Claire Élisabeth Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes, comtesse de Rémusat

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Portrait of Madame de Rémusats by Guillaume Descamps, 1813

Claire Élisabeth Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes, comtesse de Rémusat (* January 5, 1780 in Paris ; † December 16, 1821 ibid), often just called Comtesse de Rémusat or Madame de Rémusat , was a lady in waiting of the Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais and by marriage Countess of Rémusat. Her memoirs and letters that have survived paint a vivid picture of the Napoleonic court from 1802 to 1814.

Life

Claire was the elder of two daughters of Jean-Charles Gravier, marquis de Vergennes , a maître de requêtes , and his wife, Élisabeth Adélaïde Françoise de Bastard, in Paris. She was thus a distant relative of Charles Gravier de Vergennes' , the well-known Foreign Minister under King Louis XVI. Her father died on the scaffold during the French Revolution in 1794 , and the mother then moved with her two daughters to the countryside in Saint-Gratien , near Montmorency . There Clary , as Claire Élisabeth Jeanne was called in the family , spent a well-protected childhood together with her younger sister Jeanne Françoise Adélaïde , who later became Countess of Nansouty. In 1789 she was canon of Saint-Antoine-de-Viennois .

At the age of 16, she married Count Auguste-Laurent de Rémusat on February 9, 1796 in Saint-Gratien , who later became Prefect of the Haute-Garonne and Nord departments . Although the groom was more than twice the age of the bride, it was a love marriage. Just 14 months later, in March 1797, Claire gave birth to her first son, Charles , who would later become French Minister of the Interior, French Minister of Foreign Affairs and a member of the Académie française . Their second child, a son named Albert Dominique, was born in December 1801.

Her mother, Elisabeth, was on good terms with Joséphine de Beauharnais , and it was through this connection that Claire received the post of society lady after Joséphine's marriage to Napoleon in 1802. In the same year she was appointed dame du palais , which was roughly equivalent to the rank of first lady-in-waiting. At the same time, Claire's husband received the post of prefet du palais and shortly afterwards became Napoleon's first chamberlain . Until the emperor separated from his wife at the end of 1809, Claire lived with the imperial couple under one roof and was one of Joséphine's closest confidants. She also maintained a salon that was one of the most popular of its time. After Joséphine's divorce, Claire followed her to Malmaison .

Madame de Rémusat kept a diary of the events of the years since 1802 , which she burned in 1815 during the reign of the Hundred Days because of its partially compromising content for fear of reprisals. Since the Restoration , she lived with her husband in the various prefectures , which he was entrusted with managing. From 1818 she began to write her memoirs using memories and short notes. However, the records only cover the years 1802 to 1808 and thus remained unfinished, as the author died in December 1821 at the age of 41. She is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.

Chess game

Madame de Rémusat found its way into the chess literature through a chess game against Napoleon, which is often reprinted to this day .

Napoleon - Madame de Rémusat, 1804

1. Nc3 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. e4 f5 4. h3 fxe4 5. Nxe4 Nc6 6. Nfg5 d5 7. Qh5 + g6 8. Qf3 Nh6 9. Nf6 + Ke7 10. Nxd5 + Kd6 11. Ne4 + Kxd5 12. Bc4 + Kxc4 13. Qb3 + Kd4 14. Qd3 # 1-0

According to a report in the magazine Le Palamède from 1845, the game took place on March 20, 1804, the night before the shooting of the Duke of Enghien , at Malmaison Castle. Madame de Rémusat, who was hoping for a pardon for the duke, trembled with fear and did not dare to look at Napoleon during the game.

Works

Throughout her life, Claire Élisabeth Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes had written short stories, novels, and translations, all of which remained unpublished. The exception is one with C.-F. signed novella published in the Lycée français magazine.

After her death, her son Charles published the Essai sur l'éducation des femmes from her estate in 1824 , which the Akademie française awarded a gold medal ( French medaille d'or ). In 1825 a second and third edition of the work appeared. Her grandson Paul de Rémusat then finally published the Mémoires de Madame de Rémusat , 1802-1808, in three volumes at the request of the father from 1879 to 1880 , which were translated into several languages ​​and received numerous new editions. They were followed in 1881 under the title Lettres de Madame de Rémusat , 1804-1814, the surviving letters from Claire as a two-volume work.

literature

  • François de Clermont-Tonnerre: La vie et les Mémoires de Mme de Rémusat . Les Amis de l'Histoire, Paris 1968.
  • Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve : Portraits des Femmes . Didier, Paris 1844, pp. 426–457, books.google.de
  • Dorothy Wynne Zimmerman: Rémusat, Claire Élisabeth Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes, comtesse de (1780-1821) . In: Eva Martin Sartori (Ed.): The feminist Encyclopedia of French Literature . Greenwood Press, Westport CT [et al. a.] 1999, ISBN 0-313-29651-0 , p. 692.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Sylvie Nicolas: Les derniers maîtres des requêtes de l'Ancien Régime (1771–1789). Dictionnaire prosopographique . Droz, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-900791-21-9 ( Mémoires et documents de l'École des chartes . Volume 51), p. 192, books.google.de .
  2. ^ Jean Chrétien Ferdinand Hoefer : Nouvelle biography générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours . Volume 41. Firmin Didot, Paris 1862; Sp. 976-977 Text Archive - Internet Archive .
  3. ^ Edward Winter : Napoleon Bonaparte and Chess , April 17, 2011
  4. ^ A b Joseph-Marie Quérard: La France littéraire ou dictionnaire bibliographique des savants, historiens et gens de lettres de la France, ainsi que les littérateurs étrangers qui ont écrit en français, plus particulièrement: pendant les XVIIIè et XIXè siècles . Volume 7. Firmin Didot, Paris 1835 ( books.google.de ).
personal data
SURNAME Rémusat, Claire Élisabeth Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes, comtesse de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Madame de Rémusat; Comtesse de Rémusat; Remusat, Claire de; Rémusat, Claire de; Rémusat, Claire Élisabeth Jeanne, Countess of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French lady-in-waiting
DATE OF BIRTH January 5, 1780
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1821
Place of death Paris