Introduction

This chapter explores the life and many roles of Suzanne Necker, née Curchod, a Swiss pastor’s daughter from humble circumstances whose strict Calvinist upbringing, extraordinary education, and intellect paved her advancement in Parisian society during the prerevolutionary years. Suzanne Curchod or Madame Necker, as she was known after her marriage to Jacques Necker, has long been neglected by scholars, standing in the shadows of her influential husband as well as her famous daughter Germaine de Staël. Born in the French-speaking village of Crassier in the Swiss Canton of Vaud, Suzanne grew up in poor circumstances in the village’s parsonage but became highly educated under the tutelage of her father. After his death, Suzanne had no choice but put her education to good use by becoming a governess to support herself and her mother. After the death of her mother, she left Switzerland for Paris. Through her marriage to the prominent Swiss financier Jacques Necker, Suzanne entered Parisian high society and became known for her beauty and intellect. Her salon in Paris attracted the powerful minds of the time, such as Grimm, Mably, Diderot, d’Alembert, and d’Holbach, and proved advantageous to her husband’s career, as he became the head of the French Finance Ministry. While she has become known mainly as a celebrated salonnière, Madame Necker took on many roles during her lifetime. She worked as a governess and later her only child’s education became her prime focus. Her daughter Germaine, known to scholars as Madame de Staël and a stout opponent of Napoleon, not only received the same exemplary education and strict Calvinist upbringing Madame Necker had received from her pastor-father but also gained early contact with the intellectuals who frequented her mother’s salon. Through these educational opportunities she was set on the path to become one of the most influential female thinkers and writers in Europe during the Revolutionary, Napoleonic, and Restoration periods. Although Madame Necker was also a prolific writer, most of her work remained private during her lifetime. The influence of her Calvinist upbringing and singular education drove her writing, but the act of writing also became a means to situate her thinking. In addition, her written work demonstrates her interest in contemporary and social issues and how to better the circumstances of the less fortunate, stemming perhaps from her own and frequent illnesses she suffered, as her letters mention.

I operate from the premise that despite her humble childhood and circumstances, it was the exceptional education that she received from her pastor-father that afforded her intellectual pursuits and societal advancement. This chapter is mainly concerned with making that connection and establishing Suzanne Necker née Curchod among the educated leading ladies at the end of the ancien régime exploring the diverse roles she inhabited in her life. More specifically, this chapter is interested in the intersecting themes in Madame Necker’s life, such as education, religion, motherhood, writing, and charity work.

Education

Education, women’s education in particular, became a hotly debated topic during the eighteenth century, which has since come to be known as the pedagogical century. In the salons of the French capital and in the writings of the elite, women’s education was discussed by men and women alike. From memoirs, letters, and diaries, we know how individualized and highly inconsistent the education of girls and women across Europe actually was. In France, illiteracy remained widespread, even among bourgeois and aristocratic girls and women (Spencer 1984: 83). The poet, reformer, and royal tutor François Fenelon believed that girls should be educated mainly in the domestic arts, with only little training in reading and writing. Educators of the time, among them female educators, emphasized the moral training of girls over intellectual development (89). This limited education, as Fenelon perceived it, should lie in the hands of the mothers preferably (84 – 85). Enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire all were proponents of home instruction (90). In reality, the education of bourgeois and aristocratic girls usually lay in the hands of governesses (85). However, one must differentiate between early and late childhood education. While mothers themselves, often with the help of a governess, instructed their daughters in the early years, tutors were often called upon in the later years to teach various subjects. Due to the lack of female instructors in certain fields, these tutors were usually male (87). Nevertheless, in general, women’s education was lagging behind and calls for reform became louder in the late eighteenth century.

As a pastor’s daughter, Louise Suzanne Curchod had the good fortune to be educated by her university-trained father. She was born on June 2, 1737 as the only child to the Swiss Calvinist minister Louis Antoine Curchod and a Huguenot mother, whose family had fled France and settled in Lausanne (D’Haussonville 1882: 8 – 10, Gambier-Party 1913: 1 – 2). Her mother was said to have been a beautiful woman (Gambier-Parry and Neckar 1913: 2), something that was always emphasized about her daughter Suzanne as well. However, Suzanne’s beauty was never pointed out without the mention of her impressive intellect and education.

Her father’s parish of Crassier, located only a few miles from Lausanne and Geneva and in very close proximity to the French border, was located in the Canton of Vaud, where Calvinism had first taken root and from there had continued to spread. In Calvinist fashion, Suzanne received a thorough and strict education from an early age (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 3). The Vicomte D’Haussonville, her descendant and biographer, reports that she obtained that rigorous education from her father. As an only child, she actually procured the same education she would have received if she had been a boy. Her father taught her Latin and Greek, the languages of learned men. She also loved the sciences (Haussonville and Trollope 11 – 13). Due to her father’s interest in the sciences and history, these subjects became an integral part of Suzanne’s education. Her biographer states that she responded well to the education her father imparted; she became acquainted with the classics, history, and science, conversant in geometry, philosophy, and the literature of her time (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 3). How well rounded her education was, manifests itself in the fact that she also learned how to paint and play the harpsichord and violin (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 14). However, her biographer seemed not to have approved of the education she received: “Suzanne Curchod’s parents, instead of foreseeing any disadvantages of their system of education, seem rather to have endeavored to prepare her for a more open and freer life.” (20) Haussonville voices his misgivings about the kind of education his great-great-grandmother had received, surprising, if one considers that he wrote about her life roughly a century and a half later, when views on women’s education had somewhat improved.

