Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné
French noble and epistolarian writer (1626–1696)
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (French: [maʁi də ʁabytɛ̃ ʃɑ̃tal]; 5 February 1626 – 17 April 1696), also widely known as Madame de Sévigné or Mme de Sévigné ([madam də seviɲe]), was a French aristocrat, remembered for her letter-writing. Most of her letters, celebrated for their wit and vividness, were addressed to her daughter, Françoise-Marguerite de Sévigné. She is revered in France as one of the great icons of French 17th-century literature.
Life
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal was born in Place des Vosges (then called the Place Royale), Paris, to a well distinguished family from Burgundy. Her father, Celse Bénigne de Rabutin, baron de Chantal, was the son of Saint Jeanne Françoise de Chantal, a friend and disciple of Saint Francis de Sales; her mother was Marie de Coulanges. Her father was killed during the English attack on the Isle of Rhé in July 1627, which began the Anglo-French War of 1627-1629. His wife did not survive him by many years, and Marie was left an orphan at the age of seven. She then passed into the care of her maternal grandparents.
When her grandfather, Philippe de Coulanges, died in 1636, her uncle, Christophe de Coulanges, abbé of Livry, became her guardian. She received a good education in his care and often referred to him in her correspondence as "le Bien Bon" [the very good].
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné” as french noble and epistolarian writer (1626–1696). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as french noble and epistolarian writer (1626–1696). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q237103. VIAF identifies the subject as 32002865. The Library of Congress control number is n80082290. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1626, 1696, 1627 and 1629.
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This entry incorporates text from “Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.