Marie Anne du Deffand
Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, Marquise du Deffand
5 min read
A French woman of letters and salon hostess of the Age of Enlightenment, the Marquise du Deffand kept one of the most brilliant salons in Paris. Witty and disillusioned, she corresponded with Voltaire and Horace Walpole.
Frequently asked questions
Famous Quotes
« There is but one misfortune, that of being born. »
Key Facts
- Born in 1696 into a family of the Burgundian nobility
- From the 1740s onward, hosted a renowned salon frequented by Voltaire, Montesquieu, d'Alembert and Fontenelle
- Having gone blind, in 1754 she took on Julie de Lespinasse as a companion and reader
- In 1764, broke with Julie de Lespinasse, who opened her own salon by drawing away the regulars of hers
- From 1766 onward, maintained a passionate correspondence with Horace Walpole until her death in 1780
Works & Achievements
Hundreds of letters in French addressed to the English writer, regarded as a pinnacle of 18th-century epistolary art.
A long-lasting witty and philosophical exchange with the great man of the Enlightenment, mirroring her skepticism and her humor.
One of the most prestigious salons in Paris, a gathering place where writers, philosophers, and high society came together.
A short literary portrait, a fashionable social genre, in which the marquise displays her talent for observation and her sharp wit.
Letters reflecting her friendships and her perspective on the politics and society of the court.
Anecdotes
Having become totally blind in her fifties, the Marquise du Deffand refused to give up her social life: she continued to hold her salon in the dark, dictating her letters to secretaries and recognizing her guests by their voices. Her biting wit was in no way dulled by it.
She hired a poor young relative, Julie de Lespinasse, as her reader and lady's companion. But when she discovered that Julie was secretly receiving her own guests an hour before the salon opened, she dismissed her in a fury. Julie then opened a rival salon that drew the Encyclopédistes.
At nearly seventy, the marquise developed a passionate affection for the English writer Horace Walpole, twenty years her junior. Their correspondence, written in French, comprises hundreds of letters full of tenderness and melancholy, which she dictated to him since she could no longer write herself.
In her youth, she was briefly the mistress of the Regent, Philippe d'Orléans. The affair is said to have lasted only a few days, which later inspired in her many disillusioned reflections on the inconstancy of men and the vanity of pleasures.
She bequeathed to Horace Walpole her beloved little dog, Tonton, of whom she spoke constantly in her letters. Walpole took the animal in to England after the marquise's death, faithful to the promise he had made to his friend.
Primary Sources
I confess it to you, I am pleased with no one, and I am very displeased with myself: one must love oneself a little to be able to love others.
You are right to say that one is quite unfortunate to have too much wit; it makes one feel too keenly the emptiness of all things.
Boredom is the malady of my soul; I have never been able to conquer it, and it pursues me even into my pleasures.
Key Places
The region her noble family came from, where she was born in 1696 and spent her childhood before being sent to the convent.
An apartment she rented within this convent, where she held her famous salon for nearly thirty years, receiving the intellectual and social elite.
Capital of the kingdom and the heart of the social and literary life of the Enlightenment, where she lived most of her life and died in 1780.
A château near Paris where the young marquise frequented the brilliant and frivolous court of the Duchess of Maine, a hub of entertainment and wit.
The neo-Gothic residence of Horace Walpole, the recipient of her letters; she never visited it, but the place haunted her correspondence and her imagination.