Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël-Holstein
Contributions
- Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caractère de J.J. Rousseau has translation author publisher
Knows
- Amelia Opie (née Alderson) abolitionist novelist playwright poet writer
- François-Antoine de Boissy d'Anglas freemason jurist politician
- Napoléon Bonaparte military politician writer
- Fanny Burney playwright writer
- Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis freemason philosopher scientist
- Marie-Joseph Chénier freemason playwright poet politician
- Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet abolitionist journalist philosopher politician scientist translator writer
- Benjamin Constant politician translator writer
- Denis Diderot editor philosopher translator writer
- Sophie de Grouchy, marquise de Condorcet salonnière translator writer
- Claude Hochet civil servant journalist translator writer
- John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield economist military politician writer
- Thomas Jefferson philosopher politician translator writer
- Ellis Cornelia Knight traveller writer
- James Mackintosh historian journalist jurist philosopher physician politician professor writer
- Claude-François Maradan bookseller publisher
- Francesco Melzi d'Eril politician
- Vincenzo Monti civil servant playwright poet professor translator writer
- André Morellet cleric economist freemason philosopher teacher translator writer
- Jacques Necker entrepreneur politician writer
- Suzanne Necker salonnière writer
- Anna Suzanne O'Dwyer Lindsay translator
- Guillaume-Thomas Raynal cleric historian
- Nicolas-Edme Rétif de la Bretonne bookseller journalist novelist pamphleteer publisher
- Pierre-Louis Roederer ambassador economist freemason historian journalist jurist pamphleteer politician writer
- Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès cleric freemason philosopher politician
- Mathieu-Guillaume-Thérèse Villenave translator
- Jean-François Marmontel
Member of
- De Staël Salon salon
- Holland House set political organisation social organization
Notes
The daugher of salonnière Suzanne Necker (née Churchod) and Swiss banker (and French minister) Jacques Necker, Germaine de Staël was a writer whose extensive European networks included many revolutionary (and counter-revolutionary) actors. From her mother's salon, she inherited an extensive acquiantance with multiple prominent, internantional intellectuals and politicians of the late enlightenment, and she herself would assume the role as one of the more significant salonnières in the period. Her marriage to the Swedish ambassador, Staël-Holstien, afforded her a measure of security after her parents' exile in the early 1790s, and she held a celebrated -- and rather catholic -- salon from the embassy building. Her views in favour of constitutional monarchy, however, led to her exile, across Europe but most prominently in Germany, where she was, most significantly, acquainted by the Schlegel brothers with the growing discourses of Romanticism -- a term in whose promulgation across France (and Europe) de Staël was instrumental. She spent extensive periods in Coppet, Switzerland, where she again held an intellectual salon and gathering, in Italy, as well as among French exiles in Surrey. Although associated with Talleyrand (an early lover), she became one of Napoléon's enemies, again exiled in 1802 until the restoration -- and her death, in 1817. Her multiple liaisons and political / intellectual relationships included a long partnership with Benjamin Constant. On the fringes of moderate and radical circles and commitments, de Staël remains nonetheless -- due not least to her social networks -- a significant actor in their revolutionary and post-revolutionary rationalisation.