Keywords

“I enjoy myself like a queen when I discuss language” (“Je m’amuse comme une reine quand je disserte langage”, van Dijk and van Strien-Chardonneau 2019, letter 1293, March 17, 1794).Footnote 1 With these words, the Dutch and Swiss writer Isabelle de Charrière (1740–1805) closes off a letter to her German translator Ludwig Ferdinand Huber (1764–1804). Charrière, who was born into a Dutch aristocratic family living at Zuylen, was raised in French, the dominant language of the eighteenth-century Dutch upper classes (van Strien-Chardonneau and Kok Escalle 2010, Frijhoff 2017),Footnote 2 and the so-called lingua franca of the Republic of Letters (Fumaroli 2001). Footnote 3 Already at a young age, she started writing, for personal rather than financial reasons, in French: first fables and literary portraits, eventually plays and novels. Throughout her life, and especially after her marriage and move to Colombier with the Swiss Charles-Emmanuel de Charrière (1735–1808), Isabelle de Charrière corresponded also widely in French, not seldom with prominent figures from abroad. Her letters, of which no less than twenty-five hundred have been preserved, reflect, among many other things, the writer’s interest in multilingualism. They not only uncover alternations between languages, but they also contain an exceptionally rich and nuanced discourse on language and translation choices.

As the opening quotation illustrates, Charrière’s reflections on (foreign) language use reveal, furthermore, strategies of self-representation: in the closing-line of her letter to Huber, she presents herself as an established intellectual, who overtly claims her capacity to reflect and write on language (“disserter langage”), yet also associates that capacity to a personal enjoyment that is undoubtedly defined in both gendered and authoritative terms by the use of the word “queen” (“reine”). It is precisely this interplay between language, gender and intellectual authority that will be examined in the present essay through a comparative reading of two of Isabelle de Charrière’s correspondences: With James Boswell (1740–1795), on the one hand, and with Ludwig Ferdinand Huber, on the other.

Our analysis aims to illustrate how early modern women’s multilingual practices sometimes served a strategic purpose by informing women’s intellectual or even authorial identity formation. Before drawing examples from Charrière’s correspondences, however, we will put forward a tentative conceptual and methodological framework for the study of multilingualism in the letters of early modern women writers.

Self-representation and Multilingualism

For women in particular, securing a place in the intellectual and literary field of the Republic of Letters was not without difficulty. Long-standing debates about the social and intellectual position of women in society were ongoing in the Age of Enlightenment (Dubois-Nayt et al. 2016), and in many ways, women were expected to comply with standards of modesty that did not allow for strong (public) self-assertion (Pender 2012). Still, it has been illustrated that, despite those social and ideological barriers, more women than before succeeded during the eighteenth century in developing their intellectual and authorial self, and in exercising authority. Previous scholarship has convincingly argued that early modern women adopted strategies in their writing to establish a voice of their own and to negotiate authority (see, for instance, Hayes 2009 or Pender 2012). Letters proved an ideal environment for women to explore, shape and justify their intellectual and literary self, as “[t]he self-portrait […] is an obligatory and recurrent step of letter writing, as if it were the main purpose of, or driving force behind, writing; that is a paradox of entering into correspondence: one addresses the other in order to find the self” (Diaz 2006, 9).

The addressee played indeed an important role in early modern women’s epistolary constructions of a self. According to Brigitte Diaz (2006), women in particular expected their addressees to acknowledge their self-images. The opening quote gives a—presumably tongue-in-cheek—illustration of the inherently relational nature of self-representation: in the sentence that follows the quoted line, Isabelle de Charrière anticipates Ludwig Ferdinand Huber’s rather negative reaction to her long dissertation, thus immediately counteracting her self-image of a discursive sovereignty: “I enjoy myself like a queen when I discuss language. But perhaps, I bore you a lot, and luckily for you, Sir, the messenger is requesting me to finish my letter” (“Je m’amuse comme une reine quand je disserte language. Mais je vous ennuie peut-être beaucoup et heureusement pour vous, Monsieur, la messagère me fait dire de donner ma lettre”, letter 1293, March 17, 1794). By addressing Huber, Charrière expects her translator to acknowledge her self-fashioned image of a female intellectual.

