I believe my first encounter with Madame de Staël was in Dorothy Parker’s “Song of One of the Girls”, where she appears as one of “the glamorous ladies at whose beckoning history shook”. As Francine du Plessix Gray’s biography describes her, she wouldn’t meet modern definitions of “glamorous”; her kinder contemporaries described her as “leonine” or “sturdy” and she had no physical grace, being famous for falling flat on her face while attempting to curtsey to Marie Antoinette. Daughter of the millionaire financier Jaques Necker, she had the 18th century equivalent of a “Tiger Mom”; she was tutored in mathematics, geography, science, and languages starting at age three, wasn’t allowed contact with other children, and couldn’t leave the house alone until she was 12. This regimen did produce considerable intellectual attainment – even her enemies agreed she was a brilliant conversationalist – and, perhaps surprisingly, a kindly and generous temperament. If there was any moral education included – and there probably was, since the Neckers were strict Calvinists – it didn’t take; after her marriage to the accommodating Swedish diplomat Erik Magnus Staël, she became notorious for seducing just about every famous Frenchman of her time (describing her attempts as a political peacemaker, a critic commented “She entertains the Royalists at breakfast, the Girondins at lunch, the Jacobins at supper, and everybody at night”). Intellectual and independent women have always been subject to accusations of sexual excess; but in her case they seem to be justified – none of her four children who reached adulthood was of certain paternity.


Mentally she seems to have been at least a quarter bubble off level; Gray speculates a modern diagnosis might be bipolar disorder with emphasis on the manic part. Both she and several of her lovers developed the habit of staging “suicide attempts” with not-quite-overdoses of laudanum every time the relationship progressed poorly, to the extent that a “Coppet dose” of opium (her home in Switzerland was at Coppet) actually became a slang term for the action.


Despite all this she became a popular and successful author, and also somehow retained her seductiveness even into her 50s – though her always ample figure now ballooned, she still managed one last lover, a handsome (but stupid) war hero twenty years her junior.


Gray’s biography is straightforward and readable – she engages in a little speculation on de Staël’s psychological problems and the possible fathers of her children, but resists the temptation to go overboard. It helps to know a little about the French revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. Madame de Staël is buried with her mother and father in the family crypt in Switzerland. I’ll have to track down her books. ( )

This is a great short introduction to the life of a woman who was a cultural icon in France during the Napoleonic era.For two decades she was a central political and literary figure. Her support of subversive ideas led to exile by Napoleon. Nevertheless she continued to be a champion of enlightenment thinking and thinkers throughout her life. ( )

This is an extremely readable biography that provides general information on the life of Madame de Stael in addition to a good overview of information regarding the the French Revolution. This biography does not delve into specifics but gives an overall portrait of the Madame De Stael's life; it retells her actions and explores some of her motivations. It is told in a style that is very enjoyable to read. ( )

This is an extremely readable biography that provides general information on the life of Madame de Stael in addition to a good overview of information regarding the the French Revolution. This biography does not delve into specifics but gives an overall portrait of the Madame De Stael's life; it retells her actions and explores some of her motivations. It is told in a style that is very enjoyable to read. ( )

This is an extremely readable biography that provides general information on the life of Madame de Stael in addition to a good overview of information regarding the the French Revolution. This biography does not delve into specifics but gives an overall portrait of the Madame De Stael's life; it retells her actions and explores some of her motivations. It is told in a style that is very enjoyable to read. ( )