Suzanne’s exemplary education and intellectual talents became publicly known beyond the borders of her little village with her introduction into Lausanne society. Every spring and summer, Suzanne spent time with relatives there (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 6, 8). Even after being introduced into society and spending much time in Lausanne away from her parents, Suzanne continued her studies and became to some extent self-taught. With time, she became somewhat of a celebrity and known as the “girl who knew Latin, and who showed herself willing to talk on the most difficult problems in philosophy […].” (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 27) She borrowed books from a professor’s library in Lausanne und taught herself such subjects as geometry and physics (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 13). One of the professors at Lausanne praised her intelligence, which he said was “exceptionally strong for a woman.” (25 – 26) The patronizing and somewhat mysogynistic attitudes toward women, of course not uncommon for the time, are all too apparent in this statement.

Suzanne not only furthered her education in Lausanne but also pursued her literary ambitions. Together with the young people of the city, among them students from the university, Suzanne founded a literary circle of which she became the president. The only obligation the members of this society had, was to compose and share an essay or poem from time to time. Inspired by her studies, Suzanne had literary aspirations and was only too happy to contribute (Gambier-Narry and Necker 1913: 11 – 12). It was probably at the meeting of her literary society in Lausanne that she met Edward Gibbon, a young Englishman and later the first serious contender for her hand (12). Gibbon remarked on her “talents of the mind” upon meeting Suzanne. In his opinion, she was “learned without pedantry” (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 35). Gibbon had not only met Suzanne in Lausanne but had also been a guest at the parsonage in Crassier. At the parsonage, he got a glimpse of Suzanne Curchod’s upbringing:

Her father, in the solitude of a lonely village, devoted himself to giving his only daughter a liberal and even a learned education. She surpassed his hopes by her progress in the sciences and languages; and in the brief visits that she paid to some of her friends at Lausanne, Mademoiselle Curchod’s wit, beauty, and learning were subject of universal applause. (Saint-Beuve and Wormeley 1964: 66)

At the age of twenty-three, Suzanne suddenly lost her father. The only income her mother and she could now rely on was a small widow’s pension. They also had to vacate the parsonage, so Suzanne and her mother moved to Geneva. In order to supplement their meager income, Suzanne put her education to good use and became a governess (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 76 – 77). Since she played both the harp and the violin, she was also able to give music lessons (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 24). During this difficult time, it was the family friend Paul Moultou, also a pastor, who not only took her under his wing but also gave her this opportunity of employment.

After the death of her mother, Suzanne’s teaching was her only means of support. Her friends, fully aware of her circumstances, helped as they could. It was through the Moultous, whose children she taught and who had become dear friends, that she met Madame de Vermenoux. The marquise was impressed with Suzanne’s gifts and, after a few weeks of knowing her, became rather attached to her. When it was time for Madame to return to Paris, she proposed to take Suzanne to the French capital as her companion. Suzanne hesitated at first to follow the marquise to Paris but was soon persuaded by Moultou and accepted the invitation in hopes of escaping her sadness over her parents’ deaths and the dissolution of her engagement to Gibbon (37 – 39). After her mother’s deaths and the rejection by Gibbon, Suzanne had considered going as a governess to England or Germany (39).

Salonnière

Madame de Vermenoux, a Parisian widow of Swiss origins, recognized Suzanne’s talents and wanted to introduce her new companion into Parisian society. Suzanne’s move to the French capital would also create the opportunity for an advantageous marriage that could offer occasions for intellectual stimulation and patronage. The marquise, originally from Geneva, had built up contacts with men from the literary and financial world in Paris. Once or twice a week, these men were guests at her house, where the latest poems and romances were discussed. So when Suzanne took up residency with the marquise in Paris in the summer of 1764 (40), she was rather pleased to find that she could be part of a social circle where she could continue her intellectual pursuits.

Among the men who frequented Madame de Vermenoux’s house was the Swiss financier Jacques Necker, who had begun to make a name for himself in the French capital as a very able man (43). He had asked the marquise, who was widowed, to marry him, but she had delayed the decision indefinitely (46). When he met Suzanne Curchod at the marquise’s house, he was instantly taken by her beauty, character, and intelligence, and from then on he diverted all attention to her (47). Eventually, he proposed to her, and in order not to displease the marquise, they hid their engagement and subsequent wedding from her. Only after the wedding did they disclose to Madame de Vermenoux that they had wed (49 – 54). Her initial displeasure is understandable, but she eventually approved of the marriage between her former suitor and her protégé from Switzerland.

