kids encyclopedia robot

Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Quick facts for kids
Catherine de Vivonne
marquise de Rambouillet
Mme de Rambouillet.jpg
(anonymous, 17th century)
Born 1588
Rome
Died 2 December 1665
Spouse(s) Marquis de Rambouillet
Father Jean de Vivonne
Mother Giulia Savelli

Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet (born 1588 – died 2 December 1665), also known as Madame de Rambouillet, was a very important person in French society and literature during the 1600s. She was famous for hosting a special gathering place called a "salon" where many important writers and thinkers met.

Life of a Salon Hostess

Catherine de Vivonne was born in Rome in 1588. Her father was Jean de Vivonne, and her mother was Giulia Savelli, from a noble Roman family.

When she was just twelve years old, she married Charles d'Angennes. He later became the Marquis de Rambouillet in 1612. They had seven children together.

Catherine found the rough manners and tricky games at the French royal court not to her liking. So, around 1620, she started her own special group of friends and thinkers. This group made her "salon" very famous.

She and her husband lived in Paris at a place called the Hôtel Pisani. She later renamed it the Hôtel de Rambouillet. She worked on fixing it up between 1618 and 1620. It was located near the Louvre and the Tuileries.

The Hôtel de Rambouillet

Madame de Rambouillet designed the Hôtel Pisani especially for her guests. She created special smaller rooms where guests could talk more privately instead of in big, noisy halls. She welcomed her visitors in the chambre bleue (blue room), which was painted blue and had blue wall hangings.

The Hôtel de Rambouillet was a very important literary salon until the mid-1600s. It started to become less popular around 1645, when her daughter Julie got married and her son died. Its influence lessened even more with the start of the Fronde (a civil war) in 1648, and the death of her husband in 1652.

Almost all the major noble people and writers of France at that time visited her salon. It was most famous in the second quarter of the 17th century. Sometimes, in spring and summer, the Marquis and Marquise de Rambouillet would invite their Parisian guests to their country home, the château de Rambouillet.

Catherine's Success

Catherine was very good at hosting her salon. She was naturally kind and didn't judge people. This allowed her to entertain royal princes and princesses, as well as writers, with the same grace. Even an actress, Angélique Paulet, was among her close friends.

Her salon helped French writers gain more respect. Many famous French writers from the 1600s learned to write and speak well because of the conversations they had at the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Madame de Rambouillet was known as the "incomparable Arthénice." This name was an anagram (a word made by rearranging the letters of another word) for "Catherine," created by the poets François de Malherbe and Racan.

Famous Moments at the Salon

Some famous events at the Hôtel de Rambouillet include a friendly argument between two groups of poets, the Uranistes and the Jobelins. They argued about which of two famous sonnets was better.

Another famous event was the creation of the Guirlande de Julie. This was a collection of forty-one short poems called madrigals, each about a flower. It was given in 1641 to Julie d'Angennes, Catherine's daughter. Charles de Sainte Maure had been trying to win Julie's heart for ten years when he thought of this beautiful book. Julie made him wait four more years before marrying him!

Julie herself, known as the Princesse Julie of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, was part of a group called the Précieuses. This group was known for a very fancy way of speaking and acting. They were later made fun of by the famous writer Molière.

The Précieuses

The Précieuses are often linked to Molière's plays, which made fun of them. However, famous people like Madame de Sévigné were proud to be called a Précieuse.

These women expected very polite and formal behavior from people who wanted to impress them. They especially liked a very fancy and detailed way of talking and writing. This style was popular across Europe at the time.

Molière's famous play Précieuses ridicules (The Ridiculous Précieuses) was not directly aimed at the Hôtel de Rambouillet itself. Instead, it made fun of the many other groups that had copied Madame de Rambouillet's salon over the years. Even though the play was about the copycats, it also affected the original salon.

The Hôtel de Rambouillet continued until Madame de Rambouillet's death. However, the troubles of the Fronde civil war reduced its influence.

The main historical sources about Madame de Rambouillet and her group are Tallemant des Réaux's Historiettes and Antoine Baudeau de Somaize's Grand Dictionnaire des Précieuses (1660).

Plan de Paris 1705 BNF07710700
1705 Map of Paris by N. de Fer, showing the rue Saint-Thomas du Louvre between the Louvre and the Tuileries.

Who Visited the Salon?

Many famous people visited Madame de Rambouillet's chambre bleue, including:

In honor of the Marquise de Rambouillet, the city of Rambouillet has named its Junior High School Collège Catherine de Vivonne.

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Catalina de Rambouillet para niños

  • Vivonne (disambiguation)
kids search engine
All content from Kiddle encyclopedia articles (including the article images and facts) can be freely used under Attribution-ShareAlike license, unless stated otherwise. Cite this article:
Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.