Synopses & Reviews
Suzanne Curchod (1737-94) the highly educated and beautiful daughter of a Swiss pastor, was living at Lausanne when she agreed to marry the young Edward Gibbon, but the engagement was broken off. Employed as companion to the then fiancée of Jacques Necker (1732-1804), later the finance minister of Louis XVI, she married him in 1764. Their only daughter, Anne Louise Germaine, is better known as Madame de Staël. Madame Necker was eager for her husband, a wealthy banker, to pursue a political career, but Jacques Necker's efforts towards financial reform made him unpopular at court, and his dismissal in July 1789 was one of the triggers for the French Revolution. His subsequent failure to control events led to his retirement to Switzerland in 1790. This biography, written by a descendant, the comte d'Haussonville, and translated by Henry Trollope, the son of Anthony, was published in English in 1882.
Synopsis
A biography from 1882 describing the life of Madame Necker and her brilliant salon in pre-Revolutionary France.
Synopsis
Suzanne Curchod (1737-94) married Jacques Necker (1732-1804), later the finance minister of Louis XVI, in 1764; their daughter was Madame de Staël. This biography, written by a descendant, the comte d'Haussonville, and published in 1882, describes her life and her brilliant salon in pre-Revolutionary France.
Table of Contents
Volume 1: 1. The archives at Coppet; 2. The Curchod family - the parsonage at Crassier - society in Lausanne; 3. Gibbon; 4. Death of M. and Mme. Curchod - Mme. de Vermenoux - departure for Paris - M. Necker - marriage; 5. The fridays: Marmontel, and the Abbé Morellet; 6. Grimm and Diderot; 7. D'Alembert - Mademoiselle de Lespinasse - the Abbé Galliani - Bernardin de Saint-Pierre - Dorat; 8. The ladies: Madame de Vermenoux - Madame Geoffrin - La Maréchale de Luxembourg - La Duchesse de Lauzun; 9. La Marquis de Deffand - La Marquise de la Ferté-Imbault - Madame de Marchais; 10. La Comtesse d'Houdetot; 11. The gentlemen: Moultou; 12. Buffon: his correspondence with Madame Necker - his last days; 13. Thomas. Volume 2: 1. Madame Necker's journal; 2. The girlhood and early years of Germaine Necker; 3. The marriage; 4. M. Necker's first term of office life; 5. The General Control Office; 6. The salon in the Rue Bergère; 7. M. Necker a second time in office; 8. The history of Coppet; 9. Coppet during the Revolution; 10. Madame Necker's last years; Index.