In becoming Madame Necker, Suzanne had no longer to worry about making ends meet. Jacques Necker had great abilities in regards to numbers and had started his financial career as a young clerk in one of Geneva’s counting houses. But he was also interested in literature and wrote two short (but unpublished) plays. His parents, aware of his career ambitions in the financial world, had sent him to one of Paris’s banking institutions. Eventually, he and his more experienced compatriot Peter Thelusson founded their own financial establishment, which made both very prosperous (44 – 45). When Suzanne became Madame Necker, she became his stout and loyal supporter and tried to further his career ambitions. In 1776, his and her efforts came to fruition, when Necker was nominated to be the Associate Director of the Royal Treasury.

While Suzanne knew she had made a very suitable match, she had also married for love and devoted herself to her new husband from the beginning. Her biographer writes:

No sooner had she become the wife of Necker than she began to assist him in his career by every means in her power, and it was to a great extent with this object in view that she now decided to form a literary salon. By cultivating the society of men of letters she hoped by degrees to be able to secure their support for her husband in the probable event of his entering political life, for they exercised, as she well knew, enormous influence over public opinion, of which, in those days, they represented ‘the only legal mouthpiece.’ (56)

Madame Necker’s determination to hold a salon in Paris apparently stemmed from her ambitions to become a prominent member of Parisian society, pursue her intellectual interests, as well as help further her husband’s career. However, not only her weekly salons but also dinner parties and the occasional ball were hosted to further the Neckers’ ambitions (138). Jacques Necker’s prominence in French politics and economics manifested itself in his three appointments to the office of Controller-General of Finances during a time of great change in France.

After spending some time in Parisian society, Suzanne realized that there was a different kind of learning. She wrote to a friend in Lausanne: “When I arrived in this country, I thought that letters were the key to everything, that a man cultivated his mind by books alone, and was great only in proportion to his knowledge.” (Saint-Beuve and Wormeley 1964: 71) Suzanne discovered that the ability to converse, debate, and discuss was just as important. It must have been then that the idea of a salon became appealing to her since this is where learned men (and women) in Paris gathered. Madame Necker’s desire to establish a salon in Paris does not come as a surprise, if one considers the long tradition of this venerable institution in the French capital. Nevertheless, while Madame Necker’s salon became popular quickly, establishing herself in Parisian society was not an easy undertaking. Her Protestant faith, humble upbringing, provincial manners and demeanor, and her nationality made her stand out among the Parisian elite. Moreover, while she strove to establish herself socially and sought intellectual stimulation, she abhorred the temptations and frivolity associated with the Parisian upper classes. In his memoires, the Abbé Morellet claims that Mme. Necker came to him, Abbé Raynal, and Abbé Marmontel for help to get her salon started (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 128). In addition, like other salonnières before her, she attended other salons to learn the “trade.” She “apprenticed” under Geoffrin and Lespinasse to learn how to host a salon and how to enforce the rules of polite conversation (Goodman 1996: 54, 76).

Among the women in Parisian society, with whom Madame Necker came in contact and who shared her interest in hosting and/or attending literary circles, were several who enjoyed a great reputation and air of importance. Besides the famed Madame Geoffrin who taught Suzanne how to host such gatherings, Suzanne also consulted the prominent salonnière Madame du Deffand, who was more than willing to help the young wife of Jacques Necker. Of aristocratic birth, she was acquainted with the literary elite. Her salons were attended by those who had made a name for themselves in the realm of literature, philosophy, art, or politics in France and abroad. Many years Suzanne’s senior, Madame du Deffand became acquainted with the Neckers and attended Suzanne’s salon. However, while she was impressed with Jacques Necker, her opinion of Madame Necker was not all favorable at first. To her longtime friend and correspondent, Horace Walpole, she wrote: “His wife is intellectual, but in too loft a way to make it possible to exchange ideas […].” Madame du Deffand goes on to describe her as “stiff, cold, and full of self-respect.” (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 155 – 156) Madame Geoffrin, who welcomed literary greats such as Diderot, Marmontel, Saint Lambert, and d’Albert to her salon, was also advanced in age and did not have the intellectual aptitude that Madame Necker possessed (57 – 59). Soon, Suzanne’s salon became the focal point of Parisian society.

Her initial apartments in the Rue Michel de Comte were too small for company, and so her husband acquired a bigger and grander house in a more suitable quarter of town (65). There, at the Hotel Leblanc, as it was called, she had a stately drawing and dinner room in which to receive men and women of letters. In order to not interfere with reception days at other houses or salons of Parisian society, Mme. Necker held her salon on Fridays (Houssonville and Trollope 1882: 110). After Necker purchased the Chateau de Saint Ouen (nestled along the Seine between Paris and Saint Denis) as a summer residence, Mme. Necker’s salon was held there during the warmer months of the year (113). Since her summer residence was outside the city, she even provided transportation for her less wealthy literary friends so they would be able to attend (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 140).

