Alexander Herzen’s eldest daughter Natalya who had the nickname Tata, was born in Russia in 1844. His second daughter Olga was born after the family had already left Russia, a year and a half before her mother’s death, in 1850. The writer had a particularly close relationship with his first daughter. When he died, Tata wrote to a close family friend, Maria Kasparovna Reichel,

Natalya Herzen never got married. She dedicated her life to collecting and preserving her father’s vast archives and memorabilia.

Olga, on the other hand, gradually moved away from her family as she was growing up. She was not on good terms with her father’s second wife, Natalya Tuchkova-Ogareva. The translator Theresa Pulszky, an acquaintance of Alexander Herzen from London, wrote in her diary about “the wildness of the poor little Olga.” Olga became close to Malwida von Meysenbug, the writer and friend of Friedrich Nietzsche. She actually became a “second mother” to Olga. After Olga Herzen and Malwida left for Italy in 1862, the writer saw his daughter very rarely. Nevertheless, it was thanks to her father that Olga Herzen got acquainted with her future husband, Gabriel Monod. Olga first met the Frenchman in 1866 in Florence where he had come to relax after graduating from university.

Gabriel Monod was a prominent historian and author of numerous works on the history of the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. He worked as a professor at the École Normale Supérieure (“Normal Superior School”) in Paris and was a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.

At first, Alexander Herzen held a very favorable opinion of Gabriel Monod. He described him as “the noblest man” and “a very practical, intelligent, and educated individual.” However, soon he began to notice some conservative tendencies in Monod that he did not agree with. Although Alexander Herzen was unaware of Olga’s engagement to Monod, he suspected it and was not pleased. Nevertheless, he did not interfere with her marriage.