ABSTRACT
France's cultural capital, namely its literary and philosophical heritage, was viewed as aspects of a culture unequaled by France's neighbors. In the wake of the upheaval of the Revolution, nineteenth-century France found itself searching for self-definition and a vision of what greatness could be salvaged from the rubble of its recent past. From the seventeenth century until the Revolution, the monarch and his court profoundly influenced the image France projected to the world. In 1732, Evrard Titon du Tillet published a detailed and comprehensive work dedicated to the memory of France's seventeenth-century literary culture. France is unique among nations due to the generalized and highly developed participation of women in culture, as both patrons and as writers. Stephanie Felicite de Genlis goes to great lengths not only to inscribe women's participation, but also to isolate and emphasize the indelible mark their works have had on France's literary field.