The way in which multilingualism informed early modern women’s epistolary self-representation remains relatively underexplored. Research has, however, already shown that educated women in the early modern period regularly found themselves at the crossroads of languages: through a wide range of mediating roles (as translators, editors, journalists, publishers…) women participated in transcultural (mostly intra-European) intellectual networks and contributed to cultural transfers (see, for instance, Dow 2007; Cossy et al. 2009; Cheek 2019). Furthermore, research has to some extent already pointed at the multilingual dimensions of early modern women’s letters (van Strien-Chardonneau 2016). Drawing examples from the letters of Isabelle de Charrière, we will illustrate how eighteenth-century European women writers sometimes deliberately turned to multilingualism in their letters to establish themselves as female intellectuals and authors.

Isabelle de Charrière’s correspondences with James Boswell and Ludwig Ferdinand Huber offer interesting points of departure. They give insight into the life and literary career of a renowned eighteenth-century woman writer, yet highlight different stages of her intellectual and authorial self-development. During her four-year correspondence (1764–1768) with James Boswell, future author of The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Charrière is at the beginning of her career. She has just published the short story Le Noble (1763) and is still looking for a husband who will allow her to grow as a female intellectual and author. Boswell is one of her candidates for marriage. With Huber, Charrière is an already established author going through the final, particularly prolific, years of her career (1793–1803). Huber is the designated mediator and translator into German of her works. Bringing different moments in Charrière’s life and career to the fore, the correspondences with Boswell and Huber differ in tone: where Charrière takes a more sentimental stance in her letters to Boswell, she adopts a more professional posture in those to Huber (on the notion of posture, see Meizoz 2007). Despite those differences in focus and tone, the letters with Boswell and Huber show many similarities when it comes to (reflections on) language use.

How shall we approach the instances of multilingualism in the letters of Isabelle de Charrière? In what follows, we will raise a series of research questions that will not only guide us through the many instances of multilingualism in Charrière’s letters but can also serve as a starting point—or as a frame of reference—for broader (and more systematic) research on the forms and functions of multilingualism in early modern women writers’ letters. Before turning to these questions, however, it is important to note what we understand by “multilingualism” in letter writing.

In its basic definition, multilingualism in literature refers to the presence of more than one language (or language variety) in a “literary” text (Rossich 2018). Yet, in our research, we adopt a broader definition, multilingualism in early modern women’s letters being more than a mere concurrence of different languages. The early modern women under study also evoke multilingualism without actually alternating between languages by, for instance, deeply reflecting on, or simply hinting at, their own language and translation practices. Women’s letters thus reveal a certain degree of what Lise Gauvin (2000) has called surconscience linguistique in her study of francophone (mostly contemporary) literature.

When one aims to grasp the effect of these multilingual practices on the epistolary self-representation of early modern women writers, several research questions come to mind: which information does the woman writer convey by means of multilingualism, or what type of discourse (e.g. sentimental, philosophical, political) is the multilingual practice related to? How does the writer frame the practice in the text: Does she announce the practice or does she in any way comment upon or even justify the multilingual choices she has made by pointing, for instance, at her profession (author, translator, editor…), social status or gender? What is the extent of the practice: in the case of alternation, for instance, does the writer write full letter(s) in a foreign language, or does she limit the extent to a number of paragraphs, sentences or even words? What is the social context of the turn to multilingualism, that is at which point in her life and career, and in correspondence to whom, does the writer resort to multilingualism? These research angles should allow us to answer the most fundamental question as to why early women writers resort to multilingualism in their letters. Does the use of multilingualism indeed serve a strategic purpose by contributing to women writers’ epistolary self-representation, (re)shaping or confirming women writers’ portraits of the self as educated women or even femmes de lettres? To answer this question for Isabelle de Charrière, we will now turn to her correspondences with James Boswell and Ludwig Ferdinand Huber.

Letters to Boswell

In August 1763 the twenty-two-year-old Scot James Boswell arrives in Holland to study law at the University of Utrecht. Apart from studying Civil Law and the Classics, Boswell devotes himself to learning French. Developing a good command of French is particularly relevant for the young Boswell, as he often “pass[es] the evening in a literary society where it is not permitted to speak a word of anything but French”, so he states in his journal on October 31, 1763 (Pottle 1952, 55). Not long after attending his first literary soirées, Boswell meets the twenty-three-year-old Isabelle de Charrière, who is then still known as Belle van Zuylen.

