YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

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/-

jY,^ &A<^ £-4^

LIFE AND TIMES

OF

MADAME DE STAEL.

MARIA NORRIS.

1 Chi opera per sincera coscienza pud errare, ma d puro
innanzi a Dio." — Silvio Pellico.

LONDON:
DAVID BOGUE, FLEET STKEET.
MDCCCLIII.

S7 es3

THE EIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD JOHN RUSSELL, M.P.

My Lord,
If my respect for those high and noble
qualities, the hereditary virtues of the house of Rus
sell, could give a proportionate value to the offering
I bring, my tribute would be a golden one indeed.
Ardently believing in the justice of liberty, civil and
religious, and cherishing its instincts as the divinest
elements of this world's life, it is a very natural thing
that I should wish to inscribe this little book to one
who has amply redeemed the traditional glories of
such a name. For the permission which puts the
pleasure of this dedication within my reach, I am
sincerely indebted; and can assure your Lordship that
however the many imperfections of the book may
deteriorate from the value of the tribute, they cannot
impair the veneration and regard with which I have
the privilege to subscribe myself,
Your Lordship's obliged servant,
Maeia Norbis.
London, June, 1853.

PREFACE.

When a royal prince deigns to visit a subject, it is
customary for the host so honoured to greet his guest
at the threshold, and there to make his obeisance as
a preliminary to any further intercourse. Much more
should I, young, ignorant, and inexperienced, be
careful to offer my courtesies to the royal public at
the threshold of this little book.
For the opinions expressed therein no apology is
offered; they have been honestly thought out to the
best of my judgment; but if I should be hereafter
convinced of their incorrectness — and Heaven forbid
I should live to count that an impossibility — I trust
they may be as honestly changed ; and that in avow
ing the alteration, I may blush not for the reform, but
the mistake.
It must be owned that the greater part of this
sketch has been written with keen interest; it was
not, indeed, begun with that feeling, but the noble
ness of the subject has grown upon me to such a
degree, that when I put the final pen-stroke I felt as
though I had lost a friend. It would savour of affec-

VI PEEFACE.
tation were I to tell of the depth of regard with which
the noble memory of Madame de Stael has inspired
me, but I reproach myself that I have so ill reflected
it ; I am sure, for her sake, I wish it had been possible
to prevent my many immaturities of thought and
arrangement. However unpopular may have been, during her
life, her opinions and those of her father, the progress
of society has, since her death, abundantly vindicated
their truth and beauty. Her ideas are now the cur
rent coin of intellectual Europe, though, as they are
not stamped with her name, she frequently misses the
tribute of gratitude we owe her. She came too soon ;
properly she belongs to the latter half of our century,
her mind, at any rate, was prophetic of our more ex
tended light; and even yet we have not reached the
sublime altitude of her enthusiasm and her tolerance
— enthusiasm that could undertake, and tolerance
that could pardon, aught but meanness and subter-
tuge. It seems impossible to conclude this preface with
out a glance at the wonderful progress, both social
and public, which England has made since Madame
de StaeTs day. At the time of her last visit, and
long afterwards, religious_toleration was rather an
agreeable fiction than anything more; dissenting
Protestant congregations were weekly insulted or
interrupted at their worship ; and the disciples of the
Romish communion had still harder usage to lament.

PREFACE. VU
I suspect many of us will be surprised to find, as the
world goes forward, that all intolerance is hateful —
no matter whether it wear the scarlet stockings of the
cardinal, the shovel hat of the Anglican clergyman,
or the straight -cut garb of the modern puritan. We
may find that divine Christianity is not fully enfolded
in any human system; and when we have learned
this, we have acquired, at least, the alphabet of
charity. Much of the progress we have made has
been in no small degree aided by one who has
allowed his name to be set in the fore-front of this
volume : for him, and for all the liberal and enlight
ened statesmen of England, how great should be the
respect of the generation now entering into the
labours of their fathers !
What the remaining portion of the nineteenth
century will do for us, it is perhaps difficult to ima
gine ; there is no reason to fear that progress will be
slackened — every session of parliament brings some
improvement in the administration; every rolling
month, some more practical and earnest development
of our national life. Nor need we confine our hopes
selfishly to this dear and cherished English fatherland;
everywhere aspirations after liberty and truth ascend
to the throne of mercy, and certainly the Ear that
listens to the cry of the young ravens, is not deaf to
any human prayer. In France, Germany, Italy, ex
pectation and hope are on the alert; may Providence
only deign to effect peacefully the revolutions that

Vlll PEEFACE.
must come. How has Europe been gently led by the
hand since the sword of Wellington was honourably
sheathed after the fight of Waterloo ! In that period,
we have, perhaps, made thrice the progress which in
any former time of similar duration we had accom
plished. Reasoning from the past, there seems, then, every
warrant for the most sanguine and religious hope re
garding the future ; it is a fiction of the poets that
the Golden Age is over- — we have it yet to come. But,
before we be fit for that age, every country in Europe
has, no doubt, discipline to endure : our social frauds,
our practical impieties, our ignorances, and selfish
nesses, will probably be stripped away with no tender
hand. Amen ! for all that is worthy of life, will wax
stronger for the purification ; and whether it be my
error or thine, reader, the world will be well rid of it.
And now, committing this little bark to the perilous
sea of public favour, and pushing from the shore with,
it may be, a trembling hand, the unskilful com
mander is launched upon a voyage where many have
been wrecked, and from which, perhaps, none have
brought back all the delights which the imagination
had pictured as the results.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE
I. — Introductory remarks. Necker comes to Paris. Success
ful issue of his commerce. Marriage. Character of
Madame Necker  .  1
II. — Great French ministers before Necker's time. Example
of England distasteful to France. Aims of Necker's
projected policy . ... ... 10
III. — Private life of Necker. Importance of Paris. Early
associates of Madame de Stael . . . ... 18
IV. — A child's imagination. Picture of Mademoiselle Necker
at eleven years old. Books prohibited . . . 24
V. — Recreation of an active mind. Effect of strict coercion. 33
VI. — Beauty of expression. Zulma the priestess of Apollo.
Corinne going up to the Capitol .... . 36
VII. — Natural and early development of an interest in politics.
English predilections. Anxieties of Madame Necker. 41
VIII. — Marriage of Mademoiselle Necker with the Baron de
Stael, and her probable reasons for consenting to it . 46
IX. — Slow growth of her moral being. Little foibles . . 51
X. — Monsieur de Calonne. Necker's honour attacked.
Exile the price of exoneration  53
XI. — Necker's return to office. Monsieur de Sartines. Popu
larity of the recalled minister .... . .61
XII. — Parliament of Paris. Malesherbes and Turgot. Heresy
and the state of the funds .... .... 66
XIII. — States-general promised before Necker's return to office
in 1788. Almost all his improvements had been
anticipated by Malesherbes and Turgot  71
XIV. — Youth and hope. Letters on Rousseau. A glance at
Madame de StaeTs domestic circumstances . . 73
XV. — Irresolute wilfulness of the king. Aristocratic greediness.
An example of disinterested duty  79
XVI. — Hopes of filial piety. Procession of the deputies. Open
ing of the states ... .... ... 84

X CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
XVII. —Ministerial irresponsibility. Gathering of the troops
about Versailles. King's opinion of Necker . . 93
XVIII. — Dismissal of the popular minister. Sunday, 12th
July 1789, no day of rest in Paris. Madame de
Stael rejoins her parents. Triumphant return of
Necker  '. .... 101
XIX. — Influence of woman in France. Marie Antoinette.
Humble heroines of the Eevolution . . . . 110
XX. — Imperfection of Necker's character. Mercy unpopular
at Paris. Benefits accruing from the Revolution.
Louis XVI. and Charles 1  114
XXL— The Fifth of October at Versailles. Royal Family
brought to Paris. Queen at the Tuileries . . . 122
XXII. — A year's vicissitudes. Birth of Madame de Stael's
elder son. Necker in retirement . . . . 130
XXIII. — Nobleness of Madame de Stael. Anniversary of the
Revolution. Situation of the constitutional party.
Reign of Terror   135
XXIV. — Temptations of genius. Respect for human life.
Rising of the suburbs. Courage of Madame de Stael 141
XXV. — A refuge at the Swedish Embassy. An interview
with Manuel. Madame de Stael arrested . . . 148
XXVI — Necker offers to defend the King. Madame de Stael
at Juniper Hall. Amusements of the refugees . 162
XXVII. — Scandal attacks Madame de Stael. Miss Bumey's
opinion worth having. Scattering of the French
colony   173
XXVIII. — Madame de StaeTs defence of Marie Antoinette.
Efforts to save life. Death of Robespierre . .181
XXIX. — Political tracts. French society in 1795. Education
of Auguste de Stael  . . 187
XXX. — Recall of Monsieur de Talleyrand. Napoleon Bona
parte. Public spirit in women  195
XXXI. — Efforts to save the proscribed. General Lemoine.
An interview with Bonaparte  207
XXXII. — Invasion of Switzerland. Prudence of Bonaparte.
Egyptian expedition ...  213
XXXIII. — Bonaparte returns from Egypt. A new constitution.
A speaker in the tribune and a visit from Fouche 220
XXXIV.— The First Consul at the Tuileries. French army
cross the Alps. A visit to Morfontaine . . . 229
XXXV. — The way to improve a troublesome parliament.
Death of Monsieur de Stael. Bonaparte's con
cordat with the Pope  238

CONTENTS. XI
CHAP. PAGE
XXXVI. — Annoyances of unpopularity. Invasion of England.
Contrast of races. Arrival of a visitor frequently
expected  250
XXXVII. — Mournful commencement of exile. To Germany.
Murder of the Duke d'Enghien. Death of
Monsieur Necker  262
XXXVIII. — Brief review of Necker's career  270
XXXIX  Political tendencies of Madame de Stael. Hope
in her father. Truth of her opinions . . . . 280
XL. — Solitude and tears. To Italy with Monsieur
Schlegel. "Corinne" and "Delphine." Anew
exile . . : — * — , — , — = — : — r— 7- . . . . 288
XLI. — A second visit to Germany. Vienna. Return to
France. Hope is deceitful  296
XLII. — Attachment of her Children to Madame de Stael.
Her second marriage. England a forbidden
country  303
XLIII. — Prefectorial wisdom. Schlegel sent from Coppet.
Banishment of Monsieur de Montmorency and
Madame Recamier. A bold determination . 310
XLIV. — Escape of the exile. French courier at Salzburg.
Beauties of the passport system  321
XLV. — Poland. The German system of police. Visit
to Princess Lubomirska. The French govern
ment kindly secure the traveller a companion
to Lanzut. Madame de Stael enters Russia . 331
XLVI. — Moscow. Novgorod. St. Petersburg. Character
of the Russians. Counts Orloff and Strogonoff 343
XLVII. — Moscow in flames. The Russian Emperor. Public
Institutions. Embarkation for Sweden . . . 350
XL VIII. — Political faithfulness of Madame de Stael. Arrival
in London. Kindly reception accorded her by
the English nobility .... .... 360
XLIX. — Triumphant return to Paris. Illness of Monsieur
Eocca. Prolonged literary activity. Last
illness and death of Madame de Stael . . . . 37'J

APPENDIX   377

LIFE AND TIMES

OF

MADAME DE STAEL.

CHAPTER I.

The antagonism of Right and Might is almost as old
as the world itself. The result of their very first
contest was that the righteous Abel fell, and that the
unrighteous Cain lived, to found cities and to per
petuate his race. Still, so dazzled are we by external
brilliancies and grandeur, that it is a struggle for us
to support the weak rather than the strong, it is to us
so natural to believe that virtue and heroism invari
ably command victory. As an abstract truth, we
acknowledge, no doubt, that virtue often misses its
reward, but in the practice of life we are all too apt
to forget it.
Nevertheless, Success, eminently the god of this
world, is not a deity invariably favourable to virtue.
What was the world's reward of the brightest, purest
heroism it ever saw ? Let the shameful cross tell ;
the name is too holy to be written here.
Society, however, we believe, has begun honestly,
though abstractly, to acknowledge the truth ; but the
enlightenment has come at the expense of many of
B

2 LIFE AND TIMES OF
her noblest citizens : Socrates and Aristides, in the
old days, were among its martyrs, and are not per
haps without their counterparts in modern times.
Our truth is, we confess it, a hard one to believe :
the wicked and false principle of the trial by ordeal is
hidden deep in our human nature ; it is a difficult
thing to receive, that he who signally fails may be
most right of all.
A life which shows that principle can firmly and
heroically oppose unrighteous power — a life which
displays somewhat of the old heroic courage, cannot
but be a useful study. If in only these regards could
the character of Madame de Stael be placed before
the public, her biography might fitly enough ask a
share of the world's attention ; but we believe that
her genius gives a picturesqueness to every turn of
her story, and adds a grace to truths which a humbler
subject might as faithfully believe, and as conscien
tiously live out, without being able so attractively to
recommend. About the year 1749, came to Paris, from his
native Geneva, a youth of fifteen years old, with
little pretension, little patronage, little of this world's
wealth. He had, however, something that over
balances all these wants— faith in God, faith in
human nature, faith in himself. We are not told
that any bells rang out to tell this Whittington of the
fortunes that awaited him ; but he applied himself to
the fulfilment of his end as earnestly as if he were
assured of the result. * See Appendix, Note A.

MADAME DE STAEL. 3
He began life as clerk in a banking-house. His
steady perseverance, rare integrity, and honesty of
purpose, met with success ; he rose from grade to
grade, until he had made himself a man of mark ; the
fortune he had been sent to earn, he secured, and
he proved his disinterested moderation by retiring
from the prosecution of business on his own account,
at a time when his prospects were daily widening
around him. It is a rare thing to say of him, that
he put down, half-drained, the cup of worldly riches.
He had provided enough for luxury, even for
splendour ; but to leave millions behind him was not
his object. In the prime and vigour of life he turned
aside from the race after riches, and began to employ
for others the talents which he had so happily used
on his own behalf.
His greatest commercial honour was, perhaps, his
presidency of the French East India Company ; his
first public employ was the representation of his
native Geneva, as her minister at Paris — a distinc
tion not so splendid, but almost dearer than those
he subsequently obtained. He tells us with honest
pride, that when, in some crisis of her affairs, Geneva
was contemplating the choice of a special messenger
to Paris, the then first minister of France assured
him it was unnecessary. "I will have nothing to do
in this affair," said the statesman, " with any one but
yourself, Monsieur Necker." And Geneva trusted
him. It was towards the close of his twenty years'
commerce that he married ; his wife was Susanne
Curchod, daughter of the Protestant clergyman of
B 2

4 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Crassy, Switzerland, a woman whose high conscien
tiousness and extended acquirements entitle her to
our respect.
She was one of those persons with whom duty is
a necessity, rather than a choice ; the Tightness of a
thing constitutes for such a supreme reason for
pursuing it at any cost, at any sacrifice. She was of
the stuff that makes heroes and martyrs ; hard and
unbending, doggedly obstinate, if she were not backed
by the right : as she was so backed, we call her
courageously persevering.
We are almost justified in saying, that to such
souls as Madame Necker's, the sacrifice of inclination,
interest, affection, anything to duty, is a pleasure
rather than a pain. Every human spirit is many-
sided ; and the deeds which cost us the greatest
mental suffering, are often those we contemplate
most proudly, even while the struggle endures. Had
Madame Necker been a Catholic, it is probable that
of the seven sacraments she would have preferred
penance ; for there is food for pride in self-mortifi
cation, and hers was a proud nature — one that loved
to battle with and conquer itself. The senator's wife,
moving amid her splendid saloons, may have this
pride in as high perfection as ever Simon Stylites
had it on his pillar in the desert.
The testimony of her husband is, that she needed
nothing to make her perfectly amiable, but some
thing to forgive in herself ; a sentence which seems
to contain an epitome of her entire character  a
sentence which shows us the perfect demeanour she
displayed in the intimate relations of life, and the

MADAME DE STAEL. 5
severity with which she judged all things. Conscien
tious herself, she was unable to pardon the want
of conscientiousness in others; her friends would
probably speak of her as a right-thinking, rather
than an amiable or pleasing woman : and she was,
most likely, somewhat deficient in some very beau
tiful dispositions, which the world has gen'erally
expected to find on the feminine side of human
nature. So natural is it for such constitutions to count on
sacrifice as a part of duty, that they scarcely trust
themselves to call that duty which fails to involve
self-denial ; they are apt sternly to question all which
has instinct and inclination to recommend it ; and
we may feel tolerably sure that Madame Necker was
not the mother to lavish caresses on her child, or in
any such way to display that beautiful maternal
nature, whose excesses would make many women
ridiculous, if they did not show the female disposition
in so loveable a light.
But if her kisses and her caresses were somewhat
too unfrequently bestowed, we may be perfectly sure,
on the other hand, that her chastisements were never
inflicted passionately or inconsiderately — no mean
advantage to set against the absence of that maternal
fondness which is far more common than just and
reasoning affection, and which often discards its
objects when it can no longer dandle and play with
them. And yet we are free to confess, that this stern, but
true and perfectly honourable nature is not one with
which we can very heartily sympathize : it is a

6 LIFE AND TIMES OF
nature which we would rather admire at a distance
as a model, than live with and share as a friend ;
something warmer and more impulsive seems to us
appropriate to season the hard daily bread of human
experience, to give a zest to friendship, and to
heighten the dearest affections of the family.
Such a nature as Madame Necker's seems almost
perfect ; but to remain in its almost perfection a cold
outline merely; and we own we could sacrifice some of
the mathematical correctness for the sake of a little
more geniality. We can pardon the neglect of some
particular rule of art, when the painter makes the
very infringement a cause of variety and beauty to his
picture ; or, to vary the simile, we would not contend
too rigidly for the unities, when the drama stirs the
feelings and affects the heart in spite of their non-
observance. At the same time, natures after the fashion of
Madame Necker's are never very plentiful : the gene
rous and impulsive creature is a far less uncommon
type of humankind than the stern and just, and for
this sufficient reason, that very faulty characters con
stitute the greater part of the human family ; and it is
natural for our nature to overlook in others the fault
we ourselves commit. The one who needs "much
forgiveness " " loves much," and will hardly be very
severe on her erring neighbours.
The moral side of Madame Necker's nature havino-
been thus faintly sketched out, we may add, as re
gards her mental acquirements, that her father had
educated her with uncommon care, and to a decree
rare among women.

MADAME DE STAEL. 7
She had lost her father before she became ac
quainted with Monsieur Necker ; and, as she was
left without fortune, found it necessary to gain a
subsistence by the exercise of her talents. When
Necker became acquainted with her in Paris, she
had recently resigned a situation as teacher at a
school in Geneva, and her dowry consisted only
of her many excellences ; but we may suppose that
a man of his noble and generous make, was only too
happy, to be able to place in a situation of easy
wealth the woman he loved; and she, proud as was
her nature, loved him so well as to feel the many obli
gations she bore him no burden. Like a flower sud
denly plucked from the solitude of the forest where
it has grown, to grace the haunts of life, she passed
from the retirement of the Swiss school-house to an
exalted position in the capital city of France — we
may almost say, of Europe ; and we believe she
never disgraced her circumstances : her manners
might be rather nearer classic simplicity than were
the courtly habits of those days, but her rusticity was
not rudeness ; truth in action, and dignity, naturally
belonged to her ; and if her carriage were remarked
for anything, it might be called a little too formal in
its bare simplicity — never, certainly, underbred and
familiar. She had already mixed with some really
good society : Gibbon, the historian — himself the son
of an English gentleman, and familiar with refine
ment — was, when a young man on his travels, capti
vated by Mademoiselle Curchod, and offered her his
hand, which, it is said, she accepted ; but his father
threatening him with disinheritance if he persisted in

8 LIFE AND TIMES OF
wooing a penniless bride, both gave up the engage
ment with so much philosophy, as to prove that there
was little love in the case.
This fact may answer, perhaps, for her freedom
from anything like uncultivated manners : at the
same time, the air of her Swiss parsonage-home
probably mingled with her deportment, and gave it
the piquancy of nature — a piquancy strange in an
overgrown and artificial society.
Rule and order were with her rather passions
than habits; she liked everything digested into
systems ; the method, at any rate, of the Chinese
philosophers would, we suspect, have been welcome
to her, had she studied Oriental literature. All her
thinkings and doings seem to have had a certain
mathematical proportion, excepting on one or two
occasions, when the one passion that ruled her life
made her forgetful of her rigid sense of " the fitness
of things." She carefully sought a reason, and the
best reason, for most actions and situations of her
life. A stern critic was she, we may conclude, over books
of other folks' writing : too stern a critic, perhaps, to
write much herself, for delicate shades of thought
and expression will not wait to be analysed and
criticised, but must be caught and perpetuated just
as they appear above the mental horizon, or they
escape us for ever, like that subtle natural fluid
which has as yet baffled the chemist's art.
Nevertheless, she sometimes used her pen. Mon
sieur Necker, however, disliked any appearance of
regular literary employment in his wife : he did not

MADAME DE STAEL. 9
wish, when he entered her apartments, to feel that he
interrupted a serious occupation; so she wrote a little
now and then by stealth, and was always ready to
relinquish her pursuits, and devote herself to him
whenever his wearisome career allowed him leisure to
enjoy her society. Her love for her husband was the
one element in her character which was quite unin
fluenced by her methodical precision ; in this regard
it is probable she went beyond less reasonable women ;
it was the only true sanctuary of her heart's affections,
and the worshipper was constant to the shrine.
The truest love reigned between them ; the love of
such a woman and of such a man must be true. She
wrote two letters to be delivered to him after her
death : he was so unhappy as to live to receive these
beautiful consolations of her affection, which are
models in their kind; in these she felt the necessity
to loose the floodgates of affection, and to allow the
hidden things of her soul to flow forth. Certain it is,
that beneath her outward coldness, there was a depth
and heat of affection for him, and that he recipro
cated it. His " last thoughts" committed to paper,
when he had been some years a widower, chronicle
the memories of her whom he had cherished, and his
hopes of rejoining her.

10 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER II.
Before the time of Necker, France had not been
wanting in great ministers. Richelieu and Mazarin,
Sully and Colbert, had made illustrious the reigns and
councils of their respective masters ; diplomacy, with
men of other nations an acquired art, seemed the
natural possession of the ministers of the gay, lively,
intriguing French nation : and by the greatness of
her ministers, rather than by the excellence of her
government, or the character of her sovereigns, had
she won herself a foremost place among the peoples
of Europe.
A hundred years had not elapsed since the death
of Colbert, when Necker assumed the superinten
dence of the finances. The French memory is pecu
liarly tenacious in all that concerns its own magni
ficence and glory, and the remembrance of Colbert
was a household treasure yet, when Necker was called
upon to repair the deficiencies of the exchequer.
Colbert had filled a gigantic place in the splendid
reign of Louis XIV. Necker desired to occupy a
useful one in the less ambitious time of Louis XVI.
Perpetual comparisons were instituted between the
two ministers, not unfrequently to the disadvantage
of Necker.
" Apres Napoleon, il fallait plus qu'un homme,"

MADAME DE STAEL. 11
says a modern French poet. " After Colbert," we may
also say, " more than an ordinary man was necessary."
More than even an extraordinary man, who had
several circumstances, particularly those of birth and
religion, against him : to say nothing of the character
of the unhappy sovereign he guided, nor of Necker's
profound but somewhat unpopular spirit of common
sense, and his freedom from every enthusiasm but
that of virtue. When, in the sketch he drew up for
the proceedings of the States General, he argues that
long and expensive wars had exhausted the resources
of the nation, and recommends, that for the future
only defensive wars be undertaken, he is answered
somewhat defiantly by a writer of his day, that never
were the wars longer or more expensive than in the
time of Louis XIV, and yet, says the assailant,
" Colbert always found money to enable his sovereign
to pursue his victories." A comparison of this kind
is almost sure to be to the disadvantage of the pre
sent as opposed to the past, for it is the perverse dis
position of our nature to over-value what is gone from
us, and to underrate what lies within our reach.
Indeed, who has not for himself searched them out,
would hardly credit the grossness of the libels, which
in his time of unpopularity, the polite French people
heaped on this useful minister.
Monsieur Necker not being a Frenchman, had not
the appetite for "glory" which is at once the in
spiring motive and the avenging curse of that nation,
but we believe he seriously desired and laboured for
her good : and had she been content to adopt and
carry out the just and temperate policy he advocated,

12 LIFE AND TIMES OF
it is probable that she would have been enjoying at
this time rational liberty, secured to her by the free
exercise of political rights.
A native of the free city of Geneva, of that
mountain land which seems made by Nature to
be the impregnable home of freedom, Monsieur
Necker had, perhaps, a preference for her man
ner of government, though he doubted its appli
cability to a great nation, whose outskirts are far
removed from the capital. Yet he knew that the
real secret of public happiness is not a perfect theory,
but a wise administration ; he knew that the republic
supposes and requires in the citizen more virtue and
honour than any other kind of power ; and no special
stigma is cast on the French nation, when we say
that he could not have resided long in Paris, without
being certain that the France of that day was not
ready for such an ideal form of government. To
purify, not to destroy the monarchy, was, we may be
sure, his laudable and useful aim ; and as he had
been twenty years face to face with the difficulties of
life, he no doubt trusted he had gained experience to
help him through all the perplexities of government
In looking round for a model after which he might
shape his doings, he fixed upon the English as that
example of a limited monarchy whose constitution
France might, to some extent, copy with benefit ; but
when we remember what the English laws of that
day were, we shall rather regret that he found nothing
better to imitate, than feel pride at his choice. His
liking for England was not calculated to increase his
popularity in certain quarters ; a long inheritance of
hatred had sharpened the jealousy which our Henrys

MADAME DE STAEL. 13
and our Edwards had created by their victories ; ab
surd prejudices, fostered by ignorance, were rife
against us in France, and were met on the English
side by prejudices quite as absurd, and by ignorance
quite as dense.
The government of the house of Brunswick was,
indeed, not likely to be favourably accepted as a model
by the French court : everybody was familiar with
the story of the gracious reception which Louis XIV.
had, in the true spirit of chivalry, accorded only a
hundred years before to the exiled royal family of
England; and it was expecting too much from a
romantic people, to suppose that they could take as a
pattern the very sovereign whose house had risen to
authority, and acquired greatness, by principles and
a policy decidedly anti-Stuart.
The great Louis had offered men and money to
wrest the government from William and Mary, and
restore it to the old branch : and it would have belied
all traditional propriety if Louis's descendant had
come to the successors of William and Mary for
lessons in the art of ruling. And yet, if he had so
come, the Bourbons might have been still on the
throne of France, and that noble country might have
been spared the humiliation of several political
failures. " Mediocrity," says the old proverb, " is hateful to
gods and men ;" and a middle course in politics rarely
contributes to the popularity, however it may promote
the usefulness, of a minister. " As a merchant and
as a financier, as a statesman and as a writer," says
Lanjuinais, " Necker has been covered with glory,

14 LIFE AND TIMES OF
and yet unceasingly afflicted by reverses and opposi
tion." His first movement of reform was accepted with
delight by the body of the people, but his prudence
delayed his progress, while they, impatient from long
restraint, were mad to demolish every appearance of
servitude and weakness. They gave themselves no
time to consider that an ancient edifice, unless re
paired and altered with the greatest care, will fall a
sacrifice even to the hand that designs its improve
ment. The popular party triumphed, but their whole
political fabric fell in with a crash, whose consequences
shook every throne in Europe, excepting the one
from which Louis XVI. was too proud to take a
lesson. Count Lanjuinais, from whom we have already
quoted, says, in reference to Necker and his favourite
example, " Seeking a model of the limited monarchy
necessary to France, Monsieur Necker reverts con
stantly to his cherished example, to that controverted
accumulation of customs and abuses and contradictory
bills, in which consists the English constitution; better
undoubtedly as better developed (and as really very
favourable to trade and industry), than any constitu
tion, written, but not observed, can possibly be. It
is this English model which he praises without re
striction, as Montesquieu has done before him, and
which he desires above all things to establish — an
infatuation, excusable in his time, perhaps, but one
which can no longer lead any one astray." This was
the verdict of Lanjuinais in 1823. We of 1853
may incline to the opinion, that even now Monsieur

MADAME DE STAEL. 15
Necker's " infatuation" would be a very good chimera
for the French people to run after.*
His grandson, Monsieur de Stael, as the inheritor
of Necker's political opinions, will give us a picture
rather more favourable than that drawn by Lan
juinais. " From the first," (of his public career,) " he applied
himself to the reduction of all superfluous expenses,
and of all useless or illicit profits, persuaded that no
tax is legitimate until all the resources of economy
have been tried."
Passionately attached to order and to justice, these
two great ideas presided over all his determinations,
and to the pursuit of these ideas his downfall was
owing. The golden sentence that " no tax is lawful
until all the resources of economy have been tried," is
one which has many believers at the present day ; but
one can easily see that Monsieur Necker was far
before his age when he enunciated the idea. The
time was not ripe for it ; the splendour of a court of
the old regime, sustained by heavy and iniquitously
partial taxation, was not to be shorn of its brilliancy
by the absurd dreamings of an honest and straight-
* The French author whom we have thus cited goes on to make
out a decided case against England; her immense sinecures, the
extravagant incomes of her bishops, her rotten boroughs (which
made the House of Commons to consist, in a great measure, of the
nominees of peers), her religious intolerance, are presented as for
midable defects. One cannot but feel proud of a country whose
people have had the courage to demand, and whose aristocracy has
had the grace to yield, successive improvements, which render Lan
juinais' objections, with one exception, almost forceless. It requires
no keen eye to discern why the English constitution has outlived so
many others, theoretically more perfect.

16 LIFE AND TIMES OF
forward minister. Like the ignis fatuus, or those
rank vegetable productions which flourish amid decay
and dissolution, such courts shone in proportion to
the density of the corruption about them.
The philosophers of the (then) new school had done
no mean service to the cause of liberty, and though
the change was admitted rather than assured, the
condition of Europe at the time of the French revolu
tion was probably not only not worse, but better than
it had ever before been. It is to be regretted that
their philosophy had none of the divine spirit of
Christianity, which would have made it a preserving
principle ; but most of its followers had been reared
in the bosom of a church, which by denying liberty,
has often driven her children to licentiousness.
The dearest object of Necker's heart was, we believe,
to go neither too fast nor too slowly for the spirit of
reform and transition which was gradually assuming
authority in society : or, as his grandson finely re
marks, " he wished to prepare the ways of liberty by
order and morality in the administration, but his
ideas ought not to, and could not go beyond this."
The private life of a statesman — if a statesman have
any time for a private life — may well possess every
attractiveness which affection can impart to it, every
circumstance of ease which wealth can purchase, with
out rendering him, after all, an object of great envy
to the more rational portion of mankind, especially
if to his other possessions be added a conscience.
The unceasing responsibility, the acute anxieties
which attend on even successful statesmanship, must
be sufficiently wearing ; but the proud consciousness

MADAME DE STAEL. 17
of successful genius and patriotism is a very good set
off against these inevitable cares.
Far otherwise is it with the man who sees the
current of affairs getting too strong for his hand to
stem, who hears the echo of discontented voices in
every public breath which reaches him ; vanity in such
a case is struck to the heart, and more than vanity is
hurt, if in the future prospects of the country he has
tried to save, he sees only ruin and regret.

18 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER III.
The private life of Monsieur Necker is a pleasant
subject for contemplation; one of the most agreeable
houses in Paris, presided over by a woman whose
character and abilities attracted the best society, was
at his command : and Parisian society at that day was
a brilliant and a valued thing.
The delightful letters of Madame de SeVigne- (which
date about a hundred and ten years before the Revo
lution,) express in forcible terms the high esteem in
which Parisian society in her day was held. She
pities her daughter for being compelled to reside at
so many leagues from Paris ; though the Countess de
Grignon had in Provence a feudal court, which
resembled rather the establishment of a petty sove
reign, than the retinue of even a wealthy subject. Not
to be a Frenchman was in those days a crownino-
grief ; after that ranked the misfortune of living at a
distance from the beloved city. France was the eye
of the world, and Paris its apple.
In England, where country life is so much more
esteemed, and where the municipal corporations are all
so many centres of authority and power, we can
scarcely understand how important to France even
down to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was

MADAME DE STAEL. 19
its capital. It was (and is still) the heart of the
empire, the seat of life, heat and power.
The French kings, regarding the nobles in the
spirit of the old feudal law, were not afraid of them
as rivals ; they saw in them only vassals, and loved to
gather the flower of the kingdom about them. In
Louis XIV.'s time to dismiss a nobleman from the
court was to issue a sentence of death against his
popularity, pleasures, and happiness ; he was banished
if sent to his patrimonial estate, whose tenants were to
him little more than food-producing machines, and he
generally saw no happy day, until the favour of his
monarch with the gay life of the court and city was
restored to him.
This regard to the capital did not by any means
diminish in the interval that elapsed between the
Fourteenth and the Sixteenth Louis. Monsieur
Necker probably and his family had as keen a sense
of the advantages of Paris as any Seigneur of the
preceding century : for the Neckers were intellectual
people ; and for such there was positively no satisfac
tory communion but in Paris. There they met in the
social life which is carried to perfection, perhaps,
nowhere but there ; there the greatest men, and the
wittiest and gracefullest women of the brilliant city,
associated and practised that art of conversation which
the French, better than any other people, understand.
In such meetings, in such conversations, tinged with
philosophy, romance, and infidelity, were started the
ideas whose wider development among a furious and
unmstructed people led to that terrible tragedy of
hstory known as the French Revolution.
C 2

20 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Among the brilliant phantoms of the time which
our fancy pictures to us, we see Monsieur Necker
move with a somewhat stately air. Though he has
risen from obscurity, his native dignity, and perhaps
a republican pride (there is such a thing), prevent his
adopting that easy tone which prevails just now
among the better classes in Paris. Perhaps, too, the
old noblesse are a little haughty to one who has been
a simple " commis" in a banker's office, and we may
be sure that in high bearing such a man as Necker
is not to be outdone, for there is no man really so
proud as a conscientiously virtuous man. Often,
while all around him are talking gaily, he is silent :
some may attribute the fact to his official anxieties,
but those who know him well, know that in these
moods he is a keen, often an amused, though silent
observer of others. Genial and natural are his tastes :
with young people he is always at home ; indulgent to
their faults, and just to their merits, he has succeeded
in making himself their favourite.
Want of method he can pardon (though perhaps
Madame Necker would rather he did not say so) ; but
emptiness, vacuity of mind, real dead-level stupidity,
is unbearable to him. And yet the last thing one
would say of him is that he is clever ; for, as an acute
observer remarks, " cleverness and good nature are
never thrust forward but when there are no other
good points to display."
He was almost too proud, we are told, himself to
give that first impulse which conversation wants to
raise it above the commonplace ; and yet of all those
engaged in it, he would, perhaps, suffer most ennui

MADAME DE STAEL. 21
from the absence of that nameless charm, that fresh
originality, that consistent variety, without which
conversation is either pedantic or contemptible.
He was used to what might truthfully be called
good company ; among his contemporaries were men
of talent and honour, and with these the Neckers
exchanged the courtesies of society, and engaged in
that paradoxical commerce of agreeable offices, in
which each seems to take more than he gives without
diminishing the common stock.
Among these valued friends would naturally come
his colleague, the Receiver-General of Paris, Charles
Jacques Louis de Meulan.
This gentleman's daughter, better known as
Madame Guizot, must have mingled in the same
kind of society as the daughter of Necker, whose
biography we are tracing ; it was a favourable life for
female development ; the men were absorbed in
politics without abandoning society, consequently the
talk of the salons was of a kind to provoke inquiry,
discussion, consideration ; it was of a higher class
than every-day drawing-room small-talk, while being
hedged round by the proprieties and amenities of
private life, it was protected from the storms that
often make charity a forgotten virtue in the tribune.
The life of society gained thus in vigour and in
interest, without losing in propriety and liberality.
Among the illustrious circle, too, was that fair and
spiritual beauty whose fancied inspirations were at a
later period the counsellors of Alexander of Russia.
The Baroness von Kriidner, wife to the Russian am
bassador, full of innocent grace and youthful beauty,

22 LIFE AND TIMES OF
is a flower transplanted hither from the shores of the
Baltic. Sometime hence she will write that curious
romance called Valerie, of which she herself will be
the heroine, of whose incidents her remembrances
will be the sources, and into which she will put her
own Baron — a little idealised of course. These are
times when conjugal felicity is not very common ; " it
is the fashion," say the writers of the day, " for hus
band and wife to see little of each other, and to take
small heed of each other's doings." And the pretty
Juliana von Kriidner, folks say, never occupied her
self so much with her Baron, as when she drew his
portrait as the Count in " Valerie." She has not yet
begun to play the missionary, the preacher ; she is
but a very vain and pretty woman of the world, and
loves nothing better than to be well-dressed, and to
know herself one of the loveliest creatures in Paris.
The splendid city is to her an agreeable sojourn.
" The high noblesse of the north," says Monsieur de
Sainte-Beuve, " were at that time drawn by an in
vincible charm towards Paris, that Athens of art and
pleasure. Princes and kings were honoured by
coming hither for a brief space, just to take, as one
may say, their degrees as wits or philosophers."
The same lively author gives us a picture of this
charming Von Kriidner, which dates some years later,
but shows her still enchanting.
" In 1 801 she was still young and beautiful, ele
gantly graceful, white and fair. Her lovely hair was
of that uncommon half-dark brown hue, which she
has given to Valene : her eyes were deep blue ; her
voice, like that of most Livonian women, exquisitely

MADAME DE STAEL. 23
sweet and musical ; as for her dancing, it was exqui
site, especially in the waltz. When she was at Berlin,
every courier brought her fresh dresses from Paris,
and she arranged her toilettes so artfully that they
suited nobody but herself, while to her they were
perfectly becoming."*
Monsieur JSJecker, who was always charmed with
grace in a woman, would no doubt much admire the
lovely shadow just flitting by ; but we fear Madame
Necker looks at her in a rather sterner light, and
pronounces her a sad trifler.
We also number among Necker's friends, Marmon-
tel, Secretary to the French Academy, author of Les
Incas and Belisaire; the Abbe Raynal ; who,
trained as a Jesuit , had the courage to fling off his
disgusting servitude; Baron de Grimm; and our
own Gibbon ; with whose names we might enwreathe
many another ; but these must suffice.
Such were the associates of Madame de Stael in
her youth. * See Appendix, Note B.

24 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER IV.
In the year 1766 (just about the time Madame von
Kriidner was born at Riga), Monsieur Necker's
daughter was born at Paris ; born, as it seemed, to a
heritage of uncommon happiness and brilliancy.
What seems wanting to a human lot when we have
enumerated wise parents, good and liberal culture,
intellectual friends, ample fortune, splendid talents,
and health both mental and physical ?
Few children, indeed, come into the world with
prospects and advantages so promising as those to
which the parents of Anne-Marie-Louise-Germaine-
Necker might, without presumption, look forward on
their daughter's behalf. It seems as if the victim had
been purposely adorned to add force and grace to
her sacrifice.
Such parents as hers were people possessing too
much freshness and originality of character to have a
home after the common pattern ; we have attempted
to breathe a little life into our idea of Madame
Necker ; her husband's character is much more diffi
cult to hit off; more varieties of light and shadow
are needed ; he had more sympathies than his wife ;
she loved but him — he loved the whole human
family. Monsieur Necker, whatever may be our opinion of
the wisdom of his political course, must secure our

MADAME DE STAEL. 25
admiration for his punctual, unselfish discharge of his
public and social duties ; to say that those who knew
him best, best loved him, is to convey that his virtue
was not a garb put on to dazzle the pubhc, but that
it was the honest fruit of his inner life, and might be
gathered in sweetest profusion by those who could
enter the penetralia of his existence.
Mademoiselle Necker was very early distinguished
by the force of her imagination : this is, perhaps, of all
a young child's faculties, the one which needs the most
judicious training. An engine of terrible power is it ;
overwork it, the whole mental system is out of pro
portion ; repress it too sternly, and you quell the
brightest source of interest which a nascent intellect
possesses. Perhaps, a too powerful and active imagi
nation is better kept in check by a particular culti
vation of the judgment and the memory, than by any
treatment addressed especially to itself. Perhaps, we
can better enlarge other faculties, than we can curtail
the proportions of this most spiritual of all our mental
powers. Every gifted little child has some garden of the
imagination wherein he loves to exercise his faculty,
some mental enclosure where his fancy walks abroad,
and suns itself in its own warmth ; the shape and
colour of his dreamings will be, of course, largely
regulated by his individual peculiarities.
Mademoiselle Necker's favourite amusement con
sisted in cutting out of paper, kings and queens, and
in making them play tragedy ; one would be inte
rested in knowing what kind of royal grief the mind

26 LIFE AND TIMES OF
of a little child could compass. Madame Necker
either did not care to know this, or considered such
a play of the fancy very idle occupation ; accordingly,
paper and scissors for this purpose were forbidden
luxuries ; and tragedy was prohibited.
One can scarcely call this wise : tyrannical govern
ment has the same effect on a child as on a people.
Tyranny invariably fosters deception and hypocrisy ;
and, perhaps, for every child who lies from innate
dishonesty, ninety-nine lie from an excessive fear of
punishment. Besides, a strong natural inclination is
not, we believe, to be conquered by a prohibition
which is a command, and no more ; which does not
address the judgment, by pointing out the unworthi-
ness of the prohibited thing. We know how it is
with man. Even in Eden, the forbidden fruit was
the one he greatly cared to eat : and it is not likely
that a little child possesses more moral courage than
the human being fully developed, and a thousand
times less curious than he.
Everything is so fresh to a little child, the exercise
of his faculties is such a great delight — his interest in
all is so intense ; he has exhausted nothing ; vague
dawnings of beauty break in upon his every sense ;
every thought is a spirit-picture, and every pursuit a
passion. So is it, at any rate, with a child of Mademoiselle
Necker's calibre : she felt in her earnest, undeve
loped mind, the necessity for utterance of some sort,
and found an outlet in playing tragedy with paper
kings and queens. A childish pursuit, certainly; but
childish and contemptible are not interchangeable

MADAME DE STAEL. 27
epithets. The world has seen childish religion, de
votion, love, heroism, before now ; and these things
were not contemptible.
Men and women, some few years after, played
tragedy with kings and queens not of paper. Cer
tainly, this last was not a justifiable pursuit ; and
could Madame Necker have stopped it, she would
have possessed more influence over the public than
she held over her little daughter, who, after the
maternal edict, played her tragedy with a closed door,
and, on any sudden surprise, would hide her whole
company in her bosom, or behind some protecting
screen. Fortunate was it for the little girl, that her father
hated hypocrisy, and had a quick eye for pretences
of every kind. To his clearsightedness and wise
indulgence she owed the truthfulness which so highly
distinguished her. In later years she thus owns the
fact : — " I owe to the wonderful penetration of my
father, whatever candour my character possesses. He
unmasked all false pretensions, and from him I
acquired the habit of believing that people saw
straight into my heart."
To our mind, the closed door and the hidden paper-
royalties were more replete with evil, than any mere
idleness of spirit. Real mental idleness is, to such
a mind as Mademoiselle Necker's, almost impossible ;
but the deceit nurtured by the concealed pursuance
of any habit, must injure the moral stamina, unless
there be a strong counteracting influence elsewhere at
work. Such influence came to Mademoiselle Necker
from the pure atmosphere which her father's high
moral sense seemed to create about him.

28 LIFE AND TIMES OF
The training of their daughter was to Monsieur
and Madame Necker a matter of immense import
ance. Madame Necker, like all mothers of any
talent, had a theory of her own about education, and
it is possible that her method might have been too
rigorously carried out, had not the character of the
father thrown in a balance-weight.
It is probable that Madame Necker early felt the
want of a suitable companion for her daughter; without
either brother or sister, the little girl must have been
dull and lonely had she been an ordinary child ; for
her as she was, no doubt, her teeming thoughts, and
the books she read, were sources of abundant interest;
but she was always strangely sensitive to the voice of
friendship; and a companion of her own age, to whom
she could pour out the riches of her soul, was a de
sirable acquisition.
Such a companion was found in Mademoiselle
Huber, who had been educated with great care, and
was member of a family noted for its intelligence and
science, with which family Madame Necker's had long
held connexion and friendship.
To Mademoiselle Huber we are indebted for the
following notice of her first introduction to her friend,
then about eleven years old. She tells us that Made
moiselle Necker was transported at the idea of having
a companion, and promised to cherish her eternally.
"She addressed me with a warmth and fluency
which were already eloquence, and which made a
great impression upon me. We did not play like
children ; she asked me what were my lessons, if I
knew any foreign languages, and if I often went to

MADAME DE STAEL. 29
the theatre. When I told I had only been twice
or thrice, she cried out, and promised me we should
often go together to see comedies; adding, that on our
return, we must write down the subject of the pieces,
and the parts that struck us : this, she said, was her
custom. ' And besides that,' she continued, ' we will
write to each other every morning.' Then we entered
the drawing-room. By the side of Madame Necker's
arm-chair was a little wooden stool, on which her
daughter was expected to sit, and to keep herself very
upright. Hardly had she taken her accustomed place,
when three or four old people came round her, and
spoke to her with the tenderest interest. One of them,
who wore a little round wig, took her hands in his,
where he kept them a long time, talking to her all
the while, as if she had been five-and-twenty years
old. This was the Abbe Raynal; the others were
MM. Thomas, Marmontel, the Marquis de Pesay, and
Baron de Grimm.
"We placed ourselves at table. Mademoiselle
Necker's very manner of listening was uncommon.
She did not open her mouth, yet she seemed to
speak in her turn, so much expression had her mobile
features. Her eyes followed the looks and movements
of those who talked, so that one almost thought she
anticipated their ideas. She seemed acquainted even
with political subjects, which at that period already
formed an interesting topic of conversation. After
dinner, a great deal of company dropped in. Every
one in approaching Madame Necker, said a word to
her daughter either in the shape of a compliment or
a pleasantry. She answered all easily and with grace;

30 LIFE AND TIMES OF
people seemed pleased to attack her, to embarrass
her, to excite her imagination, which was already so
brilliant. The most remarkable men were those who
took most notice of her, and who provoked her to
talk. They asked for an account of her reading,
recommended books for her perusal, and gave her a
taste for study in talking to her of what she knew or
of what she had yet to learn."
Baron de Grimm gives us a picture of her a year
later. " While Monsieur Necker passes decrees which
cover him with glory, and will render his administra
tion eternally dear to France; while Madame Necker
renounces all the sweets of society to devote herself to
the establishment of an hospital, in the parish of St.
Sulpicius, their daughter, a girl of twelve years old,
who already evinces talent beyond her age, amuses
herself by writing little comedies after the manner of
Monsieur de St. Mark. She has just completed one in
two acts, entitled ' The Inconveniences of Life in Paris,'
which is not only astonishing for her age, but appears
even superior to her models. It represents a mother
who has two daughters, one brought up amid the
simplicity of rural life, the other amid the proud airs
of the capital. The latter is the favourite from the
talents and graces she displays; but this mother fall
ing into misfortune through the loss of a lawsuit,
soon learns which of the two is in reality most de
serving of her affection. The scenes of this little
drama are well linked together; the characters are
consistently supported, and the development of the
intrigue is natural and full of interest. Monsieur
Marmontel, who saw it performed in the drawing-

MADAME DE STAEL. 31
room at St. Ouen, Monsieur Necker's country-seat,
by the author and her young companions, was affected
even to tears."
Mademoiselle Necker inherited from her mother
that spirit which prompts to sacrifice ; but what the
elder lady yielded to justice, the younger one seemed
to devote from generosity. Her disposition had a
warmer tone, a more impulsive flow, than her mo
ther's, though in some regards her character is less
perfect. One anecdote of her youth is amusing. Gibbon,
the historian, seems to have had more philosophy
than falls to the lot of some lovers ; at any rate, he
did not disdain Madame Necker's friendship because
another had secured her hand ; and his company and
conversation were greatly esteemed by the Neckers.
Our poor little heroine, eager to do something to
show her regard for her parents, and witnessing the
pain which it gave them to part from Gibbon, con
ceived the idea of marrying him, in order that they
might constantly enjoy his society.
She even confided this plan to her mother. We
are not acquainted with Madame Necker's answer ;
but we cannot but feel that intrigue was busy in
society, when a child of ten years old devised such
a plan. No English girl of the same years would
dream of this method of showing her filial attach
ment. Madame Necker may have thought that her daugh
ter's imagination required sobering by hard study ; at
any rate, she kept her so constantly at her books, that
in 1780 Mademoiselle Necker had a severe illness.

