[1] _Frederick the Great_, iv. iii. 1407.
GENUS, STÉPHANIE-FÉLICITÉ DU CREST DE SAINT-AUBIN, COMTESSE DE
(1746-1830), French writer and educator, was born of a noble but
impoverished Burgundian family, at Champcéry, near Autun, on the 25th of
January 1746. When six years of age she was received as a canoness into
the noble chapter of Alix, near Lyons, with the title of Madame la
Comtesse de Lancy, taken from the town of Bourbon-Lancy. Her entire
education, however, was conducted at home. In 1758, in Paris, her skill
as a harpist and her vivacious wit speedily attracted admiration. In her
sixteenth year she was married to Charles Brûlart de Genlis, a colonel
of grenadiers, who afterwards became marquis de Sillery, but this was
not allowed to interfere with her determination to remedy her incomplete
education, and to satisfy a taste for acquiring and imparting knowledge.
Some years later, through the influence of her aunt, Madame de
Montesson, who had been clandestinely married to the duke of Orleans,
she entered the Palais Royal as lady-in-waiting to the duchess of
Chartres (1770). She acted with great energy and zeal as governess to
the daughters of the family, and was in 1781 appointed by the duke of
Chartres to the responsible office of _gouverneur_ of his sons, a bold
step which led to the resignation of all the tutors as well as to much
social scandal, though there is no reason to suppose that the
intellectual interests of her pupils suffered on that account. The
better to carry out her ingenious theories of education, she wrote
several works for their use, the best known of which are the _Théâtre
d'éducation_ (4 vols., 1779-1780), a collection of short comedies for
young people, _Les Annales de la vertu_ (2 vols., 1781) and _Adèle et
Théodore_ (3 vols., 1782). Sainte-Beuve tells how she anticipated many
modern methods of teaching. History was taught with the help of magic
lantern slides and her pupils learnt botany from a practical botanist
during their walks. In 1789 Madame de Genlis showed herself favourable
to the Revolution, but the fall of the Girondins in 1793 compelled her
to take refuge in Switzerland along with her pupil Mademoiselle
d'Orléans. In this year her husband, the marquis de Sillery, from whom
she had been separated since 1782, was guillotined. An "adopted"
daughter, Pamela,[1] had been married to Lord Edward Fitzgerald (q.v.)
in the preceding December.
In 1794 Madame de Genlis fixed her residence at Berlin, but, having been
expelled by the orders of King Frederick William, she afterwards settled
in Hamburg, where she supported herself for some years by writing and
painting. After the revolution of 18th Brumaire (1799) she was permitted
to return to France, and was received with favour by Napoleon, who gave
her apartments at the arsenal, and afterwards assigned her a pension of
6000 francs. During this period she wrote largely, and produced, in
addition to some historical novels, her best romance, _Mademoiselle de
Clermont_ (1802). Madame de Genlis had lost her influence over her old
pupil Louis Philippe, who visited her but seldom, although he allowed
her a small pension. Her government pension was discontinued by Louis
XVIII., and she supported herself largely by her pen. Her later years
were occupied largely with literary quarrels, notably with that which
arose out of the publication of the _Dîners du Baron d'Holbach_ (1822),
a volume in which she set forth with a good deal of sarcastic cleverness
the intolerance, the fanaticism, and the eccentricities of the
"philosophes" of the 18th century. She survived until the 31st of
December 1830, and saw her former pupil, Louis Philippe, seated on the
throne of France.
The numerous works of Madame de Genlis (which considerably exceed
eighty), comprising prose and poetical compositions on a vast variety
of subjects and of various degrees of merit, owed much of their
success to adventitious causes which have long ceased to operate. They
are useful, however (especially the voluminous _Mémoires inédits sur
le XVIII^e siècle_, 10 vols., 1825), as furnishing material for
history. Most of her writings were translated into English almost as
soon as they were published. A list of her writings with useful notes
is given by Quérard in _La France littéraire_. Startling light was
thrown on her relations with the duc de Chartres by the publication
(1904) of her correspondence with him in _L'Idylle d'un "gouverneur"_
by G. Maugras. See also Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vol. iii.;
H. Austin Dobson, _Four Frenchwomen_ (1890); L. Chabaud, _Les
Précurseurs du féminisme_ (1901); W. de Chabreul, _Gouverneur de
princes, 1737-1830_ (1900); and _Lettres inédites à ... Casimir
Baecker, 1802-1830_ (1902), edited by Henry Lapauze.