Delorme, Marion (c. 1613–1650)

Famous French courtesan at the time of Louis XIII. Name variations: de Lorme. Born near Champaubert, France, around 1613 (some sources cite 1611); death date established as 1650; daughter of Jean de Lou, sieur de L'Orme (president of the Treasurers of France in Champagne) and Marie Chastelain ; possibly married Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, marquis de Cinq-Mars.

The legendary courtesan Marion Delorme was possibly lured into the profession by the epicurean and atheist Jacques Vallée Desbarreaux. She soon left him, however, for the popular and successful Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, marquis de Cinq-Mars, whom she may have secretly married. (There was also a rumor about a later marriage to an English lord.) Delorme presided over one of the most famous salons of 17th-century Parisian society. She was the friend of Ninon de Lenclos .

After Cinq-Mars was executed for conspiring against Cardinal Richelieu, Delorme purportedly entertained a who's who of lovers, including Saint-Évremond, the comte de Gramont, and even Cardinal Richelieu. In 1650, she was arrested under the orders of Cardinal Jules Mazarin for her complicity in the Fronde and was found dead by officers. This is thought, however, to have been a ruse. She is even said to have lived to the age of 137 years, spending her last years in poverty. A number of authors used her story for subject matter, including Alfred de Vigny in the novel Cinq Mars (1826), Victor Hugo in the play Marion Delorme (1831), Edward Bulwer-Lytton in Richelieu (1839), and G. Bottesini in an opera of the same name.