Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet

Who was Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet?

Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet, known as Madame de Rambouillet, was a society hostess and a major figure in the literary history of 17th-century France.

Born in Rome, she was the daughter and heiress of Jean de Vivonne, marquis of Pisani, and Giulia Savelli, who belonged to a noble Roman family. She was married at the age of twelve to Charles d'Angennes, vidame du Mans, and afterwards marquis de Rambouillet. They had seven children, two sons and five daughters. The young, beautiful and witty marquise found the coarseness and intrigues of the French court little to her taste and, after the birth of her eldest daughter, Julie Lucine d'Angennes, in 1607, she began to gather around her the circle that gave its renown to her salon. She and her husband had taken residence in Paris at the Hôtel Pisani, then renamed Hôtel de Rambouillet, and situated rue Saint-Honoré. This hôtel was later demolished to make room for Cardinal Richelieu's Palais Cardinal, and a new Hôtel de Rambouillet was built in 1618 on the rue Saint-Thomas du Louvre, between the Louvre and the Tuileries. Madame de Rambouillet arranged her hotel for the purpose of receiving her guests, and devised suites of small rooms where guests could move around and find more privacy than in the large reception rooms. She received her visitors in a salon painted in blue, the chambre bleue. The Hôtel de Rambouillet maintained its importance as a literary salon until 1650. Almost all major personages of the French aristocracy and literature of the time frequented it, and its reputation was at its height in the second quarter of the century. Occasionally, in spring and summer, the marquis and marquise de Rambouillet would entertain the habitués of their Parisian residence in the château de Rambouillet.