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STAEL, MADAME DE
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See also:STAEL, MADAME DE . See also:ANNE See also:LOUISE GERMAINE See also:NECKER, BARONNE DE STAEL-See also:HOLSTEIN (1766—1817), See also:French novelist and See also:miscellaneous writer, was See also:born at See also:Paris on the 22nd of See also:April 1766. Her See also:father was the famous financier Necker, her See also:mother Suzanne Curchod, almost equally famous as the See also:early love of See also:Gibbon, as the wife of Necker himself, and as the See also:mistress of one of the most popular salons of Paris. Between mother and daughter there was, however, little sympathy. Mme Necker, despite her talents, her beauty and her fondness for philosophe society, was strictly decorous, somewhat reserved, and disposed to carry out in her daughter's See also:case the rigorous discipline of her own childhood. The future Mme de Stael was from her earliest years a romp, a coquette, and passionately desirous of prominence and See also:attention. There seems moreover to have been a sort of rivalry between mother and daughter for the See also:chief See also:place in Necker's affections, and it is not probable that the daughter's love for her mother was increased by the consciousness of her own inferiority in See also:personal charms. Mme Necker was of a most refined though somewhat lackadaisical See also:style of beauty, while her daughter was a See also:plain See also:child and a plainer woman, whose See also:sole attractions were large and striking eyes and a buxom figure. She was, however, a child of unusual intellectual See also:power, and she began very early to write though not to publish. She is said to have written her father a See also:letter on his famous Comple-Rendu and other matters when she was not fifteen, and to have injured her See also:health by excessive study and intellectual excitement. But in See also:reading all the accounts of Mme de Stael's See also:life which come from herself or her intimate See also:friends, it must be carefully remembered that she was the most distinguished and characteristic product of the See also:period of sensibilite—the singular See also:fashion of ultrassentimert which required that both men and See also:women, but especially women, should be always palpitating with excitement, steeped in See also:melancholy, or dissolved in tears. Still, there is no doubt that her father's dismissal from the See also:ministry, which followed the presentation of the Conapte, and the consequent removal of the See also:family from the busy life of Paris, were beneficial to her. During See also:part of the next few years they resided at Coppet, her father's See also:estate on the See also:Lake of See also:Geneva, which she herself made famous. But other parts were spent in travelling about, chiefly in the See also:south of See also:France. They returned to Paris, or at least to its neighbourhood, in 1785, and Mile Necker resumed See also:literary See also:work of a miscellaneous See also:kind, including a novel, Sophie, printed in 1786, and a tragedy, Jeanne See also:Grey, published in 1790. It became, however, a question of marrying her. Her want of beauty was compensated by her See also:fortune. But her parents are said to have objected to her marrying a See also:Roman See also:Catholic, which, in France, considerably limited her choice. There is a See also:legend that See also: But this was a See also:mere legal formality, and on the whole the marriage seems to have met the views of both parties, neither of whom had any See also:affection for the other. They had three See also:children; there was no See also:scandal between them; the baron obtained See also:money and the See also:lady obtained, as a guaranteed ambassadress of a See also:foreign power of See also:consideration, a much higher position at See also:court and in society than she could have secured by marrying almost any Frenchman, without the inconveniences which might have been expected had she married a Frenchman See also:superior to herself in See also:rank. Mme de Stael was not a persona grata at court, but she seems to have played the part of ambassadress, as she played most parts, in a rather noisy and exaggerated manner, but not See also:ill. Then in 1788 she appeared as an author under her own name (Sophie had been already published, but anonymously) with some Lettres sur J. J. See also: Her own See also:account of her See also:escape is, as usual, so florid that it provokes the question whether she was really in any danger. Directly it does not seem that she was; but she had generously strained the privileges of the See also:embassy to protect some threatened friends, and this was a serious See also:matter.
She betook herself to Coppet, and there gathered See also:round her a considerable number of friends and See also:fellow-refugees, the beginning of the quasi-court which at intervals during the next five-andtwenty years made the place so famous. In 1793, however, she made a visit of some length to See also:England, and established herself at Mickleham in See also:Surrey as the centre of the Moderate Liberal emigrants—Talleyrand, See also:Narbonne, See also:Jaucourt and others. There was not a little scandal about her relations with Narbonne; and this Mickleham sojourn (the details of which are known from, among other See also:sources, the letters of Fanny See also:Burney) has never been altogether satisfactorily accounted for. In the summer she returned to Coppet and wrote a pamphlet (Reflexions sur le proses de la reine) on the See also:queen's See also:execution. The next See also:year her mother died, and the fall of See also:Robespierre opened the way back to Paris. M de Stael (whose See also:mission had been in See also:abeyance and himself in See also: Her own preference for a moderate republic or a constitutionalmonarchy was quite sincere, and, even if it had not been so, her own See also:character and See also:Napoleon's were too much alike in some points to admit of their getting on together. For some years, however, she was able to alternate between Coppet and Paris without difficulty, though not without knowing that the First See also:Consul disliked her. In 1797 she, as above mentioned, separated formally from her husband. In 1799 he was recalled by the king of Sweden, and in 1802 he died, duly attended by her. Besides the eldest son Auguste See also: But she lingered on at Coppet, constantly hankering after Paris, and acknowledging the hankering quite honestly. In 1802 she published the first of her really noteworthy books, the novel of Delphine, in which the " femme incomprise " was in a manner introduced to French literature, and in which she herself and not a few of her intimates appeared in transparent disguise. In the autumn of 1803 she returned to Paris. Whether, if she had not displayed such extraordinary anxiety not to be exiled, Napoleon would have exiled her remains a question; but, as she began at Once appealing to all sorts of persons to protect her, he seems to have thought it better that