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Renee Caroline de Froullay Crequy, Marquise de Crequy (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 Crequy was born on 19 October 1714, at the chateau of Monfleaux (Mayenne), the daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Francois de Froullay. She was educated by her maternal grandmother, and in 1737 married Louis Marie, Marquis de Crequy (1705-1741) — author of the Principes philosophiques des saints solitaires d'Egypte (1779) — who died four years after the marriage.
De Crequy 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 Crequy adopted religion, and she was nearly seventy when she formed the great friendship of her life with Senac de Meilhan, whom she met in 1781, and with whom she carried on a correspondence (edited by Edouard Fournier, with a preface by Sainte-Beuve in 1856). De Crequy 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 Crequy (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, Tancrede de Crequy, 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.