Germaine de Staël

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (1766–1817), known as Madame de Staël, was a French-Swiss writer, salonnière, and political thinker whose work helped shape European Romanticism. Born in Paris to Jacques Necker, finance minister to Louis XVI, she grew up amid Enlightenment debate and became a leading voice during and after the French Revolution. Her salons connected major figures in politics and literature across Europe. A critic of Napoleon, she was repeatedly exiled from Paris, traveling widely in Germany, Italy, Russia, and Sweden. Her influential books include *Delphine*, *Corinne*, and *De l’Allemagne*.