Charrière leaves a strong impression on Boswell. He feels both attraction and repulsion for the unconventional woman who, like himself, has intellectual and authorial aspirations. In fact, it is precisely Charrière’s intellect that troubles him: “[Mademoiselle de Zuylen] is a charming creature. But she is a savante and a bel esprit, and has published some things. She is much my superior. One does not like that”, confesses Boswell in a letter to his friend William Johnson Temple on April 17, 1764 (Pottle 1952, 222, italics in original). Even if initially, Boswell has no intentions of marrying Charrière, their four-year correspondence, which starts off in June 1764, when Boswell is on the verge of setting off for his Grand Tour across the Continent, gives clear insight into matters of the heart, and the way in which they are in multiple letters intertwined with matters of gender and language.

The opening letter by Charrière, written over the course of four days, sets the tone. On June 14, 1764, Isabelle de Charrière writes that she would like to enter into correspondence as friends only, to discuss matters of religion and morality. Yet, the next morning, when picking up the thread of her letter, she shares to detailed degree her views on love and marriage. She thereby consciously portrays herself as an independent woman who is not afraid to challenge conventional ideas about the roles of women in society. Young Isabelle is not looking for domestic happiness. She prefers to explore the boundaries of marriage instead and to develop herself intellectually. Developing a good command of foreign languages, and of English in particular, will prove to play a significant role in her intellectual growth.

On June 17, 1764, Isabelle de Charrière adds the following lines to her opening letter, before sending it off to Boswell: “Write your rapid thoughts in English; when you wish to make grave reflections, the dictionary will do less harm, and you may write in French. I will do the same; that is to say, the opposite” (“Écrivez en anglais ce que vous penserez vite; quand vous voudrez écrire de graves réflexions, le dictionnaire fera moins de mal et vous pourrez écrire en français, je ferai la même chose, c’est-à-dire le rebours”, letter 0096, translated in Pottle 1952, 293). Charrière is aware that Boswell, like herself, is learning a foreign language, that is the dominant language of the other, and that writing in that language may not always be easy. She, therefore, suggests to use the foreign tongue for communicating a more profound reflection—hence cleverly associates language learning with intellectual development—and proposes to use the dominant language for sharing a spontaneous flow of thoughts. When there are no language barriers, ideas become “more vivid, more clear, more complete” (“plus vives, plus nettes, plus entières”, letter 1277, March 3, 1794), as will state Charrière thirty years later in a letter to her German translator Ludwig Ferdinand Huber. Thus, it seems that Charrière wishes to have a spontaneous, more sentimental, yet also intellectual exchange with Boswell, to which language is no constraint.

Boswell, in his rather succinct answer of June 18, 1764, written in French, agrees to exchanging letters with Charrière. He refuses, however, to share with her without reserve all that he thinks, so he declares in English on July 9:

You bid me, write whatever I think. I ask your pardon for not complying with that request. I shall write nothing that I do not think. But you are not the person to whom I would without reserve write all that I think. After this I shall write in French. Your correspondence will improve me much in that language. You write it charmingly. (letter 0099)

Boswell rejects his mother tongue because of its presumed connection to the intuitive sharing of inner thoughts and feelings. In doing so, Boswell cleverly follows Charrière’s idiosyncratic distinction between spontaneous and more philosophical writing to shift focus from sentimental to intellectual—and even educational—purposes.

In the same letter, Boswell not only appoints Charrière as an informal language teacher, but he also appoints himself as a “Mentor” to the young lady (letter 0099). He intends to reform Charrière and turn her into a conventional woman. He advises her to consider her “many real advantages” (ibid.) and not question any matters of religion and morality, or publish without permission (see Boswell’s letter to Charrière’s father, written on January 16, 1766, in Courtney 1993, 210–1). Although Boswell is determined to act as a mentor and share serious thought only, his correspondence with Isabelle de Charrière takes a more sentimental turn in practice, which is also reflected by Charrière’s language use.

