Madeleine de Scudéry
born , 1607, Le Havre, Fr.
died June 2, 1701, Paris
French novelist and social figure
whose romans à clef were immensely
popular in the 17th century.
De Scudéry was the younger sister of
the dramatist Georges de Scudéry.
Madeleine de Scudéry moved to Paris to
join her brother after the death of her
uncle, who had cared for her after she
and her brother had been orphaned.
Clever and bright, she soon made her
mark on the literary circle of the Hôtel
de Rambouillet; by the late 1640s, she
had replaced Madame de Rambouillet as
the leading literary hostess in Paris
and had established her own salon, known
as the Société du Samedi (the Saturday
Club).
Her first novel, Ibrahim ou
l’illustre bassa (1642; Ibrahim or the
Illustrious Bassa), was published in
four volumes. Her later works were even
longer; both Artamène ou le grand Cyrus
(1649–53; Artamenes or the Grand Cyrus)
and Clélie, histoire romaine (1654–60;
Clelia) were published in 10 volumes.
Contemporary readers, accustomed to such
long novels, appreciated De Scudéry’s
works both for their bulk and for the
glimpses they provided into the lives of
important society figures of the day.
These individuals were thinly disguised
as Persian, Greek, and Roman warriors
and maidens; De Scudéry herself appears
in Artamène as Sappho, a name by which
she was known to her friends.
Other of her works include Almahide,
ou l’es- clave reine (1660–63;
“Almahide, or the Slave Queen”),
Mathilde d’Aguilar, histoire espagnole
(1667; “Mathilda of Aguilar, a Spanish
Tale”), and La Promenade de Versailles,
ou l’histoire de Célanire (1669; “The
Versailles Promenade, or the Tale of
Celanire”). Most of the novels were
published anonymously or under the name
of her brother Georges. They included
long passages devoted to conversations
on such topics as the education of
women; these were excerpted and
published separately.
Although her novels were
exceptionally popular and were lauded by
such notables as Madame de Sévigné, they
also met with some criticism. The poet
and critic Nicolas Boileau, for
instance, satirized them harshly.
