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You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (December 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions. |topic= will aid in categorization.Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Groupe de Coppet]]; see its history for attribution.{{Translated|fr|Groupe de Coppet}} to the talk page. |
The Coppet group (Groupe de Coppet), also known as the Coppet circle, was an informal intellectual and literary gathering centred on Germaine de Staël during the time period between the establishment of the Napoleonic First Empire (1804) and the Bourbon Restoration of 1814–1815.[1][2][3][4] The name comes from Coppet Castle in Switzerland.
The group, which broadly continued the activities of Madame de Staël's previous salons, had a considerable influence on the development of nineteenth century liberalism and romanticism.[5][6] Stendhal referred to the Coppet guests as "the Estates General of European opinion."[7]
Around the core group which consisted of the hosts at Coppet Castle, the Necker family, that is Jacques Necker and his daughter, Germaine de Staël and her long time lover, Benjamin Constant, with her cousin by marriage, Albertine Necker de Saussure, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Jean de Sismondi, Charles Victor de Bonstetten, Prosper de Barante, Mathieu de Montmorency and August Wilhelm Schlegel, there was a stream of international men and women visitors of influence.[8] These included:
Passing through Lausanne in the following year, Stendhal was so impressed to learn of the number of distinguished people Madame de Staël had managed to gather together in 1816 that he described Coppet as 'the Estates-General of European opinion' [...].
