ABSTRACT
This chapter builds on the recent resurgence of interest to suggest the richness and contemporary significance of Felicite de Genlis' ill-known oeuvre. If one had to name the French Catholic Enlightenment's foremost woman representative, the choice would fall naturally on Stephanie-Felicite du Crest de Saint-Aubin, Countess de Genlis. At Bellechasse, Genlis imparted what can only be described as an encyclopedic education akin to the one she had acquired herself. The Duchess made Genlis' reputation "shine in Paris and radiate through the whole of France", going rapidly through multiple editions. This popularity was perhaps due partly to the fact that, even when narrating adultery, Genlis managed to make the seventeenth century paramount for its piety, conjuring sympathetically La Valliere's inner struggle between her love of virtue and her love for the king, and even publishing a Penitent Life of Madame de La Valliere to accompany The Duchess that described La Valliere's post-affair convent happiness.
