Seeing the Climate's Past for What It Really Was: The Case of Madame de Sévigné’s Changed Seasons

Seeing the Climate's Past for What It Really Was: The Case of Madame de Sévigné’s Changed Seasons

In a 2004 book, the great French historian, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, quoted a letter written by Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné. Madame de Sévigné, as she is often called, was a prolific correspondent in the Paris of Louis XIV, the Sun King. Madame de Sévigné wrote her letter on July 24th, 1675. In it, she lamented how “the behavior of the sun and of the seasons has completely changed.” To Le Roy Ladurie, it was a remarkable passag…