Madame de Staël has, indeed, her place in this magazine’s issue, and for more than one reason.
How can we talk about Romanticism without mentioning the one lady who contributed to the dissemination of its principles? Madame de Staël was also, above all, an exceptional woman with an extraordinary journey—in the proper sense of the term—who succeeded to make a room for herself in a world so completely governed by men…
Allow me to introduce Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, Baroness de Staël-Holstein by marriage. Born in Paris on April 22, 1766, she died in the same city on July 14, 1817. — —
She was the daughter of Swiss, Geneva-born, Jacques Necker, the last great Minister of Louis XVI. It was Necker who proposed the summons of the Estates-General, and the news of his dismissal by the King on July 11 led to the events of 14 July 1789; in other words, Necker was at the heart of the beginning of the French Revolution—an important fact to remember in order to grasp the type of environment the little Louise, as she was called then, grew up in.
Louise adored her father, just as he adored her. An obvious true complicity and unwavering confidence
connected them. Louise was the only child; therefore, the sole heir to her father’s fortune. Like him, she was Protestant, which at that time, in France, meant a religion brought by foreigners, and which permitted a very diffe-rent education (young French girls were, generally, kept in ignorance and submission under the tutelage of nuns in boarding schools). Women took no part in important decision making, or in the field of science, or in "serious busi-ness,” and their education was relatively lax. Yet, Miss Necker was brought up in the spirit of the Enlightenment, in the middle of her mother’s bright salon of scientists, philo-sophers, and great minds of various disciplines. At the age of twelve, the little girl was even introduced to Voltaire as her witty eloquence didn’t go
A Bright Child
Madame de Staël as Corinne (character of one of her novels), 1808-9, by Firmin Massot (Château de Coppet). Castel).
Jacques Necker Portrait by Joseph Duplessis, (Château de Versailles).
48 | Ceres Magazine | Spring 2016