Sophie, Countess of Ségur (née

NEE

NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...

 Countess Sofiya Feodorovna Rostopchina; Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, 1 August 1799 - Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, 9 February 1874) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 of Russian

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 birth.

She is best known today for her novel Les Malheurs de Sophie ("Sophie's Misfortunes"). The action takes place in a castle in the French countryside during the Second French Empire

Second French Empire

The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...

, where Sophie lives with her parents Mr and Mrs de Réan. Curious and adventurous, she does one silly thing after another, with the critical help of her cousin Paul, who is good and tries to show her the right path. She has two friends, Camille and Madeleine de Fleurville, 'good little girls' whom she tries hard to imitate. But she will learn that life is not a bed of roses ... Therese Martin (1873-1897), known as St. Therese of Lisieux, was an avid reader as a child of the novels of the Countess of Segur.

Commentary

Reflection of the morals of the Second Empire, The Misfortunes of Sophie describes a society where the moral education of children begins at an early age (Sophie is only four years old) and where each incident is conducive to a lesson. This strict education can on occasion resort to corporal punishment.

Life

Her family was originally from Mongolia

Greater Mongolia

Greater Mongolia as a region, is the contiguous territories primarily inhabited by ethnic Mongols. It approximately includes the modern state of Mongolia, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China , and the Buryat Republic as well as a few smaller territories in...

. Her father Count Feodor Rostopchin was lieutenant-general and, later, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Russia. In 1812, he was governor of Moscow during the invasion of the Grande Armée under Napoleon I of France

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

. While facts concerning the origin of the great fire of Moscow

Fire of Moscow (1812)

The 1812 Fire of Moscow broke out on September 14, 1812 in Moscow on the day when Russian troops and most residents abandoned the city and Napoleon's vanguard troops entered the city following the Battle of Borodino...

 are disputed by historians, Sophie Rostopchine's father has been said by some to have organized (despite opposition from the wealthy property-owners in the city) the great fire which forced Napoleon to make a disastrous retreat.

In 1814 the Rostopchine family left Imperial Russia for exile, going first to the Duchy of Warsaw

Duchy of Warsaw

The Duchy of Warsaw was a Polish state established by Napoleon I in 1807 from the Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. The duchy was held in personal union by one of Napoleon's allies, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony...

, then to the German Confederation

German Confederation

The German Confederation was the loose association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia...

 and the Italian peninsula

Italian Peninsula

The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale...

 and finally in 1817 to France under the Bourbon Restoration. In France, the father established a salon

Salon (gathering)

A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...

, and his wife and daughter converted to Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

.

It was in her father's salon that Sophie Rostopchine met Eugène Henri Raymond, Count of Ségur (Fresnes, Seine-et-Marne

Seine-et-Marne

Seine-et-Marne is a French department, named after the Seine and Marne rivers, and located in the Île-de-France region.- History:Seine-et-Marne is one of the original 83 departments, created on March 4, 1790 during the French Revolution in application of the law of December 22, 1789...

, 12 February 1798 - Château de Méry-sur-Oise

Méry-sur-Oise

Méry-sur-Oise is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department in Île-de-France in northern France.-References:** -External links:* * *...

, 15 July 1869), whom she married on 13/14 July 1819. The marriage was largely an unhappy one: her husband was flighty, distant and poor (until being made a Peer of France

Peerage of France

The Peerage of France was a distinction within the French nobility which appeared in the Middle Ages. It was abolished in 1789 during the French Revolution, but it reappeared in 1814 at the time of the Bourbon Restoration which followed the fall of the First French Empire...

 in 1830), and his infrequent conjugal visits to their château des Nouettes (near L'Aigle

L'Aigle

L'Aigle is a commune in the Orne department in Basse-Normandie in north-western France.This commune used to be known as Laigle. According to Orderic Vitalis, the nest of an eagle was discovered during the construction of the castle....

, Orne

Orne

Orne is a department in the northwest of France, named after the river Orne.- History :Orne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution, on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Normandy and Perche.- Geography :Orne is in the region of...

) produced eight children, including the father of the historian Pierre de Ségur

Pierre de Ségur

Pierre, marquis de Ségur was a French writer and historian, elected a member of the Académie française in 1907...

 (Eugène de Ségur is said to have called his wife "la mère Gigogne", or "Mother Gigogne" in reference to a theatre character of 1602, an enormous woman out of whose skirts a crowd of children appeared).

The Comtesse de Ségur wrote her first novel at the age of 58.

Novels

The novels of the Countess of Ségur were published from 1857 to 1872 in the "Bibliothèque rose illustrée" by the publishing house Hachette

Hachette (publishing)

Hachette Livre, , is a French publisher, the flagship imprint of Lagardère Publishing. It was founded in 1826 by Louis Hachette as a bookshop and publishing company. Hachette has its headquarters in the 15th arrondissement of Paris....

. They were collected together in 1990 under the title Œuvres de la comtesse de Ségur in the collection "Bouquins" (publisher: Robert Laffont).

• Un bon petit diable
• Les Malheurs de Sophie
• Diloy le chemineau
• Mémoires d'un âne
• Jean qui grogne et Jean qui rit
• Le Mauvais Génie
• François le bossu
• Les Caprices de Gizelle
• Pauvre Blaise
• La Fortune de Gaspard
• Quel amour d'enfant !
• Les Petites Filles modèles
• La sœur de Gribouille
• Blondine
• Après la pluie, le beau temps

External links

• Life and works of the comtesse de Ségur (in French)