During Necker’s service as the Director General of Finance, the Neckers lived in the Hotel du Contrôle-Général. When he resigned, they found new accommodations in a suitable townhouse in the Rue Bergère since their old house, the Hotel Leblanc, was occupied by tenants. On Fridays, Madame Necker continued to welcome literary friends, politicians, and diplomats to her salon, which she had by then hosted for almost fifteen years (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 218). With the increasing number of attendees of her Friday salon, Madame Necker opened up her drawing room for an additional day. Lighter discussions and entertainment (music, recitations, or dramatic readings) now took place Tuesdays, while Fridays remained her designated day for serious literary and philosophical debate (135 – 136).

With the appointment of Jacques Necker to the post of Chief Minister of Finance in 1788 to the delight of those who attended Madame Necker’s salon, there was now hope that reform would follow. Thus, the focus of debate in the Necker’s drawing room shifted from literary to social and political matters (Houssonville and Trollope 1882: 109 – 110). This was, of course, not only due to the new office Necker held but also to the changing political climate in the pre-revolutionary years. More and more ministers, members of the court, and foreign dignitaries attended Madame Necker’s salon (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 182 – 183).

Literary men of the time were drawn to Madame Necker’s salon by her extensive literary knowledge (among their other reasons for attending), and sought and welcomed her opinions of their works (63 – 64). Not always had the hostesses of salons been able to participate in the literary and philosophical discussions that took place in their drawing rooms. However, those who attended Madame Necker’s salon attested not only to her lively participation but also to her abilities and intellect to successfully do so. In his memoirs, Morellet states that Madame Necker was very able to take part in literary discussions: “[…] we talked pleasantly, about literature, upon which she spoke herself extremely well.” (122) Among Suzanne’s many papers, there are letters and notes on discussions at her salon, for example with Diderot and Naigeon, that prove that Madame Necker could hold her own in discussions with these learned men (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 151 – 154). Voltaire also sang her praises, comparing her to the famed Hypatia, the head of the Platonist School of Alexandria who had lectured on mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy:

Vous qui chez la belle Hypatie,
Tous les vendredis raisonnez,
De vertu, de philosophie,
Et tant d’exemples en donnez.72 (111)

Hypatia’s murder by a Christian mob marked the end of classical antiquity. Mme. Necker’s salon was not only one of the most prominent salons in Paris during the Age of Enlightenment but also the last of the great salons of the Ancien Régime. Haussonville attributes the quick success of Mme. Necker’s salon to her agreeable appearance, her devotion to literature, and the ability to flatter her guests (108). Besides abbés and men of letters, representatives of various European sovereigns also frequented Madame Necker’s salon: the English ambassador Lord Stormont, the ambassador of Sweden, the Comte de Creutz, the Neapolitan ambassador the Marquis Caraccioli, the Abbé Galiani, and others (168). The prominence of Madame Necker’s salon and her husband’s influence is underlined by the visit of Emperor Joseph II. of Austria, brother of Queen Marie Antoinette, to the Neckers' house (168).

The success of Madame Necker’s salon can be traced back to her education and her pious upbringing and to her continuous pursuit of intellectual stimulation. The French poet and literary critic Antoine Leonard Thomas, who was a great friend to Madame Necker until his death, concluded that the lady strove to instruct “her mind only in order to improve her soul.” (73) Jean-François Marmontel, one of the encyclopedists, described her in a similar vein: “A virtuous education and solitary studies had given her soul every improvement which talents and an exemplary disposition can derive from cultivation.” (78) One might be surprised to find even the notorious philosophe Diderot at Madame Necker’s salon. And yet, apparently, Madame Necker welcomed Diderot, in spite of his unconventional and adulterous lifestyle. When her Calvinist friends in Switzerland expressed fear for her soul because of her close association with the philosophes, Mme. Necker replied: “I have friends who are atheists; but why not? They are friends who are to be pitied.” (150 – 151) Madame Necker’s biographer points out that due to Madame Necker’s noble influence, Diderot was a reformed man in her presence and even wished to have met her earlier (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 88 – 89).

Friedrich Melchior Grimm was also said to be attracted to Madame Necker’s character as well as her mind, and when he lived at the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, he kept her informed about his experiences abroad, while Madame Necker kept him abreast of literary and other matters in Paris (103 – 104). Jean François de Saint Lambert, a poet and philosopher, also stayed faithful to Madame Necker and her salon until the eve of the Revolution. He was one of the principal regular attendees of her Friday meetings (107). Her religious attendees such as Abbé Morellet lamented that discussions in Mme. Necker’s salon always concerned literary matters while other subject matters were “restricted by the austerity of the mistress of the house.” (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 128) Madame Necker insisted on avoiding religious topics, for which she was reproached by her religious attendees (170). Even so, a few of her guests complained about her strict religious convictions. Grimm concluded that Mme. Necker was “devout after her own way” and that she would probably wish to be “Huguenot, Socinian, or Deist” or something after her own mind (137 – 138).

