WIST Quotations https://wist.info Wish I'd Said That! Wed, 26 Aug 2026 22:41:37 +0000 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 https://wist.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/little-w-little-box-60x60.jpg Sevigne, Mme. – WIST Quotations https://wist.info 32 32 43606282 Sevigne, Mme. -- Letter (1673-12-22) to Mme. de Grignan [ed. Hoyt and Ward (1896), No. 202] https://wist.info/sevigne-mme/80969/ https://wist.info/sevigne-mme/80969/#respond Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:09:18 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=80969 Fortune is always on the side of the largest battalions.

[La fortune est toujours pour les gros bataillons]


Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné (1626–1696) French aristocrat, woman of letters [Madame de Sévigné, Mme de Sévigné]
Letter (1673-12-22) to Mme. de Grignan [ed. Hoyt and Ward (1896), No. 202]
    (Source)

(Source (French), No. 118). Other translations:

Fortune generally declares in favor of numerous battalions.
[Source (1811), No. 274]

Providence is always on the side of the big battalions.
[Oxford Dict. of Proverbs]

Also attributed to her cousin Roger de Bussy-Rabutin ("God is usually on the side of the big squadrons against the small").

The phrase had become proverbial by at least the early 19th C. Other variants include:

  • God sides with the big battalions.
  • God sides with whichever side has the biggest battalions.
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