French socialite and muse, gave philosopher Auguste Comte the inspiration for the Religion of Humanity.
Elder daughter of a branch of a preeminent family of ancient nobility, sister of French military officer and mathematician Maximilien-Marie de Ficquelmont, follower of Positivism, Clotilde de Vaux was educated at the prestigious Maison d’éducation de la Légion d’honneur. In 1835, according to traditions of nobility, she had a marriage of convenience with a nobleman, Amédée de Vaux, tax perceptor of Méru. But Vaux turned out to be nothing but a rogue. After incurring enormous gambling debts, he eventually left his wife and fled to Belgium.
According to the Code Civil of the time, women were unable to remarry without previously being divorced and, since no divorce had been issued, Clotilde was forbidden to do so. Consequently, she returned to Paris, first living at her brother’s home before moving to her own place in Marais’ rue Payenne (certainly at n°7). One of her uncles, Minister-president of the Austrian Empire, granted her a housing allowance. Clotilde decided to follow in her mother’s steps – Countess Henriette de Ficquelmont used to hold a salon and wrote several Naturalist-inspired novels – by embarking on a writer’s career and writing short stories for literary magazines.
In October 1844, when visiting her brother, Clotilde met one of his Polytechnique’s Professors, philosopher Auguste Comte. The first known letter from Comte to Clotilde dated from April 30, 1845 and from that day on it is very clear that he is in love with her. A love Clotilde, fervent Catholic, firmly rejected. Nonetheless she agreed to follow up with their correspondence and Comte’s passionate love kept growing until Clotilde suddenly died of tuberculosis a year later.
Comte, recognizing her as his muse, was highly impressed by her moral superiority which gave him the key to understand the religious dimension of the human condition. But if Clotilde was a fervent Catholic, Comte only considered Catholicism to be a step towards the positive stage. Nonetheless, Clotilde’s faith persuaded him to create a religion for positivist societies in order to fulfil the cohesive function once held by traditional worship.
Link to Wikipedia biography