Not only did the great men and women of Parisian society attend her salon, but philosophes such as Diderot, Grimm, d’Alembert, Marmontel, Buffon, and Saint Lambert also corresponded with her. These letters show that her correspondents held her in high esteem. In a letter, the Abbé Galiani writes:

Your letters are like Socrates, the most lovely soul in the most hideous body. Your letters are also as beautiful as the envelope is ugly. […] It would not be in your nature to address an envelope neatly. Such a matter-of-fact undertaking would not be compatible with the sublimity of your too glorious transcendentalism. (172)

Such wording and exaggerated praise were common at the time. Diderot’s letters also show that he had the utmost respect for Madame Necker (155). In one of his letters he asked apologetically for her advice on a manuscript: “[…] When this manuscript is useless, or has become fastidious to you, pray send it back to me in a sealed cover. I ask you, madam, on my knees, for a thousand pardons and for a thousand excuses.” (156 – 157) The letter not only confirms Diderot’s admiration and respect for Madame Necker but also the trust he put in her opinion of his work. In a later letter he continues:

When I call to mind my audacity in showing to you those Salons, I cannot bear to think of it. It is as though I had dared to come up to you in church wearing my dressing-gown and my night-cap. But still it is myself, line for line. I did not more than copy myself – altering nothing; there is not one of my works that is more like me. The metal is unpolished, just as it came out of the mine. If you can extract from it one spangle of gold the merit is yours rather than mine.
   It is a matter of regret to me not to have had the happiness of knowing you sooner. You would certainly have given me a taste for purity and a delicacy of feeling which would have made its way from my heart into that which I have written. (161)

This passage not only confirms their familiarity with each other but also Diderot’s teasing and submissive admission of the good influence Madame Necker had on him and his work.

Those who were no longer able to attend Madame Necker’s salon yearned for her company. Thus, the Abbé Galiani writes: “The moment I think of Paris and of my friends I am lost. I am not there, and you are. These are two reasons for my sad and unhappy reflections.” (171) In another letter, Galiani laments: “A Friday does not pass by but I go to you in spirit,” (173) and in yet another we read: “The Alps separate us. But neither time nor the Alps efface from my memory those delightful hours which I passed in your house.” (175) Similarly, when Grimm traveled to Prussia and Russia for an extended period of time, he kept Mme. Necker informed about life at court while expressing his longing for her salon (139 – 143).

Madame Necker also assisted lesser known men of letters and became an advocate of their work by reading passages from their writings to her salon audience (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 128 – 129). Most of the literary men who attended Madame Necker’s salon were members of the French Academy. Hence, she was always informed about the goings-on behind the walls of the Academy, which remained closed to women. When vacant positions were to be filled, Madame Necker was often asked for advice. Those hopeful to gain such a position took great pains to become favored in her eyes, since so many members of the French Academy frequented her house (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 180 – 182). Claude Joseph Dorat, for example, sought Madame Necker’s support for his candidacy to the Academy. In a letter, he beseeches her to put in a good word for him, a testimony to her influence in the literary society of Paris:

I have so much confidence in your goodness, madam, that I do not fear to lay my case before you. I should like better to be under an obligation to you than to any one else, and that is the reason why I expose myself with a feeling of security. You know most of the Academicians. Those gentlemen have as much deference for your good taste as they have pleasure being in your company; and if you would in their presence support my candidature I am sure that their prejudices would not prevail against anything you might say in my favor. (183 – 184)

Even after Dorat was denied, he remained courteous and obliged to Madame Necker, assuming that she had indeed spoken up in his favor: “I shall never be an Academician, but I shall be one of your friends, and I will never do anything to make me unworthy of being so considered. I would rather have a good name than an arm-chair, and your suffrage than those of the forty.” (185 – 186) His friendship with Madame Necker was worth more to Dorat than a “seat” in the Academy and the vote of confidence by forty academicians.

Another example of Mme. Necker’s hospitality, influence, and interests is the night when seventeen of her guests decided to erect a statue in honor of the great Voltaire (136). Madame Necker had known Voltaire from Switzerland, where the philosopher had spent some time at his chateau in Ferney. Since those days before her marriage, she had admired and corresponded with him. Grimm, Diderot, Suard, Marmontel, Morellet, d’Albembert and the others decided unanimously to erect a statue in the honor of the still living Voltaire. Madame Necker was to preside over the project and wrote to Voltaire to ask for his permission. Six years later, a statue of him was erected in Paris (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 132 – 133, 135).

Her extraordinary education and her interest in diverse subject matters, especially in literature, and her experiences as the president of a literary society in Lausanne, made it possible for Suzanne to host such a successful salon. In addition, her intellect, virtue, knowledge, and great disposition made her very agreeable with men and women of letters. With all these attributes, Madame Necker stands apart from other salonnières in Rousseau’s critique of Parisian salons and the women who hosted them. When the political landscape of the late 1780s and thus the discussions in Madame Necker’s salon changed, she retired from hosting and handed the baton over to the next generation, her daughter.

