1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Charrière, Agnès Isabelle Émilie de

CHARRIÈRE, AGNÈS ISABELLE ÉMILIE DE (1740–1805), Swiss author, was Dutch by birth, her maiden name being van Tuyll van Seeroskerken van Zuylen. She married in 1771 her brother’s tutor, M. de Charrière, and settled with him at Colombier, near Lausanne. She made her name by the publication of her Lettres neuchâteloises (Amsterdam, 1784), offering a simple and attractive picture of French manners. This, with Caliste, ou lettres écrites de Lausanne (2 vols. Geneva, 1785–1788), was analysed and highly praised by Sainte-Beuve in his Portraits de femmes and in vol. in of his Portraits littéraires. She wrote a number of other novels, and some political tracts; but is perhaps best remembered by her liaison with Benjamin Constant between 1787 and 1796.

Her letters to Constant were printed in the Revue suisse (April 1844), her Lettres-Mémoires by E. H. Gaullieur in the same review in 1857, and all the available material is utilized in a monograph on her and her work by P. Godet, Madame de Charrière et ses amis (2 vols., Geneva, 1906).