Louise Marie Madeleine Fontaine


Louise-Marie-Madeleine Guillaume de Fontaine was a French saloniste. A woman of spirit and famous for her beauty, between 1733 and 1782 she hosted a famous literary salon in Paris and owned the Château de Chenonceau, which was known as a center of the most famous French philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment.

Life

Youth

Louise de Fontaine was born in Paris, in the parish of Saint-Roch, on 28 October 1706. Her baptism act was as follows:
Actually, Louise was the oldest of three illegitimate daughters of banker Samuel Bernard and Marie-Anne-Armande Carton Dancourt, nicknamed Manon, a daughter of actor Florent Carton Dancourt. Marie Dancourt was already married since 4 November 1702 at Paris in the parish of Saint-Sulpice with Jean-Louis-Guillaume de Fontaine, commissioner and controller of the Navy and War departments in Flanders and Picardy.
Manon's husband recognized Louise as his own with complacency, as well the two other children born from the affair with Bernard: Marie-Louise and Françoise-Thérèse, both also baptized in the parish of Saint-Roch. During her marriage, Manon gave birth two other children, this time sired by her husband: Jeanne-Marie-Thérèse and Jules-Armand, both also baptized in Saint-Roch.
The illegitimate daughters of Samuel Bernard are mentioned by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Confessions:
Gaston de Villeneuve-Guibert describes the childhood of Louise:
The carefree attitude to these first years of life helped the young Louise to face the reality of the adult world, the place of women in society from the 18th century and the omnipotence of parental authority. The father decide the fate of his children. The role of the religious institution on the status of women is crucial. The convent education is to enforce obedience, submission, accept the authority of parents and the intended spouse.

Claude Dupin

Samuel Bernard decides to engage his daughter Louise to Claude Dupin, a modest collector of Taille at Châteauroux. According to the columnist Barthélémy Mouffle d'Angerville in 1721 Claude Dupin helped the eldest daughter of the family, Jeanne-Marie-Thérèse de Fontaine, when she passed through Berry. She married with François II de Barbançois, Seigneur de Celon on 21 August 1720 and, returning from the baths of Bourbon-l'Archambault and in considerable pain, she received the hospitality of Claude Dupin. Once his guest was recovered, Dupin was persuaded to accompanied her to Paris, where he met Samuel Bernard, who impressed by his kindness, offered him the hand of Louise, aged only sixteen. In his forties, a widower and father of a six-year-old son Louis-Claude, this move was unexpected and he readily agreed, because with this proposal came the appointment of Receiver General of finances in Metz and Alsace.
On 29 November 1722 was signed the marriage contract and the religious ceremony was celebrated on 1 December in the Church of Saint-Roch. Thanks to the support of his father-in-law, Claude Dupin became part of the Ferme générale on 1 October 1726, after he sold his office in Châteauroux. Samuel Bernard obtain this new post for his protégé, for a total of 500,000 livres. The banker abandoned the debt a few years later, and providing the couple with the cancellation of any acknowledgment of debt. On 24 December 1728 Dupin bought the post of Councillor-Secretary of the King, House and Crown of France and finances. This acquisition allows him to be accepted as part of the nobility in the first degree, with his offspring.
Louise gives birth to a son, Jacques-Armand on 3 March 1727 in Paris.
Thanks to the generosity of Samuel Bernard and his income of the Ferme générale, Claude Dupin could obtain a considerable fortune, mainly in lands. Monsieur and Madame Dupin occupy a privilege position and had a lavish lifestyle. On 12 April 1732 Claude Dupin, jointly with his mother-in-law Manon Dancourt, bought the prestigious Hôtel Lambert in the Île Saint-Louis for the sum of 140,000 livres. On 9 June 1733 he acquired the magnificent Château de Chenonceau from the Duke of Bourbon for 130,000 livres. Each year, the Dupins spent the autumn in the Touraine. Starting in April 1741, Louise, with her husband, son and stepson, remained in the Hôtel de Vins, located in the Parisian Plâtrière street and from 1752 they also owns a house in Clichy-sur-Seine where they spend the summer months. On 24 April 1738 with the acquisition of the Marquisate of Blanc and the Castellany of Cors, located at the limits of Berry and Poitou, they completed their patrimony. The Marquisate of Blanc includes the Château-Naillac, the château de Roche, the Château de Rochefort, Château de Cors, Château de Forges, with his respectives properties, farms, ponds and lands, who produced a total of 555,000 livres, four times the prize of Chenonceau. But soon difficulties arosed with the Countess of Parabère, the former owner, who caused the sequestration of Blanc lands and only after a decree of the Parlement of Paris dated 2 September 1739, confirmed by a judgment of 11 December, confirmed Claude Dupin as the legitimate owner of this lands and could recovered them.
Samuel Bernard died on 18 January 1739 and according to the succession of his estate, Claude Dupin was forced to abandon the Hôtel Lambert the following 31 March.
On 16 April 1741 Monsieur and Madame Dupin officially take possession of the city of Blanc, according to the feudal tradition:

