I have no talent for submissiveness

Belle felt involved in everything that happened in Europe and was a supporter of enlightened ideas that often conflicted with the traditional views of her family and class. This even led to her parents withdrawing Le Noble, a short story she wrote in 1762 in which she pokes fun at the old-fashioned customs of some noble families, from sale. Over the years, many potential suitors presented themselves at Slot Zuylen but her progressive ideas frightened them all away again. As she puts it herself in a pithy passage in a letter to James Bosswell: "I have no talent for submissiveness".

However in 1771, Belle finally married a lettered and erudite Swiss gentleman, Charles-Emmanuel de Charrière de Penthaz, with whom she set up home in Colombier close to Neuchâtel. Her marriage coincided almost exactly with the start of her international career as a writer. Her complete works have been published under the title of Oeuvres Complètes. A selection of her letters is also available in a Dutch translation of the original French.

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