Belle van Zuylen or Isabelle de Charrière in the Netherlands and Switzerland
16 June 2025
Belle van Zuylen (1740-1805) is known abroad, especially in Switzerland, by the name Isabelle de Charrière. Her birthplace, or castle of birth, was Slot Zuylen in the village of Zuilen, today Oud-Zuilen in the municipality of Stichtse Vecht (province of Utrecht).
As the name suggests, the castle is located on the Vecht. At the time of Belle, this river was a trade route between Utrecht, Amsterdam, and the Zuiderzee. The castle’s origins date back to the 12th century.
The Vecht
Initially, it was a motte, a fortified tower. The strategic location on the Vecht, in the powerful bishopric of Utrecht at the time, was a source of income through tolls.
Over the centuries, the complex was continuously expanded and adapted to new residential uses and new styles of the day. The last major renovation took place in the 19th century.
Belle was the daughter of Diederik Jacob Tuyll van Serooskerken (1707-1776) and Jacoba Helena de Vicq (1724-1768).
She married Charles-Emmanuel de Charrère de Penthaz (1735-1808) in 1771, residing at the manoir Le Pontet in Colombier, in the French-speaking Prussian principality of Neuchâtel. He was the French-speaking house teacher of her eldest brother Willem (1743-1839). Belle moved to Colombier and thereafter called herself Isabelle de Charrière.
The desk of Belle in Zuylen Castle
As was common at the time (and until the 20th century), the aristocracy was bilingual (or trilingual): the mother tongue, French, and sometimes Latin. Belle is best known for her literary legacy, which includes correspondence, literature, plays, and various other writings in French.
She lived and wrote in Colombier from 1771 onwards. In both countries, the Netherlands and Switzerland (particularly the canton of Neuchâtel), her legacy is part of the cultural heritage or patrimoine.
The Netherlands knows the museum in Zuylen Castle and the Belle van Zuylen / Isabelle de Charrière Society, while the University of Neuchâtel (and the University of Lausanne) and the Public and University Library of Neuchâtel pay attention to her life and works, among others with 1 530 letters out of a collection of around 2 600 letters and her writings.
In September 2025, a detailed article about Isabelle’s life in Switzerland and particularly in Colombier will appear in the Nouvelle Revue neuchâteloise. The Swiss Spectator will contribute to her life at Zuylen Castle and in the Netherlands. In this way, the Dutch and Swiss life paths of this woman of the Enlightenment will be highlighted. Belle, alias Isabelle, perfectly symbolises this era.
Switzerland, with its many immigrants and visitors from England, Russia, Germany, and France, its societies, export networks, and emerging industries at the time, is often overlooked as a hub of the Enlightenment.
Lord Byron, Edward Gibbon, Madame de Staël, Rousseau, and Voltaire are just a few names from the 18th and 19th centuries, just as Basel was the intellectual, humanist, and printing and publishing centre in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Literature: K. Verboeket, Slot Zuylen, Oud-Zuilen, Amsterdam, 2003; K. van Strien, Belle van Zuylen. Een leven in Holland, Soesterberg, 2019; J. Bujard et autres, ‘Le Manoir du Pontet à Colombier’, dans la Nouvelle Revue neuchâteloise, Hiver 2002, n° 76.
Impressions of Slot Zuylen
Museum Slot Zuylen
