Madame De Stael

GERMAINE DE STAËL: Mistress to an Age. An aristocrat and daughter of great wealth, she assisted at the birth of the French Revolution; her days and nights a turmoil of political and amorous intrigue, she wrote novels at the breakfast table and pamphlets while she changed her clothes. Disciple of constancy and the grand passion, she carried on ardent, profound love affairs with four brilliant, demanding men at the same time—and satisfied and tortured them all. Genius, great heart, great lover, any man who knew Germaine was hers forever. “An unforgettable portrait of a many-sided woman...as remarkable, as biting as that legendary figure herself”—Saturday Review

In her letters Mme de Staël provides a panoramic historical outlook of the European literary, cultural and political scene between 1789 and 1817, i.e. the Revolution, the Napoleonic era and the Restoration. This edition, as its French original, includes rare contemporary illustrations never published before in this connection. For this book there is no specific level of readership.

Madame de Stael was born into a world of political and intellectual prominence, as the daughter of Louis XVI's Minister of Finances, Jacques Necker. Later she married Sweden's ambassador to the French court and, for more than 20 years, held the limelight as philosopher, political figure and prolific writer. She was, however, more than just a mind. Despite a plain appearance, she was notoriously seductive and enjoyed whirlwind affairs with some of the leading intellectuals of her time - she was a true force of nature.

"Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein; 22 April 1766 ? 14 July 1817), commonly known as Madame de Staël, was a French woman of letters of Swiss origin whose lifetime overlapped with the events of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era of which she was a principal opponent. Celebrated for her conversational eloquence, she participated actively in the political and intellectual life of her times. Her works, both critical and fictional, made their mark on the history of European Romanticism."--Wikipedia.

The influence of the salons of Paris on the thought and culture of the eighteenth century would be difficult to overstate. They were both intellectual powerhouses and also assemblies where the latest and most extreme fashion was displayed. 'Young gallants...wearing silk waistcoats embroidered with Chinese pagodas, making love to ladies reclining negligently against the cushions...or accepting small cups of chocolate from the hands of Negro pages', thus Harold Nicolson describes the drawings of the time in his book "The Age of Reason". These meeting places for the vanguard of society were presided over by a succession of brilliantly clever women, the salonieres, and the most brilliant and clever of all of them was Madame de Stael. Although she died at the age of 51 she filled her life to the brim, and enjoyed a hugely influential role among the great names of the day. Born Germaine Necker, in Paris on 22 April 1766, her father was a powerful banker and her mother a Swiss pastor's daughter who never got over her good fortune in marrying a rich man. In 1786 Germaine was married to a secretary in the Swedish embassy called de Stael, but although she thought him 'a perfect gentleman' she also found him dull and clumsy. She began to take lovers - the Vicomte de Narbonne and possibly Talleyrand - and then Benjamin Constant, in whom she at last met her intellectual equal. In 1806 her novel "Delphine" was published. It was an instant success and praised by Goethe and Byron, among others. Her salon thronged with glittering visitors including The Tsar, Talleyrand,and Wellington. Maria Fairweather gives an entrancing account of this vanished world, so merciless to outsiders, but for those of the inner circle incomparably glamorous and exciting.