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4 - Claude-Catherine de Clermont: Amusement and Escapism among the Noblesse d’épée and Royal Milieu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2024

Julie Campbell
Julie Campbell
Affiliation:
Eastern Illinois University
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Summary

Abstract: The ludic literary hospitality of Claude Catherine de Clermont, duchesse de Retz, was enjoyed by Marguerite de Valois, high-ranking court women, and many leading poets, several of whom were well known to Antoinette de Loynes and Madeleine de l’Aubespine. A member of the noblesse d’épée, Retz was the daughter-in-law of Marie de Pierrevive and cousin of Jean de Vivonne, father of the marquise de Rambouillet. Tributes to Retz by Marie de Romieu and Pasquier's remembrances of entertainment in her home, as well as traces of her circle's activities in a manuscript album, reveal fascinating elements of this group, whose style of sociability resonates with that popular in Lyon and Poitiers and illustrates Huizinga's and Fink's notions of idyllic play worlds.

Keywords: Claude-Catherine de Clermont (Retz), Estienne Pasquier, Marie-Catherine de Pierrevive (Gondi), Marie de Romieu, Jean de Vivonne, Ippolita Scaravelli (de Chastellier)

For all these troubles the King has used of late to call certain poets and philosophers into his chamber to hear them dispute three or four hours together de primis causis de sensu et sensibili and such like questions. The auditors are none but the King, the Queen of Navarre, the Duke of Nevers, the Countess of Retz, and another lady or two.

— Valentine Dale

I also choose among the Court to put in this rank [of ladies of merit] the maréschale de Rez and Mme de Ligneroles.… These two have shown that they know about more things than words, in the Academy which King Henri III had erected, and I remember one day among others, that the debate was on the excellence of the moral and intellectual virtues: they were antagonists, and were admired.

— Agrippa d’Aubigné

About three weeks ago … Madame de Rets invited me to supper, where one found numerous lords of mark. The entire evening was spent on an infinity of good and beautiful topics concerning the calamity of our times and on the hopes and despairs that each of us held according to the diversity of his opinions.

— Estienne Pasquier

Claude-Catherine de Clermont, maréschale and then duchesse de Retz, was a member of the noblesse d’épée (the nobility of the sword), the oldest and highest-ranking echelon of French nobility, and she holds an intriguing position in the history of early modern French literary society.

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Women, Entertainment, and Precursors of the French Salon, 1532-1615 , pp. 143 - 186
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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