32 LIFE AND TIMES OF
The physician who was called in expressed an
opinion that she had bent too continuously over her
books, and, forbidding all study, prescribed, as a re
storative, country air.
It seems that Madame Necker was a little disap
pointed at this. She had worked at her daughter's
education, and had come to love it as the artist loves
his work — the offspring of his brain. She had
formed a very brilliant ideal of what she should
make of the fine materials which Nature had so pro
digally afforded her in the child, and to have her
work interrupted at such a critical period in the de
velopment of a mind, was sad disappointment. She
had laboured by line and by rule; all system was
now forbidden; and the mother appears to have
been disheartened, and to have abandoned the edifice
she was no longer permitted to build up after her
own methodical fashion.

MADAME DE STAEL. 33

CHAPTER V.
The germs of knowledge once fairly implanted, how
ever, such an intellect as Mademoiselle Necker's may,
like the forest sapling, be left to its own healthy
powers of growth. Debarred from regular lessons,
and roaming with her young companion, Mademoiselle
Huber, through the rural scenes of St. Ouen, her
mind was gradually enriching itself by the obser
vation of nature, and concentrating its powers of
thought and reflection.
During this period, she amused herself by the com
position of little dramas, in whose representation she
also took an active part ; nor does this interval of
leisure and freedom seem to have diminished her
application ; for in the following year, she made ex
tracts from Montesquieu's " Esprit des Lois," which
she accompanied by reflections of her own.
How very natural, when we consider her inherited
likings, her childish associations, and this girlish
study of Montesquieu, does her love for England
appear, — that love for England which was, we verily
believe, one moving cause of the persecution she
endured at the hands of Napoleon. This epoch
in her life seems marked by the increasing pride
and confidence of her father in his daughter : every
moment he could spare from official duties, he de-
D

34 LIFE AND TIMES OF
voted to her, and the many conversations they held
together, no doubt, purified and perfected whatever
was best in her mind and heart.
These conversations, however, were not always
quite to Madame Necker's taste ; her daughter, no
doubt, already showed a spirit of sturdy independ
ence, of firm adherence to opinion, which the mother
would probably think very presumptuous at her age.
Madame Necker would wish her to remain for some
time yet a child-Hke and docile disciple. There was
in the daughter a superabundance of 'vitality, which
the calm, Christian mother could not understand, and
which seemed to her a dangerous thing for a woman.
And we must own, that perhaps there was a little
jealousy of the perfect mental correspondence be
tween father and daughter; for while Monsieur
Necker explained his ideas to his wife, his daughter
would meet them half way, and seem, by an instinc
tive adoption of them, to make them as much hers
as they were his.
The girl had suffered from the restraint under
which her mother had kept her. From the very
best motives that restraint had been exercised ;
but the bitter feeling it excited in a heart naturally
overflowing with kindliness, is, we think, a sufficient
proof that the severity of it had been sometimes
unwise. Years of life's sad experience reconciled Madame
de Stael to the course her mother had adopted to
wards her ; these years threw a veil of tenderness over
the past ; she could look back uncomplainingly, but
she proved that her own judgment in such matters

MADAME DE STAEL. 35
was at variance with Madame Necker's, by the man
ner in which she educated her own children.
The great evil of the mother's dictatorial govern
ment was, that it roused a spirit of contrariety in the
daughter. With young women of the ordinary stamp,
this well-meant exercise of authority, which saves the
child the trouble of using her own discrimination,
may do very well ; but it is not fit for a vigorous
mind like Mademoiselle Necker's.
Mademoiselle Necker aimed at contrasting with
her mother in many things, because she had suffered
from certain dispositions of her parent. " The daugh
ter wished to be the example of natural gifts, as the
mother was the model of acquired qualities. This
intention, which herself, perhaps, scarcely acknow
ledged, held for a long time an injurious influence
over the judgment of Madame de Stael. Her admi
ration of instinctive virtues was too exclusive, too
systematic. When her ideas had become ripened by
reflection, and when religion, better understood, had
shed for her a new light upon all things, Madame
de Stael acknowledged that she had erred in her
manner of thinking." The lapse of years, also,
helped her to appreciate better her mother's merits.
" The longer I live," she said, on one occasion, " the
better I understand my mother, and the more my
heart feels the necessity to be at one with her."
In spite, however, of this antagonism between
them, we believe no word derogatory to Madame
Necker ever passed the lips of her daughter.
* Madame Necker de Saussure.
D 2

36 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER VI.
Among the gifts wherewith the fairies had clustered
around the cradle of Mademoiselle Necker, there was
not found that winning yet imperious beauty which
exerts so large an influence over society : beside the
fair blossom of the north, Madame von Kriidner, she
looks almost homely; her chief attraction must have
been in expression, and that is a grace so evanescent
and changeful, that the artist strives after it in vain.
Her friends praise her eyes so vehemently, that we are
tempted to suspect there was little else to admire in
her personal appearance; that her eyes deserved their
admiration we can most readily credit : her fine
imagination would kindle beauty in eyes even
naturally ordinary ; but hers were full and black, and,
as we are told, " sparkled with wit and kindness."
Her features were strongly marked rather than
delicate ; and, indeed, there was in her whole frame a
vigour, almost a coarseness of development, far
removed from the delicate roundness and flowing
lines essential to beauty. A certain wit who saw her
during her appearance in London society mentions
that her neck resembled "the front of a chest of
drawers" — a vulgar but forcible comparison, decidedly
unsuggestive of loveliness. Beauty of expression she
must have possessed ; but, as we have said, no portrait

MADAME DE STAEL. 37
can give any adequate idea of such a charm ; yet this
is the beauty that grows^ and is, perhaps, lovelier as
life flows on, for high thoughts and large sympathies,
nurtured and cultivated for years, leave surer traces
upon the countenance than nature puts there at first ;
and the physiognomy of a mobile character is an
unfinished, ever-growing record while life endures : but
allowing her every grace of fine expression, we cannot
call her beautiful; happily, however, there is some
thing more important than beauty — even to a
woman.* Her hands and arms were finely shaped and almost
transparently white: with the childlike frankness
which characterised her, she owned that she dressed
so as to make as much as possible of the only charm
she possessed.
Her feet were exceedingly clumsy. On one occasion,
she was attired to represent a statue, the face being
veiled. The company were to guess from the attitude
and bearing who was the lady thus concealed. One
gentleman to whom the question was put, glanced at
the feet of the statue, and answered, " Je vols le pied
de Stael" (le piedestal).
In a "portrait," written by a literary man, her
friend, about the year 1786, we get the following
glimpse of her. The piece purports to be translated
from a Greek poet.
" Zulma is only twenty years of age, and is the
most celebrated priestess of Apollo: she is the
favourite of the god, she is the one whose incense is
most agreeable, whose hymns are dearest to him;
* See Appendix, Note 0.

38 LIFE AND TIMES OF
when she will, she can persuade him by her accents
to descend from the skies, and mingle among mortals.
. . . From the midst of these sacred maidens (the
priestesses of Apollo) one suddenly advances, whom
my heart will always cherish. Her great black eyes
sparkle with genius ; her black hair falls back on her
shoulders in wavy curls ; her features are rather
strongly marked than delicate ; one discerns in her
countenance the promise of something above the usual
destiny of her sex.
"Such as she is, one would paint the Muse of Poetry,
or Clio, or Melpomene. I have formerly seen the
Pythoness of Delphi, I have seen the Sibyl of Cumae;
but they have an appearance of madness, and their
movements are convulsive; they seemed rather
devoted to the Furies than filled with the presence of
a god. This young priestess is animated without
excess, and inspired without madness. Her charm is
free, and everything supernatural about her is so well
interwoven as to seem a part of herself 
"I listen to her, I look at her with transport; I dis
cover in her features something superior to beauty.
How much play and variety has her countenance !
How many shades of expression the modulation of her
voice ! What a perfect agreement is there between
her thoughts and her physiognomy ! She speaks ;
and if her words do not reach me, the inflections of her
voice, her gestures, her looks, suffice to interpret her
meaning. She is silent for a moment, her closing
accents resound in my heart, and I find in her eyes
ideas which her tongue has not yet spoken.
"She isaltogether silent, and the temple echoes with

MADAME DE STAEL. 39
applause ; her head is modestly bent downwards, her
long eyelashes veil her eyes of fire, and our sun is
hidden behind the clouds."
Allowing for the tone of poetical exaggeration which
marks this quotation, we can see that Mademoiselle
Necker's talents were early valued, and can also
discern the absorbing influence which they exerted
over a certain class of French society. She was the
queen of conversation, at a time when the commerce
of society, both in its social and political regards, was
regulated and ruled by conversation.
Although we should not always identify the author
with the creature of his brain, yet in the highly
finished creation of a great author, there will be
generally found many points of resemblance be
tween the fictitious character and the real man, its
maker. As God created man in his own image (at a
vast distance and with immeasurable differences), so
man creates his works in the image of himself. In
the " Corinne" of Madame de Stael, — that bright and
beautiful work of her perfect talent, — we may see
many traits of likeness between the writer of the
book and its heroine. Without rigorously associating
the two, or following the comparison out to all its
details, we may interpret the one by the other.
Is not the following picture of Corinne, very much
like Mademoiselle Necker? "the priestess of Apollo,"
as we have just seen her described.
" She was dressed as the Sibyl of Domenichino ; an
India shawl was arranged about her head, and with
the shawl her fine black hair was mingled ; her robe
was white, a blue drapery encircled her waist, and

40 LIFE AND TIMES OF
her costume was very picturesque, without being so
far from received usage as to betray affectation. Her
attitude on the car was noble and modest ; one per
ceived that she was well pleased to be admired, but
a sentiment of timidity mingled with her joy, and
seemed to ask indulgence for her triumph ; while the
expression of her physiognomy, of her eyes, of her
smile, interested one for her.  Her arms were
of the most dazzling beauty; her figure, which was
tall, and after the manner of the Greek statues,
rather strongly developed, was energetically cha
racteristic of youth and happiness ; her look had in
it something inspired. In her fashion of accepting
and acknowledging the applause she received, there
was an unsophisticated air, which contrasted with the
splendour of the extraordinary situation in which she
found herself;* she suggested the twofold idea of a
priestess of Apollo going up to the Temple of the
Sun, and of a woman perfectly unaffected in all the
ordinary relations of life ; so that all her movements
had a charm which excited interest and curiosity,
astonishment and regard."
* Corinne is here described as on her way to the Capitol, where
she was to receive the crown her talents had merited.

MADAME DE STAEL. 41

CHAPTER VII.
The genius of Mademoiselle Necker very early
showed itself, and her remarkable advantages of educa
tion, united to her familiarity with all the great models
of literature, circumstances which would have de
pressed mediocrity, only quickened her ardour. When
we consider the method and perfectness of her training,
her originality is almost startling. She accumulated
materials on every side, and turned all to account,
without enslaving herself to the authors from whom
she borrowed them. Her power of mental assimi
lation was immense, while we must allow that her
capacities of every sort were uncommon.
Not only had she this methodical education as a
foundation for her mental exercises, but as we have
seen, she was accustomed, from a very early age, to
associate with the great and clever men who loved to
visit her father. The little girl, who at eleven years
of age listened to, and enjoyed, the conversation of
Marmontel, Gibbon, Raynal, and Grimm, and who
seemed even at that time to comprehend something
of the discourse when it assumed a political turn,
does not surprise us much at fifteen, when we find
her making extracts from Montesquieu, and adding
thereto her own reflections. Nor is it remarkable
that she so early interested herself in politics ; her

42' LIFE AND TIMES OF
father lived honestly and entirely for the people
whose affairs he administered ; and a daughter whose
filial devotion was so earnest, could not well see her
father absorbed by a subject, without endeavouring to
lift up her mind to some comprehension of it.
When her father left office in 1781, she addressed
to him a very remarkable anonymous letter, whose
style, however, soon led him to recognise his daughter's
hand; the subject of the letter was the Compte
Rendu, or account given of the receipt and expen
diture of the public monies during the ministry of
Necker, a theme neither very interesting nor very
intelligible for most girls of fifteen, but one which
her love for her father rendered sufficiently attractive
to her.
Through her affections, indeed, all that interested
her exerted over her a terrible power ; her intense
sensibility has in it something almost terrific, when
we consider the thousand accidents and chances to
which in this mortal life we are subject ; and this
sensibility added a sting of deadly power to every
distress through which hereafter we shall have to
trace her path.
In spite of her mother's many efforts, Mademoiselle
Necker's sensibility seemed to gather nourishment
from all quarters, but principally from the theatre,
and from books. Madame Necker does not seem to
have circumscribed her daughter's reading within such
narrow limits as we might expect ; she permitted her
to read the works of Richardson ; and Madame de
Stael, in proof of her strong imagination, tells us
that the abduction of Clarissa was an event of her

MADAME DE STAEL. 43
youth. With some of us life seems like a crowded
procession from which we stand aside, watching its
course rather with interest than with eagerness ; not
so with her, she loved action, her sympathies were
quick, and she busied herself intensely with the
world and its concerns.
In 1781, when her father retired from office, she
went with her parents to Coppet, near Geneva, where
Necker had bought an estate, and here she princi
pally resided until his resumption of official duties
in 1787 recalled the family to Paris. During this
retirement her pen was busy; the dramatic form
seems to have been the one which most recommended
itself to her opening powers : probably because her
first efforts in that kind had met with praise and
encouragement. As belonging to this period we note
a comedy entitled " Sophie, ou les Sentiments secrets,"
and two tragedies, one on the subject of Lady Jane
Grey, and the other styled Montmorency ; in the
last the character of Richelieu is drawn with consi
derable force, but compared with her later efforts,
these were mere buddings of promise.
In the choice of Lady Jane Grey for a subject, we
see again her interest in England. Whether her
hereditary prejudices in favour of our country were
strengthened by any tender sentiment, we cannot
tell; but Sir John Sinclair, in his correspondence,
" mentions a marriage projected between the son of
Lord Rivers and Mademoiselle Necker, and regrets
that it did not take place, as it would have withdrawn
her family from the vortex of French politics." This
may or may not be fact; but at any rate, her fa-

44 LIFE AND TIMES OF
ther's transmitted predilections, her mother's strictly
Protestant training, her association with Gibbon and
other well-informed Englishmen, had inspired her
with a decided regard for our country; and she gives
her Corinne an English lover.
Not only were her talents early developed, they
were early appreciated. We have seen Raynal, "in
his little round wig," hold her hands in his, and talk
to her as if she were five-and-twenty. We have heard
Baron de Grimm tell how the accomplished Marmon
tel shed tears, when he witnessed the performance of
one of her little dramas; and she was but fifteen
years old, when Raynal, contemplating the execution
of a great work, begged her to write for it a piece on
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Her early success, and the brilliancy of her conver
sation, no doubt, somewhat alarmed Madame Necker;
she feared, perhaps, lest so much incense might turn
her daughter's head : and when we read the descrip
tion of " Zulma, the Priestess of Apollo," there really
does seem no little danger ; for Madame de Stael, as
she says of her own Corinne, was " well-pleased to
be admired." She never prevaricated in this matter,
but owned honestly that she esteemed the good
opinion of her friends, and that their praises pleased
her. And if we were all equally candid, who would
not confess the same ? We may be proud if in our
measure we have been as free from purchasing praise ;
if we have as honestly lived out our opinions, heed
less of the consequences, though not without having
counted the cost.
But one cannot blame Madame Necker for her

MADAME DE STAEL. 45
anxiety, lest her daughter's impulsive temper, firm
opinions, and facility of expression, might, by the
attention and admiration they excited, disturb the
balance of her judgment, or give her a dogmatical
habit, unsuited to her sex and years. We may sup
pose that Madame Necker discoursed to her on the
propriety of deference to others, and warned her
against being anxious to shine in public. In conse
quence of such hints, Mademoiselle Necker, not to
show contrariety, would place herself modestly behind
her father's chair. We are told, that on such occa
sions, one great man would steal from the circle to
her side, then another, and a third, until her corner
became the centre of attraction. However Madame
Necker might chafe at what seemed the decree of
fate, her kind and genial husband would smile as he
saw the defection of one of the company after another,
and would perchance turn his chair and bodily join
the traitors.
One cannot but sigh to think of those gay, brilliant,
earnest conversations, and long to have heard them.
But our task is different ; we are to learn and apply
the history which those men were weaving.

46 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER VIII.
The man who entered the lists with the view of
becoming son-in-law to Madame Necker must needs,
we think, have been a somewhat bold one. Honour,
and nobleness, and moderate talent might, indeed,
content Monsieur Necker ; but Madame Necker was
a woman to canvass rigorously the pretensions of all
claimants to the hand of her daughter.
In the first place, he must be a Protestant ; this
proviso, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, was
unalterable. Years of residence in a Catholic city,
years of commune with wealthy and noble Cathohc
society, had not dimmed the purity of that single-
hearted, simple, beautiful Protestant faith, which was
almost the only thing Susanne Curchod inherited
from her father. Not that she was intolerant She
had mingled with the liberal society of Paris too
much for that ; but she was conscientious, and fore
seeing, and wisely judged that only a Protestant
would make a fit husband for her daughter. Any
other j udgment would have been out of keeping with
the rest of her character. Whether in choosing her
Protestant she chose wisely, is another thing.
Eric Magnus, Baron de Stael Holstein, a Swede
by birth, and Secretary to the Swedish Ambassador,
was on many accounts an eligible suitor. Madame

MADAME DE STAEL. 47
Necker could not object to his faith, for he was a
Protestant ; the young lady could not take any ex
ception to his appearance, he was a handsome man ;
and as for Monsieur Necker, if he saw his wife con
tented with the connexion, what more could he re
quire ? He loved his daughter, his daughter loved
him ; her great anxiety was to keep near him, and
near those friends whose society made life agreeable
to her.
Suppose her settled in a distant province ; what
became of her interest in society, her talent to be its
ornament ? Conjugal contentment, as the end and
aim of life, was not to be thought of. Who had it
in those days ? Her parents, an exception to the rule
of their time, are as bright an example as, perhaps,
any age can afford ; and they, with intervals of
retirement, had lived in society, in Paris. She did
not hope, we imagine, for felicity like theirs. A
bright ideal she may have formed — every young
woman of her calibre does — of what domestic fife
ought to be ; but she knew that such happiness as
that of Monsieur and Madame Necker was extremely
rare — so rare, that she longed to keep near the home
of her childhood, near the father who was to her the
interpreter of everything great and good; near the
mother whose severe Christian propriety applied a
searching test to every attraction and pleasure of
life. The Baron de Stael does not seem to have possessed
any intellectual features to render him a suitable
claimant for the hand of Mademoiselle Necker ; but
he offered her a residence in Paris, for his sovereign,

48 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Gustavus III. of Sweden, recalled his French ambas
sador from that city, appointed De Stael in his place,
and promised to assure him the post for some years,
in order to get over Mademoiselle Necker's objection
to bind herself to a residence anywhere else.
For this royal patronage, several motives may be
assigned : in the first place, Mademoiselle Necker
was to have a large fortune, and Gustavus was not ill-
pleased to secure this to a subject of his own ; in the
second, her talents were already known, and their
report may have rendered the Swedish king willing to
transplant their owner to his own somewhat dull and
sluggish country ; but exotics must be delicately
dealt with, and he will not rudely tear her from the
associations she prizes ; in the third place, Baron de
Stael was a favourite with Count Fersen, and Count
Fersen was influential at the French court. The
Baron seems to have been one of those who " have
greatness thrust upon them." Marie Antoinette liked
him ; everything, in short, seemed to favour his suit,
excepting the inclinations of the young lady herself, and
these were bought over by her mother's approval of
the suitor, and by the promise of a residence in Paris.
The bridegroom was amiable, his person handsome,
his manners courtly ; what more could the most
fastidious require ? Any marriage of the intellectual
qualities, without which union marriage is degraded
and outraged, it was not the fashion of those days
to put in the bond. Mademoiselle Necker married
the Baron de Stael in the year 1786, and he received
from her father on his wedding-day, eighty thousand
pounds.

MADAME DE STAEL. 49
What must have been the feeling of attachment to
her father, to her country, which induced this young
creature, full of genius and vitality, to unite herself
to a man in age her senior, in every way her inferior,
it is not easy to imagine.
Some would persuade us that Monsieur Necker
urged his daughter to consent to a match so agreeable
to the Queen and to Count Fersen, in the hope that
the court influence, thus propitiated, might recall him
to office ; such a suspicion, however, is utterly at
variance with all we know of Necker's character. It
is far more likely that the idea of her father's recall
should find birth in the daughter's brain, and that
she should ennoble her sacrifice by giving it the name
of filial devotion.
An imaginative woman of twenty years old can
look the unpromising future in the face, and see
nothing very terrible therein ; Mademoiselle Necker
had not fathomed the depths of her own nature when
she gave her hand to Monsieur de Stael ; we venture
to say that ten years later no maternal persuasion, no
fatherly approval, rather looked than spoken, and on
that account all the more touching,' would have
induced her to marry thus. It is a mystery how her
parents could have sacrificed a creature so vehemently
affectionate, so full of kindliness and gentle instincts,
at such a shrine.
But after all, perhaps, she felt less horror at the
union than we suppose ; there was one bright re
deeming point in the matter, the residence in Paris ;
and perchance she was attracted by the prospect of
the brilliant salons which, as wife of the Swedish

50 LIFE AND TIMES OF
ambassador, she could fill with all who were distin
guished in diplomatic affairs ; perchance she foresaw
with pleasure that her father's celebrity as a minister,
and her own rising reputation as a genius, added to
Marie Antoinette's liking for the baron, would enable
her to choose her company among politicians, men of
letters, and courtiers. All the brightest and the best
would unite to make her house brilliant, if not happy.
Such a prospect to a woman of her temper is no
trifle ; let her have had perfect domestic happiness in
her first marriage, we doubt whether she would have
found it a guarantee against the want of society, the
love of conversation, the full flow of life in Paris.
And before we condemn her on this account, let us
remember that iUustrious and intellectual company
had surrounded her almost from her cradle; that
intercourse with great minds was a daily necessity,
not an occasional luxury to Madame de Stael.
Baron de Stael's principal fault seems to have been
an utter disregard for the value of money — a curious
failing for so near a connexion of the greatest finan
cier then living : it is said that on his wedding-day
he made over to his friend, Count Fersen, the whole
of his ministerial allowance ; whether to reward the
Count's energy in promoting the successful issue of
his suit, is not added. The immense dowry which
Monsieur Necker gave with his daughter, speedily
felt the influence of the baron's thoughtless liberality,
and had not Madame de Stael subsequently placed
herself and her children under the protection of
Monsieur Necker, it is likely that the improvident
baron would have diminished, if not destroyed, the
fortunes of his young family.

MADAME DE STAEL. 51

CHAPTER IX.
We cannot doubt that Madame de Stael was contented
with her position in life, when she opened her house
in Paris to the great men whose friendship she had
inherited, as well as to a host of clever people, who
were attracted by the light and warmth of her rising
genius. As a friend of her own said, " Paris, of all
places in the world, is that where one has least need
of happiness to make life agreeable." Madame de
Stael, who on the banks of lake Leman regretted the
Rue du Bac, was not a woman to waste her energies
in unavailing regrets, while she had the brilliant life
of Parisian society perpetually within her reach.
Her capacities for suffering and enjoyment were
only gradually developing. If we may use the com
parison, the flowering of her intellectual powers
commenced when she was very young, but her moral
being, like those vast forest-trees which are destined
for long existence, achieved its full growth but slowly.
Her nature was of that noble make, which waxes
stronger and better, in proportion to the thickness of
the clouds which envelope it ; and in these bright first
times of her married life in Paris, we do not see
presages of the heroic endurance which we shall find
her displaying hereafter.
She was as yet a stranger to herself; and all of
E 2

52 LIFE AND TIMES OF
us who have any depth and force of being, are self-
unknown during great part of our lives ; if we belong
to those shallow souls from whom great occasions and
accidents can bring forth nothing, self acquaintance
is easily achieved. But in more complex organisa
tions, the human being may be ignorant of much
that is in him, until some peculiar combination of
circumstances bring forth the hidden things of the
soul, like the sudden hghtning which illumines the
midnight landscape, and shows us for an instant,
scenes which, before the flash, had for us no existence.
Othello knows not he is jealous, until Desdemona is
suspected. Madame Necker must have been annoyed by the
want of thought and method which her daughter
sometimes displayed ; we are told that before Ma
dame de StaeTs talents had quite fixed her high
place in society, Paris was full of anecdotes of her
little carelessnesses and infringements of stiff eti
quette. Sometimes a torn flounce marred her appea
rance at court ; on one occasion, when she visited
Madame de Polignac, her cap fell off -in her carriage
unperceived, and she made her courtesy without it.
This thoughtlessness displayed itself also in conver
sation. When she was about seventeen, she was one
day talking to the Marechale de Mouchy, one of the
stiffest dames of the old regime; she suddenly electri
fied the punctilious heiress of a thousand proprieties,
by asking her, " And pray, Madame, what do you
think of love ?"
To Madame Necker, who looked on everything
gravely, and somewhat austerely, these little faults

MADAME DE STAEL. 53
no doubt gave trouble. Monsieur Necker took the
more reasonable part of laughing at them ; he loved
to tell anecdotes in which his daughter appeared to
some disadvantage, and she was well pleased to amuse
him, even when the joke was against herself.

CHAPTER X.
Monsieur Necker owed his first ministry principally
to the impoverished condition of the finances. We
have already mentioned that his talents in fortune-
building were no secret ; and the ministers of Louis
XVI. perhaps thought wisely, when they thought that
a man who could so well manage his private affairs,
and who had so successfully exerted himself on behalf
of the India Company, would prove the very person
to repair the grave disorders of the exchequer.
How he was to do this, was to his colleagues at
once a profound secret, and a matter of perfect in
difference. They wanted money — he knew how to
make it ; he was therefore the man whose presence
was required in the ministerial ranks. Such was the
simple logic of a profligate and obsequious ministry.
Perhaps Necker took office with as pure a desire
for the public weal as ever induced a man to give up
private ease for public exertion. He brought ideas
into the French Cabinet which had seldom found a
place there ; ideas, whose germs Sully and Colbert
had implanted, but which, since Colbert's time, had

54 LIFE AND TLMES OF
been effectually banished from the councils of the
monarch. Incompetency, the fault which, perhaps, brings more
contempt than any other upon a public man in Eng
land, was so usual among the colleagues and suc
cessors of Monsieur Necker, that any man of them
who was only indifferently acquainted with pubhc
business found himself a statesman, by comparison.
Such men could not hope for a long ascendancy over
even a deeply degraded nation.
There was in 1777, when Necker undertook the
Directorship of the Royal Treasures, a great tide of
pubhc feeling setting in, and the greatest wisdom on
the part of the rulers was necessary to control the
mighty flood, to define its just limits, to own its
legitimate influence.
But a vacillating policy, refusing to-day the righteous
prayer of an oppressed people, and to-morrow yielding
to factious clamour more than a suffering nation had
dared to ask, — a good-natured king, and a greedy
court, are three very significant features in the com
plexion of those times, and three agents powerful in
promoting the ripening of that bitter fruit, which the
unhappy heir of long ages of misrule, was to pluck
amid the tears and curses of his people.
During the first ministry of Monsieur Necker, he
confined his attention to the finances, and left them,
on his retirement in 1781, in a flourishing condition.
Turgot and Malesherbes, two ministers who would
have wrought constitutional reforms corresponding to
the changes in the taxation which Necker required to
carry out his plans, were successively sacrificed to the

MADAME DE STAEL. 55
prejudices of the court. Had these three men been
suffered to rule the affairs of France, the revolution
might, perhaps, have been prevented. But we shall
see, hereafter, that every useful measure was baulked
by the interference of privileged ignorance.
The history and circumstances of the French
Revolution have been, of late years, so traced and
illustrated by able pens, that we should be ashamed
of our presumption were we to attempt any analysis
of that remarkable event, or adopt a mode of treating
it which supposed any new views of a subject so worn
and familiar. The scenes of that strange transition
period will be alluded to by us, only so far as they
affect the career and the fortunes of the Necker
family. Monsieur Necker's life in Paris, and his successful
direction of the financial business of the country,
earned for him a wide-spread esteem and apprecia
tion. We shall glance hereafter more particularly at
some of the incidents connected with his retirement
in 1781, when we come to consider the circumstances
that recalled him to office in 1788.
We have seen that his Protestantism was against
his success at court, his economical policy was still
more unfavourable in that quarter; and he succumbed
to circumstances after a painful struggle which de
serves our sympathy.
Monsieur de Calonne, a very rash man, undertook,
after Necker, the direction of the exchequer, and
adopted a system of policy diametrically opposed to
that of his predecessor. The motive power of De
Calonne's policy was jealousy of Monsieur Necker's

56 LIFE AND TIMES OF
popularity. He therefore set studiously to work to
undermine it. And this, to an unscrupulous man,
must have been a very easy thing.
Necker's great motto, " Economy," though recom
mended by the condition in which he left the royal
finances, was not very agreeable to a court like that
of Louis XVI. The very people benefited by his re
trenchments, were naturally fond of splendour ; and
when Monsieur de Calonne announced that private
extravagance was a pubhc benefit, and begged the
court to revive trade by a profuse expenditure, he
began in a direction very favourable to his own good
repute, and the continuance of his favour at court.
His sophistries were soon exposed : the revival of
trade turned out to be a considerable deficit in the
revenue, and, convening an assembly of the "notables,"
the brilliant but superficial minister was compelled to
own the poverty of the royal coffers. An honest man
would have lamented his error, and set about remo
delling his policy ; but De Calonne was not troubled
with qualms of conscience. He acknowledged the
deficit, but accounted for it by asserting that Monsieur
Necker had rendered a false account to the King, in
1781 ; that the deficit had at that time commenced,
although Necker, in his " Compte Rendu," had en
deavoured to exhibit a surplus. A falsehood like this
of Monsieur de Calonne, astonishes us by its boldness,
but almost provokes a smile at its futility. A question
of facts and figures, of receipts and disbursements, is
no difficult thing to decide when accounts have
been scrupulously kept. Necker was no amateur
financier; his memorial to the King had been a bond

MADAME DE STAEL. 57
fide account, just such as, when in business for him
self, he drew up for his private satisfaction as to the
state of his affairs. Therefore he was ready to excul
pate himself.
His point of honour was attacked by this accusa
tion ; the chief foundation of his popularity had been
the almost universal faith in his honour and honesty.
Unsuccessful he might be ; but the people of France
had placed confidence in his good faith. Necker was
by no means indifferent to the pubhc voice. Although
he would use no dishonourable means of obtaining
distinction, he was sensitively alive to the acclama
tions of his fellow-citizens, and he had left office
respected by those whose affairs court influence had
compelled him to deliver over into other hands. The
consciousness that he had used his power not un
worthily, was the dearest thing he carried with him
into retirement. An unsullied conscience had made
that retirement sweet to himself, and agreeable to his
family ; and De Calonne's accusation must have stung
his pride to the very quick.
Instead of declaiming against his successor, Mon
sieur Necker prepared a fresh account, in which he
so entirely proved the truth of his " Compte Rendu,"
that Louis XVI. assured him he was convinced of the
good faith which had guided his administration ; but
at the same time commanded him not to make public
his justification, lest it should embarrass the ministers.
Necker, however, was more anxious to stand in a fair
light before his adopted country, than before a sove
reign whose pusillanimity was rendered more pitiable
by the excellence of his intentions. It seems absurd

58 LIFE AND TIMES OF
and unreasonable to sacrifice Necker at the shrine of
Calonne ; and, indeed, the ex-minister was not in
clined to bleed on such an altar. He claimed the
right of making his justification as public as had been
the accusation ; he saved his credit, but displeased
his sovereign.
He was accordingly exiled to a distance of forty
leagues from Paris. Madame de Stael tells us, that
her sensations on hearing this word "exile," were
those of unmitigated terror ; yet the treatment of her
father in his banishment was kindly, indeed, com
pared with the degrading surveillance which she
lived to endure.
On the day before his exile commenced, the road
to St. Ouen (Necker's country-house near Paris), was
crowded with carriages ; the noblest citizens of France
hastened to pay their respects to one who had so well
sustained the credit of their country.
The French people are not given to sentimental
folly with regard to a man disgraced at court ; and
we may be certain that Necker deserved all the
sympathy he attracted on this occasion.
His daughter, who accompanied him, assures us,
that his demeanour in his retirement was calm, and
Christianlike. Most impatient to brook an insult, he
was most enduring to bear sorrow. We can well
imagine that Madame de Stael, who entered vividly
into her father's desire for justification, felt the sting
of the consequences induced by his courageous per-
sistance, even more than he.
Let us add that Necker's exile was quite unem-
bittered by misanthropy : it is only the Richelieus and

MADAME DE STAEL. 59
the Machiavels who grow misanthropic by long and
intimate knowledge of mankind. The large-souled
statesman, whose royal will and great sympathies,
added to a clear-sighted prudence, are Heaven's
charter to govern — this man, in retirement or in office,
is still a hopeful, helpful watcher of the onward
tendencies of the human race. That race Necker
sincerely loved.
We have no intention of claiming for Monsieur
Necker a title to the highest reputation as a states
man — his commercial education had perhaps narrowed
his views too much for that : his political system was
too exclusively a debtor and creditor account — a
system of loans and credit, to obtain a great national
popularity. When the public passions were aroused,
and the people who had so long suffered heroically,
demanded heroism from its rulers, Necker, the great
master of finance, was, from the very nature of things,
unequal to the management of the administration.
His system of economy, of utility, of equalisation in
the taxes, required a time of peace and prudence for
its development; the bold strokes and noble con
cessions which might, even at the eleventh hour, have
spared the French nation her baptism of blood, it was
not in Necker's genius to conceive; and had he con
ceived them, a timidity about innovations, a cautious
ness, healthful to a certain degree in other conditions
of government, but fatal in this, would have prevented
his striking the decisive blow.
The extreme conditions, prosperity and adversity,
are powerful tests of character; we have seen that
Necker's moral being was so well balanced as to leave

60 LIFE AND TIMES OF
him very moderate and faithful amid the golden
temptations of the first ; equally well did he endure
the greater ordeal ; his exile was devoted to the com
pletion of a work which he thought the age demanded,
viz., a lucid exposition of the Christian religion.
There is something infinitely grand and beautiful in
this employment of a season of disgrace, and he who
could, at such a time, distract his mind from secular
affairs and fix it on the contemplation of immutable
truth, is as far above our pity as the angels in heaven.
We almost forget the weaknesses of his policy while
gazing on him in the sublime attitude of a Christian
teacher. We may rather give our pity to his loving and
passionate-hearted daughter, who, with terrible powers
of sympathy and emotion, flung herself Curtius-like
into every opening gulf of her father's circumstances.
The shadows were indeed gradually deepening about
that woman whose childhood and early youth had
been so gorgeously sunned in the light of happiness
and good fortune. But there was yet a bright interval
before the coming of the storm.
Worthily does Necker contrast with the old courtier
under whom he sometime held office, the poor man
who frittered away forty years of disciphne in sighing
after the royal antechambers, and the glories of gold
and silver lace ; hopeless is the case of these men, for
whom sorrowful experiences are dumb. Monsieur de
Maurepas returned at last to Versailles, bringing from
his exile antique prejudices so rigidly preserved that
his long absence from court seems a fable, and childish
ignorance so complete as almost to give the lie to the

MADAME DE STAEL. 61
facts of his history; it seems scarcely possible that
such a man could be long seated in the cabinet of
any sovereign, let the times and the nation be servile
as they may.

CHAPTER XI.
The necessities of the nation procured Necker's re
turn to office in the August following his banishment,
and perhaps his popularity was then at its culmination.
How much of it he owed to the antagonism between
the court and the people, which induced the latter to
respect a man who had proved that public good fame
was dearer to him than the favour of the king, it is
not necessary here to inquire.
The school called from its work that of the Ency
clopaedists, though steeped to the lips in the bitter
waters of infidelity, had yet enunciated to the world
some truths, which were at that time like golden
fights ashore to storm-tossed vessels far out at sea.
But infidelity proved unable to do more than enun
ciate, directly she began to apply her theories she lost
herself, and became a persecutor through hatred of
persecution. Only in the true realisation of an
unsectarian Christianity is liberty possible for societies
and for nations.
These truths— the dogma of religious liberty, for
example — were politely ignored by the court of
France. In 1781 Monsieur Necker, just then exposed
to a libellous persecution on the part of Maurepas
and others, claimed as the price of his continuance

62 LIFE AND TIMES OF
in office, the punishment of his anonymous slanderers,
and for himself a seat at the council of the king.
He said, and justly enough, that "the minister of
finance, charged with asking from the people the
sacrifices necessary to keep up war, ought to take
part in the deliberations which concerned the making
of peace."
Necker was a Protestant, and his seat was denied
him, and yet no generous mind, Catholic or Protestant,
will hesitate in pronouncing Monsieur Necker a more
decided friend to Christianity than his courtly op
ponent. The minister of finance was not the only
man of mark thus humiliated, and the infidels and
the Protestants, so diverse in their views and motives,
had at least a common cause in the slights put upon
them. It might have been better for France had
Monsieur Necker overlooked these offences, and for
borne to tender his resignation, but a very shght con
sideration will show us that his situation affords many
excuses for his conduct.
Among the circumstances which led to the resigna
tion, was the fact that Monsieur de Maurepas was
detained in private by a fit of the gout. Necker
had therefore free access to the ear of his sovereiori,
and he used his privilege to protest against the then
recent appointment of a Monsieur de Sartines to
the post of minister of marine. His recommendation
for this post was, that as lieutenant of police, his con
duct had been satisfactory ; what relation there is
between the duties of a minister of marine and those
of a lieutenant of police, it perhaps requires an eye
like that of Maurepas to perceive.

MADAME DE STAEL. 63
The whole duty of the administration had not yet
fallen on Necker's shoulders, and complicated his
functions; and as a man equal to his own post, he
felt humbled and angry to see a high place thus pro
faned. Nor was his anger unreasonable. Calling on de
Sartines a few days after his appointment, Monsieur
Necker found the cabinet of the minister of marine
hung round with maps and charts which the ex-lieu
tenant of police was attentively studying. " See
what progress I make, Monsieur Necker," said he ;
" I can put my hand upon this map, and point out to
you the four quarters of the world blindfold ! "
Monsieur Necker was at that time so tied and fet
tered, that he saw little hope of any useful result to
his labours. The court cried for money ; the neces
sities of the ^people asked imperiously reform and
retrenchment ; both parties looked to the minister of
finance for the realisation of their wishes, and he
was so overridden at court by the worthless parasites
of the antechambers, the proteges of Monsieur de
Maurepas, that his popular tendencies were looked on
with suspicion, his useful aims with disgust. Thus,
incompetency in his colleagues, the personal insult
heaped upon him, the indifference of the King to his
painful situation, the royal favour in which his libel-
lists were held (one of them being his superior in
office, another high in the household of the Comte
d'Artois), formed a conjunction of circumstances
which, if anything could justify his resignation, may
be said to exculpate him abundantly. But in his
retirement he often reproached himself for having
thrown up his functions.

64 LIFE AND TIMES OF
The business of state was, no doubt, easier and
pleasanter after he left ; there was no one to torment
the goodnatured King with the sufferings of the
prople, which demanded attention and redress ; no
one to tell him of the threatening cloud in the
future, and to exhort the sovereign courageously to
grapple with the inevitable difficulties of the times.
For some space all went on gaily. Turgot and
Malesherbes, two useful, and at that period popular
ministers, had also been dismissed ; and the stage of
public affairs, denied or rendered shameful to those
who were capable of worthily occupying it, was aban
doned to a set of courtly adventurers, whose fantastic
efforts to play their parts would provoke our laughter,
if they had not brought about an awful crisis in
human history, which, perhaps, still exerts a large
influence over Europe.
It was not to be hoped that the interval from 1781
to 1788, the space of his absence from pubhc
affairs, had made Monsieur Necker's task less difficult;
on the contrary, he returned to office dispirited by
the heaviness of the pohtical sky, but yet as one
somewhat bound to wait on the nation in difficulties,
which his conscience told him his resignation had
rather increased than diminished.
His daughter rejoiced in his recall, she yet hoped
all from his interference ; but the more prudent and
experienced father had a profound conviction that it
was too late. " Would to God," he cried, " they had
given me the past seventeen months ; things are now
gone too far."
Madame de Stael, young and hopeful as she was,

MADAME DE STAEL. 65
could not but perceive that the queen received her
coldly: the niece of the Archbishop of Sens (the
retiring minister) made her courtesy at the same time ;
and although the latter lady had been somewhat in
disgrace, the queen's bearing towards her was evi
dently warm and favourable, compared with the frigid
tolerance which was accorded to Madame de Stael.
Marie Antoinette looked on the recall of Monsieur
Necker as a measure involving a sacrifice of kingly
dignity to popular opinion. " It is the grand mis
take of despotic princes," says Madame de Stael, " to
look upon opinion as their enemy," as something
necessarily antagonistic to the Crown.
Monsieur Necker was certainly at the period of his
recall, in 1788, the darling of the French people ;
this proud position might, indeed, have afforded him
a prevision of the disgrace to follow ; for, as the
priests of the old mythologies twisted with gold the
horns of their victims, and wreathed with flowers the
neck devoted to the altar, the French nation gene
rally prepares the sacrifice of a pubhc man by a
triumph of popularity. Public confidence at that
time ran high : on the morning Necker resumed his
post, the funds rose thirty per cent. : this, the real
evidence of faith in his honour and stability, was a
kind of distinction which De Calonne's brilliant
sophistries had never gained for their author. Yet
the resumption of his office plunged Necker into a
sea of difficulties, to the management of which he was
unequal, and upon his failure waited the contempt of
France.

66 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER XII.
Let us for a moment glance at his position at the
period of his recall.
France, although without a representative assembly-
from 1614 to 1789, was not in 1788 without a parlia
ment of some sort. Besides the local parhaments of
the provinces, which were scarcely anything more
than agencies to raise the subsidies, the parliament of
Paris had been reassembled under the advice of Mon
sieur de Maurepas, who was assuredly no democrat.
But the difficulty of raising the necessary taxes had
become increasingly perplexing, and the whole pubhc
spirit of the times, such as it was, pointed already so
imperiously towards progress that De Maurepas, unable
to trust the nation with a representative system, even
had he possessed the capability of fathoming her wants,
conjured up this shadow of a senate, miscalled the
parliament of Paris.
This parliament, which was an assemblage of judges
nominated by the king, was at first merely the su
preme court of justice in France. It settled appeals
from the courts of the barons, and by the moderation
and propriety of its proceedings, earned for itself no
mean share of public respect. By degrees the kings
of France forced upon this parliament of Paris
questions with which it had no concern; and, unable
at once to assume without ceremony the authority of

MADAME DE STAEL. 67
despotic monarchs, published their edicts and ordon-
nances in this assembly, that they might be consented
to, and registered here before they were made public
and declared to be law. However illegal might be
this assumption of authority on the part of the
parhament, it is certain that after the dissolution of
the states-general by Louis XIII. in 1614, it did to
a certain extent operate as a check on the kingly
authority. But, as the judges were appointed by the
monarch and removable at his pleasure, it is obvious
that the parliament of Paris was no representative
assembly. Moreover, in the event of any contumacy
the king could take his seat among them, and register
the disputed edict in solemn silence ; " for it was one
of the fundamental laws of the French monarchy
that, in the presence of the king, the function of
every magistrate is suspended for the time." These
royal sittings were termed " beds of justice" (lits de
justice), and of course rendered all opposition not
only useless, but impossible.*
Fettered as was the parliament of Paris, it never
theless frequently acted a useful part in calling the
attention of the nation to any fresh act of encroach
ment ; it might thus be compared to an honest watch
dog, chained and forbidden to meddle with the thief,
which shows his teeth, though he cannot use them,
and gives the alarm by his portentous bark. Louis
XV. found even this parhament too great a restraint,
and dissolved it in disgust.
* The king dictating the laws to this wretched parliament re
minds us of the Emperor of Morocco, who, playing at whist with
some of his subjects, exclaims to the person whose place it is to lead,
" Play hearts, or I cut off your head."
F 2

68 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Every year of abeyance increased the difficulty of
reassembling either parliament or states-general, but
the necessity for fresh taxes becoming yearly more
pressing, Monsieur de Maurepas was compelled to
offer the reorganisation of the parliament, as a sop to
the nation he wished to coax into complaisance. As a
state doctor his finger was not very dehcate; but
even his hold upon the public pulse, already feverish
and excited in its throbbings, told him a tale of a
desperate crisis at hand, if some means were not
taken to prevent the increase of the disorder.
The clergy and nobility by this time looked on
their privileges as prescriptive rights, with whose
continuance was bound up the very existence of the
French nation ; and the bulk of the people, oppressed
and dismally laden with the heavy burden of taxation,
trudged wearily along the painful path of life, like a
sullen beast of burden. A profound hatred for the
existing order of things was rife in the breasts of the
lower classes, but they had no hberty of speech or of
pen, and nursed in secret the sense of their misery
and degradation.
Already, however, pubhc feeling had begun to
make itself known ; the appointment of Malesherbes
and Turgot was a sacrifice to this feeling ; but De
Maurepas, who governed only to keep the king good
tempered and the courtiers satisfied, had, after thus
yielding to the pressure of the times, capriciously
disgraced both those able ministers.
In the year 1788, the nobility, the clergy, and the
peasantry were not the only elements of society ; a
fourth order had arisen distinct from all the rest •

MADAME DE STAEL. 69
partaking by its intelligence and education of the
nature of the superior, and by its birth of the nature
of the inferior, classes. This new order, the fruit of
the extending commerce of the country, consisted of
merchants, artisans, and others, who, although the
great source of the prosperity and wealth of France,
were as a body altogether unconsidered and unacknow
ledged by the government under which they lived.
And yet they were not altogether unnoticed. An
intelligent, active, and thinking class, a large pro
portion of them belonged to the reformed rehgion ;
Henri IV. and Sully had given them toleration and
indulgence ; Louis XIV, under the influence of the
prudish bigot who was the bane of his later years,
recalled the precious gift, and unwisely drove many
of them into foreign lands, which have since reaped,
through the genius and industry of the exiles, rich
rewards for the shelter awarded to them in that dark
hour of need.
Even the stupid and suicidal policy pursued by
France had not rooted out what she, by the mouth of
her governments, called heresy ; some of the heretics
were actually men whom the country could not well
spare ; Necker (though not by birth a Frenchman)
was one of these. It might seem strange to the sages
of those days (though the Hebrews had frequently
done the thing well beyond dispute) that a heretic
Christian should handle matters of finance better
than an orthodox Catholic, but so it was ; and, as
even a Cathohc people liked Necker and a surplus
better than orthodoxy backed by a deficit, the public,
dimly feeling its way after hberty, forced Necker
upon the king.

70 LIFE AND TIMES OF
And this popular minister was not the only Pro
testant of note ; the idea was largely abroad that
religious liberty was not necessarily anarchy and blood
shed, and public opinion had undergone a change-
since the parliament of Paris, under Louis XV, re
fused the confirmation of the edict of Nantes. The
country had long ago become sick of old dragonnades
and new penal statutes against the Huguenots, and was
earnestly disposed to deal with its own real necessities,
rather than to quarrel about theological differences.
The advocates of toleration consisted, on the one
hand, of those noble and conscientious souls whose
idea of rehgion was purer and simpler than the Romish ;
and, on the other, of witty and unbeheving men, the
disciples of Monsieur de Voltaire — the petits maitres
of infidelity. The former class felt deeply and ear
nestly that justice was their due ; they had served the
king in almost every department of the state, and in
as many had suffered ignominy. They had seen an
admiral, a good officer, and high in repute upon the
seas, denied by his king the promotion he had earned.
The royal reason found a barrier in the Protestant
faith of the sailor, and they had marked the indignant
reply : — " Sire, when I came hand to hand with your
Majesty's enemies, I inquired not whether they were
Catholics or Protestants, but fought my hardest for
my king and country." They had subsequently seen
Necker denied a place at the council of the king on
the same ridiculous excuse. As if a man were the
worse diplomatist because he rejects transubstantia-
tion ! From the general attitude of the times we may
gather, that at the time of Necker's recall, there was
a widely felt need for reform in such matters.

