Died 1803 | ||
Renée Caroline de Froullay Créquy, Marquise de Créquy (1714-1803), was a French aristocrat who was friends with d'Alembert, Rousseau and de Meilhan. Although she was arrested, she survived the terror of the French Revolution.
Biography
De Créquy was born on 19 October 1714, at the château of Monfleaux (Mayenne), the daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles François de Froullay. She was educated by her maternal grandmother, and in 1737 married Louis Marie, Marquis de Créquy (1705-1741) — author of the Principes philosophiques des saints solitaires d'Egypte (1779) — who died four years after the marriage.
De Créquy devoted herself to the care of her only son, who rewarded her with an ingratitude which was the chief sorrow of her life. In 1755 she began to receive in Paris, among her intimates being Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She had none of the frivolity generally associated with the women of her time and class, and presently became extremely religious with inclinations to Jansenism.
D'Alembert's visits ceased when de Créquy adopted religion, and she was nearly seventy when she formed the great friendship of her life with Sénac de Meilhan, whom she met in 1781, and with whom she carried on a correspondence (edited by Édouard Fournier, with a preface by Sainte-Beuve in 1856). De Créquy commented on and criticized Meilhan's works and helped his reputation. She was arrested in 1793 and imprisoned in the convent of Les Oiseaux until the fall of Robespierre (July 1794).
The well-known Souvenirs de la marquise de Créquy (1710-1803) (a reliable description of the French royal court under Louis XV), printed in 7 volumes, 1834-1835, and purporting to be addressed to her grandson, Tancrède de Créquy, was the production of a Breton adventurer, Cousin de Courchamps. The first two volumes appeared in English in 1834 and were severely criticized in the Quarterly Review.