There Are No Letters Like Yours: The Correspondence of Isabelle de Charriere and Constant d'Hermenches (European Women Writers) First edition by Charriere, Isabelle de, d'Hermenches, Constant (2000) Hardcover

by Isabelle de Charrière

Isabelle de Charriere (1740-1805) is best known for four of her "Lettres neuchateloises", "Lettres de Mistriss Henley", "Lettres ecrites de Lausanne", and "Caliste". These representations of provincial courtship, marriage, and domestic life have been called the closest thing A daughter of a distinguished Dutch noble family, she was known in her youth as Belle de Zuylen. At the age of 20 she began a clandestine correspondence with a middle-aged Swiss colonel stationed in Holland. David-Louis, Baron de Constant d'Hermenches, was a friend of Voltaire, an accomplished musician, an amateur writer, and a ladies' man. Their correspondence was one of the finest in a great age of letter-writing. It lasted 15 years, and nearly all of it is extant. Although the two rarely saw each other, their epistolary friendship became one of great depth and scope. Their correspondence touches on a wide range of James Boswell's courtship of Isabelle, her opinions of English high society, the new smallpox inoculation, and visits by royalty. It includes firsthand accounts of the French conquest of Corsica and of Voltaire's social activism.

Hardcover

First published March 1, 2000

About the author

Also under: Belle van Zuylen

Born near Utrecht, The Netherlands as Isabella Agneta Elisabeth van Tuyll van Serooskerken. In the Netherlands she is also known as Belle van Zuylen or Belle de Zuylen.
Her parents gave her a much better education than was usual for a girl in that time.
She married Charles-Emmanuel de Charrière de Penthaz in 1771 and lived the latter half of her life in Switzerland. She is now best known for her letters although she also wrote novels, pamphlets, music and plays.