The preserved letters of Isabelle de Charrière are all written in French, her dominant language, which she reserved, so she firmly stated, for a free flow of thoughts and feelings. Interestingly, up to two times, Charrière comments in her French letters that she had started writing in English but had to switch to French. Each time she was disturbed, and she no longer had “the peace, ease of mind and time that [she] needed in order to respond well to [his] letters” (“[la] tranquillité, le repos d’esprit et le loisir qu’il [lui] fallait pour répondre bien à [ses] lettres”, letter 0176, January 27, 1765, italics are ours). That does, however, not mean that Charrière never turned to English in her French letters at all. Oftentimes, she briefly quoted Boswell’s English before responding to it in French. On February 16, 1768, for instance, she writes: “Regarding your question how we would do together, it took root at Zuylen. It has accompanied you on your journey and it presents itself in and out of time” (“Pour la question how we would do together, elle a pris naissance à Zuylen. Elle vous a accompagné dans vos voyages et elle se représente en temps et hors du temps”, letter 0294, italics are ours). Around the same time, Isabelle de Charrière sends James Boswell a letter that is fully written in English.

Even though Charrière’s English letter has not been preserved, we have a slight idea of what she must have written thanks to Boswell’s short—yet explicit—reference to her English in a letter to his friend William Temple, written on April 26, 1768:

I have not yet given up with Zélide. Just after I wrote to you last, I received a letter from her, full of good sense and of tenderness. ‘My dear friend,’ says she, ‘it is prejudice that has kept you so much at a distance from me. If we meet, I am sure that prejudice will be removed.’ The letter is in English. (Pottle 1952, 362)

What catches the eye here is that Isabelle de Charrière discusses feelings in what is, to her, a foreign tongue. From the remainder of Boswell’s letter to Temple, we learn that in those days, Boswell and Charrière were thinking more seriously about marrying each other. Marriage was indeed a serious business to Charrière, who wished to marry a man who loved her dearly and, above all, did not restrict her freedom of thought or expression (Vissière 1994). Does that explain her turn to English in the correspondence with Boswell? Or was there a more sentimental aspect to her use of English after all?

Four years earlier, James Boswell had already advised Isabelle de Charrière to “[s]ave all those wild things that [she] [said] to anyone who [would] listen, and that [were] not understood, or [were] misinterpreted—[to] save them for [him], [her] friend—[to] say them in English” (“Gardez toutes ces folies que vous dites à qui veut les entendre, qu'on ne comprend pas, ou qu'on interprète mal, gardez-les pour moi, pour votre ami, dites-les en anglais”, letter 0126 from Isabelle de Charrière to Constant d’Hermenches, written on August 17–19, 1764, translated in Whatley et al. 2000, 139, italics are ours). According to Boswell, friendship “desire[d] some privileges” (“vous devriez ménager les jalousies de l'amitié, sentir qu'elle veut des privilèges”, ibid.). By stating so, he gave a new dimension to Charrière’s use of English, a language she initially preserved for deep reflection: English could also function as the language of friendship and maybe even of love.

The idea of a possible marriage between Boswell and Charrière was eventually rejected over a matter of translation. At the time they were discussing their possible union, Boswell was finishing up his Account of Corsica, the Journal of a Tour to that Island; and Memoirs of Pascal Paoli (1768). Charrière, who was impressed by Boswell’s work and spoke of it with enthusiasm in her letters (see Courtney 1993, 246–7), agreed to translating his Account. True to her independent mind, she did not shy away from suggesting certain adjustments. When Boswell authoritatively refused her request to alter or adjust, Charrière firmly rejected both the translation and his hand:

I was far advanced in the task, but I wanted permission to change some things that were bad, and to abridge others which French impatience would have found unmercifully long- winded. The author, although he had at the moment almost made up his mind to marry me if I would have him, was not willing to sacrifice a syllable of his book to my taste. I wrote to him that I was firmly decided never to marry him, and I have abandoned the translation. (Pottle 1952, 372, italics in original).

J’étais très avancée, mais je voulais qu’on me permît de changer des choses qui étaient mal, d’en abréger d’autres que l’impatience française aurait trouvé d’une longueur assommante. L’auteur, quoiqu’il fût dans ce moment presque décidé à m’épouser si je le voulais, n’a pas voulu sacrifier à mon gout une syllabe de son livre. Je lui ai écrit que j’étais très décidée à ne jamais l’épouser et j’ai abandonné la traduction (letter 0302 from Isabelle de Charrière to Constant d’Hermenches, June 2, 1768).

