Stéphanie Félicité, comtesse de Genlis


Caroline-Stéphanie-Félicité, Madame de Genlis was a French writer of the late 18th and early 19th century, known for her novels and theories of children's education. She is now best remembered for her journals and the historical perspective they provide on her life and times.

Life

Caroline-Stéphanie-Félicité du Crest de Saint-Aubin was born on 25 April 1746 at Champcéry near Autun, in the Saône-et-Loire region. Her parents were Pierre César du Crest, later Marquis de Saint Aubin, and Marie Françoise Félicité Mauget de Mezieres.
Her father's debts forced them to sell their home in 1757 and move to Paris, where they survived on Stéphanie-Félicité's skills as a harpist. Pierre César was captured by the English returning from Santo Domingo in 1760, a fellow prisoner being Charles-Alexis Brûlart, Comte de Genlis, whom he introduced to his daughter after their release. When Pierre died in 1763, they married; as a younger son, his title 'Comte' was complimentary and she was always known as Madame de Genlis.
Since Charles-Alexis' own parents were dead, they went to live with his godfather, the Marquis de Puisieux and had three children; Caroline, Pulchérie and Casimir. She died in Paris on 31 December 1830 and buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Career

Her relative, Madame de Montesson, was also known for her beauty and intelligence, later becoming a playwright. She married the duc d'Orléans in 1773, although barred from using the title 'Duchess of Orléans.' With her support, Stéphanie-Félicité became lady-in-waiting to Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, wife of her step-son Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Chartres.
She began an affair with Chartres almost immediately, their love letters being published in 1904 by Gaston Maugras as L’idylle d’un gouverneur. Although this was short-lived, he appointed her governess to his daughters, who were joined by two 'adopted' English girls, Stephanie Caroline Anne Syms or "Pamela" and Hermine Syms. This was in line with her theory of educating her pupils with children of different nationalities to better learn foreign languages; the household already contained English and Italian servants. Although often suggested Pamela was the product of her relationship with Chartres, this has been challenged by recent scholarship. In 1781, Chartres took the then unusual step of putting her in charge of his sons education, which led to the resignation of their existing tutors; she and Charles-Alexis formally separated the following year.
For her husband's amusement, Madame de Montesson set up their own theatre, for which she and Madame de Genlis wrote plays, the parts being taken by their children. This developed her approach to education, later set out in Théâtre d'éducation, a collection of short comedies for young people, Les Annales de la vertu and Adèle et Théodore. Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve claims she anticipated many modern methods of teaching; history was taught using magic lantern slides and her pupils learnt botany from a botanist during their walks.
In 1785, Chartres succeeded as duc d'Orléans; when the French Revolution began in 1789, both he and Charles-Alexis joined the Girondins faction and were executed in 1793 with many of their political colleagues. Stéphanie-Félicité and her pupil Mademoiselle d'Orléans took refuge in Switzerland, before moving to Berlin in 1794. Considered too liberal by Frederick William II, she was forced to live in Hamburg but returned when his son succeeded him in 1797.
After Napoleon came to power in 1799, she returned to France. Her aunt was a close friend of Napoleon's wife Joséphine de Beauharnais and this connection resulted in her being given rooms at the Arsenal and a small pension. Her best known romance Mademoiselle de Clermont was published in 1802, along with a number of other novels. Her government pension was discontinued after the 1814 Bourbon Restoration; her former pupil Louis Philippe gave her a small pension but she relied on the income from her writing.
Her later years were occupied with literary quarrels, notably those arising from her 1822 publication Diners du Baron d'Holbach, which attacked what she viewed as 'the intolerance, fanaticism, and eccentricities of the philosophes of the 18th century.' She survived long enough to see her former pupil, Louis Philippe, become king in 1830. The vast majority of her works are now little read but provide interesting historical background, especially Mémoires inédits sur le XVIII' siècle, published in 1825.

Legacy

In Britain, she was best known for her children's works, which many welcomed as they presented many of Rousseau's methods, while attacking his principles. They also avoided libertinism and Roman Catholicism, concepts often associated with the French by the British, who appreciated her innovative educational methods, particularly her morality plays. According to Magdi Wahba, another reason for her popularity was the belief she was as moral as the Baronne d'Almane in Adèle et Théodore. They discovered this was not the case when she fled to London in 1791 but while she lost the esteem of some, including Frances Burney, it had little effect on her book sales.
Jane Austen was familiar with her works, although she returned the novel 'Alphonsine' to the Lending Library, claiming it "did not do. We were disgusted in twenty pages, as, independent of a bad translation, it has indelicacies which disgrace a pen hitherto so pure". However, in Emma her heroine suggests her governess would raise her own daughter the better for having practised upon her, "like La Baronne d'Almane on La Countesse d'Ostalis in Madame de Genlis' Adelaide and Theodore". Modern critics claim other themes addressed by Genlis appear in both Emma and Northanger Abbey. Austen continued to read her works however, complaining in 1816 for example that she couldn't "read Olimpe et Theophile without being in a rage. It is really too bad! – Not allowing them to be happy together when they are married." Austen's nieces Anna and Caroline also drew inspiration for their own writings from Madame de Genlis.
British women writers of the late eighteenth century were particularly inspired by Genlis's novel of education Adèle et Théodore, which Anna Letitia Barbauld compared to Rousseau's Emile as a type of "preceptive fiction." Anna Barbauld admired Genlis's "system of education, the whole of which is given in action" with "infinite ingenuity in the various illustrative incidents." Clara Reeve described Genlis's educational program as "the most perfect of any" in Plans of Education, an epistolary work loosely based on Genlis's novel. Adelaide O'Keeffe's Dudley was modeled directly after Genlis's work, and other texts such as Anna Letitia Barbauld and John Aikin's Evenings at Home were inspired by Genlis's Tales of the Castle, a "spin-off" of Adèle et Théodore. As Donelle Ruwe notes, Genlis's emphasis on the mother as a powerful educating heroine was inspirational, but so too were her books' demonstrations of how to create homemade literacy objects such as flash cards and other teaching aids.

In literature

Félicité de Genlis appears as a character in the works of Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo, among others. She is also mentioned in War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford, Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov, The Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore, The Rector of Justin by Louis Auchincloss, and by Jean-Paul Sartre in Nausea. Emma by Jane Austen.

Selected works