Marie Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette (1634-1693), French novelist, revolutionized the 17th-century novel by abandoning the excessive length and extravagance of précieuse romance for a concise and coldly rational vision of love.

Madame de La Fayette was born Marie Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne in Paris to a family of the lesser nobility. Her mother's remarriage in 1650 provided Marie Madeleine with brilliant court connections, and at 16 she became a maid of honor to the Queen, enjoying warm association with Henriette (sister of Charles II of England) and Madame de Sévigné, as well as the tutelage of Gilles Ménage, Pierre Daniel Huet, and Jean Regnault de Segrais, respected literary arbiters of the time. Married in 1655 to François Motier, Comte de La Fayette, she bore him two sons; in 1659 the couple separated amiably, the count preferring country...