Madame De Stael

 
From the Press:
Eighteenth-century Parisian salons were venues for the social and political vanguard that were presided over by a succession of brilliantly clever women, the cleverest of whom was Madame de Staël. Born the daughter of a powerful banker, she married unsuccessfully, taking lovers as consolation – Talleyrand among them – and her life became enmeshed with the great and the good of her day. In Benjamin Constant she found her intellectual equal, and her novel, Delphine, was admired by Goethe and Byron. Napoleon felt differently: recognising her as a dangerous radical, he banished her. Maria Fairweather shows the Emperor was right to fear her – this society woman did indeed play a vital role in his downfall. Meticulously researched and entertaining, Fairweather brings to life both an extraordinary woman and the unusual times in which she lived.