Marguerite de La Sablière (1640–1693)

Marguerite de la Sablière, née Marguerite Hessein, was the daughter of a prominent banker who was part of the Huguenot (Protestant) elite of Paris. She received a sophisticated education in Latin, Greek, mathematics, philosophy, and science, very unusual for a young woman of her time. In 1654, she was married to Antonie de Rambouillet de la Sablière, an aristocrat from another affluent Huguenot family, with whom she had three children. The marriage failed by 1668, and Madame de la Sablière was able to obtain a legal separation and alimony payments, although her husband retained custody of the children. In 1669, she opened a literary salon in her own house in Paris, which quickly became a cultural center of the city. Molière, Racine, Madame de Sevigne, and Queen Christina of Sweden were among those who frequented her salon. She became a patron of Jean de La Fontaine, who was her permanent houseguest from 1673. At the end of the 1670s, Madame de la Sablière underwent a personal crisis when her affair with a military officer turned sour and became the subject of public gossip. Then her estranged husband died, leaving her in financial trouble. In 1680, she had to leave her house for a more modest apartment. She turned to meditation and theological study, which led to her conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, and began to work as a volunteer at the Hospice des Incurables, ministering to patients with contagious diseases. During these years, she continued her extensive correspondence with the Abbé de Rancé on theological matters and composed the reflections on the moral virtues and passions that comprise her three surviving works. These include Maximes Chrétiennes (Christian Maxims), first published anonymously in 1705 in an edition of the maxims of La Rochefoucauld; and her letters and the treatise Pensées Chrétiennes (Christian Thoughts), discovered in a manuscript collection of letters at the Château de Chantilly and published by Samuel Menjot d’Elbenne in 1923.