purchase of Hérivaux and his duel with Bertin de Vaux, and on his relationship with
Germaine de Staël and her circle.
- See C.P.Courtney’s recent biography Isabelle de Charrière (Belle de Zuylen): A
Biography, Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1993. A very extensive bibliography
has grown up around Isabelle de Charrière in recent years, and a journal, the Lettre
de Zuylen et du Pontet, (1976–), is published annually by the Dutch Genootschap
Belle de Zuylen and the Swiss Association des Amis de Madame de Charrière. On
this, see C.P.Courtney, Isabelle de Charrière (Belle de Zuylen): A Secondary
Bibliography, Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation; Paris: Jean Touzot libraire-éditeur,
1982.
- Charrière, Œuvres, I-VI, published 1979–84.
- Charrière, Œuvres, X, pp. 37–9. The self-portrait gave Geoffrey Scott the title of his
well-known and still useful biography The Portrait of Zélide, London: Constable,
1925.
- The pastel is reproduced in colour as the frontispiece to volume I of Philippe
Godet’s biography (see note 52 above), and is to be seen at the Musée d’Art et
d’histoire, Geneva. A superb portrait of 1777 by the Danish painter Jens Juel (1745–
1802) hangs in the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire, Neuchâtel, and is
reproduced in the beautifully printed and illustrated collection Madame de Charrière
à Colombier, iconographie rassemblée et présentée par Constance Thompson
Pasquali, Neuchâtel: Bibliothèque de la Ville, 1979, p. 13.
- See Charrière, Œuvres, I and II. Isabelle’s first letter to Baron Constant
d’Hermenches dates from 22 March 1760, the last from him to her is dated 12
December 1776.
- James Boswell wrote to his friend Temple on 19 March 1765: ‘[Zélide] has more
genius than any other woman I ever saw, and more acquired perfections. I shall
correspond with her as a bel esprit, but I think it would be madness to marry her’
(Charrière, Œuvres, I, p. 594). For Boswell’s correspondence with her, see vol. I of
the Charrière Œuvres, and also Frederick A.Pottle’s three books: Boswell in
Holland, 1763–1764, including his Correspondence with Belle de Zuylen (Zélide),
New York: McGraw-Hill; London: W.Heinemann, 1952; Boswell on the Grand
Tour: Germany and Switzerland, 1764, New York: McGraw-Hill; London:
W.Heinemann, 1953; and Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica, and France,
1765–1766, edited with Frank Brady, New York: McGraw-Hill; London:
W.Heinemann, 1955.
- George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, ed. Graham Handley, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1984, p. 588.
- See C.P.Courtney, A Preliminary Bibliography of Isabelle de Charrière (Belle de
Zuylen), Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation (Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth
century, 186), 1980, pp. 25–32. Le Noble, conte moral is published in Charrière,
Œuvres, VIII, pp. 19–34.
- Charrière, Œuvres, II, p. 205, letter from Baron Constant d’Hermenches of 8 August
1770.
- Charrière, Œuvres, II, p. 218, letter to Baron Constant d’Hermenches of 12 October
1770.
List of abbreviations 283
