Donkey milk in history: Madame de Sévigné

In two letters to her daughter, the Marquise de Sévigné mentions donkey milk as a treatment among her Parisian acquaintances – drunk “evenings and mornings.” The letters show how commonplace donkey milk was in France during the reign of Louis XIV.

The source in brief

• Author: Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné (1626–1696)
• Work: Lettres (Letters to her daughter, the Comtesse de Grignan), Monmerqué edition
• Passage: Letter No. 749 (Livry, November 1, 1679), Vol. 6; Letter No. 865 (Paris, October 30, 1680), Vol. 7
• Time and place: 1679–1680 · France (Paris, Livry)
• Type of source: Epistolary literature

Original wording

elle revient à vue d’œil avec du lait d’ânesse le soir et le matin

she is visibly recovering with donkey milk, evenings and mornings

French, Letter 749, 1.11.1679

Mme de la Fayette a passé ici l’après-dînée entière ; elle se trouve fort bien du lait d’ânesse.

Madame de La Fayette spent the whole afternoon here; she feels very well from the donkey milk.

French, Letter 865, 30.10.1680

German translation: own, free translation by the DON DONKEY'S editorial team.

Background

Madame de Sévigné wrote letters to her daughter in Provence for decades. They are considered an important record of the daily life of the French upper class in the 17th century and were critically edited by Louis Monmerqué in the 19th century.

The letters are private communications, not medical texts. They reflect what was discussed in aristocratic circles about diet and treatments – based on the knowledge of a time when illnesses were still interpreted according to humoral theory.

What the source reports

In the letter from November 1, 1679, from Livry, Sévigné writes about a young acquaintance, Madame de Nesmond, who had suffered from a serious breast ailment. According to Sévigné's account, she recovered “visibly” while drinking donkey milk evenings and mornings. In the same letter, Sévigné regrets that her daughter rejects donkey milk because she cannot tolerate it and is averse to it.

In the letter from October 30, 1680, from Paris, she mentions in passing that the writer Madame de La Fayette (“La Princesse de Clèves”) had spent the afternoon with her and felt very well from the donkey milk.

Both passages show donkey milk as a medically prescribed or self-selected drinking treatment in Parisian society – not as a cosmetic, but as a beverage.

Numbers and facts

• 1679 – Letter No. 749, Livry, November 1
• 1680 – Letter No. 865, Paris, October 30
• 2× – daily: “evenings and mornings” (Letter 749)
• 2 – named individuals with a donkey milk treatment
• Vol. 6/7 – of the Monmerqué edition (Hachette)

Critical assessment

• Authenticity: The letters are well preserved and freely accessible in Monmerqué's scholarly edition with letter numbers and dates.
• Nature of the statement: These are the personal impressions of a letter writer, not the observations of a doctor. Whether the improvement was related to the donkey milk cannot be inferred from this.
• Modern assessment: The passages document a widespread custom, not an effect. The health effects of donkey milk, as they were believed at the time, are not scientifically proven today and cannot be applied.

Our assessment

For us, these letters are a vivid record of daily life: donkey milk was a common beverage among the upper class in 17th-century Paris. Medically, the letters say nothing conclusive – they tell cultural history.

Source: French text, Vol. 6, Letter 749 (Wikisource); French text, Vol. 7, Letter 865 (Wikisource) · Compiled by the DON DONKEY'S editorial team, as of November 2026.

End of source summary. The source does not refer to DON DONKEY'S® or our products. Our donkey milk is a food.