Claudine was born in Grenoble, France where her father, Antoine Gurin, sieur de Tencin, was president of the parliament. Claudine was brought up at a convent near Grenoble and, at the wish of her parents, took the veil, but broke her vows and succeeded, in 1714, in gaining formal permission from the Pope Clement XI for her secularisation. She joined her sister Mme. de Ferriol in Paris, where she soon established a salon, frequented by wits and rous. Among her numerous lovers were the Chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches, the duke of Richelieu, and according to her biographer many other persons of distinction.
The last of her liaisons had a tragic ending. M. de la Fresnaye committed suicide in her house, and Mme. de Tencin spent some time in the Chatelet in consequence, but was soon liberated as the result of a declaration of her innocence by the Grand Consul. From this time she devoted herself to political intrigue, especially for the preferment of her brother the abb Tencin, who became archbishop of Embrun and received a cardinal's hat. Eventually she formed a literary salon, which had among its habitus Fontanelle, Montesquieu, the abb de Saint Pierre, Pierre de Marivaux, Alexis Piron and others. Hers was the first of the Parisian literary salons to which distinguished foreigners were admitted, and among her English guests were Bolingbroke and Chesterfield. By the good sense with which she conducted what she called her menagerie, she almost succeeded in effacing the record of her early disgrace. She was a novelist of considerable merit. Her novels have been highly praised for their simplicity and charm, the last qualities the circumstances of the writer's life would lead one to expect in her work. The best of them is Mmoires du comte de Comminges (1735), which appeared, ,as did the other two, under the name of her nephews, MM. dArgental and Pont de Veyle, the real authorship being carefully concealed.
Her works, with those of Mme. de la Fayette, were edited b Etienne and Jay (Paris, 1825); her novels were reprinted, wit introductory matter by Lescure, in 1885; and her correspondence in the Lettres de Mmes. de Villars, de La Fayette et de Tencin (Paris, 1805-1832).
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.