Biography of Sismondi

1 BIOGRAPHY OF SISMONDI HELMUT O. PAPPE I. Jean Charles Léonard Simonde was born on the 9th May 1773 into a Genevan family. In later life he changed his family to de Sismondi after an old Pisan aristocratic family from which he believed the Simondis to be descended. Charles’s parents were the pasteur Gèdèon François Simonde and his wife Henriette Ester Gabriele Girodz; a sister, Sara, called Serina by the family and her friends, saw the light of day two years later. The families of both parents were du haut the Simondes being on the borderline between nobility and upper bourgeoisie, the Girodz being members of the well-to-do upper bourgeoisie. Both the Simondes and the Girodz had come to Geneva as members of the second éimgration after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, that is, both families were Protestant fugitives from religious persecution in France. The Girodz had come to Geneva from Chàlons-sur-Saône in 1689. Henriette’s father, Pierre Girodz, became a successful and highly respected businessman engaged in various commercial enterprises connected with the watchmaking trade. He owned a substantial town house close to the cathedral in the Bourg-de-Four and an imposing country seat ‘Tourant’ at Chênes, both to be the residences of Sismondi after his return from exile in Italy. On the occasion of the marriage of his daughter on the 12th January 1770 Pierre Girodz was able to give her a dowry his town house worth 30,000 Livres as well as 10,000 Livres in cash and 2,000 Livres worth of jewellery. The Girodz were evidently a substantial and highly respected family. The Simondes too were exiles from French religious repression. François Simond, as he then spelled his name, was Squire of Fernon in the Bas Dauphiné. By his marriage to Gabrielle de Monthion he had a son, Aymar (or Emar) who became a citizen of Geneva in 1692. This son was a merchant; though he never achieved any great 2 distinction, he was successful and well regarded as may be gathered from the fact that from 1712 he held two private seats in the Temple de St. Gervais in .....? behind those of the mayor Mastrézat. He was able to give his daughter Isabelle (Marvit) a dowry of 12,000 Livres and the use of the 4th floor of his town house as well as settling 6,000 Livres on her children. His heir was his son François who, following a family tradition, became a soldier, ending a distinguished career in the French Winward Islands a sea Captain. After his return to Geneva in 1739 he married Marie Anne Sartois, the daughter of one of the leading families of Geneva. He became a member of the Genevan parliament, the conseil des deux centrs, and died in 1770. His eldest son Gédéon François was Sismondi’s father. Both the Girodz and Simonde families belonged to the many immigrants who, since the time of Calvin and Theodor de Bèze, suffered for and were instrumental in developing and maintaining the Protestant ethic as well as the spirit of capitalist enterprise. The Simondes were proud of their military connections though engaged in commercial activity; The Girodz acquired the cultural aspirations of landed gentry. The connection with the family Santoris brought them into touch with the first wave of emigration to Geneva. It was this wave - caused by the counter-reformation - which had attracted Calvin and Bèze from France and the Burlamaquis, Diodatis, Turretinis, Fatios and others from Italy. They were refugees from persecution and often martyrs in the fight for liberty. The Sartoris belonged to the Italian section. Jean Léonard Sartoris, a distinguished lawyer and statesman in Piedmont in the first half of the sixteenth century, had died in the dungeons of the Inquisition. His family fled to Lyon in 1551, and from there to Geneva in 1580. In 1598 they acquired a property at Châtelaine, beautifully situated on the hills overlooking the confluence of the Rhône and the Arve. Members of the family attained to the highest honours of the state; amongst them were various mayors and a professor at the Academy of Calvin. Marie Anne Sartoris who married François Simonde, Sismondi’s grandfather, was the daughter of David Sartoris who was three times elected Lord Mayor (premier syndic). 