Madame de Staël
Anne Louise Germaine Necker de Staël (1766-1817)
In her youth, Madame de Staël spent many hours in intellectual company. Her father Jacques Necker was a prominent Swiss banker and statesman. Her mother Suzanne Curchod Necker was a Parisian salon hostess. This upbringing influenced her support for the moderate Girondin faction during the French Revolution.
Nevertheless, Madame de Staël was forced to flee to England in 1793, the year of the Terror. Early on, her politically subversive ideas were sometimes cloaked as literature or a discussion of art. In 1803, Madame de Staël’s liberal resistance to Napoleon’s rule resulted in her 10-year exile from Paris.
To the right is an excerpt describing her exile from Paris as published in: Staël, Madame de (Anne-Louise-Germaine). Ten years’ exile: or, memoirs of that interesting period of the life of the Baroness de Stael-Holstein, written by herself, during the years 1810, 1811, 1812, and 1813, and now first published from the original manuscript, by her son; translated from the French. New York : Published by Collins and Co., and C.S. Van Winkle, 1821. SpCN. 848 S878dE1821