Madame Dupin

Monsieur and Madame Dupin had a prominent place in the finance world and are well related with the aristocracy. Their prosperity facilitates this social climbing, along with the qualities of Madame Dupin who widely contributed with this integration. Voltaire nicknamed her the goddess of beauty and music; indeed Louise Dupin was famous for her charm and spirit. She participated in the writings of her husband, most notably in the volumes of Observations on the Spirit of Laws, but also worked in her own projects.
Beautiful, intelligent and cultivated, her seductive power attracts all the sympathies, including men of letters, philosophers and scholars. In this circle and the dinners that she hosted, Madame Dupin had animated conversations, led the debates and proposed discussions. In the Hôtel Lambert, Chenonceau or in the Hôtel de Vins, she held a literary and scientific salon: among her guests are notably Voltaire, the Abbot of Saint-Pierre, Fontenelle, Marivaux, Montesquieu, Buffon, Marmontel, Mably, Condillac, Grimm, Bernis and Rousseau; in addition, she received a great members of the French nobility, like the Princess of Rohan, the Countess of Forcalquier, the Duchess of Lévis-Mirepoix, the Baroness Hervey and the Princess of Monaco. Madame du Deffand was also received, although perhaps she was the only one who spoke unfavorably about Louise Dupin; this probably was because of a typical case of jealousy: the authoritarian hostess of the salon in the Saint-Dominique street found it difficult to accept that her guests attended other circles. During the Enlightenment, the salons were an integral part of social life of the elites, and played an essential role in the dissemination of ideas, social and political protest.
Through her mother, Louise Dupin comes from a family of artists, all went to the Comédie-Française. The sense of theater was somehow innate in her. She created a small theater at the southern end of the gallery on the first floor of Chenonceau and gave himself to her passion. She also practiced philanthropy. A staunch feminist, Louise claimed for women education and access to public jobs and careers until then reserved exclusively to men.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

During 1745-1751, Louise Dupin appointed Jean-Jacques Rousseau as secretary and tutor of her son. But their first meeting was far from idyllic. Rousseau arrived to Paris in the autumn of 1741. He was received by Madame Dupin in Plâtrière street in March 1743 thanks to a letter of recommendation, with the purpose to present a comedy called Narcisse and one Musical notation. Once he meet her, Rousseau felt a lively passion for Madame Dupin:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau subsequently sent an inflamed letter to Madame Dupin, who returns him expressing her concern. This doesn't stop the writer for much and only the intervention of Louise's stepson put an end to his attentions. But Madame Dupin was hardly spiteful and some months after these incidents, takes Rousseau in her service and put him in charge of the education of her son Jacques-Armand for eight days pending for a new tutor. Subsequently, the Dupins taken Jean-Jacques Rousseau as secretary after their return from Venice in 1745, when he is not yet a writer and for a modest salary. His job was to take notes and research for the book projected by Madame Dupin, namely the defense of women in the 18th century are discussed in minor... until they died. Madame Dupin stood Rousseau almost to a subordinate or, in the words of Grimm and Marmontel, she gives him leave the day it receives academicians. Jean-Jacques Rousseau feels bitterness after leaving his job as a secretary in 1751, but will always keep good relations with the Dupin family. Madame Dupin provides financial support to his wife, Marie-Thérèse Levasseur, who gave birth to five children abandoned by Rousseau to the Foundling Hospital. As for Louis Claude Dupin, his bound with Rousseau came for their common passion for music. The stepson of Madame Dupin was interested in physics, chemistry and natural history, hoping to integrate the Academy of Sciences and the philosopher did write an unfinished book, popular science to Institutions of Chemistry.