Mother

Traditional family patterns began to change during the last decades of the eighteenth century. Slowly, marriages were no longer contracted chiefly for economic advantages but also for mutual affection, and family relationships became more intimate, caring, and loving (Fairchild 1984: 97). Germaine Necker was born into such a family. Suzanne Curchod and Jacques Necker had married for love, and it comes as no surprise then that their only daughter received all their affection and attention. The fundamental shifts in family and marriage relationships would also be felt in the perception of and attitudes towards motherhood. Many Enlightenment thinkers were concerned with motherhood and maternal practices. Their reformative thinking revised previously held notions about mothering. Rousseau, for example, redefined women’s roles and responsibilities, assigning their maternal duties greater importance. He argued that a mother’s influence on the upbringing of children results in strong families and is beneficial to society at large. Suzanne was not only a friend of Rousseau’s but also shared his ideas. For example, she chose to breastfeed her daughter, thus following Rousseau’s call for more intimate mothering.

For Madame Necker, the role of mother supplemented her role as salonnière. One might even claim that this role gave her far greater satisfaction than that of salonnière, albeit her relationship with her daughter would not always prove easy. As a mother, she again became an educator, providing both spiritual and intellectual training for her daughter. While waiting for the birth of her child, Madame Necker grew uneasy about the dangers of childbirth. She took precautions to ensure that her child would receive a Christian education in case of her death (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 19). When she survived childbirth (which she described as very unpleasant, vowing to never be with child again), she educated her daughter according to the values of her own upbringing. Haussonville confirms that she ensured that her daughter received the same kind of moral and intellectual education that she had enjoyed at her father’s hand (31), even insisting that all caregivers and childhood friends were of the Protestant faith (Boon 2011: 79 – 80).

Germaine Necker was blessed with the same great mental faculties as her mother, and Suzanne’s sole concern was to perfect her daughter’s education (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 35). She expected the same sense of duty and obedience from her daughter that had been expected of her by her own parents. In a letter to her husband, Suzanne lists some examples of the education she bestowed upon her daughter:

I taught her languages, and especially how to speak her own with facility. I strengthened her memory and her mind by the best kind of exercises. […] I read with her; […]. In a word, I always cultivated and increased those gifts which she had received from nature, thinking that her soul would benefit from my teaching […]. (32)

However, Germaine struggled with the stricture of her education (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 207). Haussonville points out that Madame Necker tried too much to model her daughter’s character and education after her own (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 51). When Germaine was thirteen years of age, she became ill from the rigors of her upbringing, which left little freedom for creativity and exploration. Doctors ordered a change of scenery and mental repose. Of course, Madame Necker was unhappy with this hiatus in her daughter’s formal education (39). But it was exactly this freedom in the countryside that allowed Germaine to explore her creative inclinations and become an important voice during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Although strict, Germaine’s extensive education and early introduction to literature proved of great value to her future literary career. While very different in character, mother and daughter possessed the same inclination for study and literature (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 210), whereas Jacques Necker opposed his daughter’s literary inclinations and ambitions as much as he had opposed his wife’s (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 39 and Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 143).

Germaine received part of her training in her mother’s salon. From an early age, she was allowed to be present, to ask and answer questions, and to listen to the adults’ conversations (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 26 – 27). She was seated right next to her mother (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 143). Suzanne’s decision “to mother her daughter in the salon,” (Boon 2011: 20) as Sonja Boon expressed it, merged her roles of salonnière and mother. It also changes our perception of the eighteenth-century salon as an exclusively public sphere. As Madame Necker provided Germaine with the opportunity to participate in the public sphere of her salon, she turned the salon into an educational and pedagogical space. With her daughter attending, the private and public spheres converged. However, some objected to the presence of the young Germaine in her mother’s salon surrounded by ‘beaux esprits.’ In her memoires, Madame de Genlis lamented Germaine’s upbringing and the fact that she spent so much time in her mother’s salon privy to adult conversations (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 212). Nevertheless, in a private letter, de Genlis praised Suzanne for the education she had afforded her daughter: “[…] what woman, what mother, ever gave to her daughter a better education than that which Mlle. Necker has received from you?” (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 31)

After her marriage to Eric Magnus, Baron de Stael Holstein, Swedish ambassador to France, whom she had met in her mother’s salon, Germaine visited her parents’ house several times a week and, with her mother’s declining health, took over her social responsibilities, including her salon (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 249). Many of Madame Necker’s old literary acquaintances such as Diderot and Buffon had already died, and thus her interest in the Tuesday and Friday réunions declined. An when Madame Necker’s salon became more political in the late 1780s due to the growing liberal opposition and even antiroyalist sentiments in the French capital, Germaine took a leading role in her mother’s salon, which now met almost every day of the week (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 67 – 68, 148, 159). Now Madame de Staël became the focal point of conversation while Madame Necker further and further retreated from the role she had played so well (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 159 – 160). Although grateful for her daughter’s efforts in continuing her salon, Madame Necker nevertheless expressed regret about the changing atmosphere in her salon in a letter to a friend:

I have no literary news to give you, for that kind of conversation is no longer the fashion; the crisis is too great; people do not care to play chess on the edge of precipice; our attention is entirely fixed on other things, and [literature] that flower of the imagination, last refuge of refinement and culture, is lost in our political discussions and is becoming a stranger to us. (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 249 – 250)

The dire political situation at the dawn of the Revolution left its mark on Parisian society and on Madame Necker’s salon. Soon, she and her family were drawn into the changing tides and barely escaped with their lives because of the family’s continuous support of the royal family, with whom they had lived at Versailles in their final years in Paris.

