1-148-905 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Germaine de Stael, French writer, novelist and political propagandist born in Paris, 1843. Germaine de Stael (1766-1817) was the only child of Jacques Necker, French statesman and financier. Married unhappily in 1786 to the Swedish ambassador to France, she had many affairs, including a liaison with the author and political philosopher Benjamin Constant. From 1792 she spent a number of periods of exile at Coppet, her estate by Lake Geneva. From Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay, 1778-1840 by Fanny Burney, Madame D'Arblay. (London, 1843).