Sablé, Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de (1599-1678). Like many aristocrats of her generation, this lady-in-waiting of Marie de Médicis devoted considerable energy to political sedition before and during the Fronde. She frequented the Hôtel de Rambouillet and, after a legal separation freed her from an unhappy marriage, ran perhaps the most celebrated mid-century salon. She was strongly influenced by Jansenism and lived for years at Port-Royal. Led by Sablé and La Rochefoucauld, her circle invented a popular contemporary genre, the maxim. Members revised each other's maxims and published collectively. A volume of Sablé's maxims appeared posthumously (1678).
[Joan Dejean]
