Madame de Rémusat

Claire Élisabeth Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes de Rémusat (1780–1824). She married at sixteen, and was attached to the Empress Josephine as dame du palais in 1802.

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. He developed political views more liberal than those of his parents.

External references

• Works by Madame de Rémusat at Project Gutenberg
• Memoirs of Madame Rémusat 1802*1808, Paul de Rémusat, D. Appleton and Company, 1880
• A Selection from the Letters of Madame de Rémusat to Her Husband and Son, from 1804 to 1813, Frances Cashel Hoey, John Lillie, Paul Louis Étienne de Rémusat, D. Appleton and Company, 1881