Madame de La Fayette was born Marie Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne in Paris to a family of the lesser nobility. Her mother's remarriage in 1650 provided Marie Madeleine with brilliant court connections, and at 16 she became a maid of honor to the Queen, enjoying warm association with Henriette (sister of Charles II of England) and Madame de Sévigné, as well as the tutelage of Gilles Ménage, Pierre Daniel Huet, and Jean Regnault de Segrais, respected literary arbiters of the time.
At the age of 16, Marie-Madeleine began to take lessons of the Italian language and Latin from the writer and philologist Gilles Menage. Menage (he eventually fell in love with his young pupil) not only urged her to study literature, but also introduced the most significant literary salons of that era - the salon of Madame de Rambouillet and the showroom of Madeleine de Scudery.
In accordance with proper usage of the times, none of her works appeared under her own name. She almost surely had a hand in correcting later editions of his Maximes, and he is usually credited with greatly influencing her masterpiece, La Princesse de Clèves (1678), often referred to as the single most important novel of the century. The brief Comtesse de Tende and some historical writings were published after Madame de La Fayette's death in Paris on May 25, 1693.
Quotations:
"If one thinks that one is happy, that is enough to be happy. "
"We pardon infidelities, but we do not forget them. '
"I have left all my business and all my husbands; I have taken with me only fair weather and my children, which is as much as I want. "
"One may forgive infidelity, but one does not forget it. "
"You love writing; I hate it; and if I had a lover who expected a note from me every morning, I should certainly break with him. Let me beg you then not to measure my friendship by my writing . .. "
"One is very weak when one is in love. "
"If I had a lover who wanted to hear from me every day, I would break with him. "
"Most mothers think that to keep young people away from love-making it is enough never to speak of it in their presence. "
In 1665 Madame de La Fayette began her long association with the Duc de La Rochefoucauld; whether platonic or otherwise, their relationship endured until the moralist's death in 1680.
In 1655, Marie-Madeleine married Jean-François Motier, Count de Lafayette.
1577 - 20 December 1649
1615 - 3 February 1656
September 17, 1659 - December 8, 1694
March 5, 1658 - May 1729
8 September 1616 - 26 June 1683
