The British Reception of Madame de Genlis's Writings for Children: Plays and Tales of Instruction and Delight
2006; Wiley; Volume: 29; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/j.1754-0208.2006.tb00654.x
ISSN1754-0208
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Influence and Diplomacy
ResumoStkphanie-Felicitk Ducrest de Saint-Aubin (later comtesse de Bruslart de Genlis and Marquise de Sillery) was born in Burgundy in 1746, the eldest child in her family.'Like that of numerous aristocratic girls in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Genlis's early education was largely neglected: she was cared for by the staff in her parents' house and taught a little catechism.When their daughter turned seven, the Ducrests decided she should have a governess, and appointed a Breton girl, Mlle de Mars.Together, the sixteenyear-old Mars and Genlis read works of fiction such as Madeleine de Scudery's Cle'lie (1654-1660) and Marie-Anne Barbier's The'dtre (1700-1710).After a financial disaster in Genlis's early teenage years, the family could no longer pay Mlle de Mars's wages, and eventually Genlis and her mother arrived in Paris, where they depended on the benevolence of family friends who encouraged Genlis's training on the harp.Marriage to a young nobleman, Monsieur le Comte Charles-Alexis de Genlis, followed in 1763, and in 1772 Genlis took on the position of lady-in-waiting to the Duchesse de Chartres.In 1777 Genlis was appointed governess to the Chartres family's newborn twin daughters, and retired to an estate outside Paris, Bellechasse, to pursue a carefully thought-through system of education for them.In 1782 she was the first woman to be appointed 'gouverneur' of Royal children, and the sons of the Chartres family, the Duc de Valois (later King Louis-Philippe) and the Duc de Montpensier joined the group which included Genlis's own daughters, a niece and nephew, and, intriguingly, two young English girls.There has been much speculation about whether these girls, Pamela and Hermine, were actually the illegitimate daughters of Genlis and the Duc de Chartres.Genlis, for her part, always claimed that the girls were adopted to speak English with her young pupils: part of Genlis's educational theories involved an emphasis on modern languages.In later life, Genlis never missed an opportunity to stress that she was largely self-taught from her early reading, and that the lack of suitable works for children and plans of education, in particular for the education of girls, must be redressed.This brief biographical background is important because it suggests some of the reasons why Genlis's writings for children may have become popular -indeed, notoriousin Britain.Firstly, her connection to the ChartreslOrleans family meant that she had connections to high society
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