Félicité de Genlis

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Adélaïde Labille-Guiard : Portrait of Madame de Genlis , 1790

Stéphanie-Félicité Du Crest , through her marriage Comtesse de Genlis and Marquise de Sillery, briefly also Madame de Genlis (born  January 25, 1746 in Issy-l'Évêque near Autun ; † December 31, 1830 in Paris ), was a French court lady , Educator of the children of Ludwig Philip II Joseph, Duke of Orléans , and writer .

Life

Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust: La leçon de harpe (detail), 1791. Madame de Genlis teaches her pupil Adélaïde d'Orléans on the harp.

Félicité came from an impoverished noble family in Burgundy . Her parents were Pierre-César du Crest, Margrave of Saint Aubin (1711–1763), and Félicité nee Mauguet de Mézières (1717–1790). At the age of six she was accepted as Comtesse de Lancy (after the city of Bourbon-Lancy ) in an aristocratic monastery in Alix near Lyon , but still received her entire upbringing, which is described as "brilliant but disordered", at home. She was musically gifted and played the harp particularly well.

Portrait of the adolescent Madame de Genlis by Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine

Based in Paris since 1758 , she quickly gained admiration for her skills as a harpist and her lively wit. At the age of 16 she was married to the Marquis Charles Brûlart de Genlis . In 1770 she came to the Palais Royal as the lady of honor of the Duchess of Chartres , mother of the later King of the French Louis-Philippe , and was entrusted with the upbringing of the ducal children - a task that she fulfilled for nine years (in 1791 she fled with the Children to England). She sympathized with the revolution , but had to avoid France since 1793 . She lived in Switzerland and Germany and was only allowed to return to France under the consulate (1801). Napoleon granted her a pension, and Louis-Philippe gave her a salary under the Restoration .

Burial site in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris

She feuded violently Madame de Staël and died as a party member of a strict Catholicism and opponent of Voltaire . She wrote educational and historical writings, plus around 100 “frivolous” novels and a number of moral comedies in which there is no male role and no love intrigue and which are almost completely forgotten today. Your historical writings suffer from inaccuracy and partiality. Most interesting are her Mémoires inédits sur le XVIII. siècle et la Révolution française (Paris 1825, 10 volumes). The biography of Madame de Genlis itself also became the subject of literary works, including by Charlotte Niese .

Trivia

The genus of the carnivorous plants Genlisea ( trap traps ) is named after Madame de Genlis .

Works

Educational writings

  • Théâtre à l'usage des jeunes Personnes, ou Théâtre d'Éducation . Seven volumes. Paris 1779 and 1785. - Berlin 1795.
  • Théâtre de Société . Paris 1781 and 1782. - Geneva 1781.
  • Adèle et Théodore, or Lettres sur l'Éducation . Three volumes. Éditions Lambert et Baudoin, Paris 1782, 1785, 1789 and to X. - Hamburg 1783. - Maastricht 1784.
  • Les Veillées du Château, ou Cours de Morale à l'usage des Enfans . Éditions Lambert et Baudoin, Paris 1784.
  • La Religion considérée comme l'unique base du Bonheur et de la véritable philosophy . First and second edition, Paris 1787.
  • Pieces tirées de l'Écriture-Sainte . Geneva 1787.
  • Discours sur la suppression des Couvens des Religieuses, et sur l'Éducation publique des Femmes . 1790.
  • Discours sur l'Éducation de M. le Dauphin, et sur l'Adoption . Paris 1790.
  • Leçons d'une Gouvernante à ses Élèves, ou Fragmens d'un Journal, qui a été fait pour l'éducation des enfans du duc d'Orléans. Paris 1791.
  • Discours on education publique du peuple . 1791.
  • Nouveau Théâtre sentimental, à l'usage de la Jeunesse . 1791.
  • Discours sur le Luxe et l'Hospitalité, considérés sous leurs rapports avec les mœurs et l'éducation nationale . 1791.
  • Dictionnaire critique et raisonné des étiquettes de la Cour. The usages du monde, the amusement, the modes, the mœurs, etc. of the François, depuis la mort de Louis XIII jusqu'à nos jours . P. Mongie aîné, Paris 1818.

Historical writings

Autobiographical writings

  • Mémoires inédits de Madame la Comtesse de Genlis. Sur le dix-huitième siècle et la révolution française, depuis 1756 jusqu'à nos jours . Ten volumes. Ladvocat, Paris 1825. - New edition: Mercure de France, Paris 2004. ISBN 2-71522460-5 .
    • German translation by Therese Huber , Memories of the Countess of Genlis. About the Eighteenth Century and the French Revolution. Since 1766 up to our day. Eight volumes. Cotta, Stuttgart 1825f.
  • Lettres. 1902.

Novels

  • Les chevaliers du cygne, ou la Cour de Charlemagne . Hamburg 1795.
  • Mademoiselle de Clermont. Nouvelle historique . Éditions Maradan, Paris, to X (1802).
  • La duchesse de la Vallière . Paris 1804.
  • Madame de Maintenon. Pour servir de suite à l'histoire de la duchesse de la Vallière . Maradan, Paris 1806.
  • Mademoiselle de La Fayette, ou le Siècle de Louis XIII . Maradan, Paris 1813.

literature

  • Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve : Les Causeries du Lundi . Volume 3. Éditions Garnier Frères, Paris 1850, pp. 19–38 ( digitized version ).
  • Honoré Bonhomme: Madame la Comtesse de Genlis, sa vie, son œuvre, sa mort (1746–1830) . Librairie des bibliophiles, Paris 1885.
  • Amélie-Césarée Carette (née Bouvet): Madame la comtesse de Genlis . Ollendorf, Paris 1893.
  • Gaston Maugras: "L'Idylle d'un Gouverneur". La Comtesse de Genlis et le Duc de Chartres . Plon, Paris 1904.
  • Gabriel de Broglie : Madame de Genlis . Perrin, Paris 1985. ISBN 2-26201840-5 ( Grand Prix Gobert de l'Académie française ).
  • Marie-Emmanuelle Plagnol-Diéval: Bibliography des écrivains français. Madame de Genlis . Memini, Paris and Rome 1996. ISBN 88-8660907-8 .
  • Marie-Emmanuelle Plagnol-Diéval: Madame de Genlis et le théâtre d'éducation au XVIIIe siècle ( Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century ). The Voltaire Foundation, Oxford 1997. ISBN 0-72940543-5 .

Web links

Commons : Madame de Genlis  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Family genealogy
  2. C. Herlosssohn (Ed.): Damen Conversations Lexikon. Volume 4, 1835, pp. 378-382.
  3. She was in contact with Antoine-Adrien Lamourette , who in 1788 dedicated his writing Les Délices de la Religion, ou le Pouvoir de l'Évangile pour nous rendre heureux to her.