonne,
  • Antoine Godeau,
  • Honorat de Bueil, Marquis de Racan
  • Antoine de Saint -Gérard -Amant,
  • Georges de Scudéry,
  • Madeleine de Scudéry,
  • Guillaume Colletet,
  • Claude Favre de Vaugelas,
  • Gedeon Tallemant of Réaux
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