Everything about Suzanne Curchod totally explained
Suzanne Curchod (1737–
6 May 1794) was the wife of
Jacques Necker. She hosted one of the most celebrated
salons of the
Ancien Régime.
Daughter of the pastor of the village of
Crassier in the canton of
Vaud,
Switzerland, Suzanne was well educated but poor. As a young woman she met the historian
Edward Gibbon, who wished to marry her, but paternal disapproval on both sides and Suzanne's refusal to leave Switzerland for
England thwarted the plans. In 1764 she married the ambitious Swiss financier
Jacques Necker. They had one child, a daughter named Germaine, better known as
Madame de Staël.
In 1776 her husband became
Controller-General of Finances, head of the French finance ministry, this in spite of the double disadvantage of his
Protestant religion and
Swiss origins. Much of this success he owed to his wife's salon, where the luminaries of
Parisian society gathered to discuss art and literature, and to flirt and gossip. Among the regular visitors were
Marmontel,
La Harpe,
Buffon,
Grimm,
Mably,
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and the compilers of the
Encyclopédie including
Diderot and d'
Alembert. Madame Necker's salons were also a meetingplace for Swiss expatriats such as
Madame Geoffrin and the
Marquise du Deffand.
Life in Paris, and her husband's dislike of bluestocking authors prevented her from pursuing her interest in writing. Her surviving writings are few:
Mémoire sur l'Etablissement des hospices (1786) and
Réflexions sur le divorce (1794). She devoted considerable time to ensuring that their daughter Germaine received the very best education available.
After the fall of her husband from power in 1790, the Neckers left Paris and returned to Switzerland. Suzanne died at the castle of
Coppet, in Vaud, in 1794.
In Paris a hospital she founded in 1784 still bears the Necker name and today treats sick children.
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