SWJETSCHIN, ANNE-SOPHIE. — Russian convert, born in Moscow on 22 November 1782, died in Paris on 9 September 1857. Of the noble Sojmonoff family, she was a lady-in-waiting to Tsarina Maria and the wife of Paul I.
Married to General S., she went to St Petersburg, where her husband was governor, and soon entered into relations with the French émigrés, especially Giuseppe De Maistre; through them she came to know the Catholic religion, to which she converted on 8 November 1815. When the Jesuits were expelled from Russia (1818), she moved with her family to Paris, where her home became a gathering place for the most distinguished Catholics and for men of action intent on a Catholic restoration of France. S. was its soul and its driving force; in 1834 she contributed effectively to saving Montalembert, Lacordaire, and Guéranger from the danger of foundering in the faith together with their teacher, La Mennais; in 1835 she promoted Fr. Lacordaire’s conferences at Notre-Dame; and she always showed herself extremely active in the field of charitable works and in the constant work of conversions. She was moved to tears when discussing the Catholic religion (cf. l'Examen religieux, reported by Fr. Rouët de J., [op. cit. in bibl., pp. 385-93], where she discusses the arguments for and against the decisive step she took under the guidance of Fr. J. L. Rozaven in 1815).
Her works were published posthumously under the care of A. F. P. de Falloux; they were enthusiastically received and exerted a powerful influence on people’s minds, both because of their lively, delicate style, rich in the supernatural, and because of the loftiness of their thought: Lettres (2 vols., Paris 1862); Journal de sa conversion (ibid. 1863); Correspondance du R. p. Lacordaire et M. me S. (1864); Nouvelles lettres (1875).