Isabelle de Charrière would never vow to be Boswell’s faithful translator, nor his faithful wife. Her letters to the Scot reveal her quest for identity, in which language plays no minor part. Charrière was searching her voice as a woman, as an intellectual and as an author. Simultaneously, she was in search of her multilingual voice, which she would use with more confidence—as an established female intellectual and author—in her later correspondence with Ludwig Ferdinand Huber.

Letters to Huber

As the son of a German father and a French mother, Ludwig Ferdinand Huber was raised and educated bilingually. When his German diplomatic career ended abruptly in 1793, he moved to Neuchâtel, Switzerland, where he met the already established Isabelle de Charrière. To support his family, Huber, who was only twenty-nine at the time, turned his focus to literature and offered his translation services to the fifty-three-year-old woman writer (Roche 1997). In the years that followed, Huber played a pivotal role in the distribution of Charrière’s oeuvre in Germany, as a translator but also as a literary critic and editor (Moser-Verrey 2004; Heuser 2008). Hence, their ten-year correspondence is more professional in tone than the correspondence between Boswell and Charrière. It is indeed characterised by “an intensive exchange about details and principles of the art of translation” (Heuser 2008, 40). During a short period of intense collaboration in the beginning of their relationship, Huber and Charrière also address questions about the “genius” (“génie particulier”, letter 1278, March 4, 1794) of languages, and more specifically, about the differences between French and German (Heuser 2008; Moser-Verrey 2004). As we will see, these theoretical discussions constitute the framework for Charrière’s frequent alternations between languages, and between French and German in particular.

The discussion starts in February 1794, when Isabelle de Charrière sends Ludwig Ferdinand Huber her Inconsolable (1794). According to the writer, the comedy “will amuse [her translator] sufficiently […] and it will lend itself quite well to an elegant translation, should [he] think it worthy of one” (“L’Inconsolable […] vous amusera assez, je pense, et […] se prêtera fort bien à une élégante traduction, supposé que vous l’en trouviez digne”, letter 1269, February 27, 1794). In the short description of her piece, Charrière hesitates between self-effacement and self-affirmation. While her hesitation could be explained by gender dynamics (see, for instance, Pender 2012 on the self-imposed modesty of early modern women writers), it could also be interpreted as a way of gently guiding Huber to a German translation without too blatantly showing expertise. In the letters that follow, Charrière gradually takes a more self-affirmative stance and she clearly draws attention to her language and translation skills. On March 1, she asks her translator a “question out of simple curiosity”, portraying herself thereby as a “great thinker about languages”:

I would be curious to know whether it is allowed in languages other than in French, in German, for example, to group things that are unrelated in the same category. The classes of society, the union and the legitimacy. I am quoting from memory, as I do not have the axioms on my bed, and I am only asking the question out of simple curiosity, because I know that—in something that appears in public, such as a newspaper—you will only have said what you were allowed to say. [But] [t]he translation was only for me, and it would have been a waste of time to make much fuss about it, so I don’t criticise—I don’t even think I warn—only, as a great thinker about languages, I ask.

Je serais curieuse de savoir si dans d'autres langues que le français, en allemand par exemple, il est permis de mettre en même catégorie des choses qui n'ont point d'affinité entr'elles. Les classes de la société, l'union et la légitimité. Je cite de tête n'ayant pas les axiomes sur mon lit et je ne fais qu'une question de simple curiosité, car je sais bien que – dans une chose qui paraît en public, comme un journal – vous n'aurez dit que comme il était permis de dire. La traduction n'était que pour moi et c'eût été temps perdu que d'y faire beaucoup de façons, je ne critique donc pas - je ne crois pas même que j'avertisse - seulement, en grande réfléchisseuse sur les langues, je demande. (letter 1275, italics in original)

Isabelle de Charrière is sensitive to accurate word use in both French and German, and hence in both original and translation. Even if she questions Huber’s translation choices, she does not criticise them yet; she still relies on Huber’s translation expertise. Only a few weeks later, on March 17, Charrière comments freely upon Huber’s translation and she even makes some corrections to it:

You called my Inconsolable [Untröstliche] the Disconsolate [Trostlose] in German; so be it, if you think it better that way. In French, it will continue to be called The Inconsolable, and allow me to say that I see no more similarities between the inconsolable and the consoled than between the midnight of a long winter night and the fine day of today.

