"In 1784, perhaps sensing the upheavals to come in France, Necker had bought the barony of Coppet to serve as a safe haven. His only daughter Germaine, then eighteen, was already gaining a reputation in the Paris salons for her intellect and vivacity, and had an array of suitors from whom she picked the man “she least disliked”, the stolid and self-important Baron de Staël Holstein, chamberlain to the Queen of Sweden. The marriage seems to have proved unsatisfactory for both of them, and the Baron took very much the back seat, overshadowed by his wife’s high profile and her passionate joie de vivre.

Necker retired to Coppet in 1790 after the Revolution, from when Germaine’s (now Madame de Staël’s) literary and philosophical salon began to attract the leading intellects of the day. The Swiss author Benjamin Constant (with whom de Staël may have conducted a long-lasting affair) was a regular visitor, as were the philosopher Schlegel, Chateaubriand, Lord Byron, and others. Madame de Staël organized life at the château around her constant flow of guests: lunch, it is said, was served at 5pm, dinner at 11pm, with musical soirées and lavishly staged playlets presented in the library in between, and debates and discussions afterwards which continued late into the night.

In 1804 Necker died, and the château passed into the hands of Madame de Staël, who was forced to remain there in permanent exile after 1806 following her persistent public denunciation of Napoleon."
~from http://switzerland.isyours.com/e/index.html ~