Mary Elizabeth Clarke was born in
Westminster in 1793. After the death of her father, Charles Clarke, Mary, at age 8, her mother, Elizabeth, and grandmother moved to France in 1801. Both her guardians were strong and independent-minded women. Her Scottish grandmother had hobnobbed with thinkers like
David Hume and
Adam Smith in Edinburgh and before the
French Revolution lived in
Dunkirk. Mary's mother Elizabeth was a progressive free thinker. Ties with England were not lost; in 1808 Mary's sister, Eleanor, married
John Frewen-Turner, a member of parliament. Mary would frequently visit their home at
Cold Overton in Leicestershire. as well as a leader in French
intellectual salon society. After the
1815 restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, Mary Clarke came to know
Juliette Recamier... Through her, she met literary greats such as
Stendhal,
Hugo,
Prosper Merimee and
Chateaubriand. Chateaubriand – author of
Memoirs from Beyond the Grave – was by now a grumpy old man, but he cheered up when entertained by "la jeune anglaise". During her relationship with Claude Fauriel, she became acquainted with the family of the famous Italian writer and poet
Alessandro Manzoni to Mohl in 1881 In 1838 she made her final move when she rented rooms above the writer and historian
François-René de Chateaubriand. These were a third floor apartment at 120 Rue du Bac in the Saint-Germain district. There,"she offered a home-from-home" to
William Thackeray, the
Brownings, and the
Trollopes, "as well as to many aristocrats, diplomats and politicians." In 1847, at around 54 years old, she married the orientalist
Julius von Mohl who was the son of the prime minister to the king of
Württemberg. It was said that someone coughed when she gave her age at the marriage and that it was recorded as 39. This book drew on her knowledge of Récamier, but it also outlined her interest in women and a history of their rights. She was a lifelong advocate for women and reading. In 1870–71, Mohl decided to avoid France's war with Prussia, and spent the winter with friends in London. Having retired from being a hostess, Mohl died in
Paris in 1883. She was buried with her husband in Paris in the Pere Lachaise cemetery. ==References==