Vous avez appelé en allemand mon Inconsolable le Désolé; à la bonne heure, si vous le trouvez mieux ainsi. En français il continuera à s’appeler L’inconsolable et souffrez que je ne trouve pas plus de rapport entre l’inconsolable et le consolé qu’entre la [sic.] minuit d’une longue nuit d’hiver et le beau jour que je vois luire dans ce moment. (letter 1293, March 17, 1794, italics in original)

Comparing the title of her French original to Huber’s translation, Isabelle de Charrière hints at her knowledge of German. She clearly thinks herself fluent in Huber’s mother tongue and able to correct—and even reject—his translation. What is more, she portrays herself as a true “defender of the French language” (“défenseur de la langue française”, letter 1281, March 6, 1794), presenting the French original as the better option.

The translation of L’Inconsolable drives a wedge between its author and its translator (see also Moser-Verrey 2004 and Heuser 2008). Charrière, who is “ruthless when it comes to the purity and precision of language” (“impitoyable en ce qui touche la pureté, la précision du langage”, letter 1670, January 5, 1796), questions whether Huber has rendered her ideas well enough in German. She seems to believe that the German language—and literature—lack clarity. According to her, “it is the duty of a German (of [Huber’s] intellect), who knows French well, to bring the elegant clarity of the French language into his own” (“il me paraîtrait du devoir d’un Allemand (de votre esprit) qui sait bien le français, de porter dans sa langue l’élégante clarté du français”, letter 1277, March 3, 1794). Huber, in his turn, refuses to accept the superiority of French over German, and points to the individual qualities and capacities of languages. Even if he does not agree with Charrière, he values her opinion and sees their “fight” as an opportunity for learning: “I am not leaving the game just yet, Madam, because whether I win or lose, I learn by continuing the fight with such an opponent” (“Je ne quitte pas encore la partie, Madame, parce que vainqueur ou vaincu, je m’instruis moi-même en continuant le combat avec un tel adversaire”, letter 1278, March 4, 1794, italics are ours). Charrière too finds it “wonderful […] to occupy [Huber] with [her] remarks and [her] many objections, to draw [him] into this kind of battle [even though she] knows that [she] is a champion unworthy of [her opponent]” (“Il est glorieux pour moi de vous occuper de mes remarques et de mes objections assez pour vous attirer dans cette espèce de lutte, où je sens bien que je suis un champion très indigne de vous”, letter 1280, March 5, 1794).

Eventually, the “battle” gives way to a fruitful collaboration between the writer and the translator. On March 30, 1794, Charrière, who supported the Huber family financially, informs her translator that she will write him “a German comedy, that is to say, a French comedy, written in French and according to French rules, but meant for translation […] into German only” (“J’ai dans la tête une comédie allemande, c’est-à-dire française, écrite en français et à la française, mais uniquement pour être traduite par vous en allemand”, letter 1342). Charrière’s French comedies had been translated into German before, but the German translations had never been turned into an original. Now, Charrière, who “did not want to break the laws of the German theatre any more than she wanted to break those of the French theatre” (“voulant aussi peu blesser les lois du théâtre allemand […] que les lois du théâtre français”, ibid.), would have to adapt to the German literary standards, and to the particularities of the German language. In order to do so, she appoints Huber as her “co-author” (“co-écrivain”, letter 1403, August 15, 1794) rather than her translator:

[T]his time, Mr Huber will be more than just a translator. If there is something that he does not like about the play that I send him, I will write, I will rewrite until he likes it. It will be fully his, which means that I will have to make it appealing to him, and he will have to do every possible thing to make it appealing to the public.

[…] M. Huber sera plus que traducteur dans cette occasion, et si quelque chose lui déplaît dans la pièce telle que je la lui enverrai, je ferai, je déferai jusqu’à ce qu’elle lui plaise. Elle sera pleinement sa propriété de sorte qu’il faudra bien la lui rendre agréable, et lui il devra ne rien négliger pour qu’elle le soit au public. (letter 1346, June 1, 1794)

In the letters that follow, it becomes clear to what extent Isabelle de Charrière values Ludwig Ferdinand Huber as a representative of the German literary field: his translation of Élise ou l’Université (Eitelkeit und Liebe, 1795) gives way to an a posteriori reflection on, and corrective rewriting of, the French manuscript. Even though Charrière has confidence in Huber’s abilities to refine her German comedy, she does not hesitate to revise his adaptation. She is an attentive reader and writer after all:

You will see how careful I have read. You make Wilhelmine say: when she had done everything to […], whereas I have made her say: when, after having done everything to keep her close, he abandons her. The he specifies the implied subject of the first part of the sentence, which would not be true when one understood that she would have done everything etc. Thus, it should read When … but why should I violate German? You can perfectly find a way yourself to make Wilhelmine say that after he had done everything to charm her, he ended up abandoning her. It is in response to that, that the baron speaks of the ingrate who first captivated her heart and now makes her mourn and repent alone.

