Germaine Necker, Madame de Staël

Anne-Louise Germaine Necker, baronne de Staël-Holstein, connue sous le nom de Madame de Staël, (/stal/1, née et morte à Paris, 22 avril 1766 - 14 juillet 1817), est une romancière et essayiste française d'origine genevoise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germaine_de_Sta%C3%ABl

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (French: [stal]; née Necker; 22 April 1766 – 14 July 1817), commonly known as Madame de Staël, was a French woman of letters of Swiss origin whose lifetime overlapped with the events of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. Known as a witty and brilliant conversationalist, often dressed in flashy and revealing outfits, she participated actively in the political and intellectual life of her times. She was present at the first opening of the Estates General and at the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and witnessed the departure of the royal family from Versailles in 1789. Her intellectual collaboration with Benjamin Constant between 1795 and 1811 made them one of the most celebrated intellectual couples of their time. They discovered sooner than others the tyrannical character and designs of Napoleon. For many years she lived as an exile under the Reign of Terror and under Napoleonic persecution. In 1814 one of her contemporaries observed that "there are three great powers struggling against Napoleon for the soul of Europe: England, Russia, and Madame de Staël". Her works, both novels and travel literature, with emphasis on passion, individuality and oppositional politics made their mark on European Romanticism.