CREQUY, RENEE CAROLINE DE FROULLAY, MARQUISE DE (1714-1803) , née de Froullay, was born on Oct. 19, 1714, at the château of Monfleaux (Mayenne). She married in 1737 Louis Marie, marquis de Crequy, who died four years after the marriage. In 1755 Madame de Crequy began to receive in Paris, among her intimates being D'Alembert and J. J. Rousseau. She presently became extremely religious with inclinations to Jan senism. D'Alembert's visits ceased when she adopted religion, and she was nearly 7o when she formed the great friendship of her life with Senac de Meilhan, whom she met in 1781, and with whom she carried on a correspondence (edited by Edouard Four nier, with a preface by Sainte-Beuve in 1856). She was arrested in 1793 and imprisoned in the convent of Les Oiseaux until the fall of Robespierre (July 1794). The Souvenirs de la marquise de Crequy (1710-1803) (1834-35), purporting to be addressed to her grandson, Tancrede de Crequy, was the production of .a Breton adventurer, Cousin de Courchamps.
See the notice prefixed by Sainte-Beuve to the Lettres; Querard, Supercheries litteraires, s.v. "Crequy"; L'Ombre de la marquise de Crequy aux lectuers des souvenirs (1836) exposes the forgery of the Memoires.