Vous allez voir avec quelle attention j’ai lu. Vous faites dire à Wilhelmine: wenn sie alles gethan hätte um ihn, et je lui faisais dire: quand après avoir tout fait pour se l’attacher, il l’abandonne. Cet il détermine le nominatif sous-entendu du premier membre de la phrase, qui ne serait pas correct si on entendait qu’elle eût tout fait etc. Il faudrait donc Wenn … mais pourquoi estropierais-je de l’allemand? Vous trouverez bien sans moi le moyen de faire dire à Wilhelmine qu’après qu’il a mis tous ses soins à lui plaire, il a fini par l’abandonner. C’est à cela que répond le baron en parlant de l’Undankbaren der erst ihr Herz gefesselt hat und sie nun allein trauern und bereuen last. (letter 1396, August 3, 1794, italics in original)

In her comment on Huber’s translation, Isabelle de Charrière hesitates again between self-affirmation and self-effacement. While she does not shy away from pointing out a syntactical error that Huber has made, she refrains from rewriting the sentence in German, leaving the correction to her translator’s expertise. It seems as if Charrière feels less confident about writing in German than about discussing German. One could argue that she takes a modest stance on purpose, to negotiate her image of a female intellectual, expecting Huber to acknowledge her multilingual abilities. Yet, it could also be argued that she refrains from rewriting in German to acknowledge Huber as her translator and her “co-author”, with whom she wishes to write together like “two Dutch or Flemish painters who worked together on the same painting” and who benefited from “each other’s talent” (“Nos peintres hollandais ou flamands qui travaillent deux à un même tableau […]. Et chacun profitait du talent de son camarade”, letter 1396, August 3, 1794). In the end, however, it is Isabelle de Charrière who takes again advantage of her “right as an author” (“le droit comme auteur”, letter 1341, May 28, 1794) and asks Ludwig Ferdinand Huber to conform to her standards and to those of the French language:

There is an expression in another scene that I do not like very much. Let us see if I can write it. Insensitive virtue. It is the count who reproaches Wilhelmine for this insensitive virtue. I understand that in German there is no such ambiguity as there is in French. It is a non-sensitive virtue, not an impalpable one, that is being discussed. But non-sensitive virtue seems very inappropriate too. People can be insensitive, but their virtue is neither sensitive nor insensitive. It may be called barbarous, because its effects are unpleasant to bear, or rigid, severe, inflexible, because that is its nature, but never insensitive, because it is not a sentient being. I beg my co-author to change this word, even if it is common in German. It is up to the good writers to change the bad habits.

Il y a une expression dans une autre scène que je n’aime pas beaucoup. Voyons si je pourrai l’écrire. Unempfindliche Tugend. C’est le comte qui reproche cette vertu insensible à Wilhelmine. J’entends bien qu’il n’y a pas en allemand la même équivoque qu’en français. C’est une vertu non sensible et non pas impalpable, dont il est question. Mais la vertu non sensible me paraît très impropre aussi. L’homme peut être insensible, mais sa vertu n’est ni sensible ni insensible. Elle peut être appelée barbare parce que ses effets sont fâcheux à supporter ou rigide, sévère, inflexible, parce que telle est sa nature, mais jamais insensible, parce qu’elle n’est pas un être sentant. Je supplie mon co-écrivain de vouloir bien changer ce mot quand même il serait d’usage en allemande. C’est aux bons écrivains à changer les mauvais usages. (letter 1403, August 15, 1794, italics in original)

Even if Isabelle de Charrière alternates most regularly between different languages during this short period of intense co-creation, to discuss indeed Huber’s translation choices, she does not shy away from alternating at other times too, to discuss very different topics in even more different languages. On August 15, 1798, three years after the publication of Élise ou l’Université, Charrière writes, for instance:

England would be a beautiful country for my learned little friend [Mlle de Gélieu]. She would be better off in England than in Switzerland, where almost nothing is known, or than in France, where so many frivolous things suppress wisdom, science and reason […]. She would also be better off than in Germany, [because] good fortune has made all of the arts flourish there. Sprightliness is rare in England, but cleverness is common, and the science is elegant and well behaved.

