The Little Living room

It was commissioned between 1814 and 1817 by the Duc d’Aumont, peer of France and gentleman to the king's privy chamber under Louis the Eighteenth, for his mansion in Paris. Classified as a Monument Historique, it comprises eight chairs, two sofas, a fire-screen, an armchair and a footrest.

This furniture, upholstered with a fabric known as lampas Hortense, evokes the presence at Chaumont of Germaine de Staël.

Early 1810, the author Germaine de Staël was living in exile from Paris for her fierce opposition of the Emperor Napoleon. She stayed mostly at her father's home, the Château de Coppet, in Switzerland. To allow her to oversee the printing of her book, De L’Allemagne, in Tours, James Leray, owner of the Domain of Chaumont, invited her to live at the Château during his absence, since it offered convenient asylum, not too near to the capital and not too far from its intellectual milieu. Madame de Staël accepted and brought with her a small band of followers: the novelist and politician Benjamin Constant, the renowned society leader Juliette Récamier, the German writer and botanist Adalbert Von Chamisso and the German philosopher Schlegel. The Château became both a literary salon and a hub of opposition. This distinguished crowd lived there from April to August 1810, idling their time away discussing politics, literature and love. When James Leray announced his return, Madame de Staël preferred to leave for the nearby Château de Fossé. The first copies of her book De L’Allemagne were seized. It was condemned on the 24^th of September and its author ordered to leave France. Madame de Staël then returned to Switzerland.