The matrimonial selection of
Susanne Curchod was natural in a girl of her serious make-up, her
moral education and her pure ancestry of the strict Protestant type.
As a girl of sixteen, she had given evidence of remarkable mental
ability and had acquired a wide knowledge--physics, Latin, philosophy,
metaphysics--when she was sent to Lausanne, possibly with the idea
of meeting a future husband with whom she could become thoroughly
acquainted before giving up her independence. There she became
the centre of a group or academy of young people, who, under her
leadership, discussed subjects of every nature. At first she showed
a tendency toward _preciosite_ and the spirit of the blue-stocking
rather than toward the seriousness and dignity which marked her later
career.

It was at Lausanne that she met and fell in love with Gibbon, the
English historian; this love affair met with opposition from Gibbon's
father, and, after the death of the father of his fiancee, a calamity
which left her poor and necessitated her teaching for a living,
the Englishman, by his actions and manner toward her, compelled the
breaking of their engagement. When, later in life, he went to her
salon, they became intimate friends, enjoying "the intellectual union
which had been impossible for them in their earlier days."

Thus, at the age of twenty-four, Mlle. Curchod, beautiful, virtuous,
and accomplished, and at the height of her reputation in a small town
in Switzerland, was left an orphan. She was taken to Paris by Mme. de
Vermenoux, a wealthy widow, who was sought in marriage by M. Necker,
banker and capitalist; but, as she was unable to make up her mind to
a definite answer, his attention was attracted to her young companion.
The result was that, after a few months' sojourn in Paris, Mlle.
Curchod became the wife of M. Necker, an event which caused rejoicing
from Lausanne to Geneva. Their characters are well portrayed in two
letters, written by them to their friends after their marriage. M.
Necker wrote, in reply to a letter of congratulation:

"Yes, sir; your friend (Mlle. Curchod) was indeed willing to have me,
and I believe myself as happy as one can be. I cannot understand how
it can be you whom they congratulate, unless it is as my friend. Will
money always be the measure of opinion? That is pitiable! He who
wins a virtuous, kind, and sensible woman--has he not made a good
transaction, whether or not she be seated on sacks of money? Human