Guizot’s wives

Anonyme. Portrait de Pauline et Henriette de Meulan. Pastel, fin 18e. Collection particulière. Cliché François Louchet.On April 9, 1812 in the Church of the Oratory and the Madeleine church, Guizot married Madeleine Pauline de Meulan, a woman of letters born in 1773 into an aristocratic family ruined by the Revolution that he had known since 1807. They were extremely happy together until her death from tuberculosis on August 1, 1827.

Miniature de Eliza Dillon-Guizot. Collection particulière de François Louchet.Guizot’s second marriage was to Eliza Dillon on November 8, 1828 in the same places. Eliza, born in 1804, was the eldest daughter of Pauline de Meulan’s younger sister, Henriette Dillon. She had been living in the Guizots’ house since 1823. Like her aunt, she very efficiently supported her husband in his intellectual and political activities. She died on March 11, 1833 from a puerperal fever after the birth of their son Guillaume.