Françoise de Graffigny

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Françoise de Graffigny (1695–1758) was a French writer, best known as a novelist, playwright, and lively host of salons in Paris. Her letters and stories give a vivid picture of 18th‑century literary life and the life of a woman writer.

Life in brief
- Born in Nancy, in the duchy of Lorraine, to a cavalry officer father and a mother related to the artist Jacques Callot.
- In 1712, at almost 17, she married François Huguet and later took the name de Graffigny after he received the Graffigny estate. They had three children, who all died young. Her husband was a gambler and abusive; they separated legally in 1723 and he died in 1725.
- As a widow, she moved between Lorraine and Paris, had a long affair with Léopold Desmarest, and befriended the young lawyer François-Antoine Devaux (Panpan), with whom she began a lifelong correspondence in the 1730s.
- She spent time at Lunéville and, in 1738–39, went to Paris to join the circle around the duchesse de Richelieu, then visited Cirey, home of Émilie du Châtelet and Voltaire. A celebrated visit there involved Voltaire and intense intellectual exchange, though it ended with tensions and Graffigny’s departure.
- In Paris, she faced financial ups and downs but built a strong literary career. She became a notable salon hostess, welcoming writers, philosophers, and nobles at her houses near the Luxembourg Garden and later on the rue Saint-Hyacinthe.

Major works and achievements
- Early, unpublished pieces and short works, including L’Honnête Homme, La Réunion du Bon-sens et de l’Esprit, Héraclite, and Le Sylphe.
- 1745: Nouvelle espagnole (in Recueil de ces Messieurs) and La Princesse Azerolle (fairy tale), showing her developing narrative gifts.
- 1747: Lettres d’une Péruvienne (Letters from a Peruvian Woman) – a landmark epistolary novel that quickly became a best‑seller and made her famous.
- 1750: Cénie, a sentimental comedy that was a major success and one of the era’s most successful new plays by a woman.
- 1758: La Fille d’Aristide, her second major play, did not fare well and affected her reputation.
- She also produced other works and plays, some published posthumously or only in manuscripts, and she kept a rich correspondence with Devaux and others.

Salon life and influence
- Graffigny’s Paris home became a fashionable gathering place for writers, actors, and philosophers. She helped organize marriages and alliances, notably assisting Anne‑Catherine de Ligniville’s match with Helvétius.
- She associated with many leading Enlightenment figures, including d’Alembert, Diderot, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Prévost, and Voltaire.
- Her letters and journals offer a rare, intimate look at women’s lives and literary culture in 18th‑century France.

Name and legacy
- “Graffigny” refers to an estate; the often‑seen spelling Grafigny was common, but Graffigny is the standardized form today.
- Her fame faded after her death but was revived by modern scholars who study her correspondence and works, highlighting her important role in the Enlightenment and as a female writer who shaped French literary life.

Selected published works
- Nouvelle espagnole ou Le mauvais exemple produit autant de vertus que de vices (1745)
- La Princesse Azerolle (1745)
- Lettres d’une Péruvienne (1747; revised ed. 1752)
- Cénie (1750)
- La Fille d’Aristide (1758)
- Ziman et Zenise (1747; published posthumously)
- Le Sylphe and other early pieces (various dates)

Her letters, especially those from Cirey and Paris, remain her most important legacy, offering a vivid glimpse into the life of a woman writer and the social world of the French Enlightenment.