United States or Brazil ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
M. Brunetière said: "Mme. de Lambert made Academicians; the Marquise de Prie made a queen of France; Mme. de Tencin made cardinals and ambassadors." The popular spirit in literature was one of subtleness, irony, superficial observations on manners and customs.
Close at the elbow of Madame de Tencin steps a figure of different type, a woman not accustomed to please by brilliance of mind or vivacity of speech, but by sheer femininity of face and form.
I want a mistress at a house where I can go without scandal; like Madame de Tencin, for example." "Yes, who will deceive you for Richelieu." "And how, on the contrary, do you know that she will not deceive Richelieu for me?" "Hey-day! and will she manage your police and your love at the same time?" "Perhaps.
Eminency Tencin lives in Lyon, known to the Princess on her Italian Tour; shy of asking Voltaire to dinner on that fine occasion, but, except Officially, is not otherwise than well-affected to Voltaire. Was once Chief Minister of France, and would fain again be; does not like these Bernis novelties and Austrian Alliances, had he now any power to overset them.
"Ah, then, she hath overcome her husband's righteousness of resolution, and would beg a share or so? Let her wait. I find these duchesses the most tiresome animals in the world." "The Madame de Tencin." "I can not see the Madame de Tencin." "A score of dukes and foreign princes. My faith! master, we have never had so large a line of guests as come this morning."
Rothenburg, Noailles, Belleisle, Cardinal Tencin, have been busy; not less the mistress Chateauroux, who admires Friedrich, being indeed a high-minded unfortunate female, as they say; and has thrown out Amelot, not for stammering alone. They are able, almost high people, this new Chateauroux Ministry, compared with some; and already show results.
La Ménagerie de Mme. de Tencin was one of the earliest of the eighteenth-century salons, although, in the strict sense of the word, Mme. de Tencin's salon was of a political rather than a literary nature. Successively nun, mistress, mother, she was one of the shrewdest women of the century.
It was derived from a forgotten play called the 'Comte de Comminges, written by one Baculard-D'Arnaud, and this in turn had been taken from a novel written by the notorious Mme. de Tencin, the callous mother of D'Alembert. The scene of the sword-breaking is not in the novel or the play; and quite possibly it may have been introduced into the book of the opera by the fertile and ingenious Scribe.
She procured Rohan's recall, and so worked on her daughter, Marie Antoinette, the young Queen of France, that the prelate, though Grand Almoner, was socially boycotted by the Court, his letters of piteous appeal to the Queen were not even opened, and his ambitions to sway politics, like a Tencin or a Fleury, were ruined. So here are Rohan, Cagliostro, and Jeanne all brought acquainted.
As we are not writing a history of literature properly speaking, we pass by her novels in silence, with this remark only, that people are accustomed to place the 'Comte de Comminges, written by Madame de Tencin, on the same footing with the 'Princess de Clêve, by Madame de Lafayette.
Word Of The Day