Madame Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) was born to Swiss banker and statesman Jacques Necker and raised in a vibrant Paris salon that fostered the minds of influential intellectuals. Although she married Baron Erik Magnus Staël von Holstein in 1781, their union was short-lived, culminating in separation by 1797. A notable novelist and passionate advocate of J.J. Rousseau and the principles of the French Revolution, Madame de Staël found herself exiled to England in 1792, where she mingled with prominent French figures like Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. After the fall of Robespierre in 1794, she returned to Paris, where her opposition to Napoleon would shape her legacy.