MADAME DE STAEL.

CHAPTER XIII.
Monsieur de Maurepas, though no very wise politi
cian, had had sense to perceive years ago that the
existing order of things had in it no element of dura
tion ; he had seen that something must be done, and
he therefore recalled the parliament of Paris, which
though it differed in many respects from a represen
tative assembly, had at least the privilege of assuming,
by its formal consent to the edicts of the king, that
something, in addition to the royal will and pleasure,
ought to have a share in the government of the coun
try. The parliament, convinced that its recall was an
imperative necessity, and no evidence of liberal views
in the crown, was not slow to declare that it was not
the legal council of the nation, and had therefore no
right to grant subsidies. Nor did the parhament yield
to the royal importunities until it discovered that its
obstinacy endangered its political existence. This
assembly, however, became more and more difficult
to manage, and before Necker returned to office, the
royal word was pledged that the states- general should
be convened in the month of May, 1789.
Before the recall of Necker, Turgot and Malesherbes
had anticipated nearly all the changes which, in 1789,
he designed to make. Malesherbes had formerly pro
posed the re-estabhshment of the edict of Nantes, the

72 LIFE AND TIMES OF
abolition of lettres de cachets, and the suppression of
the censorship which rendered the press a mere tool
of the court.
Turgot had procured the abolition of the corvee, a
most vexatious tax, which compelled the agricultural
classes to repair the roads at the will of the govern
ment, regardless of the season of the year and the
pressing necessities of farm business. Turgot had also
compassed the idea of making a uniform law of cus
toms, whereas, at that time, many of the provinces
had in this regard some peculiar privileges which
were perpetual sources of grievance and confusion.
He had also pleaded that the clergy and nobles should
bear their share of the taxes. This lost him ; the
privileged classes rebelled, and Turgot was compelled
to resign. But these unsuccessful attempts at im
provement were not thrown away upon the nation,
her attitude became daily more earnest and more
defiant. Monsieur Necker resumed office in 1788, with
inevitable difficulties before him. He undertook more
than one man, however able and popular, can ever
hope to accomplish; and every step he took was
canvassed and opposed by the king with a childish
pertinacity, which seemed still to doubt whether the
royal word were a pledge of accomphshment, or an
empty speech which a change of ministers revoked.
" Louis XVI.," says Madame de Stael, " would
have made the mildest of despots, or the most con
stitutional of kings, but was utterly unfit for the
period when public opinion was making a transition
from one to the other."

MADAME DE STAEL. 73

CHAPTER XIV.
Madame de Stael, young, ardent, fired by the love
of liberty, and literally glowing with enthusiasm,
looked forward to the meeting of the states-general
with hope and confidence, for she believed lETEeTu"-
ture of France. How could a heart, full of filial love,
doubt the nation which so well appreciated and
honoured her father ?
Her genius at this time, although it scarcely pro
mised " Corinne" and " L'Allemagne," was fast ripen
ing; the political events which were going on im
mediately about her, and the growing importance of
every liberal influence, added to her joy in the recall
of her father, and her own dawning reputation, seem
to have given a fresh spring to the energy of her im
pulsive soul. She had that delicate mental organisa
tion which is profoundly influenced by the state of
the world about it, and just then she was breathing
an atmosphere full of hope and joy. Her imagination,
not yet trained to torment her, painted the future in
its freshest, gayest tints ; and had a prophet been at
hand to tell her of the real experiences that lay before
her, experiences fraught with sorrow, insult, and exile,
it is probable that she would have considered his pre
dictions mere idle words.
She was enjoying to the full the congenial society

74 LIFE AND TIMES OF
which was ever her brightest source of inspiration ;
human faces, on which she could call up some reflec
tion of her own enthusiasm, were the pages on which
she best loved to write her glowing thoughts — those
wonderful and multitudinous thoughts which we
should perhaps better appreciate, had she left us
fewer. Her thoughts fructified beneath the genial
influences of friendly converse (of which it must be
conceded she arrogated to herself more than her
share), and her brilliant imagination, like a diamond
in the sunlight, gathered fresh resplendence from
every kindly glance that fell upon her.
In the poetic fervour of this part of her life, Rous
seau seems an appropriate theme for her pen : who
more fitting to be the apologist of the " apostle of
love," than a creature full of passion, and as enthu
siastic for virtue as others are for vice ? It is true her
virtues were those of impulse, rather than of principle,
but who can quarrel with an impulse which prompts
spontaneously to the course which principle would
more slowly, not more certainly, recommend ?
Her " Letters on Rousseau" appeared in the year
1788, and seemed to justify, in a measure, the exalted
idea of her talents which, from her childhood, her
friends had entertained. This work, written in the
flush and pride of youth, has merits and faults pecu
liar to the season of its authorship. A too unreason
ing admiration of her subject has betrayed her into
some extravagances, which would have been avoided
had she treated the theme in after years ; but the
same cause has given birth to passages glowing with
eloquence, and prophetic of the glories she was to
achieve.

MADAME DE STAEL. 75
It is easy to see that her idolatry of Rousseau is
partly the fruit of her antagonism to her mother's
line-and-rule excellence of which we formerly spoke ;
had she written on Rousseau thirty years later, when
seasons of deep sorrow had shown to her the reality of
the excellence of Christianity, and its power in alle
viating human sufferings ; when the heat and inex
perience of her youth had yielded to the chastening
touch of time, her estimate of Rousseau would have
been a very different thing.
But who wishes to anticipate such experiences?
As, in the history of the physical world, each season
is lovely in its time, and one would not hasten over
the Spring, with her opening leaves and flushing
boughs, in order to realize the magnificence of
Autumn, so neither can we desire the seasons of man's
life to change their course. Our gradual acquisition
of the limited knowledge we can acquire, and the per
petual modification and alteration of those opinions
which we sometimes fondly consider decided, should
teach us humility, and make us wary of assuming the
infallibility we are so ready to deny to others. Per
haps there is little hope of a mind which at its outset
is cramped by bigotry.
Madame de Stael's error was, certainly, not on this
side ; had it been so, she would have outraged all
hereditary propriety.
Political events, just then very frequent topics of
thought and converse, have left somewhat of their
form and colour on pages which we might expect to
find purely literary; but the "Letters" were not
written in literary retirement and abstraction; the