L’Angleterre serait un beau pays pour ma savante petite amie. Elle y serait mieux qu’en Suisse où l’on ne sait presque rien, qu’en France où tant de choses frivoles étouffent la sagesse, la science, la raison […], elle y serait mieux aussi par mille raisons qu’en Allemagne, les richesses y ont fait fleurir tous les arts. Le sprightliness y est rare mais le cleverness y est commun, et la science y est élégante and well behaved. (letter 1943, italics in original)

On multiple occasions in her correspondence with Huber, Charrière turns to English and to German to convey a meaning or feeling that cannot be accurately expressed in French. Often, she draws Huber’s attention to the specific tone or connotation of the foreign language, and she explains—sometimes with remarkable detail—why some (foreign) words ought to be preferred to others. Thus, Charrière underscores once again her image of an established, more self-assured female intellectual and author, who is sensitive to the clarity, precision and purity of (foreign) language use in (letter) writing.

Conclusion

In this article, we have expanded upon the different forms and functions of multilingualism in the letters of Isabelle de Charrière, questioning whether multilingualism served indeed a strategic purpose by contributing to the writer’s epistolary self-representation, (re)shaping or confirming her portrait of the self as an educated woman or femme de lettres. We have proposed a series of research angles (discourse, frame, extent and social context) that have allowed us to approach the instances of multilingualism in Charrière’s letters. From our analysis, it has then, for instance, appeared that Charrière reserved specific languages for specific topics, especially in her earlier correspondence to James Boswell (see, for instance, the particular link between foreign language use and a didactic, but sometimes also sentimental, discourse). Furthermore, our analysis has shown that Charrière often takes a self-reflective stance in the framing of the multilingual practice, corroborating thus her profile of an (aspiring) woman writer. Interestingly, this corroboration does not necessarily materialise through the adoption of a self-affirmative stance (as our opening quote would seem to suggest), rather it crystallises through an oscillation between self-affirmation, on the one hand, and self-effacement, on the other. Our contextualised reading of multilingualism in the letters of Isabelle de Charrière has then allowed for a fruitful comparison between the letters to James Boswell and those to Ludwig Ferdinand Huber, and for an illustration of the dynamic interplay between language, gender and authority, which characterises so many letters of early modern women writers, as future research will further reveal.

More in particular, our reading has highlighted different stages of Charrière’s intellectual and authorial self-development. In her letters to Boswell, Charrière was still searching her voice as a woman, as an intellectual and as an author. In her letters to Huber, she had already secured some authority and she clearly took the stance of a more established female intellectual and author. In both the epistolary construction and representation of Charrière’s intellectual and authorial self, language, or rather multilingualism, took no minor part. In fact, Charrière’s letters to Boswell and Huber have revealed many instances of multilingualism: not only did Charrière alternate between different languages (French, English and German), she also referred to, and even deeply reflected upon, her language and translation choices. Where multilingualism was mainly part of an educational program in the correspondence with Boswell, it served as a means to negotiate female intellectual authority in the correspondence with Huber. The many alternations and reflections upon (foreign) language use in the latter correspondence allowed, moreover, for a renegotiation and strengthening of the bond between writer and translator. As a result, multilingualism clearly served a strategic purpose in the letters of Isabelle de Charrière.

Finally, our contextualised reading of multilingualism in the letters of Charrière has provided a starting point for broader (more comparative) research on the multilingual dimensions of early modern women’s letters. Examining the forms and functions of multilingualism in women’s letters will not only shed new light upon the way in which those women writers actively (re)shaped and (re)negotiated their intellectual and authorial identity; it will also contribute a fresh perspective to the growing scholarly interest in the transcultural and multilingual dimensions of women’s lives and works in the early modern period. Moreover, through its focus on the strategic use of (foreign) languages, it will further nuance the myth of French as a lingua franca and give clear insight into the availability, spread and use of different languages in Europe at a time when languages, cultures and nations became increasingly intertwined.