Marquise de Créquy

Victoire, marquise de Créquy

Renée-Caroline-Victoire de Froulay de Tessé, marquise de Créquy de Heymont de Canaples d'Ambrières (1704–1803), was a French woman of letters, by marriage a member of the Créquy family, which counted several distinguished public servants and prelates, particularly in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy is attributed to her by university librarians.

In her Souvenirs, which consists mainly of accurate noble genealogies and court gossip from the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI and Napoleon, there is a tale for which the author of the Souvenirs is the sole authority. This story, widely believed in France, is her statement, with a detailed story to back it up, that Britain's national anthem, "God Save the Queen", was in fact written by Lully and sung by a French girls' school to greet Louis XIV. The French author of Souvenirs further states that the tune was later plagiarized by Handel and sold to the British crown as their anthem.

If it is true, as some have claimed, that the story about the sale of the anthem is actually from a much later tabloid, then this anachronism is a reason why the author of Souvenirs is sometimes placed in the company of forgers, alongside the authors of such works as the Historia Augusta, De Situ Britanniae, and Annio of Viterbo. If, on the other hand, the French tabloids of the 1850s published Madame de Créquy's story based on her memoirs, it's possible she believed the story to be true, or that the story is true.

External links

• Facsimiles furnished by Gallica Bibliothèque numérique in France
• Works by or about Marquise de Créquy at the Internet Archive
• Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy (Original text, in French)
• Brief selections, translated into English