Zoé de la Rüe is found in a small amount of sources also by the spelling “de Larue” or “Delarue”. On the editions of her music she is always spelled “Zoé de la Rüe”, though. It seems like she has been confused already during her lifetime with Eugénie de la Rüe (1777–1816) née Beaumarchais,
who was also a musician in Paris at the same time. For sure Zoé de la Rüe was pupil of pianist and composer Daniel Steibelt (1765–1823). Furthermore contemporary sources characterized her as “célèbre harpiste”, who wrote six sonatas for her instrument, showing much talent. In
the newspaper Zeitung für die elegante Welt Berlin (Newspaper for the elegant world, Berlin) a Paris correspondent reports about her: “I am more and more fascinated by Madame Zoe de la Rue. Only thinking of the rareness of a young, very beautiful Frenchwoman (not Parisian), surrounded by elegance and richness, who retires from all time-killing circles, to dedicate herself only to the education of her children and the intensiv study of the arts, and this all with a simpleness, a modesty,
as if it could not be otherwise.” Her husband had been member of the Council of Five Hundred, the lower house of legislature of France during the French revolution. He was arrested after the failed revolution of the 18th Fructidor (September 4th 1797) and deported to the penal colony Sinamary in French-Guayana. He was able to flee after eight months to London and later to Germany. The couple had at least two children: a daughter by the same name, who was befriended to Franz Liszt and Marie d’Agoult, and a son, Général Comte de la Rüe (1795–1872), who participated substantially on the drawing of the frontiers between Morocco and Algeria (1845). From an obituary in 1833, in which Zoé de la Rüe is named the best pupil of Daniel Steibelt, the conclusion can be drawn that she died in 1832.
A couple of years ago a picture painted in 1804 by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) bearing the title Comtesse de la Rue, mother of Général Comte de la Rue, was auctioned from the estate of Yves Saint Laurent.
