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Madame de Staël
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synonyms: Germaine de Staël ???
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Definition:[1766 - 1817]a French woman of letters and historian of Genevan origin whose lifetime overlapped with the events of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. For many years she lived as an exile under the Reign of Terror and under Napoleonic persecution. Known as a witty and brilliant conversationalist, often dressed in flashy and revealing outfits, she participated actively in the political and intellectual life of her times. [...]Her intellectual collaboration with Benjamin Constant between 1795 and 1811 made them one of the most celebrated intellectual couples of their time. They discovered sooner than others the tyrannical character and designs of Napoleon. In 1814 one of her contemporaries observed that "there are three great powers struggling against Napoleon for the soul of Europe: England, Russia, and Madame de Staël". Her works, both novels and travel literature, with emphasis on passion, individuality and oppositional politics made their mark on European Romanticism.[...]text from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike
painting: By Marie-Éléonore Godefroid
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Uses:
Madame Necker, for example, hosted Tuesday night suppers for a select handful of guests who might include the influential Duke of Talleyrand and Madame de Staël.
Thomas J. Craughwell. Thomas Jefferson's Crème Brûlée, p.66 (2012)
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lastly, it was in the companionship and sympathy of a devoted wife, that Ellison thought to find, and found, an exemption from the ordinary cares of Humanity, with a far greater amount of positive happiness than ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams of De Stael.
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To such customary routine belonged his conversations with the staff, the letters [Kutuzov] wrote from Tarutino to Madame de Stael, the reading of novels, the distribution of awards, his correspondence with Petersburg, and so on. But the destruction of the French, which he alone foresaw, was his heart’s one desire.
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace
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If the riame of Haussonville is extinguished with the death of the present representative of that family, he will perhaps derive his distinction from being descended from Mme de Staël, while, before the Revolution, M. d’Haussonville, one of the first gentlemen in the kingdom, gratified his vanity as towards M. de Broglie by not deigning to know M. de Staël’s father and by no more condescending to introduce him to M. de Broglie than the latter would have done to M. d’Haussonville,
Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time [volume 7]
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