Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, portait of Germaine de Staël and her daughter Albertine

Thanks to my friend Christian de Pange who is a direct descendant of Madame de Staël through her daughter Albertine de Broglie, I could virtually visit the Fondation Martin Bodmer’s exhibition in Geneva. If you are not familiar with this beautiful museum set in Cologny on the lake, just imagine the greatest collection of 160 000 manuscripts, letters and old books set in a bunker-like gallery designed by Mario Botta, and collected by Martin Bodmer.  The Foundation is celebrating the Paris born, Swiss writer Germaine de Staël, daughter of Louis XVI th’s famous finance minister Jacques Necker,  who died exactly two hundred years ago on July 14 th.

Louis de Carmontelle, Portrait of Germaine de Staël at 14

She was famous in her lifetime as a true intellectual, a feminist and an apostle of liberalism, had four children with different men, including her last daughter Albertine, with Benjamin Constant, the politician and philosopher. They never married but exchanged an « engagement réciproque » (mutual engagement) in April 1796, of which the manuscript is exhibited here. Their affair lasted 14 years. She had a famous salon in Paris 94 rue du Bac at Hotel de Suède, during the French Revolution, in 1795. The name Baronne de Staël comes from her husband who was then Swedish ambassador to Paris.

Benjamin Constant, ca 1815, was the father of her last daughter Albertine

Her major work is « De l’Allemagne » a book on romanticism in Germany which popularised German writers in France. She was opposed to Napoleon who forbid her to live in France and she therefore settled in Coppet, a few miles from the French border,  the charming little castle on Lake Geneva which belonged to her family and where the celebrations of her work will take place on 13 th and 14 th July.

The view from Fondation Martin Bodmer designed by Mario Botta

With « Delphine » and « Corinne ou l’Italie » two works on women’s right to be independent and to write, she became a famous philosopher revered by Stendhal and Constant. The best biography in French by Ghislain de Diesbach (1983) is being re published by Editions Perrin as is the catalog of the exhibition. And her complete works are in La Pléiade.

The Bodmer foundation galleries with Germaine de Staël painted as “Corinne” by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun

The very good biography by Ghislain de Diesbach

Her extraordianry life will be celebrated at UNESCO in Paris on June 22 with Jacques Berchtold, director of Fondation Bodmer, Marc Fumaroli and Gabriel de Broglie among other eminent specialists. You can register for the day. Daria Galateria will give a conference on Madame de Staël and Italy on July 12 th at 5 pm at the Italian Embassy in Paris and a special train is leaving for Coppet on July 13 th with a group of Friends of études staeliennes.

And if you are in Switzerland this summer, do not miss the Cézanne exhibition, “Le Chant de la Terre” curated by Daniel Marchesseau at Fondation Pierre Gianadda (June 17 th-November 19th)  and in Lausanne, “Chefs d’œuvre de la collection Bürhle” at Musée de l’Hermitage until October 7.