Her parents were described by the Scots author James Boswell, then a student in law in Utrecht and one of her suitors, as "one of the most ancient noblemen in the Seven Provinces" and "an Amsterdam lady, with a great deal of money".

However, French would remain her preferred language for the rest of her life, which helps to explain why, for a long time, her work was not as well known in her country of birth as it otherwise might have been.

Isabelle enjoyed a much broader education than was usual for girls at that time, thanks to the liberal views of her parents who also let her study subjects like mathematics, physics and languages including Latin, Italian, German and English.

Invited specially by Anne Pollexfen Drake and also her husband lieutenant general George Eliott to come to their London home in Curzon Street, Mayfair, Isabelle did come by boat from Hellevoetsluis to Harwich 7 November 1766 accompanied by her brother Ditie, her maid Doortje and her valet Vitel.

M. de Charrière, born in Colombier (near Neuchâtel), Switzerland[3] had been the private tutor of her brother Willem René abroad from 1763 to 1766.

The couple settled at Le Pontet in Colombier, bought by his grandfather Béat Louis de Muralt, with her father-in-law François (1697–1780) and her two unmarried sisters-in-law Louise (1731–1810) and Henriette (1740–1814).

Neuchâtel enjoyed freedom of religion which resulted in the arrival of many refugees including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Béat Louis de Muralt and David Wemyss, Lord Elcho.

[4][5][6][7] According to the opinion of Drieënhuizen and Douze in their publication of 2021 in her letters and in her novel Trois Femmes (Three Women, 1795–1798) De Charrière mentioned slavery uncritically.

However, the opposite was the case while she wrote about what she called the horrors (horreurs) in the colonies in a letter (number 1894, of 1798, so she was not indifferent to excesses of slavery, as was detailed by the editor of her correspondence Suzan van Dijk.

In 1760, Isabelle met David-Louis Constant d'Hermenches (1722–1785), a married Swiss officer regarded in society as a Don Juan.

She sent a libretto of Les Phéniciennes to Mozart Salzburg, while he was living in Vienna, hoping that he'ld writing music to it, but no reply is known.

Van Zuylen's parents bought the entire book edition in 1763, in order to prevent further distribution of this satire on the nobility.

Il y avait dans une des provinces de France un château très ancien, habité par un vieux rejeton d'une famille encore plus ancienne.

Mais son château se serait mieux trouvé d'être un peu plus moderne: une des tours comblait déjà une partie du fossé; on ne voyait dans le reste qu'un peu d'eau bourbeuse, et les grenouilles y avaient pris la place des poissons.

Sa table était frugale, mais tout autour de la salle à manger régnaient les bois des cerfs tués par ses aïeux.

Il dépensait son modique revenu à pousser un procès pour le droit de pendre sur ses terres; et il ne lui serait jamais venu dans l'esprit qu'on pût faire un meilleur usage de son bien, ni laisser à ses enfants quelque chose de mieux que la haute et basse justice.

He spent his modest income pushing a lawsuit over the right to hang people on his estate, and it would never have occurred to him that he could make better use of his property or that he could leave his children anything better than the high and low justice.