Dark years

On 9 October 1749 at the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, Jacques-Armand Dupin married with Louise-Alexandrine-Julie de Rochechouart-Pontville. But for Louise and her husband, their son was a source of many troubles, especially when he ran up debts of very large sums of money from gambling. His father had to sell many of his assets in 1750 to honor the debt of his son. The troubles with Jacques-Armand, however, continued. Claude Dupin was forced to obtain against him a Lettre de cachet, who imprisoned Jacques-Armand in the fortress of Pierre Encise under the pretext of madness. After this, the family decided to send him to the Île Maurice, where he remained for the next two years until his death on 3 May 1767, a victim of yellow fever. Before embarking on the Count of Artois, a merchant ship of the French East India Company, Jacques-Armand reportedly revealed to his mother the existence of an illegitimate daughter of his, called Marie-Thérèse Adam, whose origins, however, remained mysterious. Nevertless, Madame Dupin took care of the child and raised as her own, later becoming in her reader and heiress. Louise considers Marie-Thérèse as her own daughter and educated after her own image, transmitting her high culture and elegance of her manners. Marie-Thérèse Adam was entirely dedicated to Madame Dupin and remained at her side until the last moment.
On 25 February 1769 Claude Dupin died in Paris. He left a fortune estimated at more than two million gold francs. Louis-Claude Dupin denounces his father's will, dated 15 January 1768 and claimed half of the inheritance. Finally, after protracted negotiations, in 1772 was divided the result of the liquidation of the estate between Madame Dupin, Louis-Claude and Claude-Sophie Dupin. Louise receives Chenonceau with all his furniture, the Marquisate of Blanc and the Hôtel de Vins, in Plâtrière street. On 18 September 1788, Claude-Sophie died in Chenonceau aged 38. With the disappearance of her grandson without issue, Madame Dupin has no direct descendants.
On 10 August 1792, the people seized the Tuileries Palace. Three years ago the French Revolution began, but this historic day marks the end of the monarchy with the arrest of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. France is at war since 20 April, and Paris is threatened by Prussian armies after the Brunswick Manifesto on 25 July, would deliver the capital to "a military execution and total subversion". In this climate of tension and violence, massacres are perpetrated in Parisian prisons in early September. It's in this context that Madame Dupin decides to leave Paris for Chenonceau. She could emigrate like so many others, the day after the Storming of the Bastille in 1789, on the advice of her friends; but she chose to stay in France and prefer to retire in Touraine when the first Reign of Terror swept the country. On 11 September 1792, Madame Dupin settled permanently in Chenonceau, accompanied by her friend, the Countess of Forcalquier, her step-granddaughter Madeleine-Suzanne Dupin de Francueil, her step-greatgranchildren René-François and Auguste-Louis Vallet de Villeneuve and her housekeeper and reader, Marie-Thérèse Adam. Over the years, Madame Dupin managed to preserve Chenonceau.
On 12 March 1794 Louise's step-grandson-in-law and nephew Pierre-Armand Vallet de Villeneuve, committed suicide in prison in the Conciergerie aged 62. He was the King's secretary, General Treasurer of the City of Paris and the Receiver General of Finances in Metz. Sentenced by the Revolutionary Tribunal, he escape to a brutal end in the guillotine. Louise managed to save his sons René and Auguste, spared because their young ages. On 25 November 1793 Marie-Aurore de Saxe, second wife of her late stepson Louis-Claude, was incarcelated firstly at Port-Royal Abbey and later in the English convent of Fossés-Saint-Victor street. She could be released some months later, on 21 August 1794. In 1796, one of the farmers of Madame Dupin in the Château de Rochefort in the Indre department was tortured by burning his feet; the criminals, nicknamed the Chauffeurs, are a plague in the region.

The Lady of Chenonceau

Madame Dupin passed her estate to her step-greatgrandson, Count René-François Vallet de Villeneuve and his wife Apolline de Guibert. Chenonceaux remained in the family until 1864. The Marquisate of Blanc went to René's younger brother Auguste-Louis Vallet de Villeneuve, Treasurer of the City of Paris and husband of Laure-Antoinette de Ségur, a daughter of Count Louis-Philippe de Ségur.
Georges Touchard-Lafosse at the age of 17, paid a visit to Madame Dupin in 1797. He later evokes it:
The following year, Louise Dupin received a young man with a promising future, Pierre Bretonneau, student of medicine. He was a son of Pierre Bretonneau by his wife Elisabeth Lecomte. His uncle was the Abbot François Lecomte, pastor of Chenonceaux and stage manager of the Château.
Louise Dupin ended her life at Chenonceau in great solitude, her better and happy days now a distant memory. On 20 November 1799 at five o'clock in the morning, Madame Dupin died aged 93, in her room of the now called Apartments of Francis I in the west facade of the Château. Her last wishes were respected:
The place that Madame Dupin chose was located on the left bank of the Cher river, in the shade of large trees in the park of Francueil. Her heirs erected a heavy tombstone at the place designated by the Lady of Chenonceau for her last sleep.

Properties

Madame Dupin had the following properties:

Works

The portraits of Madame Dupin are rare. One of them previously showed in Chenonceau, on Madame Dupin's room, is now in a private collection. Was painted by Jean-Marc Nattier in collaboration with his daughter Catherine Pauline Nattier, the later wife of Louis Tocqué. The face, the flesh and the fabrics are of Nattier, the rest was painted by his daughter. A second version of this portrait exists, but unsigned, with a variant: Madame Dupin is represented with an American coot. Two other portraits are also painted by Nattier. One was for the boudoir of the Hôtel Lambert and currently is exposed to New York City in the private collection of Lawrence Steigrad fine arts. The other, a replica of the previous one, is painted for the château du Blanc. Another portrait is assumed also painted by Nattier and was in the hall of the second floor of the Hôtel Lambert. But his likeness with the previous one made his real authorship debatable. Would it be painted by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, author of a portrait of Madame Dupin who was listed in the catalog of his works; however, this question remains unsolved. Finally, the portrait of Madame Dupin currently on display at the Château de Chenonceau is made after the work of Jean-Marc Nattier.

Memory