Portrait of Madame de Rémusat by Guillaume Descamps, 1813
Born
5 January 1780
Paris
Died
16 December 1821
Paris
Nationality
French
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 as dame du palais 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.[1]
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.[1]