3 From him the property of Châtelaine passed to his daughter, Madame François Simonde, and later to her son Gédéon, Sismondi’s father. It was thus that Sismondi came to grow up in the graceful and comfortable late seventeenth century country house surrounded by undulating grounds above and leading down to the river - in the words of his grandmother Sartoris “not as beautiful as Versailles, but resembling St. Cloud like two drops of water”. The whole district was inhabited entirely by leading Genevan families, the Constants, Gallatins, Caylas, Vieusseuxs and Pictets, all of whom, by virtue of the distinction they achieved in different fields, have won renown beyond their native frontiers. They were closely allied by their common interests in their land and its administration, in politics, and literature. Prosperity, leisure, the simple love of life in the countryside, and wide cultural interests provided the background in which the young Sismondi grew up to manhood. Sismondi’s mother, Henriette Girodz, born on the 31st December 1748, had enjoyed a carefree upbringing as a beloved only child who was treated by her parents almost as a grown-up. They kept a hospitable open house both in town and in their country seat ‘Tournant’ at Chênes. “We are a band of six girls” she wrote in 1767, aged 18, from ‘Tourant’, “sometimes only three, and three or four young men”. The friends of the family belonged to the same circule which the Simondes frequented, including the families Vieusseux, Mallet, Picot, Prévost, Bonnet and especially Henriette’s lifelong friend, Dolly Perdriau. Dolly was the daughter of the ‘bon M. Perdriau’, who as successor to the great Jacob Vernet, was forced to resign the chair of literature at the Academy because he was too gentle a disciplinarian. The pasteur Gédéon Simonde was among the visitors to ‘Tournant’. Literature was the dominating interest in the life of these charming girls. Henriette’s extant letters and diaries are documents of this time and bear witness to her understanding of art, history and politics. At the age of twenty, Henriette went on a trip through the Vaud and the Valais, which she described vividly in her first diary. She visited convents, factories and mines; she was particularly attracted by the Roman mosaics and the amphitheatre of Avenches. The 4 journey ended at Bex where she stayed with M. de Copet, an eccentric amateur botanist who owned a garden full of rare plants as well as a fine library. His younger brother, a country parson, happened to be there and seemed to personify Henriette’s ideal of the good life as it had been formed under the influence of Rousseau: “oh, what a good, what a happy character! The beautiful, the excellent soul, he is as simple and intelligent as his brother, he is well satisfied with his mediocre lot, much more so than all the kings in the world, never does anger make him frown, he has an exquisite sense of firm principles... he wouldn’t change his parish for a bishop’s seat, he is father to his flock... (if it were necessary to live in worldliness and dissipation in order to gain paradise, then he would sacrifice all worldly pleasure”. This was the view of life in which she would educate her children. The good clergyman was not her only ‘angel’ during her stay at Bex. Soon they were joined by another visitor, M. Simonde, “the botanist”, pasteur at Bossey at the foot of the Salève, the scene of Rousseau’s early paradise and disenchantment. A year later, Henriette and Gédéon were married and settled at ‘Châtelaine’. Throughout her life, Henriette remained faithful to the ideals expressed by her as a young girl. Her diaries and letters have considerable literary value. Although she led a secluded domestic and rural life in Geneva, in England and in Tuscany, and never aspired to social glamour and success, the penetration of her mind and the warm charm of her personality impressed discerning people of the time as outstanding. When she came to stay with Madame de Staël, whom Sismondi loved and admired, he was happy to observe that the elegance and gravitas of his mother’s conversation outshone the great authoress and celebrated society woman. Gédéon Simonde, besides being a pasteur in the established Calvinist church, was a botanist. He took his religion reasonably seriously, but did not find it easy always to live according to its precepts. From his mother he had inherited the gay temperament and the sunny nature which shines through her letters. In him this attitude was 5 associated with a somewhat reckless approach to life; he found it difficult to reconcile the call of duty with the temptations of the world of the senses. His scholarly attainments were considerable. He was a good classical scholar and, moreover, a botanist with original and advanced, though somewhat confused, ideas of his own. He had wanted to be a professor at the Academy, had entertained high hopes of an appointment which did not materialise. The times were not favourable then in Geneva for the establishment of new teaching posts at the university unless a candidate could count on powerful family connections in the councils responsible for appointments. Neither the social sciences nor the biological sciences were thought worthy of a place in the academic curriculum, being suspected as potentially subversive by the orthodox representatives of the theological establishment.

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