76 LIFE AND TIMES OF
talk of the salons leaves its impress here and there ;
and filial affection, ever active, contrives to make
Rousseau's ovation include a triumph for Necker.
Rousseau, the son of passion, Necker, the child of
reason — it is an association suggesting innumerable
contrasts ; and surely one must be as eager for an
occasion, as was Madame de Stael, to find any thread
of connexion between the two men.
Her grand~Trnter,est_just at this time was the
^^proachin^~meeting_«fHte_sEates-gerieral, and the
profiHe^consequences of that significant event, and
looking onward to their meeting, she thus apostro-
-plyses her countrymen.
" 0 great nation, whose deputies will soon meet to
consult upon your rights ! Little fitted are ye yet to
exercise the power ye have regained, and astonished
as ye will be at your novel attitude, I ask not that ye
should share the blind devotion which has been my
guide. Mistrust not reason. And since the events
of the last two years have secured to you, by the pure
.Jj?rogress_ of intellect, those advantages which other
nations have acquired at a vast expense of blood,
efface not this glorious seal which Destiny affixes to
your constitution ;~but~when your unanimous decree
~lEall~ enable" you to attain the objects you have in
view, be content to hit the mark, seek not to over
shoot it."*
~~~~This entreaty, published six months before the
opening of the states-general, is almost prophetic in
its prayer. Alas ! the bright exception of winning
peacefully those advantages which other nations had
* Lettres tur RoiMseau.

MADAME DE STAEL. 77
bought at a cost almost countless, was not reserved
for France ! A night of fearful horror was gathering,
when the wrongs of ages should be revenged by an
insatiable scaffold, and the sword of civil discord out
rage every charity of life.
Monsieur Necker, better able to judge of the real
state of the pohtical horizon, must have been even
more anxious for the result of the tremendous expe
riment of May, 1789, than was his patriotic daughter;
who, although, in the words above quoted, she seems
to have caught the paternal spirit of anxiety, was, on
the whole, very sanguine as to the event. Her faith
in her father rose superior to all the difficulties of his
task, and filial devotion hints at comfort and assist
ance from a very unlikely source.
"Rise, then, from thy ashes, Q[ Rousseau ! aja

_enc^rage-Jj»4Ha--<^H¥>«i:. the rnanfwIio^haviTiq
with extremities of misery, aims a£ZsfiGJSSg_Jbr- his
felTowijhe perfection of good. Encourage him whom
France has called her tutelary angel ; who reads in
her affection for him fresh reasons for his duties to
her; whom all should support as they love the public
welfare ; who deserves a judge, an admirer, a citizen,
like thee !" N-
The following may serve as an example of the
manner in which, arguing we should say against her
calmer judgment, she attempts to recommend the
study of Rousseau to young women. But, surely,
the exhibition of vice, tricked out with all the allure
ments of sentiment, is a dangerous object to a mind
yet unfixed. We question whether more harm be not
done by the interest awakened on behalf of the cri-

78 LIFE AND TIMES OF
minal, than all the wholesomeness of the final moral
of the story can counterbalance. It is, at any rate, an
out-of-the-way school of virtue for an innocent mind :
one would hardly send a child to associate with thieves,
that he may learn from their fate the evils of dis
honesty.
f " Our custom" — that is, the custom of French
Catholics about her — " is to keep young girlsfin con-
events: It" need not be feared that this romance
(Heloise) will indispose them for marriages of con
venience. They are never independent: all that
surrounds them is calculated to prevent their hearts
from experiencing sentimental impressions ; the virtue,
and often, too, the ambition of then- parents, watches
over them. And men, ever strange in their prin
ciples, wait until women are married before they
speak to them of love. At the epoch of marriage, all
about them changes : the world, far from heating
then- fancies by romantic sentimentahties, seeks to
wither their hearts by cruel jests on all they have
been educated to respect. At such a time, they
should read He.loise. They willfeelTwhen they real
-thsTetters of Saint-Preux, how far from the crime of
loving them are the creatures by whom they are sur
rounded : they will subsequently see how sacred is
the marriage knot ; they will learn to understand the
importance of their duties, and the happiness they
are capable of bestowing, even when their circum
stances borrow no charm from affection."
The concluding words seem sadly to hint at the
situation of Madame de Stael herself ; perhaps it was
happy for her that she took such a vivid interest in

MADAME DE STAEL. 79
the company that frequented her house, and in the
politics of the day ; for her domestic life offered little
to satisfy the cravings of her affectionate disposition.
Her own marriage had been truly a marriage of con
venience. But for her father, and her pleasure in
the exercise of her talents, existence would have had
a sadness at the core, even in those bright and pro
sperous days. She was, however, no egotist, and in
the happiness of others could almost find her own.

CHAPTER XV.
Had the dispositions of the court alone regulated the
administration of public affairs in 1788, Monsieur
Necker would never have been recalled ; his reap
pointment was a sacrifice on the part of the sovereign
to that indomitable desire for progress, which had
now taken a firm hold upon the French people.
That the king sincerely and earnestly desired, at the
period of Necker's recall, or at any other, to remodel
the constitution as the wants of the times demanded,
we cannot believe. It would be equally wide of the
truth to say that he set his face steadfastly against
innovation. The fact is, he was not capable of any steady
course of action; the only fixed part of his character
consisted of hereditary prejudices directly antago
nistic to the spirit of the age ; when, therefore, he was
recommended to a hberal policy, these prejudices in
duced him to defer and delay until the lapse of time and

80 LIFE AND TIMES OF
the force of circumstances had rendered his measures
matters of bare necessity. He thus defrauded him
self of the gratitude of a people not ill-disposed
towards him individually, and cherishing many as
sociations of glory connected with his house. His
frivolous delays robbed his concessions of their grace,
and made them resemble booty seized by thieves
rather than favours accorded to subjects.
The principles of economy and justice which were
the guides of Necker in his pubhc duties were
entirely foreign to the French government of those
days. The taxation of the country was most un
fairly divided, the nobility and superior clergy bear
ing little or no part of the burdens of the state.
The inevitable results of this vicious system were,
the distress of the labouring portion of the com
munity, the crippling of enterprise, and the pohtical
slavery of the bulk of the nation.
Not only had the hereditary nobles freedom from
taxation, but that odious privilege was extended to
such plebeians as could, by paying the king a certain
sum of money, make it the sovereign's interest- to
distinguish them in this manner. The king was not
the only person who claimed an interest in the taxes
so partially and cruelly collected. The court had
about it a throng of worthies, the utterance of whose
every- deed was — money. Pensions and allowances
were common, and still the hungry parasites of the
antechambers were unsatisfied.
Much as we may deplore the sequel, we can
scarcely wonder that nobility came to be looked on
as a crime worthy of death. The common people,

MADAME DE STAEL. 81
who earn money with great difficulty, look with
hatred upon the finger that diminishes their pittance.
So shameless were the courtiers in their demands,
that ladies of the aristocracy beset Monsieur Necker
during his first ministry, and begged of him any sum
they wanted. " What is a thousand crowns to the
king ?" said one of these. The conscientious minister
replied, " A thousand crowns, madam, is the tax of a
whole village."
It is therefore scarcely surprising that the taxes,
painful as they were to the people, barely sufficed to
defray the expenses of the throne and of the army.
The_jnhlic mongv_w^R_gxhRustpd beforeJu^jjdJinie---
to get tojtheprisons j,njLhospi±aIs^wiich were J^n the
law£st-stofce-ef~-mis£r^..^rii.d^ her
husband's ministry, Madame Necker, with praise
worthy heroism, devoted herself entirely to the re
formation of these abodes of want and crime ; and
succeeded in working many important changes in
their condition, though no effort of private bene
volence could supply the place of efficient public
support. " The art of government " (in France), says Ma
dame de Stael, " had always been a kind of jugglery,
which aimed at enriching the king, by extracting as
much as possible from the nation."
To all the hangers-on of royalty clamouring for
places, privileges, and money, Monsieur Necker, in
his own person, set a bright and beautiful example.
Not only was the public money safe in his hands,
and public difficulties sure of attention, even when
their disentanglement involved the risk of his private
G

82 LIFE AND TIMES OF
fortune ; but the legal emoluments, the just wages
of his office, were dechned by this conscientious
minister ; for all his wearisome services, he desired
and received no payment, unless the treatment of his
adopted country may be held in that light.
That this conduct is not a precedent worthy of
universal imitation, we are well aware; its general
adoption might, indeed, be fatally mischievous ; for,
as only very rich men can afford to take office on
such terms, the great offices of the state would fall
exclusively into the hands of the wealthy ; and
efficient men, wanting private means to support the
charges of a place, would be debarred from serving
their country. But the almost universal tendencies
of human nature, render it little likely that Necker's
self-denial should be largely imitated.
In his time, when court ladies besieged the
Minister of Finance, and every insignificant flutterer
about the sovereign expected a tangible reward for
his loyalty, it was noble to serve the country so
arduously, and touch no remuneration.
Was it wonderful that before his retirement in
1781, he had secured the affections of the people ?
A day or two after that retirement, a piece was
played on the Parisian stage, entitled " The Hunting
Party of Henry IV" At every allusion to Sully the
audience rose, and showed by their cheers that they
pointed the references to Necker.
Who can tell how much of horror might have been
spared the Europe of the eighteenth century, had
Necker then continued in office, and been permitted
to carry out such measures as the necessities of the
people demanded !

MADAME DE STAEL. 83
We have hinted, however, at the intrigues and
annoyances which induced him to leave office, and
must not resume the subject.
The iniquitous system of government which pre
vailed in France, was discovered in 1788 to have led
her to^he ve^e^^^BSEruptcyTand as Necker was
lookeTtrTEporTln some degree as~"a juggler who could
fill by sleight-of-hand the royal coffers, his return to
office was not objected to, on pecuniary grounds.
In other respects his recall must have been a bitter
thing to the sovereign.
To all the other difficulties of his place, Necker
found added a season of scarcity, involving of course
an immense amount of suffering, and some insub
ordination. His winter (1788-89) was employed in
buying grain from all quarters to supply the wants of
Paris, and he had httle leisure to bestow on other
matters. The approaching meeting of the states-general,
however, demanded much preparation on the part of
the minister, and, as it drew nearer, seemed more and
more fraught with confusion and difficulty.
The opening was finally fixed for the 5 th May,
1789.

G 2

84 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER XVI.
Up to this period, and even somewhat later, it appears
to us that most minds not bigoted to conservatism
must sympathise with the reform party in France. It
were idle, indeed, to deny that reform was necessary ;
and a reform that began only by reviving the ancient
rights of the people, does not, at first sight, look either
difficult or dangerous. If the sanction .of a prince
could give support and credit to the popular move
ment, the reformers had it in the countenance of the
Count d'Artois, afterwards Charles X, brother to the
king. There were many great and noble persons looking
forward with mingled hope and fear to the meeting of
the states, and among them Madame de Stael seems
an object of prominence and interest. Her filial
sentiments gave her an immense stake in the experi
ment about to be tried, for on it her father's repu
tation, and almost even the reputation of all jilnas"of
refonnanaL^rr^re6s-,-^^)eaa^Jr7r_Trone feeling could
be^535nser~wh«re -^Il"giowed so brightly, perhaps
patriptism^was that which burned most luminously in
the soul of Madame de StaelT Let us not forget that
she was thoroughlyTr-Ffenchwoman. She has given
us an epitome of her character in this sentence : "I
have always loved God, my father, and my country."

MADAME DE STAEL. 85
She was proud of France, of her history, of her litera
ture, and anxious to be proud of her institutions.
Madame de Stael beheved that her father was about
to give the country institutions of which she might be
justly proud. With complicated feelings of anxiety,
hope, love, and pride in her father, "the idol of the
French people," she awaited the important 5th May.
The glory of France, the happiness of France, were
phrases which at any time were sufficient to flush her
cheek and provoke her eloquence. With all the
ardour of her passionate soul, she longed to see her
beloved native land as free as that little island, her
father's favourite model, whose shores lay within a
few hours' sail of her own country.
To the freedom of debate allowed by the English
parliament, to the representation of public opinion by
that parliament, and to the general confidence of the
people in their chosen representatives, she and her
father attributed not a few of England's superior
advantages. And it would have been hard to con
vince her that a Frenchman is less fitted to be
intrusted with political rights than his neighbours on
the other side of the channel.
She hoped, therefore, that the establishment, or
rather the revival of the representative system in
France, would lead to the happiest results; perhaps
she had not sufficiently considered that the sudden
gift of political rights is a thing dangerous in the
hands of men who have not been educated to exercise
them, or to understand the grave responsibility in
volved in their possession.
It was, no doubt, with a feeling of hopeful patriotism

86 LIFE AND TIMES OF
that Madame de Stael took her place at a window of
the Hotel de Ville, on the 4th May, 1789. She was
about to watch such a procession as the country had
not seen for more than a century : such a procession,
indeed, in some respects, France had never before
beheld. The great event was a tribute to pubhc
opinion in a country where, having had no legitimate
outlet, that opinion, like all repressed forces, had
become dangerous.
She remarks that it seemed appropriate that Louis
XVI. should bestow on his people a free constitution ;
he had already supported the brave American colonies
in their resistance to the mother country, and the
Dutch in their opposition to their king: by his foreign
interferences he had thus installed himself champion
of the oppressed. N^ow the time was come when he
could prove thejsincjri^SEluslll^
regard TofTEi" progress of intellect, by raising and
relieving his own degraded subjects. The Count
d'Artois told the municipality of Paris that a great
revolution was about to take place, of which the king,
by his virtues, his intentions, and his rank, ought to
be the leader. We may, perhaps, dispute the "inten
tions," and yet there were moments when the king
intended to do his difficult duty: these moments un
happily were just those when the public had got before
him; moments when he had to follow, not to lead;
when all the heroism of any sacrifice he might make,
had been anticipated by the determination— ef— a
courageous populace to exact itj He knew not how
much strength a king gathers from favours conceded;
nor how much confidence a country gains with rights-
extorted.

MADAME DE STAEL. 87
On the 4th May, the eve of the meeting of the
states, the deputies went in procession to Notre Dame, \
to consecrate, by a solemn act of religious worship, the
important duties upon which they were entering. "I
shall never forget the moment," says Madame de
Stael, "when I saw file past the twelve hundred
deputies of France. It was a spectacle alike new and
imposing for the French people; all the inhabitants
of Versailles, all the curious of Paris had assembled to
witness the gathering. This new sort of authority in
the state, of which neither the nature nor the strength
was as yet comprehended, startled the majority of
those persons who had not reflected on the rights of
nations. "
First, in the order of procession, came the pith and
marrow of the states, six hundred men clothed in
black ; this was the third estate, whose members
equalled in numbers the two others united. A for
midable array this ; containing power enough to
crush the two higher orders. Here were merchants,
lawyers, men of letters, men who had thought, felt,
and read ; to say nothing of the education given them
by the usage of the world ; an education far beyond
the routine training of the noble or the priest.
Next came the nobility. The great lords of France
were at that day, according to Madame de Stael,
" illustrious obscurities ;" they had had no mptive to
cultivate their minds, therefore their mind's had
remained uncultivated. Horribly was the country
revenged upon their obstructive ignorance by the
blood of the ancient andTonW?able~ nouses, which
glutted the guillotine, and streamed through the fair
cities of France.

88 LIFE AND TIMES OF
An English noble may have an ambition to shine
as an orator, or as a statesman. A French noble of
1789 had no opportunity of acquiring renown in the
first capacity; and as for the second, he had so little
competition to dread in the way of talent, that it was
scarcely worth while to trouble himself about qualify
ing for a place which he had quite as good a chance
of obtaining without preparation.
The lower grade of the nobility, the "gentils-
hommes," were equally undistinguished, the govern
ment permitting them to hold no profession but that
of arms.
There came after these a part of the nobility
which provokes laughter or indignation, according to
the mood of the spectator. Even a democrat cannot
but admire grace, dignity, and high bearing, though
they occur in a man with five hundred ancestors :
indeed, there is in us all a tendency to respect what
our fathers have called respectable, and some of the
hottest republicans turn royalists when they get
to court. There is a sort of involuntary homage
inspired by the representative of a great historical
name, which even the seething, surging minds of the
French populace might present to a Montmorency or
a Conde. And this without sacrificing the principle
that cries out for reform.
But who yields homage to these nobles ? Who are
they, bearing so ungracefully the panache and the
sword ? Are they recently ennobled for great deeds
and attainments, whose value compensates for defi
ciencies in grace and dignity?
Not so; these are the " Anoblis ;" their patent of

MADAME DE STAEL. 89
nobility is righteously their own, if honest payment
of purchase-money make a thing so. They have in
vested so much in the poor, empty, ever-gaping royal
coffers, for the privilege of evading the payment of
the taxes. And are the panache and the sword come
to this ?
Time is it surely for the nobility to purify itself, or
for France to fling off the nobility.
Let it die, and bury it decently out of sight, with
all the honours due to a decayed respectabihty, if this
life of corruption is the only existence it can compass.
Well might Madame de Stael ask herself what
business had these awkward plebeians among the no
bility of France.
Last came the clergy, the cures being separated
from the prelates by a band of music. The higher
clergy, in their robes of gorgeous hues, formed a
splendid item in the procession. Authority in their
mien, and dignity in their bearing, they seemed to
represent a powerful public influence ; but their supre
macy had already largely declined, not so much by
attack from without as by corruption from within.
Some of the prelates were men of scandalous lives,
and many were entirely absorbed in pohtical affairs.
Yet whatever had been the sins of that aristocratic
priesthood, their transgressions were to be fearfully ex
piated on the scaffold or in exile. Their altar was to be
thrown down, the church of their fathers abolished,
the__Goddess of Reason enthroned in place of the
MotheroFQ^dT TEeywere toreacTa lesson in the
primer their church had endited for the education of
the Huguenots, and truly it was a bitter one for both
sects.

90 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Necker, by doubling the number of the third es
tate, had just doubled the democratic element in
those states. Whether it was prudent to do this at
such a time, may well be questioned. His daughter
seems to own as much, for she attempts to defend
him, and alleges that the necessities of the times
wrung the measure from him. A great statesman,
however, will contrive sometimes to control what ap
pears like necessity to a feebler eye. Necker was
not a great statesman. He subsequently intended to
divide the three estates into two chambers. Had he
been able to compass this, he might still have evaded
the shock ; but the delays and objections of the supe
rior orders hurried on the catastrophe of the revolu
tion, which rendered simple reform impracticable.
Some few nobles, deeply impregnated with popular
ideas, had procured themselves election as deputies
of the third estate ; the most note-worthy of these
was the Count de Mirabeau, remarkable alike for his
talents and for his vices. The fiery eloquence of this
man, which was to convulse the senate, was as yet un
known. His pallid face, hollow yet brilliant eyes,
and wild, curling hair, were suitable adjuncts to a
figure not easily forgotten by any who had once be
held it.
Madame de Stael had for a fellow-spectator
Madame de Montmorin, wife of the minister of
foreign affairs, " a woman in no way remarkable." No
doubt Necker's daughter was very ready to show the
joy she felt, and to express the hopes she cherished.
Madame de Montmorin had far different ideas on the
subject of the states-general, and said to her san-

MADAME DE STAEL. 91
guine companion, "You are wrong to rejoice at this ;
it will bring great disasters on France and on us,"
— a prophecy no less true than melancholy. Poor
Madame de Montmorin and one of her sons subse
quently perished on the scaffold : another son
drowned himself. Her husband was massacred on
the fearful second of September. Her elder daugh
ter expired in the hospital of a prison ; and the
younger, broken-hearted by the terrible fortunes of
her family, died, crushed by sorrow and despair, be
fore she had achieved her thirtieth year. And for a
whole family to be thus engulfed by the Revolution
was no singular lot. What must have been the
sufferings of a nation, which was provoked to such
a terrible pitch of rage and revenge ! What horrors
must they have endured, who could bear to inflict
such inhuman retribution !
The next day, the estates met in the avenue of
Versailles, in a hall (since destroyed) capable of
holding upwards of five thousand persons. Among
the four thousand auditors was Madame de Stael,
profoundly affected by the applause that waited on
her father.
The moderation of Necker was that which wrought
his failure : at that time, had he chosen, he might
have governed France in his own way; but he was
scrupulously loyal, and he allowed the king to ruin
himself. Madame de Stael experienced a sensation of fear
when she saw the king take his seat. And what
was he, this undecided man, when pitted against
six hundred men, armed with more powerful wea-

92 LIFE AND TIMES OF
pons than the king had hired with his German
troops? These deputies were eager to have their
rights adjusted, and the constitution discussed and
settled ; they therefore anxiously awaited the king's
speech. Seen in the light of subsequent events, every occur
rence of such a time assumes the importance of an
omen. Madame de Stael remarked that the queen,
who arrived too late, was disturbed, and that the
colour of her complexion was altered.
The king's speech contained nothing that could
be supposed to satisfy the third estate. Two minis
ters followed ; and the burden of the discourses was
finance, and the generosity of the superior classes,
who had promised to forego their pecuniary privi
leges. Even Necker could find nothing more worthy
to offer that august assembly than praises of the
privileged orders, and projects of financial reform.
To use the words most reverently, they asked for
bread, and a stone was given them. At that time,
the third estate was not leagued, or inclined to league
against monarchy. Had the king acted honestly and
nobly — had Necker dared so to act, in spite of the
royal weakness, the Revolution had been strangled in
its cradle, and the blood of the Bourbons had never
cried to Heaven against France.
We must, nevertheless, acknowledge that Necker
occupied a most confusing position : ostensibly he was
the king's chief adviser, but there was a chque about
the royal person, who really ruled the easy monarch,
and who fostered his every desire to elude the neces
sity for liberal measures. We ought to place the
king's death to their account.

MADAME DE STAEL. 93

CHAPTER XVII.
The nobility, while the vessel of the state was thus
impatient to leave her moorings, occupied their
time in discussing useless questions of etiquette. They
refused to second even the moderate designs of
Necker. Meantime, the third estate grew more des
perate, and Paris was starving. " The secret council
of the king," says Madame de Stael, " differed en
tirely from his ostensible ministry : there were, in
deed, a few ministers who held the views of the
secret council ; but the acknowledged head of the
administration, Monsieur Necker, was precisely the
man against whom the efforts of the privileged orders
were directed. In England, the responsibility of
ministers prevents this double government of the
confidants of the king and his official agents. In
that country, no act of the royal authority is executed
without the signature of a minister ; and that signa
ture, if he give it wrongfuUy, may cost him his life.
Supposing the British monarch, then, to be surrounded
by advisers who might support absolute power, not
one of these courtiers would dare to enforce as a
minister, that which as a courtier he upheld.
" Things were not thus arranged in France. Un
known to the principal minister, the court sent for
some regiments of German soldiers, because little

94 LIFE AND TIMES OF
confidence was put in the French troops ; and the
bad advisers of the king imagined that, with the
assistance of their foreign mercenaries, they could
defeat pubhc opinion in such a country as was then
our illustrious France !"
Necker hinted to the king that the army was
largely imbued with popular opinions. " The court
saw in this hint a factious sentiment ; for one of the
distinguishing characteristics of the aristocracy in
France is, to hold the knowledge of facts to be a
suspicious thing. These facts, which are obstinate,
have in vain risen ten times over against the hopes of
the privileged orders. They persist in attributing
the occurrences to the agency of those who foresaw
the events, but never dream of tracing circumstances
up to the very nature of things. Fifteen days after
the opening of the states-general, before the third had
constituted itself the national assembly, Monsieur
Necker presented to the king a picture of the situa
tion of the monarchy. ' Sire !' said he, ' I fear you
deceive yourself as to the sentiments of your army.
The correspondence from the provinces induces us to
believe that the French soldiers would refuse to
march against the states-general. Do not, then, bring
the troops to Versailles, as if you intended to employ
them against the deputies. The popular party does
not positively know the leaning of the army. Use
this uncertainty to maintain your authority over opi
nion ; for if once the fatal secret of the insubordina
tion of the troops were known, how would it be
possible to control factious spirits ? What concerns
you, Sire, at the present moment, is, to accede to the

MADAME DE STAEL. 95
reasonable wishes of France : deign to resign yourself
to the Enghsh constitution : personally, you will feel
no restraint from the authority of the laws : they
would never impose on you any barriers greater than
your own conscience ; and in going forth to meet the
desires of the people, you may grant them to-day what
they will insist upon having to-morrow.' "
Necker then presented to the king a declaration,
which the minister wished to be read to the deputies,
on the 23rd of June, on which day a royal sitting
was to take place. Twenty-five years after, King
Louis XVIII. prepared, in Monsieur Necker's old
house at St. Ouen, a declaration similar to the one
we have mentioned — an unimportant, but striking
coincidence. Unhappy France ! Twenty- five years of anarchy,
bloodshed and despotism had been suffered, and yet
she had not advanced one step beyond Necker, in
1789. The deliberation by orders rendered it almost im
possible to despatch even the most trifling business,
and various schemes were revolved, all of which were
aimed at the removal of this difficulty. It was time
to act, and to act promptly, for the German troops,
commanded by the Marshal de Broghe, were ap
proaching Paris, and soldiers from all parts of the
kingdom were collected at Versailles.
This assemblage of the troops placed the third
estate in a most favourable position ; they seemed to
stand opposed to the court and the army, as the
guardians of the newly found liberty of the nation.
Irritated by the impossibility of accomplishing

96 LIFE AND TIMES OF
anything while subject to the double veto of the
nobles and the clergy, the third estate, on the 17th of
June, took the title of National Assembly, and pro
ceeded seriously to accomplish its designs.
The position occupied by Necker was extremely
humiliating ; his advice was treated with neglect by
the king, who, indeed, acted in direct opposition to his
well-meaning minister. The declaration Monsieur
Necker had prepared for the royal sitting of the
23rd of June was revised by the king's secret com
mittee, who struck out of it whatever was calculated
to concihate the third, and inserted an offensive ar
ticle declaring void all the proceedings of the so-
called National Assembly.
Every insult that could be heaped on this powerful
body was now offered to it ; the deputies were turned
out of their hall on the 20th of June, under pretence
of placing therein the dais and carpet preparatory to
the royal sitting. Thus ejected, they adjourned to
the Tennis-court, where they took a solemn oath to
defend their rights. The Count d'Artois interfered
with their possession of the Tennis-court, by sending
a message to the effect that he should play on the
morrow. So the assembly was houseless, but it was
rapidly increasing in strength ; on Monday, the 22nd,
the majority of the clergy joined it, and it met in the
church of Saint Louis.
" Monsieur Necker," his daughter tells us, " was
but a sentinel whom the court still kept at his post
to deceive the enemy as to its manoeuvres." He still
struggled faithfully to preserve his master's reputation,
but he must have felt that the time when his mode-

MADAME DE STAEL. 97
rate views could meet with acceptance was long ago
gone by.
The royal sitting of the 23rd constituted one more
triumph for the assembly ; the king ordered the
deputies to disperse, and endeavoured to revive the
dehberation by orders ; both the command and the
effort proved vain, the king left the hall, and the
assembly protracted its sitting, assuming a more
decided tone of resistance than it had before taken.
News of Monsieur Necker's dismissal — which was
attributed to the influence of the queen — filled Ver
sailles with dismay ; the streets were crowded with
people, who shouted in his honour ; the multitude
still had confidence in one who had laboured to be
their true friend. If he had been less scrupulous, if
he would have consented to accept a triumph at the
expense of his master, he might now have done so.
Five or six thousand men in the gardens and apart
ments of Versailles alarmed the royal family, and on
the very evening of the king's sitting, Necker was
again recalled. " The king and queen," Madame de
Stael says, " begged him in the name of the pubhc
safety to resume his place ; the queen even went so
far as to say that the security of the king's person
depended on Necker's continuance in the ministry.
She promised Monsieur Necker that, for the future,
she would follow no advice but his ; such was then
her determination, because the popular movement
had frightened her ; but as she was convinced that
any limit to the royal authority was an evil, she soon
fell again under the influence of those who thought
as she did." H

98 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Necker consented to resume his responsibilities
with the stipulation, that if Paris were surrounded
by troops he should be allowed to resign.
He then passed into the great court, where he re
assured the people, who received him most enthusi
astically. Their emotion profoundly affected him.
Whatever might be his difficulties, could he desert a
simple, trusting, oppressed people, who believed he
had power to save them ?
He was carried in triumph from the king's residence
to his own. Writing years after, under widely changed
circumstances, Madame de Stael says, " the transports
of the people are yet present with me, and revive in
me the emotions I felt in those sunny days of youth
and hope."
She goes on to tell us that her father's house would
hardly contain the visitors who thronged to see him
on that memorable day ; a minority of the noblesse,
a majority of the clergy, and the whole of the de
puties of the third, waited upon Monsieur Necker,
who, though he could not avoid acknowledging that
the latter had the power in their hands, exhorted
them to moderation, and implored them not to push
their pretensions too far. Necker now proposed that
the king should order the clergy to deliberate with the
third ; many of the curates had already joined the as
sembly, but the prelates hung back. Yet the secret
council taking small heed of the mischief they had
brought about on the 23rd of June, advised the
monarch to feign acquiescence in Necker's projects
until De Broglie, with his German regiments, arrived
before Paris.
The purpose for which these troops were summoned

MADAME DE STAEL. 99
was not unknown to Monsieur Necker, although the
king would have willingly concealed it from him.
The royal design was to assemble at Compiegne all
the members of the states who had taken no part
in the innovations of the assembly; to get these
members to consent hastily to the taxes and loans
necessary to avert bankruptcy, and then — to dissolve
the states. A poor ending truly for the revival of
those privileges on which Madame de Stael had ex
pended so much emotion.
The court, well aware that such a course would
never obtain Necker's sanction, proposed to dismiss
him so soon as De Broglie and his troops arrived. A
proud man, and Necker was proud, must have felt
bitterly the meanness of his position ; but fettered by a
loyalty little merited by the king, he failed to respond
to the expectations of a people who confided in his
intentions. Trusted by each party, he served neither,
and secured the hatred of both.
" My father," says De Stael, " told us in confidence,
evening after evening, that he hourly expected arrest ;
but added that he had imposed on himself the duty
of remaining true to his post, in order that the people
might not be aware that he suspected all that was
going on." Necker's motive for thus remaining was
his consciousness of the fact that the king had placed
himself in a most dangerous position.
Necker would not desert the king, but the court
persuaded the king to do without Necker, and yet
such was the popular sentiment in his favour, that the
royal party were afraid to dismiss him, lest there
should be a riot. Why did not the king see that in
H 2

100 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Necker's popularity lay his last chance of preserving
his throne ?
The Baron de Breteuil, in the secret committee,
advised the king to arrest Necker when his services
were no longer wanted, and thus to obviate all danger
of his appealing from the decision of the court to that
of the people; but Louis XVI. knew too well the
nobleness of his minister's heart to consent to any
such course. " Gentlemen," said the king, " I will
guarantee that Monsieur Necker will strictly obey any
order of mine."
In the sequel one hardly knows whether to rejoice
or lament over Necker's scrupulous loyalty. He was
too respectful to snatch from the king's hand the
dagger wherewith the monarch was about to stab
himself. That is what Necker's conduct comes to.
Madame de Stael, ever watchful over the reputation
of her father, says that even the purest republicans
will allow, that a minister who accepts office under a
king is bound faithfully to adhere to his master. But
we cannot be blinded to the fact that the people and
not the king recalled Necker in 1788; he knew
perfectly well that only the force of pubhc opinion
could have driven Louis XVI. to submit to his return.
And surely a minister has a duty towards the nation,
as well as towards the sovereign.
Part of this duty to the people he had nobly per
formed ; he had, indeed, gone far beyond duty in his
efforts to provide Paris with food. Only a week or
two before the dismissal in July, he had written to
Messrs. Hope, merchants in Amsterdam, instructing
them to purchase corn for the supply of the French

MADAME DE STAEL. 101
capital. Things, however, looked so uncertain even
then, that some security was necessary, and Monsieur
Necker gave the Hopes a guarantee to the amount of a
million francs on his own private fortune. So far as self-
sacrifice went, perhaps no minister has ever equalled
this conscientious and generous man.* He had
measured himself accurately, nevertheless, when he
told the king that so long as financial skill and
morality could govern the nation, he could hold the
ministry; but that, if ever the time came when
Richelieu's powerful will and promptitude of action
were required, he should fail.
That time was come, and he was to fail. But not
yet

CHAPTER XVIII.

On the eleventh of July, 1789, as Monsieur and
Madame Necker were about to entertain at dinner a
company of friends, the king's letter was delivered to
the minister. It contained his dismissal, and requested
him to leave Paris and France as quickly as possible
and without any stir.
In the words "without stir," might be traced at
once tide weakness and cowardice of the court party:
they were afraid openly to dismiss Necker on account
of the people. Who has not known a stream which,
when undirected threatened to overwhelm a neigh
bourhood, has been made available by a little skill to
* Appendix, Note D.

102 LIFE AND TIMES OF
be the very servant of those who formerly dreaded
its violence ?
Such a stream might have been the popularity of
Necker. Necker, as we have seen, was just about to
entertain his friends, and accordingly, after confiding
to his wife the contents of the royal epistle, he sat
down to dinner with the party; and no doubt
conversed as usual. We should not wonder if a little
unusual gaiety heightened the liveliness of his
manners ; for, so far as private feeling was concerned,
he must have felt the removal of his responsibility a
great relief.
So scrupulously obedient was he to the letter of the
king's command, that not even the minister's beloved
daughter was apprized of his intentions.
He was determined, if he were no longer permitted
to serve his master, not to stand in the way of those
who might. Madame de Stael is eloquent in her
father's praises at this point of his history. A more
impartial critic of his life may be permitted to be
lieve, that not loyalty alone, but a real gladness to
escape from his burden, made Necker so ready to
go. ¦It was the habit of Monsieur Necker to drive out,
with his wife, after dinner, in an open carriage j such
a recreation would be scarcely practicable for a man
of his rank at the present time; but in 1789, the
French first minister dined at the modest hour of
three o'clock ; and on that long July day, made good
progress towards the Flemish frontier before night.
In order the more effectually to disarm suspicion,

MADAME DE STAEL. 103
no travelling preparations were made. The Neckers
set out in the full dress worn at dinner; Madame
Necker taking her fan in her hand, as if an hour's
recreation were her only object. The ever-faithful
daughter thus comments on her father's obedience:
" Certainly, duty engaged him to obey the king's
order ; but where is he, who, in obeying, would not
have allowed himself to be discovered, to be brought
back, in spite of himself, by the multitude ? History,
perhaps, offers no similar example of a man flying
from power, with all the precaution usually taken to
escape banishment ; for it is necessary to be at once
the defender of the people to be banished in this way,
and the most faithful subject of the monarch, to sacri
fice to him so scrupulously the homage of an entire
nation." We inchne to think that Necker felt like an ama
teur sailor, when a storm approaches — very glad,
indeed, to yield up the helm into other hands ; albeit
too conscientious to run away from his post without a
dismissal from the proper quarter.
At the same time were dismissed Monsieur de
Montmorin, a man personally attached to the king
from his infancy, and Monsieur de Saint-Priest, who
was distinguished for wisdom and prudence. Such,
at least, is the verdict of De Stael.
With a fatuity almost beyond belief, the French
troops were posted near Paris, and had constant com
munications with the citizens. Some of these soldiers
who had been in America with Lafayette, were im
pregnated with democratic ideas ; and such ideas,
when newly introduced into a community, are sure to

104 LIFE AND TIMES OF
spread with the rapidity of lightning. The king's
only guard consisted of two regiments of Germans,
who were planted in the gardens of the Tuileries, and
understood no French.
On the 12th of July, Madame de Stael received by
courier, a letter informing her that her parents had
quitted France, in consequence of the king's order to
Monsieur Necker ; but their route and their destina
tion were not revealed. At the same time, he ordered
her to retire to the country, lest any homage should
be paid her in Paris on his account.
But the people had anticipated him. That very
morning (12th July) deputations from every quarter
of the town had waited on Madame de Stael, and had
spoken, in the most urgent terms, on the necessity
for her father's return. "I know not," she says,
"what my age and my enthusiasm might have in
duced me to do ; but I obeyed my father's orders,
and immediately withdrew to a distance of some
leagues from Paris."
Directly Necker's absence was known, the streets
were barricaded, and the utmost confusion took pos
session of Paris. The first cockade that was mounted
was green, in honour of the dismissed minister, whose
liveries were of that colour.* So says his daughter.
Michelet tells us, that "on Sunday morning, July
12th, nobody at Paris, up to ten o'clock, had yet
heard of Necker's dismissal. The first who spoke of
it in the Palais Royal was called an aristocrat, and
insulted. But the news is confirmed : it spreads ; and
so does the fury of the people." " It is impossible,"
* Green was also the colour of the Count d'Artoia.

MADAME DE STAEL. 105
says the Ami du Roi, " to express the gloomy feeling
of terror which pervaded every soul on hearing that
report." Michelet goes on to say : " A young man, Camille
Desmoulins, rushed from the Cafe* de Foy, leaped
upon a table, drew a sword, and showed a pistol,
crying, ' To arms ! The Germans in the Champ de
Mars will enter Paris to-night, and butcher the inha
bitants. Let us hoist a cockade !' And tearing down
a leaf from a tree, he stuck it in his hat ; everybody
followed his example, and the trees were stripped of
their leaves."
It must be something very important to shut the
theatres in Paris on a Sunday ; Necker's absence did
it; the populace were mad after him. The mob
seized a wax figure of their idol, and covering it with
crape, paraded it about the streets of the city. Armed
men were in the procession; in their anger they had
taken the first weapon that came to hand, sword,
pistol, or hatchet. Thus irregularly accoutred, the
procession went up the streets Richelieu, St. Martin,
St. Denis, St. Honore", to the Place Vendome. A
detachment of dragoons received them here, destroyed
their image, and put them to flight. Here too the
first blood of the revolution was shed ; it was that of
an unarmed French guard.
Several other persons were killed during the day,
and at night the barriers were burnt.
On the Monday, Madame de Stael, accompanied
by her husband, set out to rejoin her father and
mother, whose place of retreat had been subsequently
communicated to her by them. The sight of the

106 LIFE AND TIMES OF
people's enthusiasm for Necker made his daughter
appreciate beyond measure the sacrifice he had made
in leaving Paris as he had done. So profoundly
penetrated was she with the sentiment of love and
respect, that on arriving at the inn where her parents
awaited her coming, she fell on her knees before her
father, kissed his hand, and bathed it with her tears.
She found Madame Necker in indifferent health;
both that lady and her husband still wore the dinner-
dress in which they had left Paris, and this inconve
nient apparel, added to the heat of the weather, the
dust of the roads, and a great deal of natural anxiety,
had incommoded them very considerably.
The arrival of his daughter, full of enthusiasm,
love, and filial loyalty, perhaps rekindled the mini
ster's desire of being useful ; his ambition for anything
higher, had he ever possessed it, was gone for ever.
There is one circumstance of Necker's journey
which deserves mention. We have recorded that,
early in July he had given to Messrs. Hope a claim
upon his private estate, in guarantee of payment for
certain purchases of corn which he commissioned
those merchants to effect. Arrived in Brussels, he
felt desirous that the report of his exile should oc
casion no delay in the relief of starving Paris : he
therefore wrote afresh to Amsterdam, confirming the
offer of the security he had given. France was bank
rupt, and her chief city blockaded by famine, when
this heretic exile whom she had denied a seat at her
council, thus consecrated to her service the legitimate
fruits of his industry.
Surely there is a touch of Roman grandeur in this
one act.

MADAME DE STAEL. 107
What would have been easier than to excite the
passions of the people in his favour by making these
supplies of corn dependent on his continuance in
office ? Right or wrong, a hungry people will sup
port the man who brings them food. But such was
not Necker's mode of action.
" 0 my country ! 0 my countrymen !" exclaims
Madame de Stael, in narrating this story of generosity ;
" it was thus my father served you ! "
He had set out with such precautions against dis
covery, that he carried no passport; at Valenciennes
the authorities refused to let him proceed, until he
displayed the king's letter, which proved passport
enough. But the official sighed bitterly as he read
the royal missive, and shook his head as he glanced
from the living Necker before him, to a portrait of
the minister which the commandant had suspended
in honour of the popular idol. At Valenciennes, as
at Paris, the departure of Necker meant tyranny,
insult, rebellion.
In consequence of Madame Necker's ill-health, she
and her daughter went only slowly towards Switzer
land. Monsieur Necker and his son-in-law hurried
on to prepare Coppet for their reception. But they
were not to reach Coppet this time. At Frankfort
the ladies were overtaken by the messenger of the
king, Monsieur de St. Leon, who brought letters from
his master, and from the national assembly, con
taining earnest requests for Necker's return.
An extract from a letter written by Monsieur
Necker to his brother, and bearing date 24th of July,
1789, will best explain his real feelings on an occasion
so flattering to vanity. After detailing the circum-

108 LIFE AND TIMES OF
stances of Monsieur de St. Leon's arrival he thus
continues : —
" These occurrences have rendered me miserable. I
was just touching the port, and took pleasure in the
prospect ; but this harbour would have had neither
peace nor tranquillity for me if I had had to charge
myself with cowardice, or if people could have said
and thought such and such misfortunes happened
because I would not prevent them. Therefore I
return to France — the victim of the esteem where
with the nation honours me. Madame Necker is even
more sorry than I am, and our change of plans is an
act of self-denial for both of us. Ah, Coppet ! Cop
pet ! I shall soon, perhaps, have greater reason to
regret thee ! But one must submit to the laws of
necessity, and follow the leadings of an incompre
hensible destiny. In France all is in movement, there
has just been a scene of disorder and open sedition at
Strasbourg. It seems to me that I am flinging my
self again into the chasm."
The king and the national assembly were equally
anxious to have him back ; and, from the period of
his return, he was a political scape-goat, upon whose
back the failings of both parties were laid. The
assembly had decreed, on Monday, the 13th of July,
" that Monsieur Necker bore with him the regret of
the nation ;" and this regret had so manifested itself,
that the king was eager to retrace his steps, and re
instate the popular minister.
On the 14th of July, the mob had taken the Bas
tille, that cruel prison, " the stronghold of despotism,"
the confidant of a thousand frightful secrets. The

MADAME DE STAEL. 109
revolutionary party was not as yet divided into fac
tions, and the taking of the Bastille wears something
like the dignity of a national act.
If the revolution were to be quelled, it was now
certainly time to set about the work ; for Paris, al
most as by miracle, had raised an army of a hundred
thousand men.
As Necker, on his return, travelled towards Paris,
he visited at Bale Madame de Polignac, whom he
had left high in favour at Versailles. This beau
tiful woman, the friend of Marie Antoinette, had
become notorious as an intriguing adviser of that
unhappy queen, and was now an exile, alone and
wretched. Monsieur Necker, whose political course
she had opposed with all her might, could not forbear
to offer her sympathy and kindness. Indeed, what
ever were his mistakes as a minister, he well deserves
to wear eternal laurels for his magnanimity and gene
rosity. To be unhappy was to have a claim upon
him, no matter to what party one belonged ; and
forbearance to his enemies seems to have been so
natural to this man, that we can scarcely give him
credit for it as a Christian virtue.
His road from Bale to Paris was beset by members
of the aristocracy who were flying from Paris in all
directions. He wrote letters innumerable to ensure
the safety of these alarmed fugitives, who placed more
confidence in his handwriting than in the passports
they had obtained in the capital.
What had royalty gained by all her sacrifices of
the nation to the aristocracy ? At least one would
expect, in return, the devotion of the privileged class

110 LIFE AND TIMES OF
towards the monarch. Alas ! at the first symptom of
danger, they decamped, leaving the poor king to bear
the onus of the pubhc discontent.
Madame de Stael was in a perpetual excitement of
pleasure during the journey to Paris. The women in
the fields — those fields this year so terribly barren —
stopped their labour, and knelt, as the carriage of
the returning minister rolled by. In the towns, the
chiefest of the citizens contended who should play
postilion for him. Everywhere the people brought
their tribute of applause, and their prayer for the
future. Oh ! had there been but a William III. to
guide the issues of this revolution, and to preserve
the people in their faith and innocence !
Who can tell on what accidents (as we term them)
the unfoldings of history depend ? Two or three good
harvests, and a wife who would have incited the im
mobile, passive king in favour of concession, and
where would have been the revolution ? That fearful
tragedy was born of tyranny and hunger.

CHAPTER XIX

When we think of that awful scaffold whereon died
heroically Louis XVI., and Marie Antoinette, all the
best tendencies of our nature go to make us ultra-
royalists; yet pity must not cause us to forget princi
ples. If a death of heroism wiped out a life of crime
or error, many a man, but ignoble company for
royalty, might share the royal martyrs' fame. The
death of these unhappy princes no more excused the

MADAME DE STAEL. Ill
errors of monarchy, than the expiring tortures of an
Indian chief atone for the cruelties himself has exer
cised. We may dispute the validity of the proceedings
that tried them, and contend that their death was
compassed by illegal means. Be it so : let us not,
however, by the solemn shadow of that awful event,
be prejudiced against the true cause of human right
and liberty.
It is somewhat astonishing that the country, of all
countries the most careful to exclude females from the
succession to the throne, should have been more
largely, and perhaps fatally, under female influence
than any other. Mistress, wife, or mother, over and
over again has her spell prevailed; now it is Louise
of Savoy who intercepts the pay of the troops in
Italy, and drives the Constable de Bourbon to take
arms against his sovereign; now it is Madame de
Maintenon who procures the revocation of the edict
of Nantes ; now it is Joan of Arc restoring the crown
to Charles VII. ; now it is the lovely Theroigne de
Mencourt inciting the people to take the crown from
Louis XVI. As regents, Anne, daughter to Louis
VIII., Catherine de Medicis, Mary, of the same house,
and Anne of Austria, amply vindicated the right of
their sex to power, — if a capacity for cruelty and
intrigue, or for prudence and management, can ac
complish such vindication.
The age of Louis XVI., though the virtues of the
king prevented such a kind of influence as had
held in durance more than one of his predecessors,
yields no exception to the fact that female intrigue
was powerful at court. The queen was a true

112 LIFE AND TIMES OF
sovereign of the old school; having the courage of a
hero, and the ignorance of a child. Her nature was
not an unkindly or an unfaithful one ; she loved her
family, she loved her friends, and she was true to her
own sympathies. But she had had the unhappiness
to be educated in all the absurdities of etiquette :
between her and the people lay a great gulf. Absolute
power she considered an indispensable condition for
a ruler, though she would not have wished to see it
cruelly exercised. Princes of this class can never
understand that the people possess far too large a
stake in the government to leave all to that "happy
accident" — a goodnatured king. Besides, there is in
man a pride which disdains to take as alms, what
ought to be free to him of right. This too she could
not understand.
" The right divine to govern wrong" was the only
right she fully believed in.
Little did the courtly Metastasio anticipate the fate
which lay before the baby archduchess when he assured
her imperial mother that, although Count Dietrich-
stein had lost a wager by the birth of a princess, the
whole world had gained, if the report of her resem
blance to Maria Theresa were true. And when he pen
ned mellifluous verses " to be sung by the archduchesses
Carolina and Antonia, on the occasion of their august
mother's birthday," he might have put a sad song into
the mouth of the five-year-old Antonia, could he
have looked forward some few years.
Poor little Antonia! Flattered and knelt to, and beset
by every temptation to error, who can wonder that she
believed in the monstrous falsehood then called a royal

MADAME DE STAEL. 113
education? Who can remember her eager movement to
raise the little Mozart when he had fallen on the
ground, without feeling that, had she possessed different
means of training, she might have extended her
sympathy beyond one little musician on the floor, to
thousands of her fellow-creatures, down-pressed and
trodden under feet ?
But when a child is taught from the cradle that his
safety is in " things as they are," who shall blame him
for being, when he attains his manhood, averse to
change and progress?*
Nor was the influence of woman ended with Marie
Antoinette and her partisans : the revolutionary side
too, had its heroines.
We have mentioned incidentally the name of The-
roigne de Mericourt, the heroine of Liege. Who that
has seen her portrait can ever forget the chivalrous
bearing of this womanly knight ? Who fail to put a
generous interpretation on the fire of those fine fresh
eyes? That gallant little figure with her rippling
dusky hair, her round youthful form, her plumed hat,
riding-dress, and delicate hand clasping the sword,
seems born to inspire patriots.
Then there was also the beautiful flower-girl,
Louison, who penetrated to the royal presence ; and
overcome by the stress of emotion could utter only
one word — "Bread!" A terrible prayer. Besides these
there were female revolutionists whose names cannot
be numbered; it was the women of Paris, as we shall see,
who brought the king from Versailles to the capital
on the 6th October. Merely political causes would
* Appendix, Note E.
I

114 LIFE AND TIMES OF
not thus have inspired women, but Louison's petition
for bread had been preferred by their suffering httle
children to these women of Paris ; and they could
answer the prayer only by tears.
These poor women we may imagine were among
the warmest of Monsieur Necker's partisans : they
knew the efforts he had made to supply Paris with
food. During his short absence, too, the story of his
conduct to the Hopes would get about, and where is
the woman who does not admire a man who makes a
sacrifice to give her children bread ? No wonder the
women knelt in the scorched and barren fields as the
wheels of the bread-giver carried him along the road.

CHAPTER XX.
Madame de Stael has, in the following words, given
us an epitome of her father's character : — " His mind
had an incapacity for action, he was susceptible of
uncertainty; he calculated on all chances, and never
shunned the consideration of a possible inconvenience ;
but when the idea of a duty was presented to him, all
the prudential powers of reason were forgotten in the
presence of a superior law ; and whatever might be
the consequences of a resolution that virtue imposed
upon him, in such a circumstance, and then only, he
showed no hesitation."
The Necker family were yet ten leagues from
Paris, when their carriage was stopped by the friends
of the Baron de Besenval, an old man who had been

MADAME DE STAEL. 115
in command of one of the German regiments, and
who was now a prisoner of the people, and on his
way to Paris by order of the commune of that city.
The worst consequences were to be apprehended if he
fell into the hands of his implacable enemies at such
a moment. Monsieur Necker, who, it will be remembered, had
strenuously opposed the hiring of these foreign troops,
was asked to write to the authorities who were con
ducting Besenval to the capital, and to suspend, on
his sole responsibility, the orders of the commune of
Paris. This was just one of those cases of duty in
which he knew nothing like irresolution ; he imme
diately penned on his knees, as he sat in his carriage,
a letter to Besenval's conductors, running this bold
risk for the sake of a man who had been acting in
direct opposition to his advice. But his behaviour to
Besenval and the aristocrats told against him in the
minds of the people. They were too angry to admire
mercy just now.
On the 4th of August, the day after his return to
Paris, Necker judged it fit to present himself at the
Hotel de Ville, and explain his conduct regarding
Besenval. So well did he plead the cause of mercy
and forbearance, that a general amnesty was conceded
on the part of a large crowd who were within reach of
his eloquence. Thus powerful was the living voice in
a country where public speaking had been but little
known. The display of affection towards the minister
seemed to grow with every word he uttered : he had
but to speak, they agreed to all he asked. On his
I 2

116 LIFE AND TIMES OF
right hand stood Madame Necker, who had so often
exerted herself to relieve the want and crime of Paris.
She, too, was a friend of the people. The history of
her family, despoiled of their all by the revocation of
the edict of Nantes, gave her a special interest in
questions of toleration and reform.
On the left hand of the minister stood his daughter,
a young woman bright with the energy of youth, and
inspired with genius. Cheer as you may, 0 Paris,
her heart goes beyond you in love for Monsieur
Necker; his very failures call forth fresh tenderness
on her part ; she is kinder to his faults than you to his
successes !
" It is given to very few women," says De Stael,
speaking of the applause that greeted her father on
this occasion, " to hear the names of those they love
thus joyfully proclaimed."
This general verdict in Necker's favour, reversing
the late ungrateful decision of the court, had such an
effect upon her that she fainted with delight.
She looks back afterwards, in years of lonely exile,
to the joys of these happy days — so soon, alas ! to
end in woe and terror.
Monsieur Necker had a Damocles' sword suspended
above him in the fact of the frightful famine which
was gradually taking possession of Paris. Every day
there were thousands to feed and no bread to give
them. His anxieties on this account brought on a
malady which was subsequently the cause of his
death. Whatever prestige had been created in his favour
by his liberal principles was soon destroyed ; Mirabeau

MADAME DE STAEL. 117
and Barnave opposed the amnesty ; they contended
that Paris had no right to act for the nation — if even
the city had chosen to decide with Necker ; but the
crowd assembled about the Hotel de Ville on the 4th
of August did not represent the capital. The amnesty
was decided to be an informal thing, and Mirabeau
consulted the sections of Paris, and procured its
abrogation. Necker's exertions on behalf of the emigrants whom
he had assisted on his road, were also construed into
something hostile to the popular cause ; neither the
people whom he had served, nor the king whom he
now tried to serve, placed confidence in him. Necker,
like his master, was made for times of peace. In
England, in this century, he might have been an
excellent statesman ; but a man of sterner stuff was
wanting to do the work of France in 1789. The
times cried out for a Cromwell, but none came. La
fayette, to whom some applied the name, was not
equal to the representation of the character. Oppor
tunities were rife, but men as well as opportunities
are wanting to build up a system of liberty.
Sir Walter Scott, whom none can suspect of demo
cratic prejudices, gives Necker very great credit as a
financier, and asserts that if his system of reform had
been allowed a few years for its development, the
great crash might have been avoided. He also says that
the expectations of the people in August, 1789, were
such as no mere financier, however great, could meet.
For a minister of reform none can deny that Necker
had been unusually tender in dealing with the pri
vileged classes : he had wished to induce them to

118 LIFE AND TIMES OF
resign their unjust exemptions, and thus to secure a
place in the affections and regard of the people. But
his proposals were most distasteful to the great body
of those orders, and although they gave promises,
more or less vague, to the effect that all necessary
sacrifices should be made, they delayed the accom
plishment of their undertaking.
The assembly, however, daily gaining in power,
soon began to decide the important questions of the
day without particular reference to the feelings of the
interested parties. On the 4th of August the feudal
regime was abolished ; two days after, the estates of
the clergy were claimed for the people ; and on the
11th, tithes were suppressed.
It is evident that at this time it was the assembly,
-not the king, that ruled the nation. As a matter of
form, however, his adoption of the resolutions was
required. But the clergy violently opposed the attack
upon their property, and the king sided with them.
Necker would have had the king sincerely adopt the
Revolution, and save from the wreck all that was
worthy to form part of the new constitution ; but the
all-powerful influence of the queen went the other
way. " I conclude," says Machiavel (as quoted by Guizot),
" that a prince who has the love of his people need
take little heed of conspiracies ; but if the people be
his enemy, let him fear everything and every citizen."
Now the conspiracies up to August, 1789, were
not against the king, or against monarchy; but simply
against the monstrous injustices of the old regime.
Even Robespierre, if his private letters tell his real

MADAME DE STAEL. 119
mind, was at that time a monarchist. Had Louis XVI.
trusted himself to the love of his people, and mis
trusted the privileged orders, who proved by their
subsequent conduct how little they truly cared for the
master who had so deferred to them, he might have
been, as the Count d'Artois said he ought, the
founder and leader of the Revolution. But the king
behaved as if his subjects were his enemies, before
they had a thought of being so.
Louis's last chance — the popularity of Necker — was
soon thrown to the winds. Mirabeau, after the affair
of the amnesty, was constantly seeking to undermine
the reputation of the people's idol, and he too soon
succeeded. Marat, in his paper L'Ami du Peuple,
published the most atrocious libels against Necker ;
the title of one of the reproaches hurled at him suffi
ciently proves its spirit — " The Giant become a
Dwarf." This name shows how great were the ex
pectations of the public on Necker's return, and how
signally they were disappointed.
With or without Necker, the assembly had realised
some of his dearest projects. " The Declaration of the
Rights of Man" insisted not on toleration, which im
plies a favour granted, but on the equality of all sects.
Religious vows might still be voluntarily taken, but
the state no longer insisted on their perfectional power
to bind the persons who had entered monasteries.
This gave a chance of retrieving their steps to those
unhappy creatures who regretted the world outside
the convent walls.
Trial by jury was established, and the odious lettres
de cachet abolished. The absurd feudal laws too,

120 LIFE AND TIMES OF
insulting to the common sense of human nature, were
for ever abrogated. By those laws, a hundred thou
sand nobles had pleaded exemption from the taxes.
By those same laws, a noble was excused from giving
any explanation of an insult offered to a citizen, or to
a soldier of the third estate, "because these latter
were considered to belong to another race."
" No officers could be chosen from the third, except
ing in the artillery and engineering departments,
which required more education and intelligence than
fell to the lot of the provincial nobles."
This sentence in itahcs contains in itself part of the
secret of the Revolution. It is evident that feudahty
can only hold its own while the lord is in all things
superior to his vassal. The system had its value and
its time, but both were now over. Some of the
nobles had the generosity to own, that they could not
blame the people for sacking the castles with a view
to find and burn the feudal archives. And the clergy
were not indisposed to sacrifice the nobles ; but when
the nobles returned the comphment, the ecclesiastical
order was provoked beyond measure.
Poor Monsieur Necker meantime was eagerly per
suading the king to accede to the wishes of the
nation; and Madame de Stael, interested in the novel
