Claire Élisabeth Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes de Rémusat (5 January 1780 – 16 December 1821) was a French
woman of letters. She married at sixteen, and was attached to the
Empress Josephine
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( e ...
as ''
dame du palais
The Dame du Palais, originally only Dame, was an historical office in the Royal Court of France. It was a title of a lady-in-waiting holding the official position of personal attendant on a female member of the French Royal Family. The position ...
'' in 1802.
Life
Talleyrand was among her admirers, and she was generally regarded as a woman of great intellectual capacity and personal grace. After her death, her ''Essai sur l'éducation des femmes'', was published and received academic approval, but it was not until her grandson,
Paul de Rémusat, published her ''Mémoires'' (3 vols., Paris, 1879–80), which followed by some correspondence with her son (2 vols., 1881), that justice could be done to her literary talent.
Claire's memoirs threw light not only on the Napoleonic court, but also on the youth and education of her son
Charles de Rémusat
Charles François Marie, Comte de Rémusat (, 13 March 1797 – 6 June 1875), was a French politician and writer.
Biography
He was born in Paris. His father, Auguste Laurent, Comte de Rémusat, whose family came from Toulouse, was chamber ...
. He developed political views more liberal than those of his parents.
She was the grand-daughter of
Jean Gravier, marquis de Vergennes, elder brother of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chief Minister of
King Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was e ...
,
Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes.
Works
*
*
References
External links
*
*
*
*
1780 births
1821 deaths
French memoirists
French women memoirists
French ladies-in-waiting
People of the First French Empire
19th-century women writers
19th-century memoirists
{{france-nonfiction-writer-stub