Writer

Suzanne’s writings are extensive, but to this day much of her work has remained locked up in the archives at the family’s estate in Coppet. Her extensive journal entries, notes on conversations, short reflections and ideas, essays, and of course her pamphlets on health and other matters make it clear that she could not resist the urge to write but, like many women of her time, chose to withhold publication. Even so, Melton points out that the sheer volume of her writings suggests a certain level of literary ambition and ability (Horn 2001: 154). As was common at the time, her husband published some of her work, comprising in all five volumes, a few years after her death (Necker, Necker and de Pougens 1798, 1801). In the introduction to her work, he emphasized her virtues as a wife and woman of charity as well as her intellectual gifts. Women of her time earned praise for not seeking a public life (Goodman 1995: 213). However, he also pointed out that she had no literary ambitions: “She had taste and intelligence to the highest degree; but this taste never inspired in her the desire to be published; it lay in her without any ambition to appear, and above all without any feeling of envy or jealousy.” (Necker, Necker and de Pougens 1798, 1801: vii) Although Necker had always admired his wife’s education and intellect, he also had made it clear that he disliked her passion for books and refused to support any literary ambitions she had. Necker did not consider literary writing a worthy occupation for women (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 127). Needless to say, she obeyed his wishes, at least for the most part. Madame Necker’s letter to him after a few years of marriage offers insights into her acceptance of her husband’s wishes and her attempts to negotiate some of the freedoms she had enjoyed when she was younger and unmarried:

After that, can you reproach me that I am fond of books? My dear friend, it is only an old habit that I think admirable to retain, because of the restlessness of my soul and because of the loneliness that I feel in your absence. But your reproach is too frequent […]. I will therefore make a bargain with you: the moment that you have for ever given up all connection with the India Company I will promise you, if you wish it, to lay aside Fe(‘)nelon, and never to take up a pen upon any other subject; and I hope with all my heart that the sacrifice I ask of you will not be greater on your side than that which I on my side shall make for you. (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 9)

Madame Necker’s correspondence (as well as her husband’s) was extensive and makes up a major part of her private writings. Her husband included some of her letters in Mélanges, but much of her correspondence has yet to be published. D’Haussonville found twenty-seven volumes of letters the Neckers had written (4). Their extensive correspondence comes as no surprise when one considers the numerous friendships they entertained in France and Switzerland. As Sonja Boon summarizes, Madame Necker presented herself as a woman of sensibility in her letters, presenting different personae in her private and public letters (Boon 2001: 9). The above quoted letter offers insights into Madame Necker’s passion for books and writing and her skill and intellect in arguing her position.

However, it is the private journal entries, reflections, and notes in Mélanges and Nouveaux mélanges that provide us insights into Madame Necker’s thoughts about writing. Her journals in particular reveal that writing was not simply an occupation to pass time but a means to further educate and better herself. Her strict Calvinist upbringing and its attendant attitudes towards education and learning are apparent in some of her private writings. Modeled after the Spectator (Goodman 1996: 81), Suzanne’s journals reflect her sense of duty and her thinking. For example, she drew up strict codes of conduct called “Maxims necessary for my happiness.” She also recorded her daily activities to ensure she spent her waking hours in the most useful way. In one of her journals (“Journal of the expenditure of my time”), she scheduled the hours of her day so as to avoid frivolous activities (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 4 – 5). She also used her journals to prepare for her weekly salons: “One is most ready for conversation when one has written and thought about things before going into society.” (Necker, Necker and de Pougens 1798, 1801: 300) With this kind of preparation she hoped to shape and direct the discourse in her salon. She also used her journals to reflect on her salon guests and the conversations from which she intended to learn and form her own opinions. Finally, she used her journal to learn from and think about what she had read (177 – 183): “Conversation maintains the mind, reading cultivates it, but only composition enlarges it.” (329)

Madame Necker not only used writing to better herself but also to improve society and the lives of the less fortunate. Her writings include treatises on divorce, hospital care, and premature burial. During the last year of her life, she wrote her treatise against divorce, the Reflexions sur le divorce (1794), which her husband published a few months after her death (Goodman 1995: 220). This short piece of writing protests the new French law legalizing divorce (Boon 2011: 49). Neither the philosophes nor her own daughter agreed with her on the subject. Germaine de Staël’s own divorce and the characters in her literary works such as in Delphine stand in stark contrast to her mother’s objection to the dissolution of marriage. Her husband’s decision to publish his wife’s essay (which remained a fragment) so shortly after her death might have to do with his grief over her passing as well as the intent to affirm Suzanne’s position as a virtuous wife (Goodman 1995: 220).