aspect of society, was listening to the speeches of the
deputies, admiring the eloquence of Mirabeau, though
she doubted his sincerity, and beginning to see that
the victory of the Revolution must sacrifice not only
the privileged orders, but her dear father — the citizen-
minister, the friend and advocate of liberty.
To increase the confusion of both king and assembly,

MADAME DE STAEL. 121
the people of Paris, infuriated by hunger, began to
parade the streets of the city, demanding bread ; trade
was at a standstill ; and the sufferings of the lower
orders will scarcely bear description. In this strait,
it began to be rumoured that the supplies of grain
and flour were intercepted by the agents of the royal
authority : the Archbishop of Paris was accused by
name of having bribed a miller not to grind. A civil
war was dreaded, and in order to avoid that possibility,
it was proposed to fetch the king to Paris, and to
force him to accept the constitution. The populace
either feared, or pretended to fear, that the court
would carry him off. As for himself, he was almost
passive. Madame de Stael very truly says, that
" royalty is not like the old Roman tragedies, where
one actor speaks, while another performs for him all
the gestures proper to his part ;" in his present diffi
culty, none but the king could help the king.
Victor Hugo says touchingly, " Louis X V. fut le
coupable, Louis XVI. fut le puni;" and it was
indeed too true. One cannot but feel deeply for the
unhappy monarch, as we see him pacing his chamber
at Versailles, and frequently turning to gaze on the
picture of Charles I. The dreamy sadness of those
strange melancholy eyes, which Vandyck so well
knew how to paint, must have struck like a prophecy
on the vision of the irresolute king. Yet Charles
was represented in the field — Louis never himself
headed the troops against his subjects. He was too
kindly perhaps to take such a step, if not too irreso
lute. Had the virtues of a martyr been less natural
to him, the Revolution of 1789 might have had a far
different result.

122 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER XXI.
On the morning of the 5th of October, Madame de
Stael was informed that the people were marching
towards Versailles, and as her father and mother
were established there, her anxiety on their account
induced her to follow her parents. She accordingly
set out, but not by the ordinary road, lest she should
fall in with the crowd; she went, probably, through
the Bois de Boulogne, and after a quiet drive reached
Versailles without perceiving anything unusual.
The king had been hunting, and the men who had
accompanied him were lingering about the gates of
the chateau ; there was nothing remarkable in this,
but she soon learned that the king had been sum
moned from his pleasure to listen to Mounier, the
president of the assembly, who, attended by a crowd
of women, had come from Paris to Versailles, in a
pouring rain, to ask the king's signature to the
Declaration of Rights, and other acts of the assembly.
Monsieur Necker hurried to the chateau as soon
as the evil news reached him, and his wife, every
instant more alarmed by the threatening news from
Paris, went into the antechamber next the king's
cabinet, in order to be able to follow her husband if
any necessity for leaving Versailles should arise.
Madame de Stael followed her mother, and found

MADAME DE STAEL. 123
the antechamber filled with persons, attracted thither
by veiy various motives.
There was much discussion in this saloon as to the
part the king would play. Would he, thus besieged
in his palace, leave Versailles altogether ? Ever and
anon there were rumours of the disturbances going
on without. The Flemish regiment had been
ordered to fire on the people, but had been won
over by the unstudied eloquence of Theroigne de
Me'ricourt, and had coalesced with the National
Guard of Versailles, so far, at any rate, as to give
these latter part of their cartridges.
An effort on the part of the royal family was made
to leave the palace. Five carriages approached the
iron gates in train for departure ; the Guards shut
the gates which the Swiss troops had opened. It
was asserted that her majesty was going to Trianon.
The guard replied that it would be dangerous for
her majesty to leave the chateau. So the carriages
withdrew ; the king felt himself a prisoner. His
people had planted cannon about his gates, and were
ready to fire them on the slightest provocation. A
woman had ridden on one piece, from Paris to Ver
sailles, with a lighted match in her hand.
The crowd had been kept outside the chateau in the
rain, from three o'clock until eight ; Mounier, the pre
sident of the assembly, and twelve only of the women
had been allowed to enter. Among them was Louison
de Chabry, the flower-girl, who was touched by the
kindness of the king, and went out crying " Vive le
Roi!" For this the women outside were disposed
to hang her, but she escaped, and returned to the

124 LIFE AND TIMES OF
royal presence to redeem her character by obtaining
a written order for corn. Mounier was kept waiting
for his answer : the king was stiU unwilling to sign
the Declaration of Rights.
In the evening, the waiting party in the ante
chamber were startled by the apparition of a young
man, dressed like one of the lower orders, and pale
with fear. This was Monsieur de Chinon, who had
joined the procession of a fresh crowd just arrived
from Paris, and who had thus disguised himself in
order to travel with safety.
He told an awful tale. An innumerable crowd of
women and children, armed with pikes and scythes,
were collecting about Versailles from every quarter.
He had heard the most awful language, the most
deadly threats. The appearance of this poor young
Duke de Richeheu, as he related these horrors, was so
ghastly, that every one shared his alarm.
The king, no doubt, was extremely anxious to leave
Versailles, but Necker advised him on several ac
counts not to make the attempt. The minister
thought that the only way of keeping any vestige of
authority, was to assume its entire possession. Any
effort at escape would let the people know at once
how completely the king was their prisoner. For this
conduct Necker has been severely blamed by the
aristocratic party ; they accuse him of having brought
about the king's death. But with all the inconsistence
of grief and passion, they make a similar charge against
every minister who aided in procuring the shghtest
measure of reform. The emigrant clergy attributed
the misfortunes of Paris, no doubt, to the suppression

MADAME DE STAEL. 125
of the tithes. There are never wanting those who in
terpret the events permitted by Providence, after a
fashion which goes to show that Heaven prospers the
world in the same degree as the world prospers them
selves. The impossibility of escape was probably the chief
reason why Necker deprecated the attempt; an un
successful effort to get away must be manifestly hurt
ful to the royal cause.
Frightened by the report of the Duke de Richelieu,
at ten o'clock, the king unwillingly signed the Decla
ration of Rights. Mounier departed to carry his
answer to the assembly. He found the hall filled
with women clamouring for bread. Some of these
poor creatures had not eaten for thirty hours. Mou
nier ordered in provisions, and they greedily assuaged
their hunger, enquiring if the king's signature to the
Declaration would provide Paris with food.
Lafayette, with his National Guards, who were
sworn to defend the law and the king, arrived that
evening at Versailles, and the outer posts of the castle
were entrusted to his care, the Body-guard defending
the interior.
The crowd had dispersed, many had gone to Paris
with the Declaration of Rights, and a vast number to
the assembly. When at three in the morning the
deputies broke up, the people found shelter in the
churches and wherever else they could.
Madame de Stael passed the night in her parents'
residence, at Versailles.
Very early in the morning of the 6th, she was
aroused by the entrance of an old lady, a stranger to

126 LIFE AND TIMES OF
her. The venerable woman was overcome with terror,
and begged for refuge. She announced herself as
Madame de Choiseul Gouffier.
The refugee brought heart-rending news. In spite
of Lafayette's National Guard (the old regime of course
assert the connivance of the marquis), one entrance to
the chateau had escaped notice on the part of all but
some assassins, who found an easy ingress, and had
penetrated even to the chamber of the queen, first
murdering the guards at her door.
Awakened by the cries of her unhappy servants,
Marie Antoinette had managed to save her life by
escaping through a secret door into her husband's
apartment. Almost at the same time Madame de Stael learned
that her father was already at the chateau, and that
her mother intended to follow him. She dressed
hastily, and joined Madame Necker.
The apartments inhabited by the minister at Ver
sailles, were separated by a long corridor from those
in the occupation of the royal family. Crossing this
corridor, Madame de Stael and her mother heard gun
shots from the courts about the chateau ; and in one
place the floor was stained with recent marks of
blood. This morning gave a frightful premonition
of what the Revolution really was to be.
Lafayette had prevented the people from attacking
the Body-guards : and these latter, penetrated with
gratitude, were embracing the National Guards, and
exchanging their badges for the tricoloured cockade,
the distinctive mark of the revolutionary party. The
colours, red and blue, were the badge of the city of

MADAME DE STAEL. 127
Paris ; but as they also composed that of the Orleans
family, white, the ancient colour of France, had been
added. The Body-guards were now lustily calling,
" Vive Lafayette!"
The populace, awakened long since from their slum
bers on the doorsteps and in the church-porches, were
shouting clamorously, that the king and the royal
family must go with them to Paris. The king sent a
message of consent ; and shouts of joy, and the firing
of numerous guns announced the ecstasy of the mob.
Madame de Stael and her mother finally reached
the saloon ; and the queen, too, entered shortly after
ward. Her lovely hair was in disorder, and her face
very pale ; but she looked firm and dignified — the
true daughter of Maria Theresa.
The people shouted for her to come out upon the
balcony, which overlooked the Court of Marble. This
court was filled with men. An innumerable array of
firearms seemed ominously pointing towards her.
Madame de Stael says, her countenance, for a moment,
betrayed a horrible fear ; then, inspired by the divine
maternal impulse, she caught her children by the
hand and presented herself to the crowd. Lafayette,
the noble Lafayette, attempted to influence the
assembled Parisians in the queen's favour ; he came
with her on the balcony, and kissed her hand.
At one o'clock the royal family quitted Versailles,
that monument of the splendour of Louis XIV. The
queen said to Madame Necker, before they set out,
" They will force us to go to Paris — the king and
myself — and will carry on their pikes the heads of
our murdered guards." This was literally accom-

128 LIFE AND TIMES OF
plished. A poor, half-crazy creature, of a ferocious
appearance, who was accustomed to earn his bread by
playing model for the artists at the Academy, had
actually severed the heads of the dead guards from
their trunks ; and, of course, in a multitude excited
to the pitch of madness, there were not wanting those
who were proud to be entrusted with these ghastly
tokens of victory.
So they went to Paris : the royal family as prison
ers : the rabble hooted, swore, and shouted ; the rain
fell in torrents, and the carriage of the king could
proceed only at a walking pace.
Monsieur Necker and his family, whether by design
or accident, waited until later in the day, and then
proceeded to the capital by the road through the Bois
de Boulogne. By this same Bois de Boulogne Madame
de Stael and her father had journeyed to Versailles,
at the period of his recall, in 1788. She remembered,
no doubt, how the soft, still moonlight had encircled
them on that hopeful night ; resembling in its bright
ness and calmness the smile of heaven. Did she
remember how her father had checked her raptures,
by assuring her that it was now too late ? Did she
remember his mournful exclamation, " Oh, had they
but given me the seventeen months of the Archbishop
of Sens!"
The day had cleared before the Neckers left Ver
sailles on the 6th of October ; scarcely a breeze
stirred the leaves of the trees in the forest ; those
glorious trees just reddening into the golden glow of
autumn ; the sun was bright, and the peace and
beauty of nature strangely contrasted with the worn

MADAME DE STAEL. 129
and troubled spirits of our family of travellers. " How
often," says Madame de Stael, " in the course of our
life, is this contrast repeated between the serenity of
nature and the sufferings imposed by man !"
The king was conducted to the Hotel de Ville,
whither the queen accompanied him. " I come with
pleasure to my good city of Paris," said Louis to the
mayor. " And with confidence," added the queen ;
a falsehood for which one could hardly blame her had
it been less transparent. But it shows a right royal
spirit. The next day Marie Antoinette received at the
Tuileries the diplomatic circle, and the persons who
composed her court. This palace, uninhabited by
royalty for more than a century, was in a state quite
unfit for occupation. In the queen's reception-room
she had been obliged to place two little beds for her
children, so few were the habitable apartments.
Touching was it to hear this proud daughter of kings
apologise to her guests for the rude accommodation at
her command ; " you know," she said, tearfully, " I
did not expect to come here."
One can easily believe that her subjects could
answer her only by tears.
The nation had now put itself in a false position ;
a state can derive no real good from the wanton and
unnecessary humiliation of its chief.
By the side of the queen stood the king's young
sister, Madame Elizabeth, who had early manifested
a desire to take the vows, but had been unable to
obtain the consent of her family to a step unusual for
a princess of her rank. On this sad 7th of October,
K

130 LIFE AND TIMES OF
she seemed agitated when she looked towards her
august brother and sister, but otherwise displayed a
demeanour perfectly calm.
When this poor princess completed her martyrdom,
good Catholics tell us gravely that a scent, as of roses,
filled all the neighbourhood of the guillotine. " No
thing uncommon," says Madame de Genlis, quite
seriously — " nothing uncommon at the death of a
saint." Protestant incredulity may doubt the truth of this
pretty legend, but may well ask whether the freedom
of a great nation needed to be baptised in the blood
of women and children ?
0 France! bitter has been the fruit of that cruel
and unjust seed-time.

CHAPTER XXII.

The king was now to all intents and purposes a
prisoner in his own capital ; though Necker, from the
same motive which prompted him to oppose the
abandonment of Versailles, refused to acknowledge
this fact in any of the public documents he issued.
He still tried to act as though the king were master;
but, forced in the end to yield, he finally left Paris on
the 8th of September, 1790. There had been latterly,
indeed, no chance for a moderate minister, and such
Necker was, in spite of the calumnies of the old
regime, who call him by all the names an old Roman
might hurl at Catiline.
Before he left, he entered a protest against the
immense issue of paper-money, whereby the people

MADAME DE STAEL. 131
hoped to escape some of their difficulties. He pre
dicted that this system would work the ruin of the
public creditors, but did not withdraw his own two
millions of francs from the treasury.
How had a year changed his situation ! His name,
owing partly to his inability to meet the crisis of
affairs, partly to his moderation and faithfulness to
the king, and still more to the shameless libels of his
enemies, was as universally detested as it had been
respected. Imitation is a powerful habit in France,
and when a man there has one enemy, he may be
certain that ere long it will be the mode to hate him,
if his foe be a man of any note. Sadly journeying
towards Coppet by Bale, he was arrested at Arcis-sur-
Aube, and at Vesoul threatened with death. An
order from the assembly, however, procured his re
lease ; and so he passed along the road which fifteen
months before had been to him such a scene of
triumph. The libels had penetrated into every corner
of France ; everywhere he found himself hated.
One of the greatest rulers England ever had, when
congratulated on the popular shouts which followed
some victory, said wisely and sadly, " They would
shout just as loudly were I hanged to-morrow."
The French populace deserved no better character.
They were as eager to pull down their idol as they
had been to set him up. He, poor man, had never
been over-elated by prosperity, or now he must have
lost his reason. Cut to the heart, but grieving quite
as much for France and the king as for himself, he
retraced his path to reflect, in long years of retirement
and solitude, over the successes and failures of a
K 2

132 LIFE AND TIMES OF
wrecked public life. Madame Necker pressed him to
depart. She feared lest his life, which had been
threatened, might be attacked; for his house was
beset by his enemies. Madame de Stael, who so
eagerly participated in all the pleasures of her father's
prosperity, was infinitely afflicted by his reverses ; not
only her father's loss of popularity grieved her, but
she feared lest the cause of liberty, so long identified
with his name, might suffer for his failures.
She had, however, just now, an alleviation to her
sorrow, which might well absorb most of her thoughts.
On the 31st of August, 1790, one of the two children
who survived her was born, and a heart so impulsive
as hers needed little else to fill it, for some time at
least. Her illness prevented her accompanying Mon
sieur Necker into Switzerland, and she awaited news
of him with intense anxiety. Her hopes of legitimate
and solid liberty were all scattered as a fresh breeze
scatters the loose-hanging autumn leaves ; her desire
for a French parhament after the English fashion was
further than ever from realisation; the bright period
of her youth had terminated, and her life henceforth
was to be a long struggle against despotism, in one
form or other. There was, indeed, a brief space of
quiet at the close ; as, when a morning of gladness
and promise is succeeded by a stormy day, the clouds
just part to leave the sunset room.
On her recovery she proceeded to Coppet, where
she found her dear father melancholy, but resigned.
She walked with him in the shadow of the trees there ;
and in those gardens, where her spirit and his may
yet be fancied to linger, many were the grave,

MADAME DE STAEL. 133
earnest, sorrowful, and religious conversations they
held together. Monsieur Necker's mind, but for his
Christian faith, would have been morbidly affected by
the loss of pubhc esteem, for no man ever prized
reputation higher than he. He was ready, too, to
blame himself almost as severely as his enemies
blamed him, and his excessive conscientiousness gave
them always plenty of means to wound him.
Meantime his beloved daughter was his advocate
with himself, and her post was no sinecure ; when
she had restored his peace for a space, some fresh
thought of self-reproach found a new commencement
for her labours. Grateful to the fallen minister must
have been the unvarying faith of this companion of
his soul ; whoever libelled him, whoever hated him,
this one hberal enthusiastic creature clung to him and
to the dogmas of his pohtical creed with unvarying
tenacity. No man was ever so beloved in his family, without
being a really good man. His daughter, and after
her, her children, speak of him in the same eloquent
strains, as their friend, their guide, their playfellow. His
active pohtical life was over ; his pen he employed in
the preparation of various works at different intervals,
most of them bearing on the pubhc affairs of France ;
but Prospero's books were destroyed, and nobody
cared much what the retired minister thought about
France and her fortunes — he was a magician no
longer. Like Cinderella at the fatal stroke of mid
night, so had the French people seen him when the
hour of the Revolution smote the public ear. He was
no longer to them a great financier, a good minister,

134 LIFE AND TIMES OF
a commander of plenty ; but a simple Genevese
banker, who had been pushed into a position for
which he was unfit.
To speak very gravely, Paris is not the only city
where the cry of " Hallelujah !" has been changed for
that of "Crucify him!"
Let no man reckon on the continuance of public
favour, it is as fickle as the wind. If it come, well —
if not, let us be great without it. Not all of happi
ness is shut up in a coach-and-six, and a place at court.
There is, however, a grief admissible in Necker's
circumstances, which we may reasonably suppose him
to have indulged. The majority of mankind are
ruled — the minority rule. Even the minority, born
with talents of state-craft, are infinitely more useful
after a practical initiation into the difficulties of ad
ministration, than when, glowing with ardour, they
first undertake their responsible task. And in the
course of time these occupations of office, these daily
cares for others, grow dear; to say nothing of the
gratification which any minister, not dead to every
generous feeling, must experience at being trusted by
his fellow-citizens. The perpetual flow of business,
the constant necessity for action, are cruelly missed
when circumstances occur to break the chains of habit ;
or, if a man be grateful for the first days of leisure, and
find pleasure in the change, this feeling dies out with
the fatigue that gave it birth ; and qualities trained to,
and rejoicing in exertion, are tormenting companions in
idleness and solitude. It is thus with all of us. Persons
accustomed to literary pursuits, for instance, may
hail the dawn of a holiday ; but we suppose the plea
sure of again using the pen infinitely transcends that

MADAME DE STAEL. 135
of laying it aside. To wear out — not to rust out — is
the ambition of most natures. Necker had been a busy
man all his life, and felt the necessity for action and
utterance as keenly as any one, and the blankness of
an existence all leisure must have spread before him
sadly. The entire structure of his political credit too, had
fallen in with no common crash. We can imagine that
" More true joy Marcellus exiled feels,
Than Caesar with a senate at his heels."
But Necker had not the unwavering faith in himself
and his doings, in the wisdom and justice of his course,
which makes exile and even death, more than en
durable. He was tormented by ceaseless questionings
within; so long as he succeeded he could be tolerably
satisfied he was right ; but the first little unforeseen
misfortune raised a host of dangers and doubts which
he had not force to dissipate.

CHAPTER XXIII.

We need not pursue at length the melancholy story
of the captive King of France ; it is well known, and,
besides, has little connexion with the thread of this
narrative. Of the melancholy evolvement of that sad history,
Madame de Stael was an attentive and sympathising
observer. She had never been a favourite at court,
and the treatment her father had too often received
at the hands of his sovereign might not very unrea
sonably be remembered with some little asperity-

136 LIFE AND TIMES OF
But the nobleness of her disposition rendered such
feelings impossible ; and, even had she indulged them
in the time of the royal prosperity, the first frown of
adversity would have disarmed her. There was that
gentle heroism in Madame de Stael, which marks the
great nature : she never hit her enemy while he was
on the ground.
Madame de Stael attributes the fall of the throne
to the proposed interference of the foreign powers,
who designed to reseat Louis XVI. on the throne of
his fathers, and to restore the ancient order of things.
This idea justly revolted all France, excepting the
absolute monarchists. The project of foreign inter
vention was humiliating to the pride of the nation,
and she began to assume a defensive attitude.
Meantime the fallen king was made to grace every
triumph of his foes. The 5th and 6th of October
were the inauguration of the reign of the Jacobins — -
the extreme revolutionary party ; and after this com
menced, peace and order were wild and impossible
dreams. There had been a party friendly to liberty,
and also friendly to monarchy ; had this section and
the absolutists been able to coalesce, there was a time
when reconciliation was possible, but that time had
long ago passed by. And the men of both opinions,
startled by the abhorrent aspect which society was
fast assuming, fled, as from a plague-stricken city.
Mounier and Lally thus deserted the assembly, and
Mirabeau's death left a blank which was never filled.
Friend after friend (for even Mirabeau had come to
be so counted) fell away from the ranks of the king,
and his enemies grew more and more insolent.
On the 14th of July, 1792, the anniversary of the

MADAME DE STAEL. 137
Revolution was celebrated with great pomp in the
Champ de Mars. The king and queen were present.
" I shall never forget," says the kind-hearted Madame
de Stael, " I shall never forget the expression of the
queen's face ; her eyes were drowned in tears ; the
splendour of her dress, and the dignity of her bearing
contrasted strangely with the Body-guard which sur
rounded her. A few National Guards separated her
from the populace. The armed men who were ga
thered together about the royal pair, had the air of
being assembled rather for a riot than for a hohday.
The king went on foot from the tent under which he
had been, to the altar raised at the extremity of the
Champ de Mars. There he was to swear, for the
second time, fidelity to a constitution destined to
crush his throne. Only a few children cheered him.
No character but that of a martyr — and he always
preserved it — could have borne so meekly such a
situation. His manner of walking, his features, had
something particular about them ; on other occasions
one might wish him to possess more grandeur, but to
be just what he was, in such a circumstance, was to be
sublime. " I followed with my eye, his powdered head in the
midst of the crowd ; his coat, too, embroidered as of
old, stood out against the costume of the common
people, who pressed him on all sides. When he
mounted the steps of the altar, he seemed like a
victim voluntarily going to the sacrifice. He came
down again, and passing once more through the dis
ordered ranks, he sat down by the queen and his chil
dren. After this day, the people saw him no more
until they saw him on the scaffold."

138 LIFE AND TIMES OF
La Fayette, a moderate monarchist, was faithful to
his oath of fidelity, and offered the king protection
under his troops at Compiegne ; but the few courtiers
who yet remained to mislead that unhappy prince,
hated a moderate monarchist worse than a Jacobin ;
just as extremely orthodox Catholics might place a
Jansenist below a heathen. La Fayette's offer was
declined ; and the Jacobins attempted to obtain a
decree of the assembly, against the soldier who had
thus made overtures of service to his sovereign. 480
votes out of 670 acquitted him. But the Jacobins
had not learned in vain the art of stirring the base
passions of the multitude ; they appealed from the
assembly to the people, and La Fayette was deprived
of his command. In the same way, when the deposi
tion of the king was demanded of the assembly and
refused, they appealed to the populace ; as though a
mob but yesterday down-trodden by the iron heel of
despotism, had become inspired with wisdom to decide
questions of king or no king, of life or death.
The constitutional party who might, as we have
hinted, at one time have saved the throne but for the
violent conservatism of the old regime, were looked
on by both extremes with infinite contempt. In vain
they attempted to penetrate to the king's confidence,
in vain they offered to defend him. The little knot
of friends (his worst foes) who still clung to the
traditions of absolute monarchy, made the king mis
trustful of the moderate party. Still faithful to their
king, and unable to assume the position of his enemies,
the constitutionalists wandered about the chateau
which held their master, "as if," says Madame de
Stael, "the chance of being massacred for his sake

MADAME DE STAEL. 139
consoled them for the want of an opportunity to fight
in his defence."
The constitutional party, in spite of then- fidelity to
Louis, were in bad odour at court ; Necker had been
their minister, and the extreme royalists looked upon
Necker as the author of the Revolution. Whatever
favourable prospect this moderate section may, at one
time, have possessed, was completely gone; there was
no longer any hope of a middle course ; the king
was daily insulted by the meanest of his subjects, and
the Reign of Terror, the blackest spot in the world's
civil history, was fast approaching.
In the world's civil history; for let us remember
that, however we may be horror-stricken at the
sanguinary enormities of Robespierre and his com
panions in cruelty, he did no more than several
zealous princes have done, only he killed in a different
cause. The Christians under Nero and some others
of the Roman emperors, the Protestants under the
Inquisition, suffered perhaps quite as severely as the
royalists under Robespierre * A long course of initia
tion in cruelty had prepared the French for their
saturnalia of revenge. They had been accustomed to
the use of the rack and the wheel ; their masters had
inflicted cruel deaths on the guilty, and inhuman
tortures on the suspected; it was natural that the
common people should have ideas suited to such a
barbarous condition of government. Refinement and
Mercy are never born of harsh rule.
Poor Madame de Stael must have suffered fearfully
in the dreadful days we are about to approach; the
* But perhaps not so numerously. The Revolution is computed to
have cost, reckoning men, women, and children, two millions of lives !

140 LIFE AND TIMES OF
remembrance of her intense sensibility may help us to
comprehend how deep must have been her agony, in
the midst of perpetual scenes of bloodshed and violence.
She inherited a feeling of religious respect for human
life, which must have been to her, in those days, a
constant source of torment.
No common, no cowardly nature, could have stood
the test of such a period as that Reign of Terror, and
not have dropped its mask ; at a time when, to use a
most expressive scripture phrase, every man had his
life " in his hand," any attempt to do good to others,
to preserve others, involves more than charity; that
common charity which is often only the revolting of
our natural feelings at the sight of misery.
But what a contrast is this period of her life to that
happy, studious, busy childhood and youth which we
have faintly pictured to ourselves ! All the brilliant
society to which she had been accustomed from her
cradle was proscribed, or hiding in holes and corners
of the city they had made so glorious. The glowing
dreams of her youth were fled and had given place to
an awful reality. Liberty, the theme of her childish
pen, because her father loved it, and the theme of her
own womanhood because she had learned to love it
too, was metamorphosed into a bloodthirsty monster,
the terror, not the boon, of all good men.
Madame de Genlis, who criticises every one, and
sees all foibles but her own, tells us that Madame
Necker brought up her daughter very ill ; that she
was allowed to mix with literati and savants when
she should have been shut up in her chamber with
her school-books; that she talked too much, and was
too demonstrative. Madame de Genlis, in spite of all

MADAME DE STAEL. 141
her experience, was not well enough acquainted with
human nature to know that some characters hve only
while they are demonstrative : our verdicts on our
neighbours are rather ridiculous. One may as well
quarrel with the Corinthian order because it lacks
the severe simplicity of the Tuscan, as with Madame
Necker's daughter because she lacked her mother's
well-schooled and severe dispositions. An education
that developed every kindly inclination, and left room
for the growth of high social virtues, cannot have
been bad.
Madame de Genlis says that her training was too
indulgent — Madame de Stael herself thought it too
severe ; but Madame Necker may triumphantly
justify herself by pointing to the noble and un
blemished career of her illustrious daughter. Some
mistakes every human educator must make, and
Madame Necker committed her share ; but on the
whole, judging by results, her system had been no
bad one.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A TERRIBLE phase of the Revolution was about to
present itself : the admission of spectators into the
assembly, whose plaudits intoxicated speakers unused
to acclamations, created a vicious emulation in the
deputies, which reacted on the people. The people
cheered, and the deputies, in order to earn fresh
admiration, exaggerated the statements which had
once pleased their audience. Speech in the assembly
was translated into action out of doors ; each party
excited the other, and the end was, a general break-

142 LIFE AND TIMES OF
ing up of the groundwork of society, universal war,
hatred, and dismay. Not only the feudal system
was abolished ; justice and right, peace and religion,
were also solemnly put an end to ; as if France in
the eighteenth century, and on the threshold of
emancipation and freedom, had aught to gain by
turning from her noble task to mock the experience
of all past ages, and to ridicule the most sacred
traditions of history.
The month of August, 1792, saw the downfall of
the French throne. The populace had now a morbid
hatred to royalty, aristocracy, superiority of any
kind.* Even nature was not sufficiently impartial
to please them ; a speaker in the assembly was
rebuked for using the phrase, " the most distinguished
deputies ;" he was bidden to observe that all depu
ties were equal. The distinctions of genius, which
are a positive gift of Providence, and neither to be
counterfeited nor abrogated, irritated them ; it was
only by condescending to lead the fearful movement,
that genius earned for itself toleration.
This temptation was too much — genius yielded ;
had she resisted, she might, perhaps, have stayed the
current of innocent blood ; but there is something
so intoxicating to human nature in the homage paid
to superior abilities, that we can scarcely wonder
at the infatuation of the leaders of the earlier part
of the Revolution. They did not see that they were
paving the way for the wildest excesses of licence.
Soon, the people were not contented with oratory;
they longed for blood, for some tangible proof of the
triumph of their principles. It makes one's heart
* Appendix, Note F.

MADAME DE STAEL. 143
ache so to prostitute a noble word ; indeed the study
of this page of history is altogether so humiliating,
so agonising, that only the strongest faith in human
nature can bear us through it, and leave us friendly
to our race, and hopeful of its tendencies.
It has been the fashion to consider this Reign of
Terror a most unnatural thing, which cannot be ac
counted for, or analysed, or reduced to any of the
rules by which we judge ordinary events. But since
miracles ceased, no event is extraordinary, and the
deeper we dig below the surface of things, the nearer
we come to this conviction. Let any one read the
accounts of the executions under the kings preceding
Louis XVI.; the barbarous execution of Madame de
Brinvilliers, for instance, to quote a very familiar
example; the crowd that assembled to see that could
not be expected to have any very delicate regard for
human life.
This respect for life is the fruit of a high degree of
religious and moral cultivation, which the French,
until 1792, had never possessed. The private me
moirs of the times of Louis XIII. and XIV. are full
of poisonings, and suspicions of poisonings : any sud
den death was laid to poison.* It was conveyed in
gloves, bouquets, handkerchiefs ; might be breathed at
a fete, and do its work so secretly that the author of
the death remained unsuspected. This argues a cer
tain degree of cultivation and refinement, for the
savage is not acquainted with these subtle properties of
natural substances ; but on the other hand it shows a
very low state of moral civilisation. These poisonings
were, beyond a doubt, very frequent in the higher
* See Saint Simon's Memoirs and De Sevigne's Letters.

144 LIFE AND TIMES OF
ranks of society, and one does not generally look to
the vulgar for superior delicacy in such matters.
There are not many educated persons, we suppose,
who would even go to see an execution in these days,
unless such a criminal as Earl Ferrers or Doctor Dodd
drew on himself the extreme sentence of the law.*
If, then, the indifference to the sacredness of life
was so great in the higher classes, what must we
expect to find it in those ranks most accustomed, from
the nature of their daily occupations, or otherwise, to
the sight of violent and painful death?
And when this indifference is aided by an extreme
hatred to one class of the community, what is there
to stay the hand of the executioner ?
Give this hatred to a class the name of patriotism,
and men will feel ashamed to own they experience
any compunction at the death of their victims. Hu
man nature did at last vindicate herself by the exe
cution of Robespierre ; but the softer impulses of the
heart were afraid to show themselves, when mercy
was looked on as treason to one's country.
Before midnight on the 9th of August, 1792, the
forty-eight tocsins of the sections of Paris began to
sound ; this dull monotonous noise continued during
the whole of the night, and might well strike terror into
the souls of all but the extreme revolutionists. These
tocsins were the rallying-cry of violence and rebellion.
The constitutional party sent news to their friends
as occasion served : frequently, during the night, the
voluntary patrol of that body brought information to
* And yet there are those who tell us the race degenerates. The
worst one can wish these worshippers of the past is, that they had
lived in the times they adore.

MADAME DE STAEL. 145
Madame de Stael, who feared the worst from the
aspect of public affairs.
She sat at her window with several persons of her
acquaintance, anxiously awaiting yet dreading the
morning, when she judged a real conflict would be
inevitable. Thus she watched the streets during that
night. Early in the morning she was told that the suburbs
had risen, and were marching on the city. The
people were headed by Santerre, a brewer (afterwards
the executioner of his king), and Westermann, a mili
tary officer, who subsequently distinguished himself
in the war against La Vendee.
Such news, the state of the pubhc mind considered,
was indeed alarming.
Madame de Stael says, " None could tell what the
morrow would bring forth ; none reckoned on more
than a day's hfe ; and yet, in that fearful night, we
had some moments of hope. I know not why; per
haps, because we had exhausted fear.
" Suddenly, at seven in the morning, the cannon of
the suburbs fired, and in the first attack the Swiss
guards were victorious. The people rushed about the
streets as full of fear as they had just before been full
of fury.
" It must be said, the king ought then to have put
himself at the head of his troops and fought his ene
mies. The queen was of this opinion, and counselled
him to this effect, for which act posterity ought to
honour her."
Madame de Stael was subsequently told that all
her friends who were guarding the outside of the
L

146 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Tuileries had been massacred by the people. Now
we should remember that this woman was not na
turally a person of strong animal courage ; that is not
generally an accompaniment of high imaginative
genius, which hears a voice in every breeze, and a
footfall in every sound of nature. Persons of this
temperament are commonly known, for want of a
better word, as nervous ; that is the reverse of ner
vous. Everything to them is fraught with a deeper
meaning than reaches the common ear, and they are
generally prone to anticipation. Madame de Stael
was a pure type of this class ; at one moment her
future lay spread before her, a map bright with all
the tintings of hope, the next saw her vainly trying
to pierce the mysteries of the sable veil which sud
denly fell over her prospects.
Indifference to danger is with some persons a na
tural instinct ; with others, courage is a moral and
intellectual triumph. So it was in Madame de Stael's
case. Yet unused to sorrow, she was terror-stricken
when, in 1788, she heard her father read his sentence
of exile ; the word seemed so terrible. But she had
made progress since that period. As soon as she
heard that her friends were killed, she ordered her
carriage, and went out to ascertain whether this
dreadful tale were true. As wife of a foreign ambas
sador, she might have some little influence which she
resolved to use for the sake of her friends. Her
dearer claim to notice, as Necker's daughter, was one
which would have won her nothing but obloquy. She
wisely waived it, though to the honour of the filial
relation be it said, she never shrunk from proudly
acknowledging her descent, when the acknowledg-

MADAME DE STAEL. 147
ment cost only herself inconvenience. But just now,
her object was to serve her friends.
The coachman who drove her was stopped on the
bridge which she wished to cross, by men who silently
gave him to understand that, across the river, people
were being killed in numbers. After two hours spent
in vainly endeavouring to pass, she accidentally learned
that those who interested her were yet safe, and she
returned home to await a more promising oppor
tunity for seeing them. They were threatened with
proscriptions, and lay hidden wherever they could find
a nook of shelter ; still, they lived, and that seemed to
afford yet a chance of safety.
In the evening she set out on foot, not being dis
posed to turn back a second time for want of carriage
room. On the door-steps of the houses lay men help
lessly intoxicated, who, when she passed, half awoke
to utter some profane oath. Many of the common
women were in a similar condition, and their vocifera
tions seemed yet more terrible than those of the men.
As soon as the patrols appointed to keep order were
perceived, respectable citizens fled before them, for
" order" meant an open field for the assassins, and
the removal of every obstacle out of their path.
And yet, though living in the midst of these ter
rible scenes, Madame de Stael is by no means an in
tolerant witness of the Revolution. She owns that
this terrible 10th of August had yet some national
significance, because it aimed at the prevention of
foreign interference in the private affairs of France. •
To secure this end, the people rose, and snatched
matters out of the king's hands.
L 2

148 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Excited with victory, the people became as san
guinary a tyrant as any king ; the arrests daily in
creased in numbers, the prisons were full. The popu
lace clamoured for the punishment of traitors, and
this title included whole classes of men. Talents and
fortune, an embroidered coat, a constitutional opinion ;
these, anything, nothing, might serve as an excuse for
confiscation, banishment, or death.
Such a state of things paralysed the energies of the
intelligence of France ; Madame de Stael tells us she
should have hated herself, if, during the dreadful
period of Robespierre's ascendancy, she had been able
to concentrate her mind so as to undertake any lite
rary labour. How to preserve life for one's friends
and oneself was the first, almost the only considera
tion, which those times admitted. Are there many
women, delicately nurtured and dehcately constituted,
as was Madame de Stael, who would have ventured
out on foot to seek after her friends, on that dreadful
10th of August?

CHAPTER XXV.

Her anxieties for her friends did not end with in
quiries; she offered them an asylum in her house,
which they at first declined to accept, lest it might
attract hostile attention to herself. Several persons
whom she respected were personally threatened, and
were hidden about the city in the abodes of obscure
citizens; obliged to change their place of refuge every

MADAME DE STAEL. 149
day, and often finding it difficult to get the shelter of
a roof. Such was the tyranny of liberty.
At last none would receive the poor fugitives; it
was rumoured that if the foreign troops crossed the
frontier, all the respectable citizens of Paris would be
murdered ; all who harboured traitors would be sure
of punishment ; at this juncture Madame de Stael
insisted on the acceptance of her offer. Two persons
came and took protection with her : she shut them up
in her private apartments, and admitted to her con
fidence only one servant, on whose fidelity she could
depend. Monsieur de Stael was absent, but she thought,
notwithstanding that circumstance, that the name on
her door, "Swedish Embassy," might yet command
some little respect. Such times are the touchstone
of friendship. Hers never appears at a disadvantage.
Monsieur de Narbonne, ex-minister of war, the
companion and friend of Talleyrand, was one of the
persons sheltered by Madame de Stael. She watched
the streets anxiously during one night when the police
were searching for him. His fate, if he were seized,
would be instant death, and she knew that the search
of her house must discover him.
In this critical circumstance the police came to the
Embassy to make their dreaded domiciliary visit; one
would think that only nerves of iron could maintain a
calm appearance at such a moment. But she sublimely
assures us that in that moment of terror, she discovered
that we can always master our emotion, however
violent it may be, when we feel that its indulgence
would expose the life of another. Was there ever a
nobler sentence penned?

loO LIFE AND TIMES OF
Her eloquence, formerly the delight of a circle of
philosophers such as the world has seldom seen, was
now to be more religiously consecrated to the service
of man. She harangued the .police and the persons
with them, with a flow of mingled entreaty, irony, and
authority, that overcame them. She represented in
the strongest terms, that a foreign ambassador's house
was not to be insulted with impunity ; finally, she
induced them to depart without the search.
Nor did her cares end here. Dr. Bollman, a gene
rous Hanoverian, who was about to leave France,
heard of Madame de Stael's perplexity on De Nar-
bonne's account, and offered her for him the passport
of one of his friends. Dr. Bollman, in undertaking
thus to protect a proscribed person, placed his own
life in dauger; but those times abound in traits of
courage and generosity. Doctor Bollman courage
ously executed what he had undertaken; he had no
motive for his action but simple goodness, yet he took
care of De Narbonne, and four days after his de
parture from Paris, the fortunate fugitive was in
London. At this time she was in possession of passports which
would have enabled her to join her father in Switzer
land ; but as she nobly says, there was something too
sad in making sure of personal safety, while she left
so many of her friends in danger ; she therefore pro
tracted her stay in Paris from day to day, in the hope
of being useful to some person in distress.
Her benevolent designs were not long unaccom
plished ; on the 31st of August, she heard that
Monsieur de Jaucourt, and Monsieur de Lally Tol-

MADAME DE STAEL. 151
lendal, had been arrested and taken to the prison
called the Abbey : it was weh known then, that only
those destined to death were consigned to those dun
geons. The talents of Monsieur de Lally saved his
life ; he undertook the defence of one of his fellow-
prisoners, and procured his release. The circumstance
excited interest in Lally's favour, and this, added to
the fact that Lord Sutherland, the English ambassador,
was his friend, ensured his safety.
Monsieur de Jaucourt was not so favoured ; but he
had one generous friend. Madame de Stael procured
a list of the members of the commune of Paris, the
real governors of the city. She knew them only by
their terrible reputation, and chance would have de
cided her choice, had she not suddenly recognised the
name of Manuel as that of a man who made some
pretence to literature. He had brought out a little
volume of Mirabeau's letters, to which he had written
a preface, "bad enough, but showing an ambition to
be accounted witty."
Reasoning from these premises, she came to the con
clusion that a man who loved applause would not be
indifferent to solicitation ; and she wrote to Manuel
to ask him for an audience.
This equivocal favour was granted. The democratic
Manuel had fixed on seven in the morning, as the
hour when he would accord the desired interview ;
and Madame de Stael, careless on her own account,
even to the point of going to court with a torn flounce,
was punctiliously exact, now she had in charge the
interests of another.
How soon do men acquire the tone of office !

152 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Madame de Stael waited an hour for her member of
the commune, who, when she arrived, had not yet
risen. Every little accessory of his chamber was
scanned over by that keen eye, and each furnished
her with some little key to the character of her man.
His portrait hung just above his bureau ; his vanity
then might be touched. At last he came ; and Madame
de Stael gives him credit for the fact that she changed
his mind by good principles alone. She represented
to him the vicissitudes of popularity (what woman
could do this so well as Necker's daughter ?) of which
vicissitudes every day afforded some fresh example.
" In six months," so spoke this true heroine — " in six
months you yourself may have no more power ; save
my friends, and reserve for yourself one sweet remem
brance for the period when you, in your turn, may be
proscribed." Manuel, who was not a radically bad man, really
perished on the scaffold six months after this remark
able interview. The offence which proved fatal to
him was a speech made in defence of the king.
Moved by the passionate entreaties of Madame de
Stael, who was then a young woman of only six and
twenty years, he agreed to exert himself for Lally and
De Jaucourt. How many women at six and twenty
would so care to expose themselves ? Heroic actions
are often reserved to an age which, having chilled the
springs of life, makes sacrifice easy.
Her kindness was rewarded; on the 1st of Sep
tember she received a note from Manuel, informing
her that Monsieur de Condorcet had procured the
release of Lally ; and that he himself had set De

MADAME DE STAEL. 153
Jaucourt at liberty, in consequence of the intercession
of Madame de Stael.
She now thought herself at liberty to depart ; but
full of generous pity, took yet one more life under her
protection. She promised the Abbe de Montesquiou,
a proscribed person, that she would conduct him
beyond the barrier and into Switzerland. The penalty
of such an offence was death, and the denunciation of
that penalty was not in those days a mere legal fiction.
In order to ensure safety, she gave the abbe a pass
port belonging to one of her own people, and they
agreed on the place where he should meet her carriage,
and be taken up by her. To fail in such an appoint
ment, would probably draw on the abbe* the notice of
the patrols who watched ah the great roads, and who
would be sure to suspect any loiterer.
On that awful 2nd of September, however, the day
appointed for her to leave France, she heard again
the dreadful sound of the tocsin, which since the 10th
of August had been firmly graven on her memory.
Her friends, seeing the state of Paris, would have
dissuaded her from leaving, but she was unwilling to
compromise the safety of the abbe. She determined,
therefore, to set out as she had purposed, in all the
state of an ambassadress, hoping that her assumption
of a right to go where and how she pleased, as the
wife of a foreign envoy, might induce the people to
let her pass without hindrance.
The regularity of her passports gave her also a
reason for confidence.
With her servants in dress livery, and in a carriage
drawn by six horses, she prepared, as she fondly hoped,

154 LIFE AND TIMES OF
to leave Paris; but scarcely had she accomplished
four paces, when the noise of the postilions' whips
brought a crowd of wretched women about her
equipage. These harpies forcibly detained her horses :
exclaiming that she was carrying off the gold of the
nation, that she was about to join the enemies of
France, and offering her many other insults, which
she heard as calmly as possible.
A crowd was instantly collected ; and Madame de
Stael was struck by the ferocious physiognomy of the
common people who were flocking about her. The
mob overpowered her servants, and ordered them to
drive her to the assembly of the quarter where she
resided. When she reached the Quartier St. Ger
main, she descended from her carriage, and, remem
bering the poor Abbe" de Montesquiou, whispered to
one of his servants who was with her, to go and
inform his master of what had happened. Having
fulfilled this pious care, she entered the assembly,
which she describes as wearing the air of a "per
manent insurrection."
The president told her she had been denounced as
plotting to aid the escape of proscribed persons; and
warned her that her people would be examined.
Before proceeding to take this step, he found that her
passport contained one name which she had no
servant to represent. In consequence of this error
she was ordered to the Hotel de Ville. Thither she
proceeded under the conduct of a gendarme.
How different had been her visit to the Hotel de
Ville three years before, when her father and mother
stood with her at one of its windows, and the air

MADAME DE STAEL. 155
resounded with shouts of "Long live Necker!" With
great force might this woman speak of the vicissitudes
of popularity.
The order which sent her to the Hotel de Ville,
involved the traversing of half the city; a task not
very easy or delightful for a person in a carriage and
six, attended by servants in livery. However, she
reached her destination ; after three hours of anxiety,
during which her horses had been led at a foot pace,
through crowds that assailed her with cries of death.
These cries she acknowledges were not insults directly
personal to her; the people scarcely knew her; but
an elegant carriage and embroidered liveries seemed
to point out to the populace, a person worthy of death.
"Not being aware," she says touchingly, "how
inhuman man becomes under the influence of a
revolution, I addressed myself frequently to the
gendarmes who passed near my carriage, imploring
their assistance. They answered me with gestures of
menace and disdain. I was pregnant, but that did
not disarm them; on the contrary, I irritated them
on this account, because they felt themselves all the
more guilty towards me." The gendarme who was in
her carriage, and who saw thus the liveliest expres
sions of her terror, was affected by her situation ; and
promised to defend her even with his life. It was
only her own safety that was now in question, and
she displayed the most unequivocal alarm. Her
husband absent, her father hated, herself having the
reputation of assisting proscribed persons, one can
readily imagine that she stood in a situation not very
favourable to hope.

156 LIFE AND TIMES OF
The most dangerous point of her journey was its
end : on the staircase of the Hotel de Ville several
persons had been massacred on the 10th of August,
and even before she reached the staircase, she had to
pass through a crowd of armed men, whose ferocious
eyes seemed eager for the blood of aristocrats. Their
vile appearance excited her aversion, and this feeling
lent her a little strength.
She alighted from her carriage in the midst of this
terrible throng, and walked under an arch of pikes.
Having reached the staircase, flanked by regular
ranks of lances, she proceeded to ascend. One man
directed his lance against her ; the gendarme who
had been in her carriage parried the blow with his
sabre. " Had I fallen at that moment," she says,
" my life would have been over ; for it is in the
nature of the people to respect whoever stands erect,
but for a fallen foe they have no pity."
At last, she reached the commune, at which Robe
spierre was presiding ; and having escaped from the
violence of the mob, she began to breathe again.
She had formerly once met Robespierre at her
father's house, before he had had any chance of
acquiring his terrible notoriety ; when, in fact, he
was nothing but a poor advocate. That interview
had not prepossessed her in his favour : his livid
complexion, and the greenish hue of his veins, were
not at all calculated to make an agreeable impression,
and the positive dogmatical tyranny with which he
asserted the wildest opinions had completed the dis
gust which his appearance had begun. To the mercies
of this wretch she was now delivered.

MADAME DE STAEL. 157
His secretary, Billaud-Varennes, sat at his desk,
with a beard of fifteen days' growth on his chin ; this
slovenly precaution was adopted to put him beyond
the suspicion of belonging to the aristocratic party.
The room occupied by Robespierre was full of men,
women, and children ; all shouting "Vive la Nation!"
their definition of " nation" would not, perhaps, have
been very satisfactory.
We have said that a common or base nature must
show itself common and base at the period we de
scribe : one may venture to assert generally, that
periods of great misfortune and misery call out ele
ments of character whose existence might never be
suspected in times of prosperity. Here is just one
illustration. At the time when Madame de Stael was placed at
the bureau of Robespierre, another victim, also seated
there, and being no less a person than the mayor of
Virien, rose to state that, although placed there to
gether, he and the lady by his side had committed no
crime in common, and that whatever might be her
offence, it would not be fair to implicate him in it.
Yet probably this man was gallant enough in ordinary
circumstances — would rise to open a door for a woman,
and bow her out of a room with grace. His chivalry
went no further than comported with his convenience.
How true may this be of many of our virtues, and
how far we are from knowing it, until some unexpected
crisis tear off the flimsy mask of excellence, and ex
pose the real imperfections of our character !
Excited by the want of generosity in her fellow-
prisoner, Madame de Stael was stimulated to use her

158 LIFE AND TIMES OF
own exertions to save herself. She rose, and asserted
her right to depart, as ambassadress of Sweden, ap
pealing to her passports in confirmation of this right.
Just then Manuel arrived, and it seems his interest in
her had been permanently excited by the bold attempt
she had made to save her friends. In spite of all the
efforts of men to degrade themselves, they cannot but
be touched by a trait of true heroism.
Manuel was very much surprised to see her in
such a sad position ; but asserting that he would
answer for her detention until the commune had
decided on her sentence, he took her and her wait
ing-woman to his own cabinet, where they remained
for six hours, faint from hunger, thirst, and fear.
The window of Manuel's apartment looked on to
the Place de la Grfeve, and Madame de Stael could
see the assassins coming back from the prisons, their
arms naked and red with blood, while they rent the
air with their dreadful cries.
Her carriage, still laden with her baggage, stood
in the midst of the square, and the people were
about to strip it, when she saw a tall man in the
uniform of the National Guard ascend the box, and
protect her property from the mob. This man
resolutely defended the equipage and its contents
during two hours. Madame de Stael was at a loss
to conceive how a man could devote himself to such
a trifle as the preservation of property, while such
awful scenes were passing around him.
In the evening this man with Manuel entered the
room where Madame de Stael was shut up ; she
discovered him to be Santerre the brewer, whom we

MADAME DE STAEL. 159
have before mentioned. She inquired the reason
why he had exerted himself in her behalf, and must
have been profoundly affected by his answer.
He had lived, he said, in the Faubourg St.
Antoine, and had often witnessed the distribution
of grain, procured by Monsieur Necker during the
famine. Of these distributions he had preserved
a grateful remembrance, and this was his mode of
acknowledging his sense of Necker's generosity.
This Santerre, Louis XVI.'s executioner, was thus
no monster, but a man with human sympathies,
only he lived at a period when all his baser passions
were excited beyond the common pitch ; and he
shared the vulgar sentiments so popular in his day.
Men were the criminals of the revolution; human
passions made it terrible, human irreligion branded
it with a curse in its very cradle.
As commandant of the National Guard, Santerre
ought to have aided in the protection of prisoners,
but he had a hatred for aristocrats except in cases
where the aristocrats had done something to de
serve his regard ; so he left the prisoners to their
fate, and mounted Madame de Stael's coach-box.
He attempted to boast of his conduct, but Madame
de Stael stopped him, and told him that he ought to
have succoured the persons who were in the hands of
the crowd.
Manuel, as soon as he saw her, exclaimed with
emotion, that he was very glad he had set her two
friends at liberty. Madame de Stael says that he was
bitterly afflicted by the assassinations that were now
constantly committed, and yet he had not power to

160 LIFE AND TIMES OF
oppose them. "A gulf," she says, "gaped behind
every man who acquired authority, and if he stepped
back he fell into the abyss."
Having waited for night in order to avoid the loss
of his popularity, Manuel conducted Madame de
Stael to her home in her carriage. The lamps were
not lighted in the streets, but many figures bearing
torches were passing to and fro. These torches made
the darkness appear yet more terrible ; often a torch
was thrust before the carriage window, and Manuel
was rudely asked who he was ? When he answered
that he was the procureur of the commune, he was
allowed to proceed without molestation.
It seems that while such respect for authority ex
isted, even for authority in a guise so mean and brutal
as the revolutionary government were, all was not
lost ; and France might have retrieved herself had
she found a man to guide her.
When Manuel had seen her safely at home, he
assured her that he would exert himself to procure
her a new passport, but warned her that she must be
accompanied by her waiting-maid only, and that a
gendarme would escort her to the frontier.
This gendarme was Tallien, who, twenty months
after, assisted in procuring the ruin of Robespierre ;
and who was thus instrumental in sending to the
scaffold the wretch who had supplied it with so many
victims. Grateful must Madame de Stael have felt in once
more treading the threshold of home ; she had passed
a day in such peril as falls to the lot of few, and had
conducted herself throughout with admirable good

MADAME DE STAEL. 161
sense. After her fit of terror, while the crowd sur
rounded her carriage, she seems to have gathered up
her forces to protect herself and her unborn child.
Though she had escaped from such imminent dan
ger, she was not indifferent to the fate of others.
Every hour brought her news of fresh massacres ; and
years afterwards, describing these days, she says her
only desire was death.
Tallien came in due time, and found at her house
several persons suspected by the government. She
begged him not to mention their names, to which he
agreed ; and she adds, that he kept his promise.
With this guard she entered her carriage, and after
some trifling difficulties, succeeded in getting away
from that terrible capital which had formerly been so
dear to her. As she left it behind, the storm of the
revolution became fainter and fainter ; and when she
reached the mountains of Jura there was nothing to
remind her of the frightful agitation which was reign
ing at Paris.
Turning from the vile passions of men to the beau
tiful quiet of those paths of solitary grandeur, how
warm must have been the feeling of gratitude to
Providence who had spared her life, and led her once
more to wander peacefully amid the scenes she loved.
So she rejoined her anxious and affectionate pa
rents, who had felt all her dangers more keenly than
if they had been their own. Strange indeed is the
history of this family of Coppet ; prosperity and ad
versity, in the extremes of sweetness and bitterness,
are by turns pressed into their hands ; they refused
neither cup ; of prosperity the father drank mode-
M

162 LIFE AND TIMES OF
rately, the daughter enthusiastically; both resigned it
at the call of duty, and heroically accepted the re
verses which cowardice may embitter, but cannot
escape.

CHAPTER XXVI
In October, 1792, just after his daughter had so
wondrously escaped from the hands of the Parisian
murderers, Monsieur Necker learned, that in direct
contravention of the revolutionary constitution, which
asserted the inviolability of the royal person, his master
was to be arraigned before the infamous bar of the
Convention. At this crisis of the king's life, when
the public disposition was such that his fate was
scarcely a matter of doubt, Necker offered to come to
Paris and be his advocate. The offer was declined ;
the failure of the royal cause — or what was thought to
be so — had been once or twice associated with Necker's
course ; and, perhaps, the few remaining friends of
the king would have thought Necker's presence an ill
omen for their master.
Not permitted to lift his voice in defence of Louis,
he published a pamphlet, having in view the end he
desired, in which he exhausted, so far as his talent
served, all the arguments which might lead to a fa
vourable conclusion. From the day when this defence
was published, Necker's property in France was con
fiscated. His daughter remarks that he never brought
out a political work without some evil consequence
to himself or his fortune. He pointed out the errors
of the French corn-law, and he was straightway ac-

MADAME DE STAEL. 163
cused of causing the famine. He experienced that
the feudal regime was a dead thing ; and in endea
vouring cautiously to supply new elements to the
constitution, he was called the father of the Revolu*
tion. Now he wishes to defend his sovereign, and
the confiscation of his fortune is his reward.
Early in 1793, the French king was beheaded ; and
as England had espoused the Bourbon cause, war be
tween the two countries was an inevitable result. The
Swedish ambassador at Paris was suspended by the
Regent, Duke of Sudermania, King Gustavus Adol-
phus being then in his minority. Monsieur de Stael,
uncertain as to the course of events, and anxious to
be near the scene of his embassy, stayed in Holland
to see whether time would permit his government to
renew its connexions with France.
Meantime Madame de Stael, with what precise
object it is difficult to say, visited England. Perhaps
she hoped, through influence more readily commanded
here than on the continent, to rescue her father's
fortune from the hands of the revolutionary govern
ment. Perhaps she came simply with a desire to
become acquainted more nearly with a country she
had always loved. It may have been a pure longing
to breathe the air of liberty; but we cannot with any
degree of certainty decide the doubt. In January,
1793, she established herself at a house called Juniper
Hall, at Mickleham, near Richmond in Surrey.* It is
a small white Gothic building, still to be seen, and
lying westward from the bridge.
* In the garden belonging to Juniper Hall are said to exist some
of the finest cedars in England.
M 2

164 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Monsieur de Talleyrand was already in England,
and rented a house in Woodstock-street : the pressure
of the times drove many illustrious French people to
our shores, and several of them were the friends and
companions of Madame de Stael at Richmond.
Among her guests were De Narbonne (whose life she
had saved the year before) ; Madame de la Chatre ;
another lady, daughter of the unhappy minister,
Montmorin ; and Monsieur d'Arblay, of whom we shall
have more to say. Thus Madame de Stael became, in
some sort, the head of the French colony at Richmond.
