They spent most of their lives around those of the upper class in Aix-la-Chapelle, with those who were trying to establish the town of Spa, Belgium, and particularly with Pauline Bonaparte.

Sophie's salon, women of the chattering classes, was often supplemented by artists, musicians, writers and drawers, and painters, who loved her for her wit, beauty, and largesse.

Ten years later, Sophie published Léonie de Montbreuse, which was critically acclaimed by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve as her best novel, but Anatole of 1815, a story of lost romance, may be the most famous of her works.

As an acclaimed musician, she also published numerous romantic songs, accompanied on the piano, for which she wrote both the words and music: Maris is perhaps a best example, although she would also write in the elegiac style.

Some say Sophie also had another brother, who died in the Siege of Constantine of 1830, but others say he survived, continued his education in England, and then returned to France.

For an account of her daughter, Delphine Gay, her mother's work of 1834, Souvenirs d'une vieille femme ("memoirs from an old woman.

See also Théophile Gautier's Portraits contemporains and Sainte-Beuve's, Causeries du lundi (Monday's chats, essentially).