With her treatise Mémoire sur l’Etablissement des hospices (1786), Madame Necker took up the pen in support of charitable work. The pamphlet called for much needed hospital reform based on pioneering procedures observed in the hospital she had founded with the help and financial support of her husband. In her treatise, she suggested having only one patient to a bed and having a medical record for each patient for the entire length of his or her stay. Her concepts of hygiene and health were progressive, and she had them implemented in her hospital. These standards later became the norm in France. Patients finally received beds to themselves, and care was secured by the aid of religious sisters (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 175). Suzanne’s great sense of duty stems from her Calvinist faith. Her charitable work came from the same belief that it was her duty to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and attend to the sick. Her hospital was founded in 1778 and still bears her name today (175). She was both its director and treasurer (185).

Madame Necker’s pamphlet on premature burial, Les Inhumations Précipitées (1790), stems from her own fear and paranoia of being buried alive. It contains specific directions on burial and highlights the necessity to ensure the body was really dead (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 158 – 262). She was concerned with premature burial through her observations at her hospital and what she had learned from physicians. In addition, her background and continued interest in the sciences since the days she was taught by her father in his parsonage might also have been the reasons for her interest in this particular issue. Her preoccupation with the topic, not unusual for the time, is apparent in her lengthy instructions for her own passing (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 352).

Conclusion

The Neckers, living at Versailles, were witnesses to the early events of the Revolution (302). After Jacques Necker’s resignation as France’s Chief Minister of Finance in 1790, the Neckers immediately left Paris for Coppet in Switzerland but were met with hostility in the villages and towns through which they passed (328). Necker had bought the chateau and estate of Coppet from his former banking business partner as a summer residence for his family (222 – 223). In France, all of the family’s remaining assets were confiscated by the revolutionary government (349). Necker’s continued support for the royal cause had made him unpopular with the people (322, fn. 1). At Coppet, the Neckers lived in almost complete seclusion (335). With most of her old friends dead or not wanting to be considered traitors by mingling with the Neckers, Suzanne found herself in utter solitude (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 223). Madame de Staël, who later also had to flee Paris and join her parents in Coppet, could not bear the solitude she experienced there (225). We know that Suzanne did not enjoy her solitude either: “Never, since my early youth, have I lived in such solitude as this, and I cannot say that I appreciate it.” (Necker, Necker and de Pougens 1798, 1801: 231) She had enjoyed social and literary circles, good conversations, and debates all of her adult life. It is likely that this solitude contributed to her worsening health. “I live in the past rather than in the future,” she writes with resignation while at Coppet (Gambier-Parry and Necker 1913: 232). However, it was then and there that Madame Necker would again turn to writing. In the last years of her life, she lived close to where she had been brought up. Coppet was only an hour’s journey from Crassier, the village of her father’s parsonage (Haussonville and Trollope 1882: 220).

Suzanne’s lifelong intellectual pursuits find their roots in her Calvinist upbringing and the exceptional education she had received at the hand of her pastor-father. It is this upbringing and education that manifested itself in her constant self-examination, overly active conscience, and rigorous study. She put her learning to good use by becoming an educator (although for financial reasons), participating in the public sphere by hosting a salon, writing about social issues, and becoming a patron to charities. But she also accepted her husband’s wishes and chose not to pursue a literary career. Sonja Boon concludes: “She perceived her filial neglect and her desire for literary success as moral failures, instances of personal weakness which undermined her virtue” (Boon 2011: 65). Madame Necker was canonized as a salonnière, not as a mother, charity patron, or writer, yet she inhabited all these roles with a sense of duty and a dedication to lifelong learning inspired by her upbringing.

Works Cited

Boon, Sonia. 2011. The Life of Madame Necker: Sin, Redemption and the Parisian Salon, London: Pickering & Chatto.

Fairchilds, Cissie. 1984. “Women and Family” in French Women and the Age of Enlightenment, ed. Samia I. Spencer, Bloomington: Indiana UP.

Gambier-Parry, Mark and Curchod Necker, Suzanne. 1913. Madame Necker, Her Family and Her Friends, With Some Account of Her Husband's Three Administrations, Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons.

Goodman, Dena. 1995. “Suzanne Necker’s Mélanges: Gender, Writing, and Publicity” in Going Public: Women and Publishing in Early Modern France, eds. Elizabeth C. Goldsmith and Dena Goodman, Ithaca: Cornell UP.

Goodman, Dena. 1996. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment, Ithaca: Cornell UP.

D'Haussonville, Vicomte and Trollope, Henry M. 1882. The Salon of Madame Necker, London: Chapman & Hall.

van Horn Melton, James. 2001. The Rise of the Republic in Enlightenment Europe, Cambridge: Camridge UP

Necker, Suzanne Curchod, Necker, Jacques and de Pougens, Charles. 1798, 1801. Mélanges extraits des manuscrits de Mme. Necker, Paris: C. Pougens and Nouveaux méleanges extraits des manuscrits de Mme. Necker, Paris: C. Pougens.

Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin and Wormeley, Katherine P. 1964. Portraits of the Eighteenth Century: Historic and Literary, New York: Frederick Ungar.

Spencer, Samia I. 1984. “Women and Education” in French Women and the Age of Enlightenment, ed. Samia I. Spencer, Bloomington: Indiana UP.