she should not be protected. She was directed not to reside within See also:forty leagues of Paris, and after considerable delay she determined to go to See also:Germany. She journeyed, in See also:company with Constant, by See also:Metz and See also:Frankfort to See also:Weimar, and arrived there in See also:December. There she stayed during the See also:winter and then went to See also:Berlin, where she made the acquaintance of See also:August Wilhelm See also:Schlegel, who afterwards became one of her intimates at Coppet. Thence she travelled to See also:Vienna, where, in April, the See also:news of her father's dangerous illness and shortly of his See also:death (April 8) reached her. She returned to Coppet, and found herself its wealthy and See also:independent mistress, but her sorrow for her father was deep and certainly sincere. She spent the summer at the See also:chateau with a brilliant company; in the autumn she journeyed to See also:Italy accompanied by Schlegel and See also:Sismondi, and there gathered the materials of her most famous work, Corinne. She returned in the summer of 1805, and spent nearly a year in See also:writing Corinne; in 18o6 she See also:broke the See also:decree of See also:exile and lived for a time undisturbed near Paris. In 1807 Corinne, the first aesthetic See also:romance not written in See also:German, appeared. It is in fact, what it was described as being at the time of its See also:appearance, " a picturesque tour couched in the See also:form of a novel." The publication was taken as a reminder of her existence, and the See also:police of the See also:empire sent her back to Coppet, She stayed there as usual for the summer, and then set out once more for Germany, visiting See also:Mainz, Frankfort, Berlin and Vienna. She was again at Coppet in the summer of 18o8 (in which year Constant broke with her, subsequently marrying a German lady) and set to work at her book, De l'Allemagde. It took her nearly the whole of the next two years, during which she did not travel much or far from her own See also:house. She had bought See also:property in See also:America and thought of moving thither, but See also:chance or fatality made her determine to publish De l'Allemagne in Paris. The submission to censorship which this entailed was sufficiently inconsistent and she wrote to the See also:emperor one of the unfortunate letters, at once undignified and provoking, of which she had the 752 See also:secret. A man less tyrannical or less mean-spirited than Napoleon would of course have let her alone, but Napoleon was Napoleon, and she perfectly well knew him. The reply to her letter was the condemnation of the whole edition of her book (ten thousand copies) as " not French," and her own exile, not as before to a certain distance from Paris, but from France altogether. The See also:act was unquestionably one of odious tyranny, but it is impossible not to ask why she had put herself within reach of it when her fortune enabled her to reside anywhere and to publish what she pleased. She retired once more to Coppet, where she was not at first interfered with, and she found See also:consolation in a See also:young officer of Swiss origin named Rocca, twenty-three years her junior, whom she married privately in 1811. The intimacy of their relations could escape no one at Coppet, but the fact of the marriage (which seems to have been happy enough) was not certainly known till after her death. The operations of the imperial police in regard to Mme de Stael are rather obscure. She was at first left undisturbed, but by degrees the chateau itself became See also:taboo, and her visitors found themselves punished heavily. Mathieu de See also:Montmorency and Mme See also:Recamier were exiled for the See also:crime of seeing her; and she at last began to think of doing what she ought to have done years before and withdrawing herself entirely from Napoleon's See also:sphere. In the See also:complete subjection of the See also:Continent which preceded the See also:Russian See also:War this was not so easy as it would have been earlier, and she remained at See also:home during the winter of 1811, writing and planning. On the 23rd of May she left Coppet almost secretly, and journeyed by See also:Bern, See also:Innsbruck and See also:Salzburg to Vienna. There she obtained an See also:Austrian See also:passport to the frontier, and after some fears and trouble, receiving a Russian passport in See also:Galicia, she at last escaped from the See also:dungeon of See also:Napoleonic See also:Europe. She journeyed slowly through See also:Russia and See also:Finland to Sweden, making some stay at St See also:Petersburg, spent the winter in Stock-holm, and then set out for England. Here she received a brilliant reception and was much lionized during the See also:season of 1813. She published De l'Allemagne in the autumn, was saddened by the death of her second son Albert, who had entered the Swedish See also:army and See also:fell in a duel brought on by gambling, under-took her Considerations sur la revolution francaise, and when Louis XVIII. had been restored returned to Paris. She was in Paris when the news of Napoleon's landing arrived and at once fled to Coppet, but a singular See also:story, much discussed, is current of her having approved Napoleon's return. There is no See also:direct See also:evidence of it, but the conduct of her See also:close ally Constant may be quoted in its support, and it is certain that she had no affection for the Bourbons. In See also:October, after See also:Waterloo, she set out for Italy, not only for the See also:advantage of her own health but for that of her second husband, Rocca, who was dying of See also:consumption. Her daughter married See also:Duke See also:Victor de Broglie on the loth of See also:February 1816, at See also:Pisa, and became the wife and mother of French statesmen of distinction. The whole family returned to Coppet in See also:June, and See also:Byron now frequently visited Mme de Stael there. Despite her increasing ill-health she returned to Paris for the winter of 1816-1817, and her salon was much frequented. But she had already become confined to her See also:room, if not to her See also:bed. She died on the 14th of See also:July, and Rocca survived her little more than six months. Mme de Stael occupies a singular position in French literature. The men of her own time exalted her to the skies, and the most extravagant estimates of her (as " the greatest woman in literary See also:history," as the " foundress of the romantic See also:movement," as representing " ideas," while her contemporary See also:Chateaubriand only represented words, See also:colours, and images, and so forth) are to be found in See also:minor histories of literature. On the other See also:hand, it is acknowledged that she was soon very little read. No other writer of such See also:eminence is so rarely quoted; none is so entirely destitute of the See also:tribute of new and splendid See also:editions. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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