An Avid Reader, Diane-Adélaïde de Damas, Comtesse de Simiane

Last December I amused myself to provide my readers on Instagram with some sort of advents calendar, with reading ladies in our time period. I thought I might share some of them here; just for the fun of it - profiting of having more space to write about them than just the short paragraph on offer by Instagram - and also to bridge over the waiting time for the more substantial posts still in the queue.

She was born in 1761, the picture is painted around 1800, we see a confident, well read woman in her late 30ies, showing off her love of books, as well as for modern fashion.

French School, unknown painter. Sold in 2012 by Christies. Picture used from Wikimedia

Sale 3532 Emilie du Châtelet : ses travaux scientifiques et le château de Cirey Lot 34

Diane-Adélaïde de Damas, married Comtesse de Simiane (25 January 1761 - 9 April 1835) was a daughter of François-Jacques de Damas, marquis d'Antigny one of the oldest and most prominent families in France. To me it was a great joy to discover that our Diane-Adélaïde was also the grand-niece of Émilie Du Châtelet - the famous scientist and mathematician. (I recommend reading up on Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet and also checking the link above leading to the auction of her papers by Christies.)

I can't possibly say if Mme de Simiane's married life was happy - she married in 1777 - aged 16, and she is said to have served as a lady in waiting to the Comtesse de Provence (what would be a rather stressful position) - today she is best known as one of the lovers of the Marquis de La Fayette (yes, that Lafayette. Her husband went to North America with him).
It’s less known that she was an avid reader and left an impressive library - what I personally think is more impressive than with whom she had a relationship.

You can find a short overview of the catalogue of her books established by Justin Croft Antiquarian Books and Benjamin Spademan here - at RareBookHub as well as the list of her books  (Links open in new windows, the list comes with some annoying pop-up ads, best have your ad-blocker activated), she was noted to have had a soft spot for English authors and especially Sir Walter Scott.

Maybe her adoptive father, the Duc du Châtelet former ambassador in England left a love of English literature with her?

Some further reading on the Web:

- A short entry in the BNF - but as she was a reader and not a writer, it is a very short entry.
- An interesting blog post (In English) by author Geri Walton can be found here
- And a very informative page on Geneanet by Alain GARRIC, who also supplied citations where our fair reader was mentioned by her contemporaries (In French)

"Mme de Simiane était la reine des fêtes que la duchesse du Châtelet (1732-1794, sa tante, qui l'avait adoptée à la mort de sa mère) organisait pour elle dans son bel hôtel de la rue de Grenelle (Au coin du boulevard des Invalides. Confisqué par l'Etat à la Révolution, il a longtemps servi de résidence à l'archevêque de Paris puis fut occupé par le ministère du Travail)" (Marquis de Vogüé : "Une famille vivaroise").

- A not that flattering, but yet charmingly written essay (in French) where she is again reduced to her beauty and her relationships. 

I hope some of my curiosity about this lady and her reading habits manage to jump over to you, I am currently inspired to take our Sir Walter Scotts out of the bookcase and re-read them.  (Or if anyone could recommend me a good audiobook what would work well with weaving?)