Madame de Genlis

I have read and discovered a new authoress, the prolific Comtesse de Genlis, who lived through the French Revolution, then the restoration, then through Bonaparte. I read a bad biography -- bad because he drops details and omits important episodes, by Gabriel de Broglie, then her own works: Le Comte de Corke, La feuille des gens du monde (a delightful newsheet she produced at court), several shorts stories like Zuma and Mademoiselle de Clermont, her first book of memoirs but not her second, a charming discussion of etiquette under Louis XVI, but I skipped her works for youth, plays and essays. I did read her philosophical dialogues, Diners d'Holbach, which show her mastery of classical philosophy. I am about to look at the first of her historical trilogy, La duchesse de La Valliere, and will do my best to get the other two, Madame de Maintenon and Mademoiselle de Lafayette. This woman withdrew from her glittering position at court to retire to the country, educate the Orleans children, and pursue knowledge and writing when she was only 30. She later refused a seat at the Academie francaise to preserve her independence of mind and freedom to express herself honestly. She wrote her whole life, lived long if tumultuously. I have a great admiration for her.