Adèle de Bellegarde
French hostess and socialite (1772 – 1830) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Adélaïde Victoire Noyel, Comtesse de Bellegarde, known as Adèle de Bellegarde (24 June 1772 – 7 January 1830), was a Savoyard aristocrat. During the French Revolution, she became a popular salon hostess in Paris, and modelled for Jacques-Louis David's 1799 painting The Intervention of the Sabine Women.
Adèle de Bellegarde | |
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Born | Adélaïde Victoire Noyel de Bellegarde (1772-06-24)24 June 1772 Chambéry, Savoy, Kingdom of Sardinia |
Died | 7 January 1830(1830-01-07) (aged 57) Paris |
Nationality (legal) | Savoyard (1772 – November 1792), French (from November 1792) |
Known for | Model for Jacques-Louis David |
Spouse |
Friedrich de Bellegarde
(m. 1787; div. 1794) |
Partner(s) | Hérault de Séchelles (from 1792; died 1794), Pierre-Jean Garat (c. 1800–c. 1802) |
Children | 4: 2 by her marriage, 2 with Garat, including Louis de Chenoise |
Parents |
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Relatives | Césarine Lucie Noyel de Bellegarde (sister), Françoise Aurore Eléonore Noyel de Bellegarde (sister) |
Married to an officer in the Sardinian army, de Bellegarde fled Savoy at the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792, but returned at the end of the year to protect her family property from confiscation. She became the lover of Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles, and accompanied him to Paris in 1793. After de Séchelles' arrest and execution, she was in turn arrested and imprisoned in the Saint-Lazare prison, where she met Aimée de Coigny, a prominent salonnière. Released after the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1793, de Bellegarde became a fixture of salon culture and established relationships with many leading figures of the period, including Talleyrand, Thérésa Tallien and Rouget de Lisle.
De Bellegarde's role in the creation of The Intervention of the Sabine Women has been described as part of the painting's "legend".[1] It provoked numerous, often contradictory, Parisian stories and rumours, which often revolved around de Bellegarde's status as a sex symbol. Her involvement, along with that of her sister Aurore, was considered a significant influence on Parisian cultural tastes, and has been discussed at length in later scholarship on the painting.
She maintained her salon during the French Empire, where she became known as a royalist and an opponent of Napoleon, and during the Bourbon Restoration. In later life, she became known for her religious and charitable activity in the town of Chenoise, where she owned a château. She died in Paris on 7 January 1830.
De Bellegarde and her sister Aurore were known as Les Dames de Bellegarde. The art historian Ewa Lajer-Burcharth has written that the sisters were "known to epitomise the whole world of fashionable femininity under the Directoire."[2]