Germaine de Staël

(1766-1817)

French woman of letters

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Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (née Necker; 22 April 1766 – 14 July 1817), commonly known as Madame de Staël ( də STAHL, ), was a woman of letters and political theorist of Genevan origin who in her lifetime witnessed (1789–1815) at first-hand the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era up to the French Restoration. She was present at the Estates General of 1789 and at the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Her intellectual collaboration with Benjamin Constant between 1794 and 1810 made them one of the most celebrated intellectual couples of their time. She discovered sooner than others the tyrannical character and designs of Napoleon. For many years she lived as an exile – firstly during the Reign of Terror and later due to personal persecution by Napoleon.