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Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles (1647 – 12 July 1733), who on her marriage became Madame de Lambert, Marquise de Saint-Bris, and is generally known as the Marquise de Lambert, was a French writer and salonnière. During the Régence, when the court of the Duchesse du Maine, at the Château de Sceaux, was amusing itself with frivolities, and when that of the Duc d’Orléans, at the Palais-Royal, was devoting itself to debauchery, the salon of the Marquise de Lambert passed for the temple of propriety and good taste, in a reaction against the cynicism and vulgarity of the time. For the cultivated people of the time, it was a true honor to be admitted to the celebrated "Tuesdays", where the dignity and high class of the "Great Century" were still in the air. ==Biography== The only daughter of Étienne de Marguenat, Seigneur de Courcelles, and his wife, Monique Passart, Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles was born and died in Paris. She lost her father, an officer of the fiscal court of Paris, in 1650, when she was just three years old. She was raised by her mother, who was distinguished by the lightness of her habits, and by her mother’s second husband, the literary dilettante François Le Coigneux de Bachaumont, who instilled in her a love of literature. At a young age, writes her friend Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, "she often stole away from the pleasures of youth to read alone, and she began, of her own accord, to write extracts of what struck her the most. It was either subtle reflections on the human heart, or ingenious turns of phrase, but most often reflections."〔Fontenelle, p. 402.〕 On 22 February 1666, she married Henri de Lambert, marquis de Saint-Bris, a distinguished officer who was to become a lieutenant-general and the governor of Luxembourg. Their union was very happy and they had two children:〔In addition to two daughters who died in infancy.〕 a son, Henri-François (1677–1754), and a daughter, Marie-Thérèse (†1731), who became Comtesse de Saint-Aulaire by her marriage. The Marquise de Lambert was widowed in 1686 and raised her two young children while carrying on lengthy and troublesome lawsuits against her husband’s family to save her children’s property. In 1698, she rented the north-west half of the hôtel de Nevers, located on the rue de Richelieu near the current site of the Bibliothèque nationale. Starting in 1710, in her beautiful drawing room decorated by Robert de Cotte, she launched her famous literary salon. According to her friend the Abbé de La Rivière, "She fell victim to a colic of cultivation and wit, an illness which stuck her suddenly and which remained incurable until her death." She received visitors twice a week: literary people on Tuesdays and high society on Wednesdays, without, however, seeking to establish an impenetrable barrier between the two worlds; on the contrary, she liked to interest the well-born in literature and to introduce writers to the advantages of frequenting society, and regular visitors could pass without constraint from one day to the other. The Tuesdays began about one o’clock in the afternoon. After a very fine dinner, "academic conferences" on a philosophical or literary theme took place. Political and religious discussions were absolutely prohibited. Every guest was required to give a personal opinion or to read some excerpts from their latest work; on the morning of the gathering, says the Abbé de La Rivière, "the guests prepared wit for the afternoon." The lady of the house directed what her critics called "wit’s business office". She encouraged writers to the highest moral tone and contributed to orienting the movement of ideas toward new literary forms: from her salon originated Antoine Houdar de la Motte’s attacks on the three unities, on versification, and on Homer, whom Madame de Lambert thought dull; which did not prevent her from receiving such partisans of the Classical writers as Anne Dacier, Father d’Olivet, or Valincour. The Marquise de Lambert was not socially conservative. She championed Montesquieu’s satirical ''Persian Letters'' and succeeded in obtaining the author’s election to the Académie française. She was one of the first society women to open her door to actors such as Adrienne Lecouvreur or Michel Baron. Fontenelle and Houdar de la Motte were the great men of her celebrated salon, where one could also encounter Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, the poet Catherine Bernard, the Abbé de Bragelonne, Father Buffier, the Abbé de Choisy, Madame Dacier, the mathematician Dortous de Mairan, Fénelon, Hénault, Marivaux, the Abbé Mongault, Montesquieu, the lawyer Louis de Sacy (one of the Marquise’s favorites), the Marquis de Sainte-Aulaire,〔According to Hénault, the Marquise de Lambert married him in secret toward the end of her life.〕 Baronne Staal, Madame de Tencin who received the Marquise’s guests at her death in 1733, or the Abbé Terrasson. The Marquise de Lambert’s salon was known as the antechamber of the ''Académie française''. According to the Marquis d’Argenson, "she had brought about the election of half the members of the Academy." Madame de Lambert, says Fontenelle, "was not only ardent to serve her friends, without waiting for their request, nor the humiliating exposition of their need; but a good deed to be done, even for someone she had no connection with, always interested her intensely, and the circumstances had to be especially contrary, for her not to succumb. Some bad outcomes of her generosity had not reformed her, and she always remained equally ready to risk doing good."〔Fontenelle, p. 404.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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