Françoise-Marguerite de Sévigné, comtesse de Grignan (10 October 1646 – 13 August 1705), was a French aristocrat, remembered for the letters that her mother, Madame de Sévigné, wrote to her. Life Françoise-Marguerite was born in Paris, France, on 10 October 1646, in the fashionable Place des Vosges. She was the first child of Henri de Sévigné and his young wife, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal. Two years later, at the family's Château des Rochers-Sévigné in Brittany, her brother, Charles de Sévigné, was born. In 1651, Henri was killed in a duel over his mistress, Madame de Gondran. Now a widow, the Marquise de Sévigné took her children back to Paris where they came to live with her uncle, l'abbé de Coulanges, in the Marais district. After her mother became well-established in the royal court of Louis XIV, 17-year-old Françoise-Marguerite made her court debut in the Royal Ballets des Arts, dancing a lead role as a shepherdess alongside Louis, himself, as a shepherd. She was a sensation. Isaac de Benserade referred to Mademoiselle de Sévigné as "A dazzling young beauty". The Marquis de Tréville wrote that she was "a beauty to set the world afire". The next year, the King's brother, "Monsieur" (Philippe de France, duc d'Orléans), invited her to dance with him in a ballet at the Palais-Royal (he as a water god, she as a nymph). In 1665, she danced again with the King in a ballet entitled The Birth of Venus, in which he portrayed Alexander and Mademoiselle de Sévigné Omphale. At a July 1668 supper, both Madame de Sévigné and her daughter were seated at the King's table. As the King was at that time between love affairs, it was widely speculated that Françoise-Marguerite would be his next mistress. The "honor" of royal mistress, however, fell upon the brilliant Madame de Montespan and the King's attentions drifted away from Mademoiselle de Sévigné. Despite Françoise-Marguerite's sharp wit and renowned beauty, she was widely considered to be vain and cold. Her mother's cousin Roger de Bussy-Rabutin described her thus: "She has a keen mind, but it is a bitter sort of intelligence. She is unbearably vain, which will lead her to all sorts of stupid blunders. She will make as many enemies as her mother had made friends and admirers." Matrimonial prospects presented themselves, but it is likely she repulsed all advances. In a madrigal, made light of the situation: "And