Their funds were not in the most flourishing con
dition ; and the prospect of war did not favour the
continuance of such remittances as they might other
wise hope to get; yet their national gaiety seems to
have borne them through their difficulties with con
siderable credit to themselves.
We are told that this little party could afford to
purchase only one small carriage, which took two
persons, and that De Narbonne and Talleyrand al
ternately assumed the post of footman, as they rode
about to see the country ; removing the glass from the
back of the coach in order to join the conversation of
those within.
The neighbourhood they had chosen for their resi
dence is one naturally beautiful, and so characteris
tically English as to seem racy and fresh to the eye
of a foreigner; grateful to those storm-tossed spirits
must have been the scenes of rural peace which there
spread about them ; and still more grateful, the kindly
English hospitality which there awaited them.
It was indeed a new element infused into the half

MADAME DE STAEL. 165
city, half rural life of the then courtly suburb; al
most every day some fresh comer brought new tidings
of trouble and desolation, and narrow escapes. At
one time it was De Narbonne who came with the
Hanoverian doctor's passport in his hand, and the
tale of Madame de Stael's heroism on his lips; then
it was Madame de Stael herself, who made the quiet
English gentry, in some sort, partisans of her father,
while she told with eager tongue and fiery glance, of
his goodness, of his popularity, of his failure and re
tirement ; of his prophecies, so lamentably true : and
of the spark of hope he and she yet had in the storm-
threatening future.
Now it was the Duchess de Broglie, with her little
son, escaped from perils of the sea, after hours passed
in an open boat on a starless night. Now it was
Montmorin's daughter weeping at the recollection of
the scaffold whereon her father had fallen.
The enthusiasm of this somewhat melancholy little
colony early infected Miss Fanny Burney, daughter to
Dr. Burney, the musician, and at that time, or shortly
before it, one of Queen Charlotte's waiting-women.
Another daughter of Dr. Burney was married to Mr.
Phillips, whose seat, Norbury Park, was in the imme
diate neighbourhood of Juniper Hall, the residence
of Madame de Stael and her fellow exiles.
Mrs. Phillips, a woman of education, fine sense and
manners, felt a keen interest in the remarkable per
sons whom the chances of life had thrown into her
vicinity ; she and her husband seem to have received
them, and visited them in the true spirit of the
apostolic injunction, which bids us show hospitality
and be courteous to strangers.

166 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Miss Burney, whose health had suffered from the
restraint necessary on her engagement at court, was
just then spending some time with her sister at Nor
bury Park; and as she was a woman of no mean
discrimination, her account of her impressions of
Madame de Stael will perhaps be not unwelcome.
We must, however, beg our readers to recollect the
essential difference between the French and Enghsh
manners, which was then more strongly marked in
the higher classes of the two countries, than in the
present day, when more frequent communication and
the perpetual interchange of good offices have created
something like a community of society and conduct
throughout educated Europe.
The kindly and clever Miss Burney, under date
February 29th, 1793, gives the following particulars
of her acquaintance with Madame de Stael : —
" Madame de Stael is now the head of the little
French colony in this neighbourhood. Monsieur de
Stael is at present suspended in his embassy, but not
recalled: it is yet uncertain whether the Regent,
Duke of Sudermania, will send him to Paris during
the present horrible convention, or order him home.
He is now in Holland, waiting for commands. Ma
dame de Stael, however, was unsafe in Paris, though
an ambassadress, from the resentment owed her by
the Cormnune. She is a woman of the first abihties
I think I have ever seen; she is more in the style of
Mrs. Thrale than of any other celebrated character,
but she has infinitely more depth, and seems even a
profound politician and metaphysician. She has suf
fered us to hear some of her works in MS. which are

MADAME DE STAEL. 167
truly wonderful, for powers both of thinking and of
expression. She adores her father, but is alarmed at
having had no news from him since he has heard of
the death of the martyred Louis. Ever since her
arrival she has been pressing me to spend some time
with her before I return to town. She exactly re
sembles Mrs. Thrale in the ardour and warmth of her
partialities. I find her impossible to resist. She is
only a short walk from here — at Juniper Hall.
There can be nothing imagined more charming, more
fascinating than this little colony ; between their suf
ferings and their agremens they occupy us almost
wholly. Monsieur de Narbonne bears the highest
character for goodness, parts, sweetness of temper,
and ready wit. He has been much affected by the
king's death, but relieved by hearing through Mon
sieur de Malesherbes that his master retained a regard
for him to the last. Monsieur de Talleyrand insists
on conveying this letter to you. He has been on a
visit here, and returns again on Wednesday."
Frequent communication was kept up between
Norbury Park and the accomplished refugees. Ma
dame de Stael, enthusiastic and affectionate, always
hungering after friendship, imagined she had found a
kindred spirit in the lively and pleasant sister of Mrs.
Phillips. Added to which she respected her as one
of the band of English authors, whose works Madame
de Stael had studied with more success than is com
mon among foreigners.
In Miss Burney's careless agreeable letters we have
some remarkably welcome details of the proceedings
of Madame de Stael and her guests.

168 LIFE AND TIMES OF
The French party seem to look forward to the daily
meeting as the event of the day ; a headache prevents
Miss Burney calling on Madame de Stael, and the
bad weather keeps Madame de Stael at home; so
Monsieur d'Arblay is despatched in the evening, with
apologies and a book for "Mademoiselle Burnet."
We then have an amusing little scene. Poor Monsieur
d'Arblay has walked through the rain, and is asto
nished to hear from Mrs. Phillips's footman, that the
ladies have retired. From the sequel of the story we
may surmise that he already has some httle interest
in the interview beyond that inspired by a conscien
tious desire to execute his commission.
"Impossible!" he exclaims, "it is only just past
nine. They cannot yet have retired." Jerry, thinking
his English had not been quite understood, proudly
displays his recent acquirements by saying over and
over again, " Allee couchee," until the disappointed
Frenchman is fain to leave the book, and retire dis
pirited ; with the certainty that Miss Burney is suf
fering from a headache, and that he shall not see her
to-night. " It rained furiously," says Miss Burney,
" and we were quite grieved that there was no help."
It must have been a welcome change to the inhabi
tants of Norbury-park to have such society within
an easy distance. Sometimes the meetings are at the
one house, sometimes at the other. Madame de Stael
drew tears from every eye by her declamation of the
tragedy of Tancrede, or by reading the commence
ment of her work " On the Passions." With reference
to the latter, Talleyrand asserts that he has met with
nothing better thought or more ably expressed.

MADAME DE STAEL. 169
On another occasion, the ex-bishop freely censures
Madame de StaeTs style of reading. " You read prose
very badly — you have a sing-song manner, a cadence,
and a monotony not at all agreeable; in listening to
you, one fancies it is all in verse, and that has a very
bad effect."
Another evening is diversified by a reading from
Monsieur de Lally, who favours his fellow-refugees
and the people from Norbury Park with certain
passages from his " Death of Strafford ;" at which
performance Miss Burney tells us she was affected " as
folks do not expect to be affected by a tragedy." This
was owing partly to the ludicrous contrast of deeply
sentimental poetry with the full fat person of the
reader, and partly to the extravagant tones and ges
tures with which he lent life to his elocution.
Her account of this tragedy does not seem to allow
it such excellence as we might have expected from
Monsieur de Lally, when we remember how Madame
de Stael had extolled his talent, and how he had pro
cured by his eloquence the release of one of his fellow-
prisoners from the greedy dungeons of the Abbey.
We have already seen the false position in which
the extreme Jacobins and the extreme Absolutists left
the constitutional party in France. We have seen
how Lafayette was sacrificed for his loyalty and
patriotism, and yet how the king refused to trust him ;
we have seen how the daughter of Necker (Necker,
whose name among the Absolutists meant revolution
and ruin,) was obliged to fly from Paris to avoid pay
ing the dreadful penalty of aristocracy. Liberty and
licence were confounded, the old seamarks were gone ;

170 LIFE AND TIMES OF
and men drifted fearfully over the stormy and starless
ocean of politics. England, ever careful to treasure
up the garnered dower of ages, ever too wise to fling
away a tolerable present for a hypothetical future, was
somewhat alarmed lest the surging of lawlessness and
misrule should invade her shores, and undermine in
stitutions, imperfect indeed, yet containing the seeds
of promise and the power of growth. It was a dark
hour for the friends of hberty; the eloquence of Burke
thundered against them, and adorned absolutism with
all the graces of rhetoric, as a lover binds his mistress's
brow with flowers. Every one who breathed the name
of liberty was accused of uttering the Shibboleth of
treason. The divinest words were symbols of the
most execrable things: generous thoughts and utter
ances, aspirations after progress — however reasonable,
however modest — were ostracised ; and the man who
originated them was shunned.*
Considering the aspect of the times, this was not
altogether a misfortune : for perhaps only determined
conservatism on the part of England's rulers could
save her laws from some such savage and ruthless
annihilation as France had dealt to a system incom
parably inferior. At any rate, idle concession and
heedless change, at such a crisis, were worse than
dogged resistance to any change at all. It is not in
the raging of the fever that the physician counsels his
patient as to air, exercise, and diet; his immediate
object is to quench the fire, to restore the balance of
the pulses; and then, he offers his advice.
England's time for progress came, and, thank
* See Appendix, Note G.

MADAME DE STAEL. 171
Heaven ! is yet growing into noonday. Much as we
prize it, however, let us not underrate the value of
the policy pursued by England at the era of the
French Revolution.
It is far easier to act afterwards than at the time ;
in reconsidering a conversation, we can always invent
brilliant repartees which we might have made, and
recollect witty anecdotes which we might have told
with effect : somehow these inspirations come always
a little too late for actual use.
It strikes us, that in considering the policy and
actions of our immediate forefathers, we are liable to
pursue a similar fanciful course. Stirring necessities
obliged them to determine promptly on a line of
action ; whether it was the best possible, only Provi
dence knows. If it were the best which their minds
suggested, they did their duty to their country, and
have a right to our gratitude. At any rate, their
system, on the whole, has borne very fair fruit. If
they eschewed progress themselves, because they were
descending a hill where any additional motive im
petus would have been a source of danger, they put no
drag on the state wheels which modern perseverance
and intelligence are not able readily to remove.
Of the kindly reception which England accorded to
the emigrants, it were ignoble to speak with praise.
We trust she will ever have the power and the will
to offer sanctuary to innocent exiles of all nations :
it costs her nothing; indeed, she has reaped consi
derable benefit from the influx of foreign artisans, as
Spitalfields, and other seats of labour can readily
illustrate.

172 LIFE AND TIMES OF
The liberality which collected alms on Protestant
altars for the relief of homeless Catholic priests, may
be, perhaps, less unexceptionably the subject of pane
gyric. At least, the two sects have been so long
ruthlessly opposed, that simple Christian charity from
the one to the other is too much to expect ; and this
mere almsgiving assumes an appearance of liberality
almost divine.
Why should it be so ? Why, though we see false
hood and folly in the infallible Romish church, can
we not own that her children are our brethren, and
have claims on our love, which ah the absurdities of
transubstantiation and the blasphemies of indulgences
cannot annihilate?
Why has the dust of the schools been permitted to
raise such thick clouds to obscure a brotherhood,
which is older than Cathohc and Protestant, Rome
and Geneva ?
To return, however, to our little colony at Rich
mond. The bad odour in which the constitutional
party was held, soon influenced English opinion re
garding them. When Talleyrand was introduced at
court, Queen Charlotte is said to have turned her
back on him, not for any reason connected with
politics (so it was explained), but on account of his
wretched morals. But surely Talleyrand was not
the first libertine who was presented to the wife of
George III. Her life must have been a series of
virtuous rebuffs, if her sensibilities of right always
manifested themselves in this way.
But Talleyrand was not the only one of the party
who felt the frown of society. His morals, indeed,

MADAME DE STAEL. 173
amply justified the queen's repugnance, if they failed
to excuse her manner of showing it. He was a hving
argument for the necessity of the Revolution, and he
deserves little pity.
The disgrace, however, affected one who was inno
cent, and flung a shadow over this part of the English
experience of Madame de Stael.

CHAPTER XXVII.
The French refugees of the aristocratic party were in
high favour at the English court ; and as this party
had many reasons for hating Necker, (had he not
circumscribed or cut off their pensions ?) they began
to spread reports to the prejudice of Necker's daughter.
The effect of these malevolent reports we may see
in a letter from Dr. Burney to his daughter, dated
February the 19th, 1793.
" I am not at all surprised at your account of the
captivating powers of Madame de Stael. It corre
sponds with all I had heard about her, and with the
opinion I formed of her intellectual and literary
powers in reading her charming little ' Apologie de
Rousseau.' But as nothing human is allowed to be
perfect, she has not escaped censure. Her house was
the centre of the revolutionists previous to the 10th
of August, and she has been accused of partiality to
Monsieur de Narbonne. But perhaps all may be
Jacobinical malignity. However, unfavourable stories

174 LIFE AND TIMES OF
have been brought hither, and the Burkes and Mrs.
Ord have repeated them to me. But you know that
Monsieur Necker's administration and the conduct of
the nobles who first joined in the violent measures
that subverted the ancient establishments, by the
abolition of nobility and the ruin of the Church
during the first* national assembly, are held in
greater horror by the aristocrats than even the mem
bers of the present convention. If you are not abso
lutely in the house of Madame de Stael, perhaps it
may be possible for you to waive the visit to her."
Let us note Miss Burney's reply, four days later : —
" I am both hurt and astonished at the acrimony
of malice ; indeed, I believe all this party (of the
emigres) to merit nothing but honour, compassion,
and praise. Madame de Stael, the daughter of Mon
sieur Necker, the idolising daughter, of course, and
from the best motives, those of filial reverence, entered
into the opening of the Revolution just as her father
entered into it ; but as to her house having become
the centre of the revolutionists before the 10th of
August, it was only so for the constitutionalists, who
at that period were not only members of the then
established government, but friends of the king. The
aristocrats were then already banished, or wanderers
from fear, or silent from cowardice ; and the Jacobins,
I need not, after what I have already related, tell you
how utterly abhorrent to her must be that fiend-like
set. The aristocrats, however, as you well observe,
and as she has herself told me, hold the constitution
alists in greater horror than the convention itseE
* In August, 1789.

MADAME DE STAEL. 175
The malignant assertions which persecute her, all of
which she has lamented to us, she imputes equally to
the bad and virulent of both parties. The intimation
concerning Monsieur de N. was, however, wholly
new to us, and I do firmly believe it a gross calumny.
Monsieur de N. was of her society, which contained
ten or twelve of the first people, and occasionally
almost all Paris; she loves him even tenderly, but so
openly, so unaffectedly, so simply, and with such utter
freedom from coquetry, that were they two men or
two women, the affection could not I think be more
obviously undesigning. She is very plain, he is very
handsome, her intellectual endowments must be with
him her chief attraction. Monsieur de Talleyrand
was another of her society, and she seems equally
attached to him. In short, her whole coterie live to
gether as brothers. Madame la Marquise de la Cbatre,
and a daughter of the unhappy Montmorin, are also
with Madame de Stael. Indeed, I think you could
not pass a- day with them, and not see that their com
merce is that of pure, but exalted and most elegant
friendship. Nevertheless, I would give the world to
avoid being even a guest under their roof now I have
heard the shadow of such a rumour."
It must be remembered that these are the opinions
of no recluse unused to Society. Miss Burney was
then a mature woman who knew the world, and had
mixed with it under various auspices ; with Dr.
Johnson's circle she had mingled, and had been
considered by that eminent scholar no mean judge
of character. Subsequently, she had known such
varieties of opportunity for observation as few per-

176 LIFE AND TIMES OF
sons have possessed ; and her deliberate judgment
is that Madame de Stael was foully slandered.
Nevertheless she does not behave so chivalrously
as one would expect a true woman to act ; if she
beheved Madame de Stael to be an innocent person,
it was her duty to show it by frequenting her society,
and by affording her the assistance and countenance
so grateful to a woman and an exile. But at the
first breath of suspicion, though she believes the
report to originate in the " acrimony of malice," she
shuns the victim of scandal, as if she were really
guilty rather than injured. So much deference to
the advice of friends is very weh in a young girl on
the threshold of society ; but if all Madame de
StaeTs acquaintances had acted as Miss Burney did,
she would have been companionless, because "the
Burkes and Mrs. Ord " had repeated some unfounded
reports to her disadvantage.
These reports no doubt originated with the aristo
cratic refugees, who were maddened beyond descrip
tion by the events and progress of the Revolution;
they must have sprung from some base mind, unable
to comprehend that she should have exerted herself
to save De Narbonne's life, unless she had some
selfish motive in desiring its prolongation. They
forgot, or it did not suit their purpose to recollect
it, that she had saved many others. The only poor
consolation one can find in all this, is, that a certain
homage is paid to the virtue of woman when men
select such an accusation as the most deadly weapon
of spite.
At the same time, we are quite free to acknow-

MADAME DE STAEL. 177
ledge that Madame de Stael had naturally an incau
tious disposition ; her deepest feelings lay a good
deal on the surface ; she talked too much to be
a hypocrite, and probably her very expressions of
friendship and interest would sound like " confirma
tion strong as Holy Writ " to some who watched her
commune with De Narbonne, after hearing what
slander had had to say about it. But it would be
absurd to judge an impulsive Frenchwoman by the
calm English rule : Madame de Stael was, we believe,
as innocent as Queen Charlotte herself, but she
would be probably much more demonstrative, in
both love and friendship. Had the affection really
existed, Madame de Stael possessed not the art to
conceal it ; her impulses were too eager, too electric
for that ; women of her stamp, if they be bad, evince
it undeniably ; and the transparency and honesty of
her character in other respects, ought to lead us to
form an unprejudiced judgment here.
Her enemies, no doubt, were well assured that
they had chosen a poisoned arrow when they picked
this one ; they were perhaps aware of the blank her
married life presented, when they thus cast at her
the stone of accusation. But Monsieur de Stael,
though a man of expensive and thriftless habits, was
a person of extreme moral probity, and he was at
this very time anxious to return to Paris with his
wife as his companion ; a fact that triumphantly
refutes the reports against her; reports, however,
which nipped in the bud her friendship with Miss
Burney, and perhaps deprived them both of much
pleasure and benefit. N

178 LIFE AND TIMES OF
She was undoubtedly hurt by the quick march of
retreat wherewith Miss Burney answered her ad
vances, and not all Mrs. Phillips's good-natured
endeavours to show her kindness could make up for
the slight thus put upon her offers of friendly society.
In a letter written in March, 1793, she thus an
ticipates and answers the reports which her new
acquaintance may have heard.
" They will tell you that I am a democrat; and
they will forget that I and my friends have just es
caped from the sword of the Jacobins — they will tell
you I passionately love politics, and I remain here
while Monsieur de Stael is anxious that I should go
to Paris and take a share with him in the most im
portant matters : in fine, they will even seek to
embitter the security of friendship, and will not aUow
that I can, while faithful to my duties, have had any
need to share for two months the misfortunes of a
man whose life I had saved."
In spite of these troubles, the little party at Rich
mond had many tolerably happy hours; they had
engaged a person to teach them English; and the
study of the beautiful literature of their land of refuge
filled many a season which must otherwise have been
dark and cloudy indeed. Excursions into the lovely
neighbourhood surrounding them, formed no mean
item in their daily life, and although the bitterness
of such an exile as theirs can never be neutralised,
it was doubtless alleviated in no slight measure by
cheerful occupation, and by their national gaiety,
which our English gravity holds in somewhat too con
temptuous estimation. There are situations where

MADAME DE STAEL. 179
cheerfulness is a virtue : let us not always conclude
that it is inferior sensibihty or heartless frivolity
which lights up a French face with a smile, under
circumstances in which a British countenance hangs
out a flag of distress.
" Madame de Stael is," says Mrs. Phillips, " with
all her wildness and blemishes, a very delightful com
panion ; and Monsieur de Narbonne rises upon me in
esteem and affection every time I see him. Their
minds in some points ought to be exchanged, for he is
as delicate as a really feminine woman, and evidently
suffers when he sees her setting les bienseances aside
as it too often befalls her to do."
No doubt, it would have been better for Madame
de Stael had she possessed more of her mother's care
fulness about trifles ; but she was too sincere to affect
anything she did not feel, she acted out whatever her
nature prompted ; and thus, while she really com
mitted no great error, she often shocked people who
were accustomed to a stereotyped course of thought,
speech, and action, and who thought originality a
kind of crime, especially in woman ; who, according
to such, was intended to be merely a gentle reflector of
whatever is weak and pretty in the other sex.
A creature so full of vitality as Madame de Stael,
is sure to be called by the world of commonplace
people, a very "odd" woman; they rarely feel deeply,
and cannot understand an enthusiastic temperament
which flings unnecessary life and energy into every
action of existence ; which anticipates every grief, and
decks every pleasure with colours of unearthly bright
ness. These passionate natures, dowered with force
N 2

180 LIFE AND TIMES OF
in both love and hatred, are too often harshly judged
by a world that little comprehends them.
No doubt they would live more peacefully if their
life flowed in a stiller current; but it is a necessity of
their nature that gives it somewhat of the cataract's
rush and fall ; they pay the penalty, however, which
is exacted of all who are below or above the common
standard ; they are admired, feared, hated, as the
humour of society goes, but seldom loved beyond the
precincts of the sweet home circle, whose joy like, that
of Christ, the world cannot give or take away.
Madame de Stael, however, must, by this time, have
been fully convinced of the wisdom of her mother's
idea — that little things are of importance, and that
great ones often hang upon them; had she better
learned this lesson she might have been spared some
bitter hours. But the world places les bienseances
above the virtues, and in showing her contempt for
this shallow judgment, perhaps Madame de Stael
went farther than she needed, and missed some
friends she might have made.
Her stay in England, however, drew to a close; her
husband was anxious for her return to her family,
and in the summer of 1793 she rejoined her father
in Switzerland.
Monsieur d'Arblay, who had been in the French
army, and was on guard at the Tuileries on the
night of the 21st of June, 1791, when the royal
family made the escape which was followed by arrest
and imprisonment, was more fortunate than most of
his fellow-refugees. He was employed in transcribing
Madame de Stael's work " On the Passions," and in
the intervals of his labour read English and French

MADAME DE STAEL. 181
with Miss Burney. Their courtship was somewhat
after the pattern of Othello's and Desdemona's ; she
loved him for the dangers he had passed, and he loved
her that she did pity them.
The friendship resulted in marriage, at which cere
mony De Narbonne acted as the bridegroom's friend:
and Talleyrand, in a graceful note of congratulation,
tells his " dear D'Arblay," that henceforth he shall
not repeat the sentence hitherto so frequently on his
lips: "No man has gained aught by the Revolution;"
DA-fblay's marriage being a decided proof to the
contrary. The little French colony was soon widely scattered :
Talleyrand was ordered out of England and went to
America ; De Narbonne returned to the continent ;
D'Arblay remained in England, perhaps the happiest,
certainly the most tranquil, of all the gifted party
whom political events had gathered beneath the roof
of Juniper Hall.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
It has been already seen that Madame de Stael was
no great favourite of Marie Antoinette : Necker's
first recall to the ministry had been a measure rather
frowned upon by the queen, who received- his daughter,
when she paid her court on that occasion, very coldly.
But Madame de Stael forgave everything to a person
in misfortune, and in August, 1793, published a
defence of the queen, which for simple reasoning and
touching pathos may be safely compared with any
composition of equal length. Every argument which

182 LIFE AND TIMES OF
the situation of the unhappy queen presented, is
briefly and forcibly discussed, and such an appeal
made to the honour, courage, and self-respect of the
French people, as must have procured the cession of
Marie Antoinette to her family, had not brutality,
with a firm clutch, taken possession of the reins of
empire. Coppet,* during the remaining portion of the Reign
of Terror, was a kind of sanctuary for political
refugees ; emigration was no longer, however, a poli
tical measure, but the only means of preserving one's
life : all sorts of excuses were used to supply the guil
lotine with its daily food, and the delicate Parisians
with the excitement which seems to have formed a
part of their amusement : had not history gravely
recorded the fact, we could scarcely believe that when
the victims were few, the public discontent was
audibly expressed. " Saint Bartholomew seemed to
be acted piecemeal," every morning brought fresh
horrors, every evening fresh regrets. To hit the line
of safety was exceedingly difficult ; crime against the
state was a term so loose in its meaning, so wide in its
application, that men of every shade of opinion fell in
turn. Nero is said to have punished those who did
not mourn for his mother, because the emperor's
mother ought to be respected ; and those who did,
because they ought to have known that she was a
goddess and needed not their lamentations. The
same kind of tyranny was for some time in full
possession of Paris, f
Madame de Stael, on her return to Coppet, in 1793,
* Appendix, Note H. f Appendix, Note I.

MADAME DE STAEL. 183
exerted herself actively to assist those who appealed
to her for help : her pity was inexhaustible, her
energy tireless, when the fate of a human being hung
on the success of her efforts. And not a few were
saved by her intercession. Nor was she the only one
who took compassion on these unhappy people. Mon
sieur de Stael invented Swedish names for them, and
claimed the right of protecting them as subjects of the
country whose ambassador he was.
Among the emigrants of those days was a nephew
of Monsieur de Jaucourt, a young man, the only son
of his parents ; Monsieur Achille du Chayla. Whether
this youth had any more forcible reason for wishing
to leave Paris than the vague terror which made every
new-drawn breath a miracle, we cannot tell. Belong
ing, as he did, to an aristocratic family, there was
ample reason for him to consider Paris anything but
an agreeable sojourn.
Madame de Stael sent the young man a Swiss
passport, and under the name therein indicated he
travelled safely until he arrived at a town lying at
the foot of Mount Jura ; at which place, either from
the keener discrimination of the authorities, or relaxed
caution on the part of Du Chayla, he was suspected to
be another person than the one he assumed to repre
sent. Accordingly, he was arrested, and was to be
detained in prison until the proper authority should
attest that he was a veritable Swiss citizen.
Here was a difficulty, indeed, for which Madame de
Stael could be httle prepared, and which might have
repressed the efforts of a heart less open to good
emotion than was hers ; but she never abandoned an

184 LIFE AND TIMES OF
enterprise in which mercy was the end, and her
exertions the means of obtaining it ; the delay only
excited her to redouble the efforts of her ingenuity.
Monsieur de Jaucourt, who had also owed his life
to her mediation, was then at Coppet, and his
despair on hearing of his nephew's arrest was well
calculated to move the sympathy of his kind hosts:
Du Chayla was son to one of the chiefs of Conde's
army, and this circumstance, added to the fact of his
carrying a false passport, would compass his instant
execution, if only his real name were suspected.
There was but one chance of saving him, and that
was to obtain the attestation of Monsieur de Reverdil
(the lieutenant baillival of Nyon,) that the suspected
person was in reality a native of the canton of Vaud.
It required a spirit as courageous, as her disposition
was kindly, to determine Madame de Stael on the
step she took. Monsieur de Reverdil was an old friend
of her parents, and one of the most enlightened
and respected persons in French Switzerland; and he
at first refused to grant her request, urging very
reasonable pleas which forbade such a course.
He objected to falsehood in any cause whatever,
and as a magistrate feared to compromise his country
by being accessory to an act of deception. He argued
further, that if the artifice were discovered, he would
no longer have the right of protecting his own com
patriots. Madame de Stael remained with him two hours,
pleading the cause of young Du Chayla. She told
Reverdil that here was a young man, an only son,
whose continued life, or instant and violent death,

MADAME DE STAEL. 1S5
hung on his simple word. She argued that such a
falsehood was rather a virtue than a crime, and that
as a magistrate, it was his duty to snatch an innocent
victim from the hands of wretches who were but too
ready to dip their hands in his blood.
She triumphed; De Reverdil made the necessary
attestation, and surely the recording angel, as he
wrote down this falsehood must have blotted it out, as
he did the oath of Sterne's hero, with a tear of pity.
The Reign of Terror gave her other tasks. About
this time she was charged to convey to Monsieur
Matthieu de Montmorency, a true and venerable
friend of her family, the sad intelligence that his
young brother the Abbe" de Montmorency, together
with their mother and the Abbe's mother-in-law, were
condemned to death. A few days after, they were
sent to the scaffold; their only crime being the
illustrious name they bore.
Madame de Stael, in speaking of this strange and
dreadful period of the French history, has the follow
ing pertinent and philosophical remarks : —
" The priests whose teaching, example, and riches,
are able, we are told, to do so much good, had presided
over the training of the generation that rose against
them. " The revolutionary class in 1789 must have been
accustomed to those privileges of the feudal nobility,
which, we are told, were so agreeable to those upon
whom they weighed.
" How comes it then that so many vices germinated
under the ancient institutions? It cannot be pre
tended that other nations would have shown them-

186 LIFE AND TIMES OF
selves as barbarous under a similar revolution. The
French influence excited revolutions in Holland and
Switzerland, but such scenes as the Reign of Terror
were never seen there. Nor in England, during the
fourteen years that so much resemble in other respects
the revolutionary period in France. What conclusion
must we draw from this? That no people had suffered
as the French, for a hundred years, had done. If
the negroes of Saint Domingo have committed still
greater atrocities, it is because they were still more
oppressed." To the bitter agonies of that time of mourning,
the peaceful scenes surrounding the beautiful lake of
Geneva offered a strange and touching contrast. Why
should man foolishly wish nature always to reflect his
sorrows? Ought not her calm and peace, in the midst
of his wrongs, to tell him that above and beyond the
power of his oppressors is the power of a watchful
and passionless, but sympathising Judge, who is
waiting for the culmination of the star of tyranny
ere He extinguish it in eternal night?
Sadly wandered the family at Coppet, amid scenes
whose beauty, perhaps, is scarcely exceeded by any
of earth's lovely landscapes. But a day of relief and
renewed hope came ; Robespierre fell, and France
began to breathe again.*
While we sigh over the fleeting nature of earth's
happiness, we are apt to forget that her sorrows too,
are evanescent.
* The pistol with which this wretch attempted to commit suicide,
bore, oddly enough, the legend Au Qrand Monarque; the sign of the
armourer, no doubt.

MADAME DE STAEL. 187

CHAPTER XXIX.
At the death of Robespierre and his brutal accom
plices, men began to recall what is the object of
government, i.e. the security of the subject — a simple
principle which had been more completely lost to
view during the Reign of Terror than in any govern
ment the world ever saw. The promoters of the
Revolution had threatened to pass the scythe over
France (moissoner la France), and they had but too
well fulfilled their dreadful promise. There was
scarcely a family unbroken by the incursion of violent
and shameful death; and the luckless efforts which
had been made to resist this most cruel of despotisms,
had only brought fresh miseries on the unhappy
persons who had attempted the overthrow of tyranny.
Nevertheless France, with all her horrid and then
recent memories of blood, dreaded a counter-revo
lution, and was careful, while endeavouring to build
up something like a government, to avoid the recall
of the Bourbons. Only a few obstinate legitimists
clung to the fortunes of the exiled princes ; the great
bulk of the nation was as anxious as ever for liberty,
and very fearful of letting slip the advantages which,
in spite of all the drawbacks attending them, the
Revolution had really given France.* Madame de
* Appendix, Note J.

188 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Stael, who had had her full share of the horrors of the
Reign of Terror, was anxious that the sudden calm,
afforded by the death of Robespierre and his accom
plices, might be turned to the advantage of France.
Ever watchful to seize a favourable moment for the
promulgation of principles which, since her day,
have become generally popular, she sent forth, at a
time when she thought the nation was tired of war
and discord, two political tracts; one addressed to
Mr. Pitt and to the French nation, aiming at the
restoration of peace between France and England;
the other containing reflections on the necessity of
internal peace for France, if she would hope to con
secrate her present opportunities to the real amelio
ration of her woes, and the development of her vast
resources. The first of these tracts, if it had little other in
fluence, gained the good opinion of Fox, who quoted
it in parliament with flattering notice, a circumstance
which could not but be gratifying to Madame de Stael.
In 1795 another new constitution, being the third
prepared within six years, was promulgated; the
republican form of government was to be still main
tained, and the executive vested in a directory con
sisting of five members.
The Swedish authorities acknowledging this attempt
to re-establish a regular government in France,
Monsieur de Stael was permitted to resume his func
tions as ambassador at Paris. Austria and England
refused to recognise the republic, and the French
army continued to fight with unabated vigour.
The directory, although composed of men who had

MADAME DE STAEL. 189
had no small share in the late disturbances, is yet
worthy of some credit for the improvements it ef
fected in the condition of France. The palace of the
Luxembourg was assigned for the accommodation of
the new-blown dignities, and they found it just a
palace — nothing more. It had been sacked so effec
tually that there remained not even a table to write
upon. This destitution within doors was only typical
of the public affairs; yet in six months the directory
restored cash payments, assured the safety of the
country and of the roads, and enabled the old landed
proprietors to enjoy in peace all that the Revolution
had left them — too often only barren fields and a
childless table.
" France would now have been free," says Madame
de Stael, " had the nobles and the priests been at
liberty." In reference to this curious period she has also the
following remarks : — ¦
" One cannot but regret that, at that epoch, the
powers still at war with France (namely, England and
Austria), refused to make" terms of peace. Perhaps,
had the wars ceased before the conquests of General
Bonaparte in Italy, the spirit of invasion, so fatal to
the continent and to France, would never have been
developed. There was still time to turn the attention
of France to her political and commercial interests.
" From 1793, to the commencement of 1795, Eng
land and her allies would have been dishonoured by
treating with France. What could have been said of
the august ambassadors of a free nation returning to
London after having held familiar intercourse with

190 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Marat or with Robespierre ? But when once the in
tention to form a regular government was manifested,
nothing should have been neglected which might
interrupt the military education of the French. Eng
land, in 1797, eighteen months after the installation
of the directory, sent agents of peace to • Lille, but
the victories of the French army in Italy had inspired
the republican chiefs with pride. The directory was
already accustomed to power, and considered itself
secure. New governments always desire peace, and
neighbouring powers ought to know how to use this
circumstance. There are in politics, as in war, ' lucky
moments which should not be let slip.' "
The aspect of Parisian society, in 1795, was very
different from that which had been afforded by the
elegant court circles with which Madame de Stael had
formerly associated. The aristocracy now consisted
of the directory and the members of the convention.
These men were courted by all who had favours to
ask; and as nearly every one had some relative or
friend among the proscribed, the public functionaries
had plenty of suitors.*
Madame de Stael procured several recalls, and was,
in consequence, denounced at the bar of the conven
tion; but Barras, a member of the directory, inter
fered in her favour.
There was at this time great jealousy of the
influence of good company, and it was easy to in
cense some public men by inviting their colleagues to
soirees whence themselves were excluded. The per
sons thus newly admitted to the commerce of polite
•Appendix, Note K.

MADAME DE STAEL. 191
society, were exceedingly punctilious in all that related
to etiquette and fashion, and resented famiharity
quite as indignantly — perhaps more so, than any
follower of the old regime. This is a general rule :
we are eager to get society to acknowledge those
talents and claims to notice, which we are not quite
certain of possessing. Lord Byron was indifferent
whether the world called him a genius, but he had a
great desire to be thought a wonderful swimmer.
Sundays had been expunged from the Parisian
calendar,* but the "tenth days" (jours de decade)
served as times of meeting for the diverse elements of
French society. The drawing-rooms exhibited on
those days a strange mixture of the unreconciled old
and new regimes. Women of the highest rank might
be seen imploring the pardon and recall of some be
loved relative from the plebeians, whom political
convulsions had cast from the depths of society tq its
topmost surface.
The Jacobins were dazzled by the elegant and
winning manners of these high-born daughters of
France; such society was a new element to them.
Ignorant of it, they had proscribed and guillotined
its members; admitted to it they were fascinated by
them, and these social meetings paved a way for the
re-establishment of a court in France.
Monsieur Necker was on the list of proscribed per
sons, and the directory threatened an invasion of
Switzerland. In spite of the dangers in which he
was thus placed, towards the end of the year 1796,
the ex-minister published a history of the Revolution,
* Appendix, Note L.

192 LIFE AND TIMES OF
in which he enunciated the boldest truths, and pointed
out the defects of the last new constitution. In this
book he foretold the clash which must ensue between
the directory and the representative powers. He
argued that the prerogative of the former was too
little constitutional ever to work well with the latter,
and the sequel proved the correctness of his theory.
But the directory had not asked him to amend their
defective system.
Meantime the kind of society to which we have
referred, was pregnant in influences which affected
the future of France. Tallien, the gendarme who
accompanied Madame de Stael to the frontier when
she left Paris in 1792, succeeded in obtaining the hand
of Madame Fontenai, a beautiful and educated royalist,
the friend of the widow of General Beauharnais.
There was yet no splendour of dress or equipage ;
aristocratic and accomplished ladies still disguised
themselves in the mean costume which prudence had
compelled them to wear during the Reign of Terror ;
but grace, wit, and beauty, asserted their dominion,
and led captive some of the stormiest revolutionists.
Madame de Stael's other interests had begun to
be mingled with one ever sacred to her — the educa
tion of her son, now seven years old. During his
early years she took the sole superintendence of his
studies, as if jealous to give his mind the first bent.
This child, afterwards the kind and brave partaker
of her exile, seemed completely under her influence.
And yet she assumed no dogmatical authority. Her
own childish experiences had led her to avoid that
course. Her friends, indeed, often smiled to hear
her consult her child, and talk to him as a com

MADAME DE STAEL. 193
panion rather than an inferior being. She recognised
in him from the first the existence of an independent
judgment, over which she affected no supremacy.
She sometimes showed him why a course was good,
but in indifferent matters allowed him to decide
whether he should pursue her way. This plan con
vinced Auguste that his mother never exerted autho
rity for the mere sake of commanding him ; and as
she allowed him on some occasions to judge of the
wisdom which directed her conduct, the child learned
to trust her when she did not choose to explain her
self. This System of moral training is, perhaps, the
best preparative for the temptations of life : it is
better to teach a child to judge for himself, than
to control him eternally by "thou shalt do this,"
" thou shalt not do that." Boys educated on the
coercive system, generally break all bounds when the
rein is slackened, and there must be an end to the
issuing of the educator's commands. But he may create
himself an influence which shall last as long as life
itself ; and this Madame de Stael succeeded in doing.
The intellectual education of the child was not
carried on under the most favourable circumstances.
The constant changes of residence, and the multipli
city of the mother's anxieties (which Auguste too soon
began to share) must have presented sad hindrances
in the way of a regular plan of study. We are told
that the lesson hours were broken in upon by the
writing of letters, and the giving of orders. Madame
de Stael's rank and situation created many claims on
her time, which ill assort with the constant attention
a httle child requires. 0

194 LIFE AND TIMES OF
But this boy leamt one good habit from an un
likely source. When listening to his mother's expla
nations, if some accident interrupted her, he was
expected to give her the thread of her thoughts when
the interruption ceased ; and this obliged him to
learn how to fix his attention. It would, nevertheless,
be very unadvisable for every lady thus to attempt
the education of a boy. It was only not a failure in
Madame de Stael's case, because the child had a
moral sensibility very early and freely developed.
Few persons can thus afford to do two important
things at one time ; and for one child with whom
such a plan succeeded, there would be ninety-nine
failures. In the year 1796, her work, "On the Passions," was
published. It abounds with delicate analysis, and
beautiful illustrations, but is tinged by excessive me
lancholy, the natural effect of the circumstances amid
which it was written.
It contains some passages which provoke objection;
but, on a general consideration of the work, we think
every sensitive reader echoes the opinion of Talley
rand — " Nothing was ever better conceived, or more
happily expressed."
Written chiefly in exile, it cannot excite our sur
prise to find a sombre tint prevail throughout; but
there are passages which rise into eloquence, and
their effect, like the brilliance of the diamond, is
heightened by a sober setting. As a critic of every
feeling and emotion which can quicken human pulses,
perhaps she has been seldom equalled.

MADAME DE STAEL. 195

CHAPTER XXX
In the affairs of this life, Madame de Stael really had
the childishness and ignorance which are often affected.
She tells us that her father's penetration had led her
to think that any attempt at concealment must be
useless ; and, consequently, she often injured herself
by acts of candour and generosity, which a more
cunning mind would have avoided.
To impose upon her was exceedingly easy, because
she was so candid herself, that she did not suspect
deceit in others. Indeed, as she truly says, all her
errors in pohtical matters resulted from her firm
belief that men must obey the truth, if only it were
forcibly presented to them.
Her generous heart led her to make exertions in
favour of persons of all shades of opinion ; to be
miserable, was to have a claim upon her ; and, cer
tainly, the woman who created an interest in so
many selfish men, and incited them to kindly actions,
must have been no ordinary creature.
Monsieur de Talleyrand, who was destined to play
no unimportant part in the future of France, was, in
1796, still an exile, and in America. Madame de
Stael, who probably knew of his wish to return, in
fluenced Chenier to make an oration in his favour
before the convention. Chenier stated that the
0 2

196 LIFE AND TIMES OF
" citizen Talleyrand" had always encouraged the
Revolution, had resigned the estates which, as Bishop
of Autun, he held, and, in fact, had so conducted
himself throughout the entire struggle, as to merit
the privilege of a permission to return. This per
mission was given, and in September, 1796, Talley
rand returned to France.
We must say that, in the sequel, Monsieur de
Talleyrand, the ex-bishop of Autun, proved himself
as thorough a man of the world, as if he had never
worn the sacerdotal robes. We have heard of a
certain prince-bishop of Osnaburgh, whose habit it
was on returning from church, and before he went
to the chase, to fling off his priestly disguise, crying,
" There goes the bishop !" This man was certainly
the antetype of Talleyrand, who, in resigning the alb
and the crucifix, entered keenly into the chase after
secular distinction, and (to continue the metaphor) suc
ceeded in bagging his somewhat questionable game.
He never missed a favour for want of asking for it ;
and having expressed to Madame de Stael his willing
ness to take office under the directory, she procured
him an introduction to Barras, then a member of the
government Madame de Stael teUs us, that this
recommendation was the sole hnk between herself
and the political career of Talleyrand, who, though
he might require assistance in attaining power, knew
very well how to keep his place without extraneous
aid. Her chief reason for thus introducing him was,
the hope that his superior talents might effect a fusion
between the reasonable members of both parties, and
thus prevent the clash between the directory and the

MADAME DE STAEL. 197
representatives, which Monsieur Necker had asserted
must take place.
The overthrow of Robespierre and his party, among
many other effects, had deprived of his appointment
a certain young soldier, who had fought in the army
of the convention, and had taken part, though with
out any special mention, in the recapture of Toulon,
which revolted against the convention, in 1793.
Having no fortune but his sword, he came to Paris
in 1795, and petitioned to be sent to Constantinople,
to teach the Turks the art of war. But Barras dis
cerned the budding talent of the young Bonaparte, and
procured him an appointment in the army of the new
convention. In its service he distinguished himself
on the 14th of October, 1795, by a victory over the
sections of Paris, who had taken up arms in order to
rid themselves of the conventionahsts.
During the earlier period of his career, Bonaparte
affected a love for literature and the sciences, and
seldom went into society. He read considerably, and
his excellent memory retained the matter wherewith
he stored it. Plutarch, we are told, was his favourite
author. His acquaintance with the Abb6 Raynal
(our old friend in the little round wig, Necker's
visitor), led to some introductions which were useful
to the young soldier. The Abbe did not live to see
Bonaparte's more ambitious career, for he died in
1796. Bonaparte thus came to meet Barras, Tallien,
and other noted revolutionists. Madame Tallien was,
we have said, the friend of Josephine, widow of
General Beauharnais, a woman whose fate was after
wards so curiously finked with that of Bonaparte.

198 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Historical scandal says, that Barras negotiated a
marriage between the youthful general and Madame
Beauharnais, and would have us believe that Barras
had taken more than a friendly interest in the beau
tiful widow. But Bonaparte's own letters to his wife
breathe the warmest affection, and are couched in
terms little likely to be inspired by a marriage so
made up. The following is much more likely to be
true : —
Among the attendants at General Bonaparte's levee,
he found one morning a fine lad of eleven or twelve
years old, who petitioned for the privilege of wearing
his father's sword. This led to inquiries, and more
intimate acquaintance with, if not a first introduction
to Madame Beauharnais, the mother of the boy* Her
beauty and elegant manners were well calculated to
charm, and in March 1796, she was married to
Bonaparte. Whatever ambitious designs he may at
that time have entertained, would certainly be aided
rather than frustrated by such a connexion, for
Madame Beauharnais and her beautiful friend,
Madame Tallien, were persons held in the highest con
sideration at the pseudo-court of the Luxembourg.
Perhaps at the instigation of Madame Tallien, who
had some authority over him, perhaps because he
felt his own incapacity to retain the post, Barras, who
had been first in command of the army, yielded up
the reins to his second in authority, General
Bonaparte ; who, a few days after his marriage, left
France to take the direction of the army in Italy.
* This boy was Monsieur Eugene Beauharnais, who long afterwards
introduced to the senate the motion proposing the divorce of his
mother from her illustrious husband.

MADAME DE STAEL. 199
In the month of April, 1796, he won a decisive
victory over the Austrians at Montenotte. This was
the first link in a long chain of military achievements,
which rival, if they do not excel, those of the greatest
conquerors of antiquity. In the annals of history
Bonaparte appears a Titan among the lesser celebrities
of his time, and indeed, possesses so many elements of
the hero of classic story, that one has little difficulty in
realising how the successful soldier was promoted in
heathen times to all the honours of deity. Inflexible
in resolve, stern in purpose, keen in discrimination;
though not naturally of a sanguinary disposition, and
certainly under the influence of the domestic affections,
which, however, were ever made subordinate to his
ambitious ends, he seems to have surmounted every
obstacle that lay in his path, and to have gained at a
few strides the highest pinnacle of earthly power and
prosperity. To attain his objects he spared neither
men nor money, and for a series of years his arms
were attended by almost unbroken success. But that
his wonderful triumphs have exerted a beneficial
influence on any one portion of the human race it
would be difficult to conclude.
It is certain that Madame de Stael's imagination
was fired by the successes of the French arms in Italy,
and that she had every disposition to honour the
youthful general who had won so early the wreath
that seldom crowns an unsilvered head. We are
told that at a dinner-party she refused to take prece
dence of an officer who had been Napoleon's aide-de
camp, and that she said to him, as she playfully stepped
aside in order to let him pass her, " I cannot consent
to precede an aide-de-camp of General Bonaparte."

200 LIFE AND TIMES OF
In 1797 Bonaparte arrived in Paris with the treaty
of Campo Formio, which he had just concluded with
Austria. A public reception was given him, at which
Madame de Stael was present. Talleyrand made an
oration in his praise, and the directory, attired in the
Roman costume, listened to the account of his past
victories, and recommended to him several projects for
the future, one of which designs was the conquest of
England, "a rather difficult mission," sarcastically
remarks Madame de Stael.
One cannot but smile at the folly which led French
citizens to ransack the wardrobe of the past, and to
disguise themselves as men of another age and nation.
But this period abounds in absurdities, and just now
the classical mania was rife in France ; men even
travestied their names to suit the fashion ; after the
manner of the notorious apostle of fraternity, Ana-
charsis Clootz.
At this time Bonaparte was as much noticed for his
character and talents as for his successful generalship ;
and Madame de Stael acknowledges that the French
were already attached to him. He was, indeed,
acting in a manner to secure their regard. The
French people, frivolous as they undoubtedly are, —
and even the Reign of Terror had its jokes, its Sainte
Mere Guillotine, its Ball of Victims, &c. — are yet well
able to appreciate and respect the character of a man
who has, or affects to have, habits above their own.
Yet, Bonaparte probably affected nothing in preferring
a quiet and studious life to the pompous absurdities
acted by the directory in their Roman costumes. His
mind, even at this period, was no doubt seriously

MADAME DE STAEL. 201
bent on the accomplishment of a great destiny, and
the aspect of society must have afforded, to his dis
criminating eye a certainty that his opportunity for a
decisive blow need not long be wanting.
His proclamations to the Cisalpine and Ligurian
repubhcs were generally quoted, and some sentences
in these productions led people to hope the best from
the influence which the retired young soldier was
quickly acquiring over the destinies of France.
" The only victories," so spoke the youthful general —
" the only victories that occasion no regret are those
which are gained over ignorance."
" There prevailed in his style," says Madame de
Stael, " a tone of moderation and nobleness which
weU contrasted with the revolutionary harshness of
the civil chiefs of France. The warrior spoke as a
magistrate : while the magistrates explained them
selves with military violence. General Bonaparte had
refrained from executing the laws against emigrants.
It was said that he was much attached to his wife,
whose character was full of sweetness. In short,
people loved to believe him the possessor of all the
generous qualities which throw extraordinary faculties
into fine relief."
The new Bayard did not long preserve the good
opinion of Madame de Stael. Undoubtedly, when
she came to know him she was disappointed. She
loved to study character, of which the world never
saw a quicker observer, but General Bonaparte baffled
her; she soon felt that he exhibited to her observation
just the points of his development which he chose she
should see ; the rest was hidden behind an impene-

202 LIFE AND TIMES OF
trable veil of reserve and reticence. This coldness
and secrecy were essentially disagreeable to a person
at once enthusiastic and communicative. It is highly
probable, too, that before there was any active dislike
between them, Bonaparte felt jealous of the attention
her conversation commanded, particularly as the
liberty made attractive by her eloquence, was not at
all congruous with his own ideas on political subjects.
Had she been a man, and able to ascend the tribune,
perhaps she might have met Bonaparte's gradual
assumption of authority with suitable weapons ; and
furthermore, had she succeeded in consolidating the
reasonable republicans and the constitutional mo
narchists, a liberal party too strong to be over-ridden,
might have checked the progress of his ambitious
designs ; and have secured for France such a govern
ment, as even yet she does not possess.
Let us recur to her own statement, that it was with
sentiments of admiration she first met the man who
was to become her persecutor. He told her, soon
after he returned from Italy, in 1797, that he had
sought an interview with her father at Coppet, and
regretted that accident had prevented their meeting.
This speech, we well know, was calculated to gratify
her; but she tells us that when she had a little
recovered from the first effects of her admiration, the
hero of Montenotte inspired her with a strange senti
ment of fear. Bonaparte had at that time certainly
no preponderating influence ; in fact, he was rather
out of favour with some members of the directory, so
that it could not be any dread of his power which
thus affected her ; she calls it " a prophetic sensation,"

MADAME DE STAEL. 203
and avers that other persons who had communication
with General Bonaparte experienced a similar anti
pathy. This feeling, far from decreasing as her acquaint
ance with him progressed, became more and more
decided. She loved a good listener — he was speedily
tired of her brilliant conversation. Each liked to
absorb the attention of the surrounding company, but
there was this remarkable difference in their vanity :
she was well pleased to praise others, and eager to
have the justice of her panegyrics acknowledged:
he hated anything or any one who divided with
him the public attention. Between two natures so
pitched there must be antipathy, and it too soon
showed itself.
" Whom do you consider the greatest woman,
living or dead?" inquired Madame de Stael, of
General Bonaparte, at a party given by Monsieur de
Talleyrand. " Her, madam, who has borne the most
children," curtly rephed the soldier. " It is said," she
resumed, a little discomfited, " that you are not very
friendly to the sex." " I am passionately fond of my
wife," he answered, turning abruptly away to converse
with some one else.
He forgot that Madame de Stael, in any combat of
wit, was likely eventually to be the winner, and by
his rebuffs he made himself an enemy, who, woman
though she was, and the victim of his arbitrary power,
kept him at bay with her pen for many years. " Why
do you take any notice of her?" said some one to
Napoleon, long subsequently; "surely you need not
mind a woman." " Madame de Stael," replied the

204 LIFE AND TIMES OF
emperor, " has shafts which would hit a man were he
seated on a rainbow."
In considering her opposition to Napoleon, we must
remember that she held it a sacred duty to preserve
intact the political creed she had received from her
father, and to which her own convictions and expe
rience added overwhelming weight. If, under the
Bourbons, she thought arbitrary power a bad thing,
and conscientiously desired some change in the
government which might give liberty to the subject,
without depriving the king of those prerogatives which
every first magistrate — call him what we will — must
possess to be respected, it is not very likely that she
would be favourable to a military despotism; that
crushing monstrosity which oppresses and degrades
any people over whom it is exercised.
We may indeed settle the question by saying that
as a woman she ought to have left politics entirely
alone, but a very httle consideration of the times will
show us that such a course was impracticable. Who
was she that could in those days leave them alone?
certainly not the wife of an ambassador, who was
expected to preside at public receptions, and to enter
tain her guests — all of them political people. Cer
tainly not the daughter of a minister whose character
and policy were variously handled, and often so un
fairly considered that filial love must have been cold
indeed had he lacked one adherent in Paris, where he
had formerly counted so many. Certainly not a
woman who had been in peril of losing her life in a
political convulsion ; and who had subsequently been
urged by her own noble nature to confront the tyrants
who decimated her country, and demand mercy for

MADAME DE STAEL. 205
one unhappy political miscreant after another, until
she again put in hazard her own safety.*
Heaven forbid that women should interfere or have
a voice in the little questions of the day, that often
provoke disagreement and contention without in
volving any high interest. The profoundest wisdom
has hedged round the sanctuary of domestic life, and
protected it from the storms of party discussion, and
the violence of political hate. But in any great
crisis of public affairs, surely every noble man would
have his women act as the wife and daughters of a
patriot should. If the real liberties of a country, the
fundamental principles of government be at stake,
that woman is little worthy of the name who, having
great influence, stands inertly aside, and says, " I am
a woman, it is no concern of mine." Are women,
then, incapable of public feeling ? Let history decide.
History, which tells in one page how women cut off
their hair to string the bows of their defenders, and
in another how the wife and mother of Coriolanus
went forth, unheeding the Volscian cohorts, and
besought him to spare his country and theirs. One
can better sympathise with the poor Spartan mother
who shed no tear when her son, who had fallen in
defence of his fatherland, was brought dead to her
* It may also be added that a French hostess is expected to lead
the conversation of her visitors, and is anxious if it flag for an instant.
Madame de Stael, dming her subsequent visit to England, notes that
our ladies are almost ignorant of this source of anxiety, and that the
English talk or remain silent, as it may happen, nobody much caring
to speak. An English lady, perplexed by the want of sufficient supper
to offer her guests, would hardly conceive it possible to make up by
the brilliance of her conversation for the emptiness of her table : un
like the Frenchwoman who said to her footman, "Remind me to be
witty, we have no roast meat to-night."

206 LIFE AND TIMES OF
on his own shield, than with women who only smile
insipidly when some stirring history is read, and feel
that as women they are absolved from the obhgation
of caring whether Stuart or Hanover hold the throne,
whether they breathe the air of slavery or of freedom.
This kind of indifference is often put forth as a most
feminine and agreeable quality, when it is in reality
an idle excuse to save the trouble of earnest thought,
or an evasion to cover ignorance of the question at
issue. Alice Lisle and Rachel Russell, at any rate,
were not women shaped in this mould. We believe
that the men of a country are never so brave and
good as when they know something of the woman's
virtues, endurance and resignation; nor the women
so fully capable of playing their own part in the
drama of life as when they have caught somewhat of
the hero's spirit.
The following words, in which is sketched out the
character of Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland, seem to
us so singularly appropriate to Necker and his illus
trious daughter, that no apology for their quotation is
necessary: —
" He had formerly, with the most laudable zeal for
the interest of the subject, stood foremost in all
attacks on the high prerogative of the crown ; but he
wished to reform, not to destroy the constitution; and
with the same noble ardour with which he had re
sisted the first tyrannical exertions of the monarch, he
now supported Charles in those hmited powers which
yet remained to him ; he pursued the straight and
onward path, equally remote from either extreme — a
beautiful model of the most exalted and virtuous
patriotism."

MADAME DE STAEL. 207

CHAPTER XXXI.
Although the indiscriminate massacres which dis
tinguished the Reign of Terror were ended with the
death of Robespierre and his accomplices, the priests
and the emigrants were still the subjects of fierce
persecution ; and an attempt made to overset the re
publican government in September, 1797, gave some
colour of reason to the rigour of the convention.
Madame de Stael, it must be owned, had no parti
cular reason to love either of the proscribed classes,
for she was a Protestant and a constitutionalist; but
the sight of human suffering was at all times enough
to secure her good offices, and she began again to
employ her influence for the benefit of the unhappy
persons whose lives were in danger.
When she wished to obtain Talleyrand's recall, she
had enlisted in her service the talents of Chenier, and
she made use of the same influence in procuring the
pardon of Monsieur Dupont de Nemours, " the most
chivalrous champion of liberty in France, but yet a
man who could not recognise liberty in the dispersion
of the representatives by means of armed force."
Chenier succeeded in saving him by representing him
to be eighty years old — a course which Monsieur
Dupont's danger could not reconcile to his vanity;
for the protege was a man of sixty, and resented the
ground of pardon.

208 LIFE AND TIMES OF
A man of some authority having asserted that
Madame de Stael pitied the conspirators, she thought
it prudent to retire to the country for some little time.
She sought refuge in the house of a friend, and met
beneath his roof another fugitive, Monsieur de la Tre-
mouille, one of the most illustrious royalists of La
Vendue. He had come to France in the hope that a
counter-revolution and the return of the Bourbons
were at hand ; but the summary punishment of the
conspirators, and the decided attitude of the directory,
had induced him to relinquish his ideas, and to seek
safety in concealment.
Madame de Stael generously offered to cede the
place of refuge to a person who stood in greater need
of it than herself; but the Prince de la Tremouille
declined to take advantage of this opportunity, and
left France as soon as he could reach the frontier; all
prospect of the restoration of the old dynasty being
over, for a time at least.
As soon as she thought the danger a little blown
past, Madame de Stael returned to Paris, where the
general persecution of royahsts and priests awakened
her dread lest a second period of bloodshed might be
in store for her unhappy country.
The highest influence was often unavaihng to save
a person in disgrace. The Marquis d'Ambert, for
merly General Bernadotte 's colonel, but now retired
from the army, was sentenced to death by a military
commission. Bernadotte felt great compassion for his
old superior, and pleaded with the directory in his
favour. But to spare a royalist was a dangerous pre
cedent; and though Bernadotte asked the life of the

MADAME DE STAEL. 209
old man as the reward of his own brilliant services to
the Republic, his request was refused, and D'Ambert
underwent his sentence.
Two days after this, early in the morning, Madame
de Stael had a visit from Monsieur Norvins de Mont-
breton, who, with great emotion, acquainted her that
his brother had been arrested, and would no doubt be
sentenced to death by the military commission at that
very moment engaged in trying him. Madame de
Stael had known these brothers in Switzerland, during
the emigration ; but even had she been less acquainted
with them, she would not have hesitated in assisting
to save a human life. Monsieur de Norvins wildly
asked her if she knew any means of saving his bro
ther. She was doubtful, remembering the failure of
Bernadotte's interference a few days before. But
the idea that a person whom she knew was in danger
of being shot within a few hours, urged her to make
an attempt in his favour; and recollecting that she
had met at the house of Barras, a certain General
Lemoine, who had talked with her very pleasantly,
she determined to accompany Monsieur de Norvins to
his house, and plead on behalf of the person in danger.
The reason for her determination was, that General
Lemoine was in command of the division of Paris,
and had, ex officio, the right to suspend the execution
of the decisions of the military commission at present
sitting in judicature in that city. She says, simply
and touchingly, " I thanked God for this idea, and
instantly set out with the brother of the unhappy
Norvins." General Lemoine was one of those model men, who
P

210 LIFE AND TIMES OF
are never excited, never carried beyond themselves.
He was surprised to be visited by Madame de Stael
at the early hour of ten in the forenoon, and apolo
gised for the negligence of his toilette, as if the desti
nies of man hung on the tie of a cravat. It was in
vain that Madame de Stael implored him to be at
ease on such matters, and assured him that a mo
ment's delay might cost a life. The General, per
petually polite, recurred to excuses for the untidiness
of his apartment, and the defects in his attire, while
she was dying to get him to discuss the business in
hand. At first, he absolutely, but politely, refused her
request. She persevered, he hesitated : twice he took
the pen, twice laid it down, fearful of committing
himself. All this time the anxious face of Monsieur de Nor
vins acted as a retaining fee, and the advocate glanced
from the clock to the General, and from the General
to the clock, eager to know which of the conflict
ing powers — time or the soldier's inflexibility — would
first give way.
She was gratified at last by receiving a paper signed
by General Lemoine, authorising a suspension of the
sentence ; Monsieur de Norvins, rushing with it to the
tribunal, broke up the sitting; and the delay thus
gained led to his brother's total acquittal.
The conquest of England, which Bonaparte had
been requested to undertake, did not, on a nearer
view, appear very feasible. He cruised about the
coast, and landed a few men in Wales, who were
warmly received by the militia, and the General

MADAME DE STAEL. 211
returned to Paris, putting off the accomplishment of
this design until some more convenient season. He
knew how much the French people are ruled by
splendid names, and he had projects more dazzling
to the fancy, and involving less difficulty than the
subjugation of England. It is most probable that he
did not intend a serious landing in 1797, but only
such an approach to it as would satisfy the directory
that he was attentive to their orders.
He must have seen that the government then sub
sisting in France could not long hang together, and
while things were coming to a crisis it was quite as
well that he should be at a distance. An expedition
into Egypt, while it removed him from the immediate
scene of action, would give him a chance of in
creasing his influence by a succession of military
exploits. Beside the ultimate prospect of ruining the
British trade with India, there was a present excite
ment, a charm for the French fancy in the conquest
of a country so interesting and venerable. To this
project he therefore devoted himself.
But his proceedings were delayed by the want
of money, and understanding that a considerable
treasure had been accumulating for upwards of two
centuries at Berne, a tangible proof of the frugality
and prosperity of the Bernese — he determined on the
invasion of Switzerland, and the seizure of the money
in question. The value of the Pays de Vaud, as a
military post, was insisted on as an additional reason
for the invasion, if any necessity existed to demand
such an argument.
This invasion of a free country so long a refuge
P 2 "

212 LIFE AND TIMES OF
from every political storm, seemed to Madame de
Stael so unjustifiable, that she sought an interview
with General Bonaparte, and laid her view of the
subject before him. The tete-a-tete lasted nearly an
hour, and the - soldier listened patiently to all the
lady said. At its close, probably she was more sur
prised than we are, to find Bonaparte's plans un
modified by all her eloquence. "Demosthenes and
Cicero united," she says, " would not induce him to
sacrifice one iota of his personal interest."
Bonaparte was cunning enough to attack her on
her own ground. "The condition of the Pays de
Vaud," he alleged, "was a sufficient reason for its
invasion. The Vaudois were in subjection to the
aristocrats of Berne, and men at that time had no
notion of living without pohtical rights."
Madame de Stael attempted to calm this repub
lican zeal, and assured him that in all civil regards
the Vaudois were quite free ; that while such was
the case, it was not worth while to subject the
country to that greatest of all possible misfortunes, a
foreign invasion, in order to give liberty, which really
existed, a formal recognition from the government.
Bonaparte continued — " Self-love and imagination
hold positively by the advantage of participating in
the government of one's country ; and it is an in
justice to debar any class of citizens from enjoying
this right."
Madame de Stael owned that in theory nothing
could be truer, but argued the equal truth of the
proposition that every people must obtain liberty by
its own efforts, and not by calling in the assistance of

MADAME DE STAEL. 213
a power necessarily dominant. Then she tried to
interest him in the country ; spoke of its beauty,
peace and freedom.
" You are very right, madam," said the General,
"but men must have pohtical rights — yes, political
rights." The question thus settled, Bonaparte spoke
of his taste for retirement, for the country, for the
fine arts, and, in short, endeavoured to make himself
agreeable to his fair antagonist. The change of
subject was, however, as much a dismissal as. if he
had ordered a lackey to show her to the door, and
she retired very much dissatisfied.

CHAPTER XXXII.
The Swiss invasion became a confirmed intention,
and in January, 1798, Madame de Stael left Paris to
join her father at Coppet. Multiplied as her cares
and interests had become, her filial love was still
fresh and pure as ever.
Necker's name was yet on the list of emigrants,
and a positive law condemned to death any emigrant
who remained in a country occupied by French
troops. His daughter earnestly besought him to seek
some other abode during the struggle, but he calmly
replied, "At my age it does not befit a man to
wander about the earth." Madame de Stael thinks
that a sort of tender superstition about leaving
Madame Necker's grave also influenced him in re
maining.

214 LIFE AND TIMES OF
This admirable wife had now been dead four years,
and we shall say somewhat about her closing life
when we come to consider the last days of Monsieur
Necker. The bereaved husband had buried his wife
in the grounds belonging to Coppet, and daily walked
around the spot where she laid, no doubt antici
pating the period when they should be reunited.
To abandon Coppet seemed like abandoning her.
Monsieur Necker, his daughter, and her infant chil
dren, therefore, awaited the arrival of the French
troops. Madame de Stael and her father placed
themselves on a balcony that commanded the high
road in order to catch a first glimpse of the invaders.
The servants, eager to have a view of the soldiers, all
deserted the chateau, and went to the end of the
avenue to watch the procession of the troops.
Although the season was winter, the weather was
lovely ; the Alps were reflected in the lake, and the
calm and quiet, so characteristic of that region in fine
weather, were only disturbed by the distant sound of
the drum.
This monotonous noise struck Madame de Stael
with terror on her father's account ; for although the
directory had invariably spoken of him with respect,
the revolutionary laws had recorded against him a
sentence of death, and she knew that on many occa
sions such laws had been cruelly enforced. She was
much agonised, therefore, to see one officer separate
himself from his company and enter the path to the
chateau. But as we are frequently surprised by mis
fortunes, of whose proximity we were unaware, so
sometimes our anticipations of evil prove fallacious.

MADAME DE STAEL. 215
The soldier whose approach had given her such pain,
proved to be a deputy from the directory, charged to
offer Monsieur Necker a safeguard during the occu
pation of the territory. Madame de Stael adds that
the officers who visited Coppet on this occasion, be
haved with the most perfect respect to her father.
On the occasion of this invasion of Switzerland, she
tells us, she first suffered the anguish of blaming her
own country sufficiently to long for the victory of
those who fought against France.
It must not be supposed that the Swiss had made
no preparations to defend themselves; the lesser
cantons sent their usual military contingent to Berne ;
arrived there, these patriots knelt on the open space
before the church, while one of them pronounced
these words : — " We are not afraid of the French
armies ; we are four hundred men, and if we be not
enough, four hundred more are ready to march to the
assistance of their country."
In the silence of evening, on the day when the
French and Swiss came to an engagement, the re
cluses at Coppet distinctly heard the cannon-shots
which were being fired at Berne, thirty leagues off.
In regard to this statement, the quiet of the time and
the numberless echoes that prolong every sound in
the Alpine districts, must be taken into consideration.
Madame de Stael says this fatal sound had such an
influence over her, that she scarcely dared breathe for
fear of losing one stroke of it. For although her
father's safety was guaranteed, her grief at the in
vasion of his country was intense ; and her anticipa
tions of Bonaparte's growing ascendancy began to be
the source of great torment to her.

216 LIFE AND TIMES OF
As was to be expected, the Swiss were beaten, but
they performed prodigies of valour ; when the men
fell, the women and children took up the arms thus
abandoned at the call of death ; and the inhabitants
generally, defended themselves in their mountain
passes with vigour and obstinacy.
The Swiss did not seem to have a great liking for
the liberty benevolently offered them by France, and
some of the httle cantons never accepted "the Re
public, one and indivisible," which was so earnestly
pressed upon them by the cannon, that " last reason
of kings ;" and therefore, a weapon peculiarly fitted
for republican France.
The reckless and general warfare authorised by the
directory, formed the precedent for Napoleon's system
of universal subjugation ; like the Ishmaehtes of old,
" every man's hand was against him, and his hand
against every man."
One result of the invasion of Switzerland was the
union of Geneva with France ; Monsieur Necker was
now, therefore, literally a French subject, and as it
was not lawful for a proscribed person to remain on
any portion of the French territory, he took occasion
to present a memorial to the directory, praying that
his name might be erased from the fatal list. This
memorial was committed to the hands of Madame de
Stael, who had the satisfaction, on presenting it, to
receive a unanimous consent from the directory. She
then asked the repayment of the two millions of
francs her father had left deposited in the treasury ;
the directory admitted the justice of the claim, and
offered payment out of the confiscated ecclesiastical

MADAME DE STAEL. 217
property. This Monsieur Necker declined ; not be
cause he believed the sale of that property to be
unjust, but rather on account of his conviction to the
contrary. He could not bear to have it said that, on
any occasion, his interest and his opinions were
synonymous. The same January which chronicled the French
conquest of Switzerland, proclaimed the Republic in
Rome. But this republican zeal was mostly a farce ;
people did not generally much believe in it, and had
not the dreadful ordeal of a counter-revolution been
a necessary preliminary to the re-establishment of the
old royal race, no doubt the great bulk of the French
people would have hailed with delight the re-erection
of a throne, and the foundation of a limited monarchy.
But the Bourbons had been too much exasperated to
return quietly; and the restoration of all the property
confiscated since the Revolution, and now largely dis
tributed into other hands, would have ripped up the
worst wounds of the country, and have unsettled all
that was just acquiring stability.
At the same time, people began to be heartily tired
of the airs of the directory : and Bonaparte was, no
doubt, very wise to remove from the scene of action, and
allow things to take their natural course. Some his
torians would have us believe the command of the
Egyptian expedition to have been equivalent to an
honourable exile on the part of the directory: how
ever that may be, there seems no reason to doubt
that Bonaparte readily concurred in the arrangement.
He knew that the French would soon be thoroughly
disgusted with their present rulers; and when things

218 LIFE AND TIMES OF
were ripe for change, what was easier than for him to
return, surrounded by the prestige of military fame,
and seize the occasion to take a decisive lead in poh
tical matters ?
At present, he pretended to have no liking for
royal titles. Nevertheless, it was reported that he
wished to be King of Lombardy. Madame de Stael
questioned General Augereau regarding the rumour.
" It is undoubtedly false, madam," he rephed. " Ge
neral Bonaparte is a young man too well educated to
entertain such an idea."
She also records a curious conversation between
Bonaparte and some member of the directory, about
this time.
"I might have been King of Lombardy," said
Bonaparte ; " but I have no ambition for such pre
eminence, in any country."
" If you have," replied the director, " I would
advise you to let that country be any but France. If
there appeared the least likelihood of such a design
on your part here, we should at once throw you over ;
and if you were sent to the Temple to-morrow, not
four persons in the country would appeal against the
sentence." Madame de Stael says that this truly republican
reply threw the habitually cautious Bonaparte some
what off his guard ; he was unable, for a moment, to
conceal his anger, and strode away from the too
candid magistrate in a fit of evident ill-temper.
On May 19th, 1798, he sailed with the Egyptian
expedition ; just six years later, the Pope crowned
him Emperor.

MADAME DE STAEL. 219
He was attended into Africa by a large army, and
a staff of scientific men ; for, as we have said, Bona
parte at this period affected a great regard for science.
He headed his proclamations, " Bonaparte, General-
in-Chief, and Member of the Institute."
Meantime, his plan for the establishment of a
French colony on the shores of the Mediterranean,
attracted and dazzled the public attention. The Revo
lution began to be less spoken about ; General
Bonaparte and Egypt were the uppermost topics. A
strange interest attached to the exploration of an
ancient country, of which so little was known. The
soldier, the artist, the man of science, the student of
history, had each a reason for viewing with intelligent
curiosity the present attempt to unravel some of the
mysteries which enwrapped — as the mummy clothes
enwrap her dead — the venerable land of Isis and
Osiris ; of the Nile, the Desert, and the Sphynx. If
anything else were wanting to incite the French to
enthusiasm, an admirable resort was found in the
ultimate interference with the interests of the Indo
British commerce.

220 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER XXXIII.
In 1799 a change took place in the directory ; some
members of which retired, according to the law, and
their places were filled up by persons freshly appointed.
The new directory were men of such vulgarity, that
France — even after what one would call a long ap
prenticeship to the toleration of vulgarity in high
places — France was disgusted. She began to see that
republic and virtue are not interchangeable words;
she began to see that the intrigues she hated in the
hands of polished ladies and gentlemen, was a thing
to be equally detested in the management of harsh
and vulgar men ; she now understood that a courtier
is not invariably clad in an embroidered coat, but
may even be enfolded in the rigid simplicity of the
Roman toga; and when she made this discovery, the
Republic was a doomed thing. The agonies of death
might be longer or shorter, but die it must. The
reaction is always equal to the action. France had
believed salvation was in the Republic; losing that
illusion, she would conclude it worthless. She had
taken to it in her need ; and like a life-boat in a storm,
if it failed at all it must fail utterly, and be worse
than useless.
Bonaparte's brothers, Lucien and Joseph, both men
of talent and useful to the General, had seats in one

MADAME DE STAEL. 221
of the two councils of state, and no doubt gave the
soldier ample information of all that passed at home.
He was thus kept up to the level of society in Paris,
while he was making fresh talk for that society. And
he knew the character of the French people when he
said "A ruler who would please them, must give them
something fresh to talk about every three months."
The public respect for the directory had been long
ebbing, and the army had sustained several defeats in
Italy from the Austrians and Russians, when Bona
parte determined to reappear on the scene. He ac
cordingly left his army in Egypt, and hurried to Paris,
where he was received with the most enthusiastic
delight. Salutes were fired, the bells rung, and
instead of holding him accountable to the directory
for the desertion of his troops, the pubhc seemed to
look on his arrival as a relief from their trouble and
disorder. He took advantage of this state of pubhc
feeling, and in treating with the directory used rather
the air of command than that of subordination. " I
left you peace," he said, " I find war. What is be
come of so many soldiers ?" This ended in the dissolu
tion of the directory on the 9th of November, 179.9;
under pretence of honouring Barras, he was escorted
to his country-seat at Grosbois by a detachment of
soldiers. An attention capable of a double inter
pretation. On that same 9th of November, Madame de Stael
came to Paris, from Coppet, and while she changed
horses at some miles' distance from the city, the news
of the dissolution was told her.
On the evening of her arrival in Paris, she learned

222 LIFE AND TIMES OF
that General Bonaparte had been in that city five
weeks, and that since his return from Egypt he had
prepared every mind for a revolution which was about
to take place. She heard also that every party had
made overtures to him, and that he had given hopes
to all.
Madame de Stael indignantly records that he at
this time censured the directory for seizing the papers
of a woman — he who afterwards, drove so many
women into exile; and that he spoke favourably of
peace — he who introduced eternal war into the world.
" There was," she tells us, " in the hypocritical sweet
ness of his manners, something that made an odious
contrast with the violence of his actions."
Meantime, the wonderful man thus gradually as
suming the rule of the French destiny, would not seem
to be courting power; when wanted, he was often
found conversing with Volney at the Institute, dis
cussing calmly the discoveries his staff had made in
Egypt during his recent absence in that country.
He knew from his classical studies, how much
Cincinnatus gained by being taken from the plough,
and he had the quick genius which applies every fact
gained to the elucidation of a present experience.
Volney, the Institute, and his books, made Napoleon's
plough. On the 9th of November, Bonaparte emptied the
second council of state, the Council of Five Hundred,
much as Cromwell emptied the Commons. He called
in his soldiers, and, alas for the day ! the alarmed
senators, in all the honours of the Roman toga, fled
ignominiously before the troops, and dropping from

MADAME DE STAEL. 223
the windows into the gardens outside — took to their
heels with hearty will. The next day some of those
pusillanimous patriots were called on to debate the
articles of a new constitution. But Bonaparte had
now assured himself that he held a purchase over
them, while he possessed the direction of the army,
and could command its assistance.
Napoleon had few obstacles to surmount in obtain
ing the power he wanted ; the fear of Jacobinism was
greatly in his favour, and he took care to make it
appear that law and order could only be secured by
following his directions.
A commission, formed of fifty members of the
two councils of state, was appointed to discuss with
General Bonaparte the terms of the new consti
tution. A plan of government, which Sieyes had
sketched out ten years before, was submitted to Bona
parte, and from it he selected such elements as suited
him. Madame de Stael says, that Bonaparte allowed his
advisers perfect hberty of speech ; but that when the
discussion assumed a practical turn, he soon decided
matters according to his inclination, by threatening to
leave them to manage their own affairs, and to deal
with the Jacobins how they could. The poor coun
sellors, remembering their terror when they fled before
his troops, agreed to all; and finally Bonaparte was
appointed chief consul of the Repubhc, and charged to
choose two colleagues.
Every evening Madame de Stael's visitors related
to her the particulars of Bonaparte's sittings with his
commission ; and the recitals would have afforded her

224 LIFE AND TIMES OF
considerable amusement had she not been profoundly
saddened by the prospects of France.
Just as in England the rigour of the Puritan rule
was succeeded by a period of the wildest licence, so in
France the days of the sans culottes were followed by
a period of the most servile courtiership. Already
the more prophetic began eagerly to worship the
rising sun ; and an eye practised as was Madame de
Stael's, clearly foresaw whither this train of matters
would lead.
With the impression that France was about to fall
under a more complete despotism than she had ever
yet experienced, and grieving that the struggles of
the Revolution should be all in vain, she said to a
man, who had been a revolutionist and a republican,
" I am alarmed for liberty. What is becoming of the
principles gained at the Revolution ?" The reply is
characteristic : " Madame, our business now is not to
preserve the Revolution, but the hves of the men who
made it."
Madame de Stael, as we have frequently taken
occasion to notice, was a woman devoted to society ;
society in Paris was to her one of the most agreeable
things in life, if not an absolute essential to her happi
ness. The Swiss society, where the men are devoted
to science rather than hterature, and the women less
sparkling and witty, did not please her nearly so well.
We have seen that from her girlhood she was used to
associate with all that was profound or brilliant in the
intellectual life of what is, in some respects, the first
city in the world.
No doubt, Bonaparte's appointment as chief consul

MADAME DE STAEL. 225
offered many advantages to such a woman, and to the
society among which she moved. A certain stability
of public affairs is necessary before the wealthy and
cultivated classes can make much use of their privi
leges and immunities; and the days of the directory,
though an improvement on the Reign of Terror, were
not very favourable to a life of ease and elegance, to
what was jealously called the influence of the "salons
dores." We may search long and vainly for any other clue
to her opposition to Bonaparte than that afforded by
her being every way pledged to the conscientious
advocacy of her father's moderate and liberal opinions.
Every interest lay in the other scale ; what she called
duty, in this. We may dispute the decision that led
her to trouble herself at all about pubhc affairs ; but,
if we conclude her mistaken here, we cannot but
admire the bravery and self-denial with which she
sacrificed so much at the shrine of conscience.
At the same time she did not put on the air of a
grand heroine ; nor did she perform these noble actions,
simply and gravely as an Englishwoman might. Her
courage in action contrasted, perhaps somewhat oddly,
with the sparks of wit wherewith she provoked her
enemy. We expect to see a grave, if not a melan
choly air about a person who is involved in great
trouble, and who suffers for important interests.
Certainly it is natural for an English nature to wear
such an aspect. But Madame de Stael, though she
loved England, had nothing of our national tem
perament; lively, sparkling, passionate, there was
scarcely a circumstance of her life unbroken by a
Q

226 LIFE AND TIMES OF
smile, even when we expect her tears to flow the most
readily. Yet she was by no means unfeeling ; her sympathies
were quick, her sensibilities keen ; she was subject to
paroxysms of grief such as a colder nature can scarcely
credit when it hears them described ; but the next
moment after such an ebullition, when we look for
only despair and death, she had resumed her relish
for life, and marked it by a stroke of wit, or thoughts
breathing eloquently the true atmosphere of the soul's
higher, hopeful life.
Admitting that in her extreme appreciation of
Paris, her dislike for solitude, her love of good com
pany, there is something of frivolity upon which
English people are wisely apt to smile ; the admission,
if it qualify our admiration of her in one regard,
heightens it in another; for, what a foundation of
solid good principle must have lain beneath these
little weaknesses; seeing that her love for fine con
versation and elegant society never tempted her to
sign the treaty of allegiance to the tyrant in whose
hand these desirable things were grasped.
Shortly after the revolution of the 9th November,
Joseph Bonaparte, for whom Madame de Stael felt
a regard, told her that his brother had expressed to
him surprise that Madame de Stael kept aloof from
his party. " What does she want ? Her father's two
millions? She shall have them. Leave to stay in Paris?
She shall remain. What does she want? Why does
she not join us?" Thus, said Joseph, his brother had
spoken. Madame de Stael calmly replied, "The
difficulty is not, sir, what I tvant, but what I
think."

MADAME DE STAEL. 227
There were very few persons so scrupulously con
sistent. Most of Madame de Stael's acquaintances
fell into the train of the First Consul, and his praises
were vehemently chanted. So many wise and good
people thought her factious, that sometimes she
scarcely dared believe herself right in hazarding much
that made life agreeable, for the sake of opposing a
man who had as yet really done no great wrong.
But as some animals, by the fineness of their physical
senses, discern the presence of elements in the atmo
sphere which escape our grosser organs, so she seems
to have had a prophetic dread of the ungenerous
despotism which was to crush all that was beautiful
or expansive in the life of France. Her friend
Benjamin Constant shared the same political faith;
and he consulted her about a speech which he meant
to deliver to give warning of the approaching danger ;
and to promote the effort, ere it grew too late, to check
the assumption of arbitrary power on the part of any
individual. Her drawing-room was filled with pleasant com
pany. Delighting and delighted, she moved among
her guests, enjoying to the full the eloquent and
brilliant conversation in which she could so well sus
tain a part. She heard a low voice near her ; it was
that of Monsieur Constant. "Shall I speak?" he
said. " Look around you ; these are your friends ;
your house is to-night as you love to see it. If I do
speak, your drawing-room to-morrow will be de
serted." " I know it," was the noble reply ; " but you must
follow your own convictions." Q 2

228 LIFE AND TIMES OF
This was uttered, she says, in one of those moments
of exaltation when we are carried beyond ourselves,
and speak, as it were, without our own complete con
sent* Had she foreseen all the calumnies, the insults,
the persecutions, which her course would entail, she
might have reasonably accepted Monsieur Constant's
deference to her interests as his acquaintance.
He spoke in the senate, to the effect he intended ;
and although he individualised nobody, every one
divined that the person whom he represented as as
piring after arbitrary authority was intended for the
First Consul.
So thought Madame de Stael's friends. She was
to entertain several persons on the evening following
Monsieur Constant's speech. Five o'clock came, and
with it a note of excuse ; the disappointing billets
continued to flow in, and she spent her evening alone.
No doubt it requires a considerable degree of philo
sophy to bear such things calmly. Whatever men
profess, we cannot believe in such a thing as perfect
indifference to opinion ; Madame de Stael never pre
tended to attain to it. She keenly felt every neglect
of society.
Nor was she relieved, probably, when waited on by
Fouche, the minister of police, one of the Jacobins
who had lately " been regenerated by the baptism of
Napoleon's favour." Fouche told her it was suspected
she prompted Monsieur Constant's speech. She
laughed at this compliment, and assured him that
Monsieur Constant was a man whose talents placed him
above the obligation of borrowing ideas from a woman.
* Perhaps at such moments our individuality is specially exhibited.

MADAME DE STAEL. 229
He agreed : but told her the First Consul was
offended by the speech, and that she was considered
an implicated party.
She remonstrated that the First Consul had no
authority to consider the speech personal ; that Mon
sieur Constant had made only such statements as
affected the welfare of the Republic ; that he had
mentioned no names, and that he had only advanced
such principles as the First Consul, the head of a
free republic, ought to approve.
Fouche could not deny all this ; but recommended
her to retire to the country for a few days, and pro
phesied that in that space all would be forgotten.
This flattering prospect was not realised ; she re
turned to find herself more unpopular than ever.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
Towards the end of the year 1799, Madame de Stael
saw the First Consul take possession of the palace of
the Tuileries ; a place mournfully associated with
the memory of Louis XVI. and Marie Antpinette.
In his choice of this place for a residence, she
thought she discerned a desire to surround himself
with the appurtenances of royalty; this was the
palace last inhabited by Louis.
Had Napoleon at this time really entertained no
idea beyond the consulship, there would have been
no excuse for his dislike to Madame de Stael ; but
the assumption of power is generally a gradual thing,
and no intriguer likes to have his plans forestalled.

230 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte were both acquainted
with Madame de Stael. And, indeed, as we have
said, most of her acquaintances were adherents of the
new government. No doubt, therefore, her prophe
cies of the future rule of the First Consul were re
ported, more or less accurately, to that remarkable
personage, and he must have felt that she was a
dangerous woman to be allowed a residence in Paris.
One evening at a party at General Berthier's, the
First Consul, as he stood behind Madame Bonaparte's
chair, balanced himself first on one foot, then on the
other. This was an awkward trick to which the
princes of the old Bourbon race had been much
addicted; and Madame de Stael, calling her neigh
bour's attention to the fact, asked if this were not a
proof that General Bonaparte had a decided talent
for government ?
Such a pleasantry in England might excite a passing
smile; but in France, society is much more under the
fear of ridicule, and such stories, repeated to the Fust
Consul, were well calculated to provoke his ire. But
the sting of all these things lay in the truth which
was hidden under them.
Madame de Stael, meantime, had to submit to the
charge of Jacobinism, which was an insult flung indis
criminately at all who opposed the ascendancy of
Bonaparte; and when the signal was given by the
ruler, she had also to endure the desertion of three-
fourths of her friends. Bonaparte publicly reproached
his brother Joseph for frequenting her house, and
Joseph felt compelled to withdraw, for some time at
least, from her society. The coolness of the consul's

MADAME DE STAEL. 231
family was the magic influence which thus drove
away her acquaintances. It cost her a pang, but she
persevered in denying him her homage.
Early in the year 1800, she published her "Dis
course on Literature," and the genius of this work
suddenly turned the tide in her favour.
Not a single reference to Bonaparte compromised
her independence, and liberal opinions are freely
announced throughout ; but the press was still under
little restraint, and she had no difficulty in bringing
out her book. She was very pleased to be again the
favourite of society, and to see her drawing-room full
of good company.
In the spring of this same year, Bonaparte set out
for the campaign in Italy, and Madame de Stael left
Paris, its gaieties, and disappointments, to spend some
months with her father at Coppet. This, though she
was not made for retirement, was always a happy
occasion to her. An accomplished lady, her relative,
Says, that few things could be more touching than
these meetings of the father and daughter. So tender
was her interest in him — so eager her looks to note
whether the time of their separation had made any
change in his health — so vivid the terms in which she
described all the scenes of her Parisian experience for
his amusement — that it seemed in this case, as if the
usual order of nature were reversed, and that she felt
in her father the keen interest most people feel only
in their children.
Pleased, he listened to the beloved voice, and when
she spoke earnestly (and she seldom spoke otherwise),
watched her lovingly and anxiously, as knowing to

232 LIFE AND TIMES OF
what stormy troubles these passionate souls are ex
posed. Their separation, indeed, was scarcely separa
tion, so frequent and vivid was the correspondence
between Coppet and Paris, when they were apart;
but when the happy time of meeting came, every
little event could be retraced without weariness, be
cause a familiar thing uttered by a voice dear to us,
is soothing rather than tiresome. Forgetting for a
time all the troubles that threatened her, or only
recalling them to provoke his sympathy, which yielded
her exquisite pleasure, she devoted herself to the de
light of consoling his failing years. But she would
not own them to be failing years; people could not
more offend her than by telling her he looked older,
or grew feeble. Such unreasonable devotion is so rare,
that we need not stay to remark upon its folly. It
was the heathens who built temples to Filial Piety.
This is an age of Christianity.
On his way to Italy, Bonaparte passed through
Geneva, and as he expressed a wish to see Monsieur
Necker, the affectionate father, hoping to influence the
First Consul in his daughter's favour, went to that city,
and had an interview with the arbiter of her fate.
Bonaparte received him very well, and spoke to him,
apparently, with confidence. Monsieur Necker was
not struck with him as his daughter had been, and
found nothing remarkable in his conversation. During
this interview, Necker said, that, as the First Consul
was desirous to surround himself with illustrious names,
he ought also to aim at adorning his society with great
talents. To this Bonaparte politely assented, and as
sured Monsieur Necker that Madame de Stael might
remain in Paris, at least some time longer.

MADAME DE STAEL. 233
Napoleon's account of this interview is rather
different : he says that Necker seemed to expect that
the French finances would be put under his direction,
and adds that they parted dissatisfied with, if not
disliking each other.*
Yet it appears probable that if Necker had felt any
such dislike, his daughter, who hated Bonaparte as
much as she loved her father, would have been pleased
to fortify her own opinions by the mention of that
father's example. It was convenient for Bonaparte,
some time after, to account for a troublesome book
published by Necker, by tracing its origin to personal
pique. The union of Geneva with France had turned
a neutral, independent country, into a convenient
passage for the French troops, and Madame de Stael
arrived in Switzerland sufficiently early to see the
army on its way towards the Alps. There was some
thing mournful in seeing these peaceful districts thus
rudely invaded by armed men ; and as she walked by
the quiet lake, in the still summer evenings, she says
she felt almost ashamed to be so powerfully influenced
by exterior circumstances. She tried to share the
serenity of the sky, of the earth, but in vain ; a
painful agitation, which was henceforth to be too much
with'her, seemed to have taken possession of her. We
can fancy what that cruel fluttering of the heart must
be ; that desolate unrest which the persecuted feel.
In this state, she longed to hear that Bonaparte had
sustained a defeat ; she felt that only that could
* Napoleon's faith being proverbially after the Punic pattern, we
see no reason why Necker should not be believed, in preference.

234 LIFE AND TIMES OF
arrest the course of his tyranny ; but how breathe a
wish which must appear so traitorous to the interests
of France ?
The prefect of the Leman, Monsieur d'Eymar,
formerly a member of the assembly, was a man with
whom she had held frequent conversations on pohtical
subjects. This eager politician, httle suspecting the
pain he caused her, sent or brought to Coppet almost
hourly news of the successes of the French in Italy.
She felt the impossibility of convincing him that the
future liberty of France required that Bonaparte
should be beaten, and she therefore received his news
in silence, or with only such replies as might veil her
real feelings on the subject. But this silence was
hateful to a thoroughly honest woman, and she did
not long maintain it.
The army in Italy was not at all under the influence
of her wishes : in two months Napoleon returned
with the laurels of Marengo, and the terms of an
armistice in which the advantage was on the side of
France ; the sacrifice, involving the cession of all the
fortified towns in the north of Italy, on the part of
Austria. Madame de Stael returned to Paris in November
of the same year ; just the time when the victories of
General Moreau rendered the enemies of Bonaparte
very desirous to have peace. It seemed as if success
waited on the First Consul, as if every adverse power
must bend before him. Yet even at this period very
few persons had foresight enough to grasp at the pro
bability of Bonaparte's ambitious excesses ; what lay
on the surface of his administration was the re-

MADAME DE STAEL. 235
establishment of order, and the improvement of the
finances. Victories abroad, and public works at home,
the charges of the latter being mostly defrayed by the
wealth of foreign countries, which the successful
generals poured into the French coffers, presented a
certain appearance of prosperity alike dazzling and
deceptive. Amid the brilliance of his public actions,
the encroachments of tyranny were almost overlooked.
An attempt on the life of the First Consul, which
was made by means of what is called an infernal
machine, redoubled the interest of France in her
ruler. This cruel and cowardly deed originated with
the partisans of the Bourbons. Nevertheless, Bona
parte made it an excuse for transporting vast num
bers of Jacobins, who had had nothing to do with it. It
is true that these transports were mostly vile charac
ters, but, as Madame de Stael justly remarks, the
baseness of the victim is no excuse for an act of
injustice. Every fresh action of the First Consul caused
Madame de Stael some inquietude ; she carefully
avoided giving unnecessary offence, spent her winter
in the quietest manner, and hoped for some time
still to escape the fatal notice of the man who hated
her. She attended none of his receptions ; and her
former acquaintance, Monsieur de Talleyrand, had so
completely fallen in with the new ruler, that he
seldom troubled himself to see her. She trusted to
be forgotten.
If, however, she associated little with French
society, her house was the resort of many illustrious
foreigners, and with most of the European ambassa-

236 LIFE AND TIMES OF
dors she was on terms of intimacy ; and these con
nexions might reasonably appear to be favourable to
her liberty.
The relations of the diplomatic body to Bonaparte's
government were at first somewhat confusing. A
Prussian minister, newly appointed, was anxious to
gain the First Consul's favour by giving him philo
sophic hints on republican government, which the
obliging German had picked up from Frederic II.
He was soon advised to take a different course, and
to recommend himself to notice by the scrupulous
observance of courtly etiquette. The minister was a
prudent man, and quickly took the hint.
Joseph Bonaparte was by no means an ungenerous
man, and when he thought sufficient time had been
allowed for his brother's resentment to cool, he
resumed his acquaintance with Madame de Stael,
who accepted his invitation to pay a visit to Mor-
fontaine, his country house, which he had surrounded
with gardens, in whose cultivation he took great
delight. He was indefatigable in pursuing his horti
cultural occupations, and would sometimes remain
walking or on foot, for eight hours at a stretch. The
Austrian ambassador was also at Morfontaine during
Madame de Stael's visit, and probably the contem
plation of this remarkable individual afforded her
some little amusement. He possessed in perfection
what she calls "I'esprit du courtisan," a failing
which an original English writer has felicitously
christened " flunkeyism." He had formerly held the
appointment of ambassador at the Russian court, and
while in St. Petersburgh had received many insults

MADAME DE STAEL. 237
at the hands of Paul I., whom he consequently
heartily disliked. When the news of this weak
prince's assassination arrived, the minister and Ma
dame de Stael were playing at tric-trac in Joseph
Bonaparte's drawing-room. "Ah," ejaculated the
old courtier, " I may have been very much ill-used
by Paul, but I shall always respect his excellent
qualities, and regret his loss !"
To this worthy gentleman, Joseph Bonaparte,
brother to the First Consul, appeared in the light of
a prince of the blood ; and accordingly the ambassa
dor was eager to pay him every deferential attention.
He even went so far as to follow him about the
gardens, though the German's corpulence ill-fitted
him to bear such continuous exercise as Joseph was
accustomed to take. The obsequious admirer of
gold-lace, when almost exhausted, would mildly ob
serve that of all rural pursuits, he thought angling
the most delightful. This was no doubt because it
gives one a chance of sitting down ; whether Joseph
took the hint we are not informed.
The minister of whom we write, was one of the first
among the Austrian nobility ; yet one of Bonaparte's
aides-de-camp was offended by the familiarity of the
ambassador, who unceremoniously grasped his hand.
Honours on a parvenu, like an embroidered coat on
a ploughboy, never sit easily. Etiquette was more
rigorously observed, perhaps, at the court of the First
Consul than at the oldest centres of royalty.

238 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER XXXV.
Whatever ambition may have been native to the
First Consul, was certain not to die for want of
nourishment. The sovereigns he defeated yielded to
him so readily, that they seemed almost to forestal
his conquests. He received nearly universal defe
rence ; thousands of applications were made to him
for the offices at his disposal ; and among his sup
pliants he counted the representatives of some of the
old historic names, as well as those who had figured
in the worst scenes of the Revolution. From these
parties he indifferently selected his followers and ser
vants ; but the moderate men, the remnant of the
constitutional party, were by no means high in favour.
Madame de Stael says, somewhat bitterly, that he
hated them because they were the only men in
France who had an opinion.
About this time (1801), he sent the husband of one
of his sisters to Saint Domingo, on a mission, and in
the documents relative to the errand and the mes
senger, styled General Leclerc "our" brother-in-law.
The royal " our," which thus associated France with
the prosperity of the Bonaparte family, was pro
foundly distasteful to Madame de StaeL
Notwithstanding the overpowering weight which
Bonaparte had taken care to secure to himself in the

MADAME DE STAEL. 239
scale of government, there were about twenty men in
the lower council of state, who were on the alert to
mark and designate every fresh assumption of the
First Consul. Of such opposition he strove to rid
himself, by an operation which he termed the " elimi
nation" of the tribunate : which means, that twenty
members of that body were to retire annually, being
named by the senate : who would, of course, choose
those who were troublesome to the First Consul, lest
their own appointment should be jeopardised.
The resistance of these few men, unimportant in
point of numbers, was intensely disagreeable to Bona
parte. It is, perhaps, natural to a soldier to look on
disobedience to orders as a crime, and on liberty of
speech as a breach of discipline. So the withdrawal
of any discordant element was amply provided for.
To such a phantom had the liberty gained by the
Revolution dwindled ! Were not the hope of im
provement immortal, surely France had let that
crisis develope her last effort to save herself from
tyranny. During the winter of 1801, Madame de Stael, in
spite of her disgrace, contrived to obtain the recall of
several emigrants of her acquaintance ; and the plea
sure of being useful to her friends mingled a little
comfort with the growing disquietudes of her life.
Troubled by the darkness of the future, she left
Paris to pay her yearly visit to her father, whom she
found quite as indignant as herself. The old politician,
who detested alike anarchy and tyranny, determined
to write a book, which should clearly point out the
course affairs were about to take. He hoped thus, in

240 LIFE AND TIMES OF
his retirement, still to be useful to a country for which
he had made almost unexampled sacrifices of fortune
and activity.
Madame de Stael encouraged her father in this
purpose, though she well knew that anything from
his pen, adverse to Bonaparte, must have the effect
of hastening the consummation of her fate. He
began to write ; whether he should publish, was left
for the next year to decide.
It was during this visit to her father that the news
of the treaty of peace, signed at Amiens, reached her.
The preliminaries of the treaty she had already
learned, before leaving Paris, for she was dining with
the English minister when his instructions on the
subject arrived. Europe, tired of war, weighed down
by the miseries of taxation and bloodshed, implored
peace at any price. Even England at last deigned to
own the fact, and prepared to give up her recent
conquests in order to secure what must have appeared
an almost impossible blessing. Madame de Stael
says she was troubled more than ever, when she found
England recognising the power of Bonaparte, and
doubted afresh whether she could be right in resisting
his arbitrary rule. Meantime, France agreed to eva
cuate Egypt, and a treaty of peace was signed at
Amiens, in March, 1802.
Madame de Stael was in no mood to join in the
fetes which amused Paris on that occasion; she hated
to see her country so eager in celebrating the supre
macy of Bonaparte, and by this time had learned to
connect every circumstance which increased or dis
played his power, with a diminishing chance of happi
ness and liberty for herself.

MADAME DE STAEL 241
In England, the news of peace excited great enthu
siasm, especially among the commercial and lower
classes; bonfires were kindled, barrels of ale drunk
on every village green, and Bonaparte began to have
admirers here, as a man who had healed the wounds
of civil discord and restored law and order to the
great country whose government he directed.
This peace of Amiens lasted only one year, but
during that time there was in England considerable
homage paid to Bonaparte; and poor Madame de
Stael felt this very bitterly. The country she had
ever cited as a model, had joined the rest in chanting
a paean to the honour and glory of her tyrant. The
friendship between England and France grew so
strong that the king had a portrait of himself prepared
set with jewels, which was designed as a gift to the First
Consul So Madame d'Arblay wastold on the autho
rity of a person who affirmed she had seen the picture,
and who described its ornaments so particularly as to
leave no doubt regarding the truth of her statement.
Monsieur Necker's book, which he called "Last
Views of Politics and Finance," occasioned great
vexation to Bonaparte ; yet the old statesman had
praised his talents and applauded him as the restorer
of order. But Necker only regarded him as a tempo
rary ruler, and seemed to expect the establishment of
a representative system and a limited monarchy. He
looked upon Bonaparte as the pioneer of a new order of
things — a kind of necessary servant, who waters the
stage between the acts, and arranges things for the
entree of the real performers. But though Bonaparte
was not yet made consul for life, most people knew
R

242 LIFE AND TIMES OF
what was his desire, and began to guess at his plans.
It was therefore a kind of tacit treason to discuss the
merit of the various theories of government, as if
France had still to choose from among them that
which she considered best suited to her condition and
circumstances. Monsieur Necker went farther: he
hinted at the probability of Napoleon's desire to obtain
the supreme rule, or rather to secure by constitutional
warrant the power he had already mastered, and to
make that authority patent to his family. Judging
from the past behaviour of the First Consul, and from
the complexion of the times under which he had been
thrust to the helm, Necker decided that he was httle
likely to favour the representative system. Necker
demonstrates, in fact, that no lever was available to
raise Bonaparte's authority, but the power which is
called military force. He shows that there was under
the consular government no real repubhc, and then
goes on to say : — " There is one method of estabhshing
an hereditary government, but this method is alike
contrary to republican ideas and foreign to the prin
ciples of limited monarchy. It is that force by means
of which the supremacy of the great families of Rome
was maintained, but which, revolting from its allegi
ance, degraded and overthrew the creatures of its
power. This method is military force; the Praetorian
guard, the armies of the East and of the West. From
such a destiny may God protect France."
On the appearance of this remarkable book, the
Consul Lebrun, under Bonaparte's dictation, wrote
Monsieur Necker a letter, in which, according to
Madame de Stael, he united old prejudices with the

MADAME DE STAEL. 243
harshness of the new despotism. Lebrun accused
Necker of having been the author of the Revolution,
and flung at him the doubling of the third estate as
his act and deed, and the real seed of the dismal
horrors that followed. He counselled the ex-minister
to interfere no more in politics, but to leave such
things to the First Consul, the only man who was
capable of governing France; and he finished by
threatening that Madame de Stael should be banished
from Paris solely on account of her father's book.
Thus, says Madame de Stael, Bonaparte attempted
to embitter Necker's private life, by insinuating that
if his daughter were exiled, only her father could be
blamed for it. " But," she adds, boldly, " I hope that I
have myself merited the exile I had to suffer."
Nevertheless, we know Monsieur Necker's extreme
conscientiousness, his readiness to torment himself
with a scruple, and his fondness for his daughter,
and cannot but own that Bonaparte knew the vulner
able spot when he dealt this blow.
Letters from Paris, for she was still in Switzerland,
warned her that the First Consul said she should
return no more to that city, because she had given
her father such false accounts of the state of affairs
there ; she also learned that her relations of society
with General Bernadotte had given offence : and that
the court rumour asserted that people always came
out of her house worse affected to the ruler than when
they entered it.
Before she left Paris in 1801, General Bernadotte
had made an effort to excite some kind of remonstrance
from the senate to Bonaparte, with a view to the
R 2

244 LD7E AND TIMES OF
retrenchment of the consular power — a power which
was literally that of the strong fist, unadorned by
prescriptive right and old associations, the illusions of
arbitrary monarchy, on the one hand; and by
spontaneity of action and the rigid simplicity of
justice, which our early readings, rather than the facts
of administration, lead us to attach to the idea of a
republic, on the other. From the wise mingling of
the best and worthiest elements of both systems — the
true constitutional monarchy allied to the representa
tive system — Bonaparte was still more remote. General
Bernadotte, therefore, had endeavoured to raise a
legal opposition to the encroachments of a system,
which he thought must be attended with incalculable
inconveniences, if with no worse result. But he
could not prevail on any of the members of the senate
to join in his undertaking ; they were afraid. If this
plan had been discovered, Madame de Stael's exile
would have begun a few months earher than it did
actually; for during the whole of the proceedings, she
saw General Bernadotte and his friends, and we need
not doubt, lost no opportunity of advising, conversing,
and joking on the forbidden subject of hberty.
Under these various circumstances of depression
and dislike, perhaps Madame de Stael would not have
attempted a visit to Paris in the spring of 1802, had
not the increasing illness of Monsieur de Stael afforded
a motive which admitted no delay. We have no
reason to believe that she was ever attached to him,
and she had now for some time been separated from
him, in order that his expensive habits might not
interfere with the fortunes of her children — a pre
cautionary measure which the laws of her country

MADAME DE STAEL. 245
rendered possible; and one which England might do
well also to permit.
His confirmed ill-health caused the kindly wife to
forget everything but his need of attention and her
ability to afford it ; and leaving Coppet, she went to
Paris, intending to bring Monsieur de Stael into
Switzerland by easy stages, as his health served. All
her cares were of no avail ; he died at Poligny, on the
road to Coppet, 2nd May, 1802.
Her short visit to Paris happened just at the time
when Bonaparte inaugurated his concordat with the
pope, an agreement which restored the institutions of
rehgion and the celebration of the weekly holyday, the
first and inalienable rights of man. Those who look
on the world, beautiful as it is, in its brightest colours,
and from its most favourable standing points, find
sufficient reason to hope and trust in a great unde
veloped future of life, love, and light ; but the un
happy, they who have no title in this world to aught
but toil and sorrow; the crushed, down-trodden, and
depressed, are indeed wretched if robbed of that
which makes sorrow endurable, and the hardest life
a loving discipline, which will assuredly issue in more
glorious reahties than the brightest imagination can
picture. What Bonaparte cared about the thing would be
difficult to trace ; for, not long before, he had been
behaving in Egypt as if he were more than half a
Mohammedan. Doubtless this was but a stratagem
to secure an end ; and the re-establishment of religious
worship in France had probably the same motive —
the hope of procuring an influence unattainable with
out the aid of religion. Yet Bonaparte was no infidel;

246 LIFE AND TIMES OF
we must remember that he had been trained in an
atheistic age, an age in which the confession of a Master
in heaven was supposed to be somehow associated
with servility and degradation on earth ; but however
the confession may be stifled and repressed by a con
vention or by the voice of ridicule, (that voice so
powerful in France,) the truth of the Master's exist
ence is a living thing, deeply rooted in the heart of
man* Without this, earth's contradictions are irrecon-
cileable, her woes without a remedy. The human
race need be perfectly happy before it begins to parley
with doubt on this subject. That it has done more
than parley with it, we are not yet convinced ; even
he who calls himself an atheist has something divine
within which would be ashamed thoroughly to work
out his base system. The boldest infidel has moments
of religious sentiment; the church at Ferney once bore
upon its front this legend, "Deo erexit Voltaire.''^
The atheistic intolerance of the Revolution was
rather a revenge for the past domination of the priest
hood, than any true exposition of the ideas of the
multitude ; but infidelity in religion had unhappily so
long co-existed with republican government, that a
certain school opposed the advent of Bonaparte to
more complete power on the ground of the concordat
alone. They denied that liberty could exist in a
country where the pope is allowed a spiritual su
premacy, and certainly one cannot claim any great
* The convention might have decreed that two and two should not
henceforward make four; but the fact would have remained iutact.
t Some pious revolutionists, with more zeal than judgment, have
erased this inscription ; to us it seems full of suggestion and religious
interest.

MADAME DE STAEL. ,247
exception to this rule; but as the majority of the
French people belonged to the Roman church, it was
only just that the catholic worship should be carried on.
The protestants, however, were quite as favourably
situated as their Romish brethren ; religious equality
was one great blessing which had sprung out of what
seemed to promise only anarchy and desolation. The
reign of priestcraft in France was probably over for ever ;
it disappeared with the tithes and the property of eccle
siastical corporate bodies. Though France had ad
vanced very slowly, and often amid bloodshed and ruin,
the Revolution — or to speak more properly, the mental
movement which had unhappily so issued — had won
many things worth preserving. These, nevertheless,
might have been earned almost as soon, and certainly
without such fearful counterbalancing evils, if the
moderate course of Monsieur Necker had been steadily
persevered in. The Anglo-Saxon race is more patient
than the Gallic, but our liberties have not suffered on
this account ; very slowly has our constitution grown
to its present state, just as the form of the infant
developes into manhood: it has seen great pohtical
crises, which have been the means of its purification,
as the disorders of infancy thrust from the system
those noxious elements which, if permitted to increase
and strengthen, would endanger the whole being.
Slowly and firmly has the beautiful edifice proceeded,
nor do we yet conclude it perfect ; room is left for
each generation to work out its needs and evince its
aptitudes. But who that observes the onward progress
of the ages, the gradual evolvement of good from con
fusing and conflicting elements, can doubt that the
Deity takes as earnest interest in the welfare of His

248 LIFE AND TIMES OF
creatures, as when, in the virgin light of a young
creation, "the morning stars sang together for joy"?
The Gallic race had wanted our rougher education.
Existence in these northern lands must involve con
stant toil, especially in the early development of a
nation. The Briton, maintaining a constant warfare
against the comparative barrenness of his island,
subduing his churlish acres by hard combat, was
really a more favoured being than a child of the
south, gathering laughing harvests which cost him
little, and finding half the business of life in the en
joyment of the sunny skies and kindly chmate, so
delicious to his keen senses.
The French people were insensible to their wrongs
longer than the English would have been, but once
awakened, they redressed them with little judgment,
and such precipitancy as England is httle likely to
show. It was in the month of April, 1802, that the con
cordat was inaugurated. Bonaparte, on this occasion,
ordered a grand ceremony at Notre-Dame, to celebrate
the auspicious return of France to the bosom of the
church. Yet the Consul went not hither as a re
pentant son of that church, but rather as a conqueror,
scattering largess as he proceeded, in the shape of
Sundays restored and the consolations of religion
legalised. He was the hero of the day : he proceeded
to Notre-Dame in the king's state-carriage, with the
same complement of coachmen, footmen, the same
running footmen to guard the doors, as had formerly
attended on royalty. The crown diamonds sparkled
on the hilt of his sword; and he appointed as the
preacher on the occasion to which we allude, the

MADAME DE STAEL. 249
Archbishop of Aix, the identical prelate who had
preached at Rheims on the day when Louis XVI. took
the crown of his fathers. Court etiquette was followed
even to its minutest detail; yet France still claimed
to be a republic*
Madame de Stael shut herself up at home, because
she would not see a sight so odious to her ; yet she
could not avoid hearing the cannon shots "which
announced the servitude of France."
" Did not all seem restored just as in former times?"
inquired Napoleon of his generals who surrounded
him in the evening of the day of ceremony.
" Yes," frankly replied one of these soldiers, " ex
cepting two millions of Frenchmen who have fallen
for liberty's sake ; these, nothing can restore."
Madame de Stael's old acquaintance, Monsieur de
Talleyrand, who avoided her to-day, but who, if he
had wanted her assistance on the morrow, would have
asked it with the best grace in the world, of course
figured in the important ceremony. He reminds one
of a kaleidoscope, whose varied patterns and shapes are
all produced with the same few bits of coloured glass.
The Bishop of Autun, the Bonapartist, the monarchist,
are all but one Talleyrand. The state alters its
position, but Talleyrand retains his. He is the Vicar
of Bray in a higher circle. Both were men of a
similar stamp, who, to use a vulgar but most expres
sive proverb, possessed no mean talent in discerning
the buttered side of the bread.
In May, 1 802, Bonaparte was made consul for life.
* The French Romish clergy all through the changes from republic
to empire, and from empire to monarchy, present a rather despicable
figure. Their highest principle is expediency.

250 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER XXXVI.
Bonaparte's popularity continued to increase.
General d'Arblay, who had gone to Paris to seek
some employment under the government, was joined
by his wife in May, 1802; and she gives a touching
account of the joy manifested by the poor at the re-
establishment of the Sundays and the restoration of
public worship. They praised Bonaparte, saying that
he had given them back their hope in a world to
come. Madame d'Arblay 's arrival gave pleasure to Ma
dame de Stael, who, hearing that one of her acquain
tances from the neighbourhood of Richmond had
arrived in Paris, sent forthwith a kind httle note,
begging to know when she might hope to find Ma
dame d'Arblay sufficiently recovered from the fatigues
of her journey to receive visitors without inconveni
ence. And this, although the " common civility of a
card for her card," was yet owing to her from Madame
d'Arblay. Perhaps the generous, warm-hearted French
woman did not recollect the circumstance, or un
derstand the hint intended to be conveyed by the
omission. We quote the following circumstances, not wishing
to ascribe to Madame d'Arblay any unfriendly or
unfeeling dispositions, but to show what was the tone

MADAME DE STAEL. 251
of society towards Madame de Stael at this time.
Madame d'Arblay naturally took her initiative from
those who surrounded her, and as her husband was
trying to obtain an appointment under the consular
government, it is probable that her society was mostly
composed of the vehement admirers of Bonaparte ; it
is not likely that from this source she would learn
quite the fair truth regarding Madame de Stael. As
to the return of the courtesy, Madame d'Arblay con
sulted a lady whom she knew, telling her the character
which " the Burkes and Mrs. Ord" had given Madame
de Stael at the time of her visit to England in 1793.
The fair authority in question, who moved in fashion
able society, assured Madame d'Arblay that the cha
racter of the Baroness de Stael stood no higher in
France than it had stood in England. How should it,
while she opposed Bonaparte ? What enemy of his
ever possessed courage or honesty ? According to his
flatterers, his triumphs were obtained over such con
temptible beings that one wonders how the conquests
added to his glory.
So the kindly Madame d'Arblay, led astray by the
voice of the world, returned Madame de Stael's note
by a communication assuring her that Madame
d'Arblay could not but be extremely flattered by the
politeness of Madame de Stael, and promising to
call on her very shortly.
We believe the ladies did not meet in 1802. The
sting of Madame d'Arblay 's note lies in the " cannot
but be." But it is most likely that in wishing to see
her English acquaintance, Madame de Stael only
sought to return the kindness she had received while

252 LIFE AND TIMES OF
an exile in England, from the family at Norbury
Park. Why should she court the acquaintance of
Madame d'Arblay, a person decidedly her inferior in
rank, and possessing no sort of influence ? If we
attempt to solve her conduct by worldly tests, we
shall assuredly never succeed : a generous enthusiasm
inspired her; she recompensed threefold any kind
ness shown her, and possessed an ardour of gratitude
which is no native part of a mean souL
This little incident just shows us that Madame de
Stael was decidedly in disgrace at court ; all the old
rumours, and, no doubt, some new ones, were revived
or invented by envy, and repeated by malice. Yet
we have not the slightest reason to believe one of
these stories.
Nevertheless, these things embittered her life ; the
loss of consideration was a painful thing to her ; and
the daily-increasing neglect of society, an evil so
easily despised in fancy, so very difficult bravely to
encounter in reality, was a trial which imagination
dressed in colours yet gloomier than it really wore.
Bonaparte was an adroit persecutor; he always dis
cerned the point of honour, and wounded there: the
woman in her chastity, the soldier in his bravery, the
honest man in his integrity.
Madame de Stael fled from Paris and its vexations,
to Coppet, as the dove returned to the friendly ark;
only our poor fugitive carried no olive-leaf.
But her soul rusted in retirement ; and during the
winter of 1802-1803, she read in the papers (which
no doubt largely occupied her time at Coppet) that
many illustrious Englishmen were in Paris, adding

MADAME DE STAEL. 253
new attractions to its ever graceful and lively society.
Of course she longed to assist in such meetings as
Paris now afforded ; she who was so interested in the
progress of the human intellect, and who viewed with
such pleasure every influence of England in France.
Besides these motives which prompted her return to
Paris, was another: she objected to keep her children
all the year in the country; she thought that the fine
arts and intellectual society exert an influence in
cities which one seeks in vain in rural retreats. This
influence she wished her sons to feel. She was a con
scientiously good mother, and ever felt her mournful
condition more keenly when it overshadowed the life
of her little family; and she regretted that she
scarcely dared return to Paris.
The peace between England and France, we have
said, lasted only one year. Madame de Stael was
staying at Geneva when she heard of the declaration
of war, and perhaps felt a little consoled that the
peace had not proved more durable. An invasion of
England seemed now seriously determined on, and
the First Consul was busily occupied in preparing for
such an event. Flat-bottomed boats were constructed
throughout France — in the forests, by the highways,
anywhere, if the place afforded wood and workmen.
On the roads, sign-posts were erected, bearing the
inscription, " To England ;" and one path was spanned
by a triumphal arch, having for its legend, " A good
wind, and thirty hours."
Paris and Bonaparte seemed quite absorbed in this
important business, and Madame de Stael hoped she
might be forgotten. Under the shadow of this mighty

254 LIFE AND TIMES OF
event, she ventured to return to France, but not to
Paris, lest her residence in the city might provoke the
First Consul.
She hired a little country place, ten leagues from
Paris, where she hoped, in company with her chil
dren, to spend her winters in quiet, until the reign of
tyranny ended. Her occasional visit to the theatres
and the museum, and the society of such of her friends
as chose to visit a person in disgrace, bounded all her
hopes of life in the capital while the present system
lasted. In this voluntary exile she had been quietly re
siding for the space of a month, when some person
reported to the First Consul that the roads were
crowded with people who went to visit her. This was
little likely to be true : she had been deserted by
many of her friends, and of those who continued to
esteem her, only the very bravest and truest would
continue to seek her society under her present cir
cumstances. But Bonaparte was glad of an excuse to
banish her ; and she was informed that, in a few days,
a gendarme would wait on her to announce the order
of departure. " I am," she says, touchingly, " easily
frightened ; my imagination is more ready to figure
trouble than hope ; and although I have often proved
that new circumstances arise and dispel grief, yet it
seems to me, when first a shock comes, that nothing
can deliver me from my sorrow."
Thus easily alarmed, she left her house to take
refuge with a lady, a stranger to her, to whom she
was recommended by a person who was then con
nected with the government, though he little sympa-

MADAME DE STAEL. 255
thised with its tyrannical proceedings. To the asylum
thus afforded she hastily fled. Madame de la Tour,
her hostess, was scarcely known to her, and the
society visiting the house were all strangers : she was,
therefore, obliged to appear tolerably free and disen
gaged during the day, though terror was gnawing at
her heart. It was, of course, best that she should not
appear anxious and melancholy, and she struggled to
maintain such an attitude and behaviour as might con
ciliate those who surrounded her, without acquainting
them with her circumstances. At night, however, when
released from the claims of her entertainers, she fixed
herself at the window, to hsten whether the approach
of a mounted guard might not be heard in the dis
tance : the rustling of a tree, the changing of a sha
dow, would be enough to startle a vivid fancy like
hers ; and so the restless nights passed on. She had
one humble friend who had been years in her service,
and who shared her anxieties and watches. With the
day came fresh disquietudes, and the necessity of ap
pearing cheerful in order to conceal her real situation.
Feeling bitterly that every year rendered Paris
more important to her children, and that, were she
banished, it would be for a long period, if not for
ever, she made a desperate attempt to interest her
friends to exert themselves for her. Sho wrote to
Joseph Bonaparte, explaining in forcible terms the
real troubles of her situation. A residence ten leagues
from Paris was now the one object of her desire ; to
obtain this for her, both Joseph and Lucien pleaded
without effect; nor were they the only persons to
advocate her cause.

256 LIFE AND TIMES OF
After a few days spent with Madame de la Tour,
during which period Madame de Stael received no
fresh alarm, she determined to go to her beautiful
friend, Madame de Re"camier, who had a residence
two leagues out of Paris. This lady, whose wit and
beauty made her one of the most enchanting persons
of her day, was attached to Madame de Stael, and
willingly received her. Here she mingled in the best
of such society as she loved ; and, although the voice
of friendship and the play of wit could no longer
entirely occupy her, they reheved her soul in its
heaviness ; and these few bright days, hke the lovely
transatlantic season known as the Indian summer,
coming after she had said adieu to summer friends
and fortunes, must have seemed doubly dear. And
yet they make the after-season look all the darker.
After a few days with her friend, Madame de Stael,
hearing no news from the First Consul, trusted he had
only intended to frighten her by a threat of exile, and
half hoping, half afraid, she returned to her country
place and her children.
A thought which had some comfort in it took tran
sient possession of her ; this was, that Bonaparte would
scarcely excite the attention of Europe by banishing
an innocent woman, whose connexions and talents
were so well known. But this soon disappeared:
to Bonaparte public opinion was a thing to be nursed
when in his favour ; strangled, when opposed to him ;
and the idea that many sympathies followed her in
her exile would rather increase his pleasure in sending
her away. To this mood of hope succeeded one of sad
melancholy. France, she says, became hushed around

MADAME DE STAEL. 257
her ; voices of friends were few and feeble ; not a
soul seemed to cherish or defend the glorious ideas of
liberty and right in which she had been educated,
and which by assimilation and reflection had become
almost elements of her soul. A contemptible frivolity
masked the exercise of tyranny; to be banished, was
to be sent into the country for change of air. There
is no circumstance so great, or so grave, that the
Frenchman can forego his joke upon it. He is never
magnificently penetrated and absorbed by a patriotic
and religious emotion, as the Teutonic races often are.
This whole-heartedness of sentiment, which wraps the
entire being in one thought and purpose, admitting no
doubt of its goodness, and excluding for the time
every other interest, is what has made the history of
the races of the German stock more glorious and
heart-stirring, as well as more advantageous to the
peoples of it, than any other.
But the life of such nations is a graver and more
painful thing than the life of the French, who forget
with greater readiness the experience gained by suf
fering, and deprived of one object of desire, set out
gaily in search of another. This disposition has its
value, too ; but a more heroic and less accommodating
spirit pervades the existence of the free countries.
The French have more passion ; they are infinitely
more cruel when provoked, but the injustice must
touch them nearly ere they interfere with it. We have
a keener sense of justice, and more principle, which
leads us to revolt against even a theory favourable to
tyranny and inhumanity. They would say, we often

258 LIFE AND TIMES OF
fight for shadows, but we know that a shadow sup
poses a substance.
Before the recall of the English ambassador, Bona
parte was excessively annoyed by the freedom with
which the British newspaper press commented on his
policy and divined his plans. There were several
remonstrances on the subject made on the part of the
First Consul to Lord Whitworth, who assured the
republican ruler, that the constitution of England did
not permit the king to stifle this voice, and that the
British sovereign himself was not exempt from the
scrutiny and comments of the press. Such a consti
tution was abhorrent to Bonaparte, and perhaps also
contemptible ; and he did not conceal his vexation at
the satirical voices which the tide daily wafted across
the channel. So earnest was he to revenge himself,
that at last the British government commenced a
prosecution against an emigrant named Peltier, on
a charge of libel. The accused person had the singular
good fortune to be defended by Sir James, then Mr.
Mackintosh, whose speech on this occasion led to his
own advancement and promotion ; for he was soon af
terwards made Recorder of Bombay. A more imme
diate influence of that wonderful piece of eloquence
was the solace and comfort it afforded Madame
de Stael in her lonely sadness: All, she says, was
ominously silent about her, when the accents of
Mackintosh's eloquence broke upon her ear. In her
impassioned way she exclaims, " This voice of hberty
seemed a voice from heaven !"
The accents of a very different voice were pre
paring for her. At the end of September, 1803, she

MADAME DE STAEL. 259
was sitting at dinner at four o'clock in the afternoon,
when a man on horseback in a gray coat alighted at
her gate and rung the bell. How every minutest
circumstance of such a moment becomes graven on
the memory in an instant, as if with a pen of iron !
Before hearing his errand, her instinct told her
that her fate was fixed. She went to him in the
garden, and the perfume of the flowers, the freshness
of the autumn breeze, the beauty of the September
afternoon, came ou her weary senses like a kind of
intoxication. She was almost overcome by the con
trast between the peace and loveliness of the world
without, and the wretched confusion and tremour of
her own heart. Indissolubly were linked in her
mind, the terror of her alarm, and the sensation
created by the harmony of Nature's works.
Endeavouring to assume some calmness — in which
attempt she failed, without a doubt, for concealment
of her feelings was never much in her power — she
approached the man in authority and inquired his
business. He announced himself as the commandant of the
gendarmerie at Versailles, but added that he came
out of uniform lest he should alarm her. He showed
her an order of exile, signed by Bonaparte, which
empowered the police to secure her departure within
four-and-twenty hours, to a distance of not less than
forty leagues from the capital. But this agent of
despotism treated her with all the consideration her
name and position demanded.
To the time of departure she demurred: four-and-
twenty hours, she said, might be sufficient notice for
S 2

260 LIFE AND TIMES OF
conscripts, but could scarcely be enough for a woman
with children. Some preparations were needful be
fore she could depart on such a journey; three days
at least she must have in Paris. To this no objection
was made, and she and her children, accompanied by
this officer, set out immediately for the city to which
she had so often turned with hope and joy. In
passing the house of Madame de Re'camier, she
stopped for a few minutes, and finding General Junot
there, procured from him a promise to speak in her
behalf. Then she sadly resumed her drive.
She had, some time previously, hired a house in
Paris, but had never yet inhabited it. It was situated
in the quarter of the city she liked best, and had not
been selected without care. Here she had hoped to
receive her friends, to instruct her children, to read,
to write, and to study. But now there was less than
ever a prospect of any chance to make this place her
home. She wandered sadly from room to room, and
looked from the windows on prospects she might
never again behold. A feeling of unsatisfied restless
ness and nervous activity quickened her pulses; she
made every effort to save herself which might be
made without compromising her conscience or her
independence — there she stopped. A word of con
ciliation, of admiration, of homage to the mighty
ruler who was feared and truckled to by half Europe,
would have saved her. She refused to utter it.
How Monsieur de Talleyrand must have laughed in
his sleeve at this folly on the part of his old ac
quaintance !
But the verdict of humanity, the unbought homage
of the soul, cannot refuse her its voice ; so long as her

MADAME DE STAEL. 261
language endures and her books are read so long shall
her courage and honesty touch the divine spring which
sets the holiest emotions flowing, and secure her the
approbation of those who, though they might want
the bravery to imitate, have not the power of refusing
to admire her. There is an affinity between the
human soul and any greatness or goodness, let bad
men say what they will. Why do heroism and purity
so touch us but because some shadow of them rests on
ourselves? Her gendarme had been chosen, perhaps, as the
most literary of his set, for he complimented her
on her writings, and ventured to praise her talent.
Pride prompted her to strive at gaiety; and she said
to him in reply, " But see whither all this leads, this
genius which you admire. Oh, sir, if any person of
your family should be so unlucky as to possess it,- pray
counsel her to keep it to herself, or it will assuredly
bring her into trouble."
Every morning this man pressed her to leave, and
every morning she begged another day; her few
friends called on her, or dined with her, " and some
times," she says, "we were even gay." No doubt
Bonaparte grew tired of this delay; and it was, most
probably, on this occasion* that Monsieur de Talley
rand announced to her the determination of the First
Consul that she should leave Paris, and that speedily.
He was a man who could fling away a friend with
the most exquisite grace.
"Madame," said the minister, "I wish you a
pleasant journey." * Or before her previous visit to Coppet.

262 LIFE AND TIMES OF
" A pleasant journey?"
"Yes — a pleasant journey to Switzerland. I hear
you set out in three days."
" Oh, but you have been misinformed, I have no
such idea."
"Nevertheless, I have heard it from the best
authority. Encore, bon voyage. Adieu."
Joseph Bonaparte made another attempt to save
her, and invited her to spend the last few days of her
time with his wife at Morfontaine. To this lovely
place, accompanied by her elder son, she went for
three days. Then she left her friends, and addressed
her sorrowful face towards the path of exile.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

There were several reasons why a visit to Switzer
land would just now have been exceedingly painful to
Madame de Stael. One was that she had frequently
complained of its dulness as a residence, and that a
forced return at a time of the year when she usually
went to Paris for the winter, would have been humi
liating. Another was that she hated to go thither
with her wounds yet unhealed and bleeding; it
revolted her pride to go to Coppet a disgraced person,
exhausted by anxiety and trouble. A third reason
existed in the fact that another country offered her, if
she chose to visit it, a kind and honourable reception,
which might go far to reconcile her to her fate, and
assist her to forget the harsh treatment she had
received in her own land. She was no maudlin

MADAME DE STAEL. 263
demander of pity and sympathy, exhibiting her
troubles to excite compassion.
She had not decided exactly on her course, when
she found her departure imperative. She begged
Joseph Bonaparte to inquire if the First Consul would
allow her to visit Prussia, should she feel disposed to do
so, and obtained the permission she required. Joseph
also very nobly gave her excellent letters of intro
duction for Berlin, and exerted himself to soften the
hardness of her unjust sufferings. When he set out for
St. Cloud to perform her errand, her time was already
exhausted, and she stayed at a little inn two leagues
distant from Paris, to await the reply of the First
Consul, not daring to come into the city. A day of
anxiety passed without any tidings from Joseph, and
afraid of attracting notice by remaining longer where
she was, she had her horses put to, and drove round
the walls of Paris in search of another place of refuge.
This melancholy wandering so near her friends and
the house she had meant to make her home, was
inexpressibly painful. She found another inn, where
she awaited her messenger, whose arrival with the
news she wanted, gave her the sad relief of setting
out on her mournful journey.
Monsieur Benjamin Constant had chivalrously
offered to attend her to her destination — wherever
that might be. Her grief at first was ungovernable,
her whole being in an angry tumult, nor did she at
all regain her composure until she had completed the
cruel forty leagues. At Chalons she stopped, and
could not but sigh when the postboys boasted of
their expeditious travelling. On the, following day

264 LIFE AND TIMES OF
she continued her road to Metz, at which place she
waited for news from her father.
As may be imagined, Monsieur Necker was grieved
beyond measure by the news of his daughter's exile,
for he ascribed it to the fact of his having published a
book which proved disagreeable to the First Consul.
The thought that he had effected the disgrace and
affliction of his daughter was an agonising idea to the
affectionate father. He proposed at one time going
to Paris to intercede personally in her behalf, but
this his failing health prevented.
His letters advised her to spend the winter in
Germany, as pleasantly as she could, and to return to
him in the spring, at the usual time of her visit, to
Coppet. A new hope began to irradiate her. In the
spring, when she should have gathered a host of new
ideas and sensations to report to her father, she would
rejoin him. Until then, she would devote herself to the
study of a country and language completely new to
her. With this project she resumed her journey, but
was arrested at Frankfort by the sudden and dangerous
illness of her little daughter. Her desolate condition,
thus aggravated, was indeed very lamentable. She
had not one friend in Frankfort; the language was
unknown to her ; the physician to whose care Alber-
tine was submitted scarcely understood a word of
French. Thus agonised, the poor mother cries, " Oh,
if there existed no such thing as prayer, in what would
a mother distressed as I am find a refuge?" She
wrote constantly to her father, who consulted phy
sicians at Geneva, writing down their opinions and
transmitting them to his beloved daughter. This was

MADAME DE STAEL. 265
the same Frankfort whence, years ago, the king's
letter had recalled Monsieur Necker to take part in
the affairs of France. Madame de Stael had then
shared and appreciated her father's popularity; now,
he was despised, and she flying from a tyrant who
persecuted her on his account. Her daughter's
illness — that bitterest sorrow — was not permitted to
culminate; the child grew better, and the family
proceeded to Weimar, where they remained three
months. Goethe and Wieland, both of whom spoke French
fluently, were there, and from their conversation
she began to revel in the prospect of appropriating
the immense intellectual riches enwrapped by the
German tongue. She learned to read the language,
and being kindly entertained by the duke and
duchess of Weimar, found both employment and
society to please her. She began to get relief and to
take courage. Everywhere she was nobly received,
and treated with favour and distinction.
At Berlin, whither she next proceeded, she was
very kindly welcomed by the king, and by Prince
Louis Ferdinand. Here she became acquainted with
Auguste Wilhelm von Schlegel, an accomplished
French, German, Enghsh, and Italian scholar, an
elegant critic, and a fine writer. To this gentleman
she committed the education of her son, and regarding
him herself with great respect and friendship, held
frequent conversations with him on many subjects
connected with art and literature. It has, indeed,
been hinted by some of her critics that Schlegel
largely assisted her in the composition of her later and

266 LIFE AND TIMES OF
best works. But his own testimony flatly contradicts
the assertion. Madame de Stael was far from invari
able in her adoption of his opinions, very frequently
maintaining her own ground, and sometimes con
vincing him she was right. So far from assisting her
to write, he says he first learned from her how to use
his pen so as to interest the European public. It
was a friendship mutually beneficial, without doubt,
in which there was something given and received on
each side.
Meantime, the influence of Bonaparte was extend
ing itself wider and wider over the continent of
Europe ; the extraordinary facihties for tyranny which
chance had put into his hands, had probably never
before been under the command of an individual wilL
He had an army which had begun during the times
of the Revolution, in an association of citizens, leagued
to resist the foreign troops whose assistance was hired
by the king. Stern necessities had trained his men,
and they were as familiar with the difficulties of life
as with the martial exercise. Such troops, collected
in a moment of danger from shop, field, and desk, are
sure to include many vigorous and energetic spirits.
Thus were Cromwell's Ironsides raised. They axe as
superior to the recruits who join an army under ordi
nary circumstances, as Bunyan and Whitfield were
more energetic and powerful than any idle gentleman
who is quietly trained to hold a family living. The
brilliant successes of Bonaparte had won the hearts of
his soldiers, and this army was devotedly attached to
him. Besides that, he had framed the constitution he
administered, and could at any moment modify it as

MADAME DE STAEL. 267
he thought fit. And the excuse with which he
climbed into power — the necessity of keeping down
the Jacobins — formed also a very good reason for any
harshness to those who professed too hberal opinions.
Again, as the return of the Bourbons would involve
a counter-revolution, and perhaps the loss of many
lives, the capitalists, and all those who had acquired
property by the Revolution, were bound by interest
to uphold him. He understood the full force of this
tie, and never attached a party to him by any other
means. If he had, his lot might have been far
nobler. Nevertheless, the Bourbons were naturally not in
clined to relinquish all hope of the throne of their
fathers. Some persons devoted to them, as we have
seen, unsuccessfully attempted the life of the First
Consul ; and there is no doubt that various plots
and plans were formed to restore the old race.
Among other persons suspected of a part in one
of these conspiracies, was Louis, Duke d'Enghien,
grandson to the great Conde", and son of the Duke de
Bourbon. This gallant youth was seized on the neutral terri
tory of Baden, which Bonaparte, contrary to every
law of nations, invaded, for the purpose of taking him
prisoner. He was hurried to Paris, and thence to
Vincennes, where he was put in confinement. His
arrival had been preceded by orders to prepare a room
for a prisoner who would shortly appear, and to dig a
pit in the courtyard. This last order was difficult to
follow, the yard being paved, and the pit was dug
close to the moat.

268 LIFE AND TIMES OF
The unsuspecting victim arrived late in the even
ing, and after some refreshment, being worn out with
cold and hunger, the prince retired. Before he had
time to sleep, he was requested to appear before his
judges ; and, after his examination, returned to his
bed, where he almost directly fell into a heavy slum
ber ; from which he was very soon awakened to hear
his sentence read ; and being hurried, while scarcely
awake, into the courtyard of the chateau, was imme
diately executed.
The circumstances of this barbarous murder occurred
in March, 1804.
The fact of a near descendant of one of the greatest
heroes of France being thus cut off in cold blood,
with scarcely one moment to make his peace with
Heaven — a cruelty rarely practised on the vilest
malefactor — so made against the interests of Napoleon,
that perhaps he never ceased to regret the deed. He
would not own that he had ever contemplated the
hasty execution of the prince ; though, certainly, the
order to dig the pit is an uncommonly strong evidence
that he did. He flung the onus of guilt from him
self to Talleyrand, who resigned it to Savary, by
whom it was refuted. " It was a great crime," said
some one to Fouche. " A thousand times worse than
a crime," was the reply ; " it was a great mistake."
This news came upon Madame de Stael with great
force. After this, what obstacle was there between
herself and the extremest limit of Bonaparte's power?
Besides, she generously felt ashamed for her country,
which could passively allow the grandson of one of
her greatest warriors to be hurriedly and cruelly dis-

MADAME DE STAEL. 269
missed from the world with all the sins of his youth
on his head.*
She had not recovered from the effects of this
shocking event, when she received tidings of her
father's illness. This was wholly unexpected, as only
shortly before she had received from him a letter, in
which he assured her she might remain happily in
Germany, because his health had never in his life
been better. He had been spending some time at
Geneva, in the spring of the year 1804, with his bro
ther, to whom he was much attached, and his niece,
Madame Necker de Saussure.
Easily alarmed on account of one so fondly beloved,
Madame de Stael had a sad presentiment that she
had seen her father alive for the last time. She
instantly set out for Coppet, with her son, and Mon
sieur von Schlegel. She reproached herself a thou
sand times for having come to Germany without
going to Coppet. In a state of the greatest anxiety
she arrived at Zurich, where she was met by Madame
Necker de Saussure, who confirmed her worst fears.
Her father was already at rest. Her grief was
agonising to witness, her whole perspective of the
future seemed suddenly obliterated; life and death,
earth and heaven, were equally at war with her; the
one compelled her to wander desolate in strange
countries, the other snatched from her her father — -
her first, most faithful, and dearest friend : her last
support seemed gone ; and hopeless of relief, she re
signed herself to the most afflicting despair. Her
friends did not insult her by offering comfort or con-
* Appendix, Note M.

270 LIFE AND TIMES OF
solation at such a time ; they knew that only a lapse
of some considerable period, and many intervening
events, could remove the keenest edge of her grief.
Thus was the beautiful communion of the father
and daughter interrupted. It has since been renewed
in a world where there is neither death nor exile.
We are promised that we shall "go no more out,"
and that there shall be " neither sorrow, nor crying,
nor any more pain." Who, that has lost a friend,
can give up this glorious belief ?

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The name of Monsieur Necker may be honourably
placed in the list of those true noblemen, who, by dint
of diligence, have won for themselves a high position
in society, and have used that position to aid and
benefit their less fortunate fellows.
We have already briefly traced his eventful course ;
we have seen him leave Geneva— a poor lad, whose
then only possessions were ever his dearest — faith in
Heaven, and a good conscience. We have seen him
rise from the humble position of clerk to that of
master and capitalist; we have seen him trusted to
represent his own Geneva at the French court; we
have seen him so skilfully manage the disputes
between the French India Company and the govern
ment, that he was asked, in spite of his protestant
faith and* his foreign birth, to assist in the direction
of the royal finances ; we have seen him restore those
finances (this is not the place, were we able, to discuss

MADAME DE STAEL. 271
the wisdom of his fiscal administration; but thus
much should be said : the simple principles of pohti
cal economy, which, happily, are now learned by every
boy in our British schools, were then profound myste
ries to pohticians and even statesmen) ; we have seen
him moderate in prosperity, in adversity resigned;
once the idol of the French nation, and now its
abhorrence; but in office and in exile, a Christian
without bigotry, and a philosopher without intole
rance. On his first retirement from office, he had purchased
the barony of Coppet, a pleasant httle estate in the
vicinity of Geneva, surrounded by the associations of
his youth, and yet near enough to Paris to render
communication easy. At his downfall in 1790, he
sought this retirement in bitterness of spirit and deep
gloom; and here he passed the remaining years of his
life. Gibbon, who spent some few days with him
just about the time of his expulsion from office, gives
a sad picture of the condition of the unsuccessful
statesman; all attempts to engage him in conversa
tion or amusement were vain — he silenced every such
effort by saying that he could entertain no thought
but the memory of the blow which had stricken him,
As there was never a minister who more gladly luxu
riated in the pubhc favour, so there has never been one
who felt its loss more keenly. He was like an old
man-of-war, stranded, and idly flapping her torn
canvass in the breeze which once filled her sails ; her
huge and useless hulk unlaved by the waters which
formerly bore her proudly on their bosom.
But time, the great healer of human sorrows, shed

272 LIFE AND TIMES OF
its balm over the master of Coppet, and another in
terest began to absorb him. His wife, whose character
we have very imperfectly sketched in a former chapter;
had begun to lose her health before his removal from
public duties ; and her increasing maladies after that
period, soon interrupted his melancholy gloom, by
forcing on him active cares for her relief and comfort :
and his daughter's children were often gathered about
him ; he shared their sports, encouraged their confi
dence, and made himself in every sense their friend.
Here, then, were two sources of distraction — one,
indeed, melancholy enough, but which could not the
less interrupt the unhealthy monotony of his sad
reflections. He turned resolutely to the duties that
lay in his path, and in their discharge found, after a
time, a great and abiding relief. His wife, a woman
well calculated to preserve the affection she had
once created, was the flower and ornament of his
life. He was eager for affection, and she loved
him so as to be almost jealous that her daughter
divided with her his tenderness: to say that his wish
was her law, would be an unfair way of stating the
case, his wish became hers — cold and impassive in the
other relations of life, a keen critic even of her child
— she was to the man who had united his lot with
hers, the most enthusiastic admirer and the most
affectionate friend. To see two creatures thus attached
descending to the grave by calm and almost imper
ceptible changes, is one of the most touching of earth's
touching sights. The affections which in middle life
are more diffusive, seem often in old age to shut out
other friends, and to content themselves with the

MADAME! DE STAEL, 273
friends of kindred, to ask no other ties than those of
the family ; and thus was it at Coppet.
Madame Necker was much troubled during her last
days with a disposition to sleeplessness ; her nights were
restless and disturbed, and sometimes in the day, worn
out by want of rest, she would lean her head on her
husband's arm, and thus fall asleep. Whatever might
be his position, standing or sitting, so he remained
until she awoke and released him ; sometimes hours
elapsed, and found him thus fixed ; but his patience
and love knew no fatigue. Sadly he watched her, as
one who must reach the golden shore before him, yet
hopefully, as he knew he should soon rejoin her.
At last the hour of parting drew near; the musi
cians who generally played in her antechamber were
not come; and as music wonderfully soothed the
dying lady, her husband requested their daughter to
play on the pianoforte: she obeyed, and executed
several pieces. Then, while her father stood by, she
began to sing an air from Sacchini's opera of "GEdipus,"
the words of which recall the tender cares of Antigone.
They run somewhat thus : " Tenderness and care
she has lavished on me, her goodness has caused me
to find a charm even in my sorrows." These words
expressed so vividly her father's memories, that he
burst into tears, and the song was interrupted. He
stood, after that, for hours by the bedside of his
wife, a prey to that dreadful desolation which takes
possession of those who know they must lose a friend.
Surely the presence of the angel of death is an awful
thing to creatures who so depend on love and friend*
ship. Who can describe the icy sensation of grief,
T

274 LIFE AND TIMES OF
when the heart perceives that the soul has stretched
her wings? and left with us only the material form,
once instinct with life and blessing — now senseless,
and akin to the clods of the valley.
She died ; and her husband roused himself to fulfil
her wishes respecting her burial. During her cares
for the prisons and hospitals of Paris, she had seen
several frightful cases of premature inhumation; and
these had so powerfully affected her, that she left
scrupulous directions regarding her own interment.
Her mortal remains were placed in the grounds of
Coppet ; and the entrance of the avenue leading to the
mausoleum was visible from the window of Monsieur
Necker's cabinet, where he no doubt passed many
hours of not unpleasing melancholy.
It is a beautiful provision of nature, that when one
organ ceases to perform its functions, another will act
doubly, and thus sustain the conditions of life ; so, when
one channel of love is cut off, the stream seems to
deepen and widen those that remain. In his widowed
situation, Monsieur Necker turned with increased
fondness to the daughter, and to the little children
who were the charm and solace of his declining life.
To the yearly visit of his child he looked forward with
intense delight; she, so thoroughly versed in his
habits of thought and speech, required merely a hint
to comprehend what he meant to say; and so gay and
ardent, that when he heard her descriptions of life, he
seemed to be young again. " It is enough for me,"
he said, " to send her into the world, she sees for both
of us."
In that world she too had been disappointed;
young as she was, she had suffered, and her kindly

MADAME DE STAEL. 275
spirit seemed formed for sympathy and love. Her
father — her best friend— was her ultimate resort ; she
consulted him in every matter, important or trifling;
the education of her children, the management of
her income, the fashion of her dress. He was almost
as necessary to her as the sun that warmed her, and
the air she breathed.
One may safely leave his character to be vindicated
by the love he inspired ; he is not a bad man who
kindles such lovely affections ; his wife, his daughter,
his grandchildren, adored him, and write and speak
of him in terms of unvarying respect and tenderness.
He had an innocent superstition regarding the
place of his wife's burial. He looked upon a daily
visit to her resting-place as one of the duties of life ;
and, as we have seen, refused to leave Coppet when
Switzerland was invaded, partly because he could not
persuade himself to desert her grave. Such affluence
of love surviving death and separation is rare, and
occurs only in noble natures ; but one other instance
rises to us at the moment — it is that of Dr. Samuel
Johnson. Thus he loved and Temembered his dead
Elizabeth; praying for her "conditionally, if it were
lawful," and cherishing her memory with tireless
ardour and devotion.
Monsieur Necker's sorrow was not of that selfish
character, which makes regret for the dead an excuse
for neglect of the living. He economised the wreck
of his fortune and of his health for the sake of his
child, and her three little ones ; and endeavoured to
leave on their minds such an impression as might vie
with that of their holiest and purest moments.
T 2

276 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Whether he succeeded in endearing himself to
them, may be learned from the pen of his daughter,
and two of his grandchildren. The Baron Auguste
de Stael and the Duchess de Broghe have left on
record, in terms of enthusiastic fervour, the fact of
their great love for their grandfather.
Had not the affairs of business so early claimed his
attention, and the cares of government taken posses
sion of his maturer years, it is probable that he might
have followed successfully the career of literature so
illustriously adopted by his daughter. He had a keen
sense of observation, united to some humour ; and
two comedies, which he wrote in his youth, are de
scribed as being more than tolerable. A tale, written
to controvert a position taken by Madame de Stael,
"that no work of fiction can be really interesting,
which has not for a principal element, the vicissitudes
of love," is considered by his partial antagonist a
decisive settlement of the case in his own favour. But
as we have seen it only in a wretched English transla
tion, we forbear to remark on its merits, or otherwise.
Any reader who has happened to compare an original
work with even a tolerable rendering of it in another
tongue, well knows how possible it is to preserve a
literal correctness, while all the grace and fire of the
artist escape in the process. The jessamine flowers,
we are told, will yield no perceptible oil by distilla
tion ; an essence may be faithfully prepared ; only
one thing is wanting — perfume. To secure this, the
delicate blossoms must be treated in another man
ner. Just parallel is the case of a book in the hands
of a commonplace translator. His means and
methods are too coarse for his work.

MADAME DE STAEL 277
So a bungler may set himself to copy a fine picture ;
he may preserve its proportions by line and rule, and
yet between his copy and the original may lie all the
difference between a sublime creation of genius and a
tasteless daub.
Monsieur Necker's political works, though they seem
to have had little influence beyond the injury of his
own fortune, abound with wise maxims, and with pro
phecies of the consequences of certain courses, almost
startling by their truth. But his pen was fatal to
him. From his little work " On the Corn Trade," to
which some wise heads attributed the Revolution,*
to his " Last Views of Politics and Finance," there is
not one that brought him anything but suffering and
sacrifice. The latter work, indeed, by making him
the cause of his daughter's exile, was an arrow driven
to his own heart.
Yet we believe he had sincerely at heart the good
of the human race, and that philanthropy inspired all
his efforts. He sympathised keenly with pain and
sorrow, wherever they were found ; he had the dispo
sition always to take the side of the weaker party — a
characteristic not calculated to favour his worldly
advancement, however it may heighten our opinion
of his character.
His conscientiousness was almost a perpetual
burden to him; he had scruples where no one but
himself could see aught but merit, and performed, as
actions of justice, deeds which other men would have
considered exceedingly generous. One instance we
remember at the moment.
* As Tenterden steeple was once said to be the cause of the Good
win sands.

278 LIFE AND TIMES OF
He possessed a house in the neighbourhood of
Geneva, which he had let to a family in poor circum
stances at a certain rent; necessity obliged them to
change their neighbourhood, and they went away.
The tenant who succeeded them was not so poor, but
declined to pay the same rent; Monsieur Necker
therefore let the premises at a reduced rate, and
transmitted to the family of his late tenant a sum
equal to the difference between the old rent and the
new, according to the number of years they had
resided in his house.
After his downfall he held greatly by any mark of
favour or regard ; he felt rather the loss of affection
than that of power, for he had governed to ameliorate
the condition of men, rather than to tyrannise over
them. His cabinet contained innumerable letters
which he had received at various periods of his mi
nistry, expressive of admiration and respect ; these he
cherished until the threatened invasion of Switzerland
excited his alarm lest the possible sacking of his house
and the discovery of the names of his admirers might
lead to their punishment on his account. He there
fore burnt the greater part of the papers which had
afforded him such keen pleasure ; and from the few
he left he had erased the signatures with such care,
that Madame de Stael could not decipher them.
But the directory behaved towards him more liberally
than he expected, and, as we have seen, decreed him
a safeguard during the occupation of his country by
the French troops.
Had he accepted any of the offers made him by
other sovereigns at the time of his first resignation, it

MADAME DE STAEL. 279
is impossible to conjecture how very different might
have been the success of his career. But France,
which treated him so ungratefully, was the only
country he cared to serve. Or had he been a man of
overweening ambition, his popularity might have
helped him to a Cromwell's place; yet neither for
this had he any inclination.
Some men have thought he was too much a moralist
to make a good minister, but it was certainly not that
which wrought his expulsion. We may proudly appeal
to our own country as the one which is, upon the
whole, governed more according to the principles of
morality than any other in Europe : and the honesty
of her ministers has not yet ruined England. There
were various causes why he failed, the chief of which
was, that the current of the stream was too strong for
his oars. He threw them aside in despair, and left
them to other hands.
His last illness was of only nine days' duration;
since the year of the famine in Paris, when his
anxieties had brought on a troublesome bilious com
plaint, he had never quite recovered his former health,
and when once seized, he sank very suddenly.
Before he grew very ill, he wrote a letter to Na
poleon, entreating that after his death his daughter
might be permitted to return to the city she loved.
The idea that he had caused her suffering haunted his
dying bed ; in his delirium he blessed her, exclaiming
that she had truly loved him, and then bitterly
reproached himself as the source of her exile. Her
name was the last he murmured ; and thus, in April,
1804, ended the mortal career of one who, if not

280 LIFE AND TIMES OF
among the most successful, may rank with the best
and truest of men. His beloved daughter mournfully
committed his remains to the tomb where her mother
had been laid before him, and put upon the grave a
marble carved to delineate her love and grief. A female
figure already glorified is represented as inviting
upwards a man, whose departure is mourned by a
young woman, veiled and prostrate on the ground.
Enclosed among the trees, in whose shadow he had
so often walked, the weary statesman was laid to rest
by the side of the wife whom he had loved with such
rare and devoted affection. And the spot was haunted
by one saddened spirit, a prey to some of the keenest
sorrows which can darken the path of life.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
We have formerly given, at some length, the circum
stances attending and succeeding the final fall of
Monsieur Necker. We described the influence which
the people by their plaudits exerted on the deputies;
and that which these, in their turn, exerted on an
excited and passionate populace, long afflicted and
oppressed, gradually awakened to a sense of their
wrongs, and little knowing how to redress them. Our
object in thus detailing such events was not, assuredly,
merely to give the links which connect the monarchy
and the empire, but to display the scenes through
which Madame de Stael had to pass, and which ex
erted so powerful an influence on her mind and ideas.
We have seen that of almost all the principal events

MADAME DE STAEL. 281
of the Revolution, she was a personal witness. She
listened in the assembly, and when she heard the first
strains of eloquence which that period evoked, she
ardently hoped that the representative system, and
open debate, would exert over France an influence
equally good as that which she ascribed to them in
England. But when she saw the king degraded by
his people, she had no longer a hope that her favourite
constitutional monarchy could be realised under Louis
XVI. Nor was this conviction a mere disappointment
regarding a theory, a something external to herself,
and partaking little of her daily life.
We have seen that in her early years, introduced to
the brilliant society that crowded the salons of her
father, she was accustomed to listen with vivid interest
to conversations much beyond her age. Her religious
love for Monsieur Necker made profoundly important
to her every event, every theme, which at all concerned
him. To talk of politics, while his ministry endured,
was, of course, to talk of him ; and to talk of him was
to enlist her attention. Listening provoked her own
ideas ; her ideas once set in motion, she felt a desire
to explain her thoughts, and her uncommon brilliance
of fancy and command of language afforded her infi
nite facilities in conversation. Her whole associations
were political, from her cradle to the period of her
father's retirement in 1781.
At the period of that retirement, though she was
still httle more than a child, her studies had been
such as to second what society had begun. Her
father had made England his model ; she had studied
Montesquieu, and no doubt considered him a prince

282 LIFE AND TIMES OF
among authors, because he thought like Monsieur
Necker. The next few years, which she spent chiefly in
Switzerland, were profoundly dull after the life of
Paris. At that period she was no great admirer of
the country ; she loved the activity, the sparkle, the
intensity of city life. She was like those substances
which yield light only by attrition — society drew
out and excited her talents. Hence began that keen
appreciation of the capital which embittered some of
her following years, by lending a sharper sting to her
exile. Her father was recalled : hfe in Paris became asso
ciated with honour paid to him, and was, we may be
sure, none the less dear on that account. Her own
dawning genius attracted innumerable admirers ; and
her situation as wife to the Swedish ambassador gave
her a command of very varied and elegant society.
Her eager and excitable imagination, always ready to
pity the sorrowful and suffering, no less than the prin
ciples in which she had been educated, caused her to
lean to the popular side. Feeling, perhaps, the violent
strain which courtly habits and association might hold
on her, she felt a stronger necessity to abide by the
clear conclusions of her judgment and her heart, irre
spectively of the claims of fashionable opinion. Most
persons in her situation find so strong the temptation
to take the polite side of the question, that we can
scarcely be too indulgent to a fault in the opposite
direction. Her democratic tendencies were, doubtless,
stronger in early life, than when experience and sorrow
had matured her judgment. But where is the rich
and ripe maturity whose youth had no such excess ?

MADAME DE STAEL. 283
All the great minds existing at or since that wonderful
period, have, in a measure, shared her experience in
this regard. Coleridge, Shelley, Wordsworth, Southey,
in our own country, may illustrate the truth of this.
From a fruitful tree many a blossom, never destined
to ripen, falls off in the spring ; but even these are
part of a great and generous development. He would
be an unnatural and repulsive being, who, in the
ripeness of life, could say that his youthful opinions
had been so calm and just, that life had brought no
necessity to modify or change them.
Her life, during her father's second ministry, was
calculated to consolidate and enlarge her liberal ten
dencies. Everywhere was the expectation of a great
change near at hand ; the new philosophy, though
unhappy circumstances had tinged it with infidelitys
was replete with the message, that a fresh civilisation,
having for its heart the sentiment and progress of
humanity, was ready to break upon the sight of the
watching age.
Of this civilisation she believed, and France hoped,
that Monsieur Necker would be the inaugurator.
His praises resounded everywhere ; an attentive na
tion hung upon his accents ; his efforts to serve
France were the signal for a spring-tide of popularity,
which carried her as well as her father on its dancing
wave. All was hope and faith. Confidence in France,
confidence in her father, mingled touchingly with faith
in her God. She believed the dreamers who announced
the birth of a new era, and her belief was knit to her
father's reputation. How this era was to be brought
into the world she had, indeed, little idea.
We have seen her joy when she watched the glorious

284 LIFE AND TIMES OF
procession of deputies on the eve of the opening of
the States-General. Breathless but hopeful, she, like
her father, had staked her whole on this cast of the
die. Their hopes were deceived — cruelly flung to the
winds, like the leaves which the autumn makes beau
tiful before they fall. Her father, but just before the
idol of France, was compelled to flee for his life ; and
she, heart-broken for a time, only did not share his
flight because she was bringing into the world the
tender and faithful son who was to be the companion
of her misfortunes, the inheritor of her ideas.
The stormy period which followed Monsieur Necker's
downfall, we have already pretty fully indicated ; every
change which promised good or evil was a real hving
experience to this ardent and kindly being. For her
everything wore a practical aspect ; although the most
imaginative of women, political questions never pre
sented themselves in the light of abstract arguments,
but as questions involving the dignity or degradation,
the social elevation or servitude of the creatures who
surrounded her. This is why she threw so much
passion into her political conversation and writings ;
she regarded herself in some sort as the guardian of
her brother's liberties, and looked on her genius and
eloquence as Heaven's warrant to defend the weak and
injured. Oh, had there been ten men, just the coun
terparts of this woman, at the time when Necker was
forced to fly, what proud hope of hers need have
remained unfruitful ! How many subsequent woes of
her glorious but bleeding France might have been
spared !

MADAME DE STAEL. 285
To extravagant hopes succeeded fears which we can
scarcely call excessive, so pitiless and bloodthirsty was
the spirit that rent France asunder, and which proved
how little the people had been associated with the idea
of the country, by their eagerness to blot from the
page of its records every great name and historic
remembrance. We have seen how terror drove away all but the
insane wretches who called themselves the guardians
of the public safety ; and how the guillotine became
the apotheosis of the national sentiment. Her part
in the dangers of these times, and her heroic exertions
to save every life over which Providence seemed to
give her any influence, we have also noted. Of her
return to France in 1795, and of the events which put
a remarkable army in the power of one of the greatest
men of any age, we have briefly spoken. By his rise
to power, her hopes of a constitutional government
were a second time doomed to disappointment. His
wonderful talents, which extended the military glory
of France beyond the wildest dreams of the great
Louis ; and his military exploits, to which the engi
neering marvels of Vauban were mere child's play,
never for an instant blinded her to the fact that he
gave nothing to France but the somewhat dangerous
excitement of constant and successful war. Let his
star pale, let his arms be once or twice unfortunate,
aud she knew that France would again find herself in
the confusion of a land without a ruler, without a
constitution. Her hatred to his tyranny was a little sharpened by
personal dislike, and by disgust that France so tamely,

286 LIFE AND TIMES OF
nay, even eagerly, submitted to the rule of the lucky
soldier. His close, reserved temper was, we have said,
quite antagonistic to her own free and open character,
and tacit repulsion soon broke into open warfare. All
the power was on his side, and he made her bitterly
sensible of it.
Those circumstances which may seem to concern
the history of her times rather than of her life, we
have detailed, because they form the seed-ground of
all her thoughts and opinions. So earnestly did she
live for, and in, her age, that we can scarcely for a
moment separate her from the public events which
surrounded her. Meditation and solitude little suited
her philosophy; wherever life was dense, there, too,
was her scene of effort ; action and utterance were her
daily bread. She had no pleasure in arguments held
for the sake of victory, truth was her object, and in
fluence based on truth her ambition. She pined in
seclusion, and, like a southern tree transplanted into a
colder region than its own, she lived on, but scarcely
manifested all her glorious qualities and aptitudes.
Let us remember that it was no sentimental lover
of nature, no philosopher enamoured of sohtude, who
endured the exile whose course we have now to
chronicle ; it was a woman of genius and of fashion,
eagerly attached to life and to the commerce of pohte
society. Literature and conversation were her great
needs, and these she could have, as she loved them, in
one city alone of all the wide world. Upon that city
she turned her back rather than forswear her pohtical
honesty. The opinions then that she entertained
were profoundly valuable to her, and had struck root

MADAME DE STAEL. 287
to the depths of her being. What those opinions
were, it is a grateful task to the pen of an English
woman to point out, because they are all based on
principles powerfully existing in the government of
her own country, and capable of illustration from its
history. Not because those opinions were Madame
de Stael's, but because they are rested on principles
of solid truth, were they able to support her, and are
they strikingly present in human society, wherever it
is most freely and happily developed. The nations
that profess her doctrines are in the van of human
progress, earnest watchers for the noon-tide of a
glorious day, of which the French Revolution, unex
pected in its outset, and cruel in its growth, may
perhaps turn out to have been the unrecognised and
stormy morning. Not by smooth ways are great
heroes trained, great liberties achieved ; not by smooth
experiences has France been led since that day. For
the horrid crimes of her tyrants she has dearly paid ;
and perhaps the time is not far distant when the cry
of her noblest citizens shall be answered, and her
government settled on the only true basis — the will of
the people, embodied in a reasonable and just execu
tive. Monarchy or republic, that rule will be hailed
with delight.

288 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER XL
In the sohtude of her father's cabinet, whose win
dows commanded the path to his grave, the poor
bereaved daughter for a time immured herseK Every
fond remembrance (and her faithful heart religiously
cherished such), called forth afresh the bitter grief
that had no hope beyond it. Wounded in her dearest
sensibilities, the only sad comfort that remained to
her was to brood over the memory of the departed, to
recall every action of his kindness, every anxious care
of his love. Each scene, each object, supplied her
with new emotions : from this window, when she left
Coppet, it had been his custom to wave her a last
adieu ; in yonder recess, so long ago only as the pre
ceding autumn, a touching conversation had been
held between them, in which she, with a sort of awful
premonition, had suddenly exclaimed on the impossi
bility of life without him, and had expressed a wish
to die before him. His tone, his accent, the fondness
of his paternal gaze as he pressed her hands and
assured her that God tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb, now rose before her with cruel exactitude. Ah,
in this simple sentence, he seemed yet to direct her to
a source of comfort, which she might perhaps have
overlooked ! She raised her streaming eyes to the
refuge of sorrow-stricken humanity in all ages, and

MADAME DE STAEL. 289
gradually the violence of her grief, the passion of
despair, yielded to a profound melancholy; which,
while it lent a very sombre hue to every deed and
concern of life, restored to her some possibility of
thought and action.
The circumstances of her marriage had rendered
her father more than ordinarily important to her.
After her separation from Monsieur de Stael, Mon
sieur Necker had watched over the interests and
fortunes of her children. She had no natural aptitude
for figures ; the arithmetic of life, the cares that make
up so large a portion of our daily transactions, were
distasteful to her, and her father's kindness had
hitherto obviated the necessity of conquering her re
pugnance to business. Now she must be to her
children, not only herself, but him ; she set herself
seriously to master her ignorance of affairs, and her
dislike of details, and accomplished, for duty's sake, a
task which inclination would have thrown aside. For
the encouragement of those who may have a similar
difficulty before them, we will add that her cares were
successful ; she left her father's fortune not only un
impaired, but improved, by her administration of it.
The education of her sons also pressed heavily upon
her : how could a woman in exile look forward to any
career for them in their own country, which would not
compromise their independence ? One of them was
already fourteen years old ; conscientious, grave, affec
tionate, and as she loved to note, strikingly in person
like his grandfather. What opening was there for his
capacities and talents ? This, the bitterest drop in the
exile's cup, she scarcely felt, until the death of her
U

290 LIFE AND TIMES OF
father threw the responsibility of the family cares upon
her. She had been so accustomed to depend on him,
to look to him, that, as she sweetly says, the burden
of her existence had seemed more his affair than hers.
The injustice which Monsieur Necker had suffered
seemed now, too, to acquire a more fatal poison ; and
when the agony of her grief a little subsided, she took
up her pen with the pious design of editing his works.
At this time she also wrote a sketch of the private life
of her father, as if to shame his enemies into sorrow
for having tormented a man so generous and so pure.
She lingers on every line of the picture, as an artist-
lover may pause to touch and retouch every part of
the portrait of his mistress. In this sketch, no care
seems extravagant which can heighten the vividness of
the resemblance, and every sentence is weighed, lest
the very intention to do him justice and to make
known his goodness may, through her inconsiderate-
ness, operate to his disadvantage. This little memoir,
and a complete edition of his works, she published in
the autumn of 1804.
This labour over, what else could interest her?
Her mind was just then profoundly penetrated with
religious emotions, and no gay or trifling theme would
suit her. For philosophic disquisition and inquiry she
was equally unfit ; and yet inaction at such a time,
with an intellect like hers must end in insanity.
Not only had her mind been disturbed by these
stormy passages of life, but her health had given way.
Under these circumstances, she was advised to travel;
and as her disorder was of a nature requiring a soft
climate, she proceeded to Italy, accompanied by Mon-

MADAME DE STAEL. 291
sieur Schlegel, whose classical learning and modern
accomplishments were equally useful in the study of
a land, where the old and new civilisations are so
strangely mingled.
The aspect of a country thus new and varied, was
strangely interesting to her ; its monuments, replete
with associations of other times, she studied histori
cally, while her fancy lent a grace to every scene, and
evoked the spirit of the past to animate the whole.
It always strikes us that she had something of the
Roman in her, and the keen interest she felt in the
remains and literature of that wonderful people will
not contradict the resemblance.* Italian society, such
as it was, seemed amiable to one who had been the
mark of the ridicule-loving Parisians. The very want
of observation, which at another time would have
been accused as dulness, she now let pass for charity,
which " thinketh no evil."
The scenes and sights of the south, the beautiful
chmate, and the poetical life of Italy, renewed her
health, and somewhat of her relish for hfe. Madame
de Stael returned to Coppet, in 1805, with a rich
harvest of thought and sentiment. She had no
longer, indeed, the beloved ear of her father awaiting
her recital of her travels ; and perhaps this very want
gave all the greater force and tenderness to her pen
when she sat down to write the brilliant work of her
matured fancy — the eloquent, inimitable " Corinne."
From whatever point of view this may be regarded,
as a work to interest and inform the intelligence, or
to move and affect the heart, it seems to us equally
* Appendix, Note N.
u 2

292 LIFE AND TIMES OF
wonderful and powerful. What a marvellous progress
she had made since the publication of " Delphine," a
novel which appeared about the same time as her
father's last work, can only be measured by comparing
the two books. " Delphine" had provoked much ad
verse criticism ; the author and her father were then
very unpopular, and a want of sympathy with the
ruling powers cast a shadow on every action and deed
of their lives. The horrors of the Revolution had left
a powerful impression on the brain of Madame de
Stael, and in the book to which we allude she had
mingled some of its terrors. It was so violently
assailed, that she bowed to the verdict of her critics,
so far as to alter the denouement of her book in a
second edition — an almost unexampled deference to
the sovereignty of the critical press.
Compared with " Corinne," its predecessor, and in
some sort its precursor, is a rude and unfinished
sketch. " Corinne" has all the heat and passion of
the former book, but is so infinitely more tender, so
touchingly truer to the sweetest and saddest feelings
of our nature, that supposing the two works to have
been produced by different authors, we should scarcely
range them on the same shelf.
Knowing them to be both her productions, when
we read "Delphine" in the light of the later and
lovelier work, we can trace the germ and budding of
much that enchants us in " Corinne ;" but that during
the interval between the two, her mind had made
immense progress it is impossible to deny.
The melancholy of the hero — a melancholy spring
ing from the loss of his father — was just a reflection

MADAME DE STAEL. 293
of the condition of her own mind when she crossed
the Alps. Indeed, an attentive student of her cha
racter finds so much of her actual hfe in this book,
that it seems a confidential revelation of her own pas
sionate experiences, rather than a story related in the
third person. The one flaw, the episode concerning
Lord Nelvil's visit to France, would have been omitted
with great wisdom ; but taking the work as a whole, a
book so interesting, and so eloquent, has seldom been
written. It took the reading public throughout Europe by
storm : a person, grandson to one of the greatest of
the Swiss philosophers, says, that in Edinburgh, where
he was at that time staying, the professors of the
university stopped each other in the streets to discuss
the incidents, and to inquire how far each had read.
In England it was equally successful. One little
town considered itself personally insulted by Madame
de Stael's satirical description of dull, country life in
the north, although she had certainly no knowledge
of the place in question.
After her return from Italy, she passed a year in
Switzerland, sometimes at Coppet, sometimes at
Geneva, where several of her few faithful friends came
to visit her. During this time she was busy in the com
position of Corinne, and needed little other employ
ment. But as her work drew to a close, she felt a
great wish to pay a visit to France; not only that she
might superintend the publication of her book, but
that she might be near her son, whom she had sent
to Paris under the care of Monsieur Schlegel, to
prepare himself for the Polytechnic School.

294 LIFE AND TIMES OF
The letter which with his dying hand Monsieur
Necker had written to the First Consul, imploring that
when the cause of her exile no longer existed, Madame
de Stael might be permitted to return to Paris, had
been duly forwarded to its destination, but had pro
duced no token of notice. Napoleon, however, who
had taken the title of emperor very shortly after the
death of Monsieur Necker, was now more powerful
than ever ; and Madame de Stael hoped that this cir
cumstance, added to whatever effect her father's letter
might have wrought, would be sufficient to ensure her
safety in returning to France. The continental powers
were all submissive to the glorious eagle, and the
internal condition of France was so tranquil as to
afford no excuse for the exercise of arbitrary interfer
ence. Hoping, therefore, by a very quiet and retired
life, to disarm the resentment of the emperor, she
established herself at Auxerre, in 1806 ; and finding
herself perfectly unmolested, ventured to come within
the prescribed circle by removing to Rouen, at which
place she could receive daily letters from Paris. Here,
too, she was allowed to reside undisturbed, and fondly
hoping that perfect neutrality would satisfy the
despotism of Napoleon, she came within twelve
leagues of her beloved city, residing on a little estate
which belonged to Monsieur de Castellane. At this
place, she put the finishing strokes to " Corinne," and
superintended the correction of the work as it passed
through the press.
For the sake of her children, she was particularly
careful to give no unnecessary offence at this time, and
if anything short of homage could have contented
Napoleon, her quiet life, and her silence on political

MADAME DE STAEL. 295
subjects, must have done it. Negative submission,
however, was little to his taste; he had determined
that her genius should be the ornament of his reign,
or a silenced and persecuted thing. Any tribute to
him she disdained; it was her creed that "we may
sacrifice everything for others, excepting our con
science; which being the treasure of God enshrined
within us, it were dishonest to resign." Nor could
her children have approved the sacrifice, had she, for
their interests, ceded this dearest possession.
Her present work being quite foreign to political
subjects, might be reasonably hoped to be incapable
of giving umbrage to Napoleon. But its sudden
popularity, and the vivid interest it awakened for her
throughout Europe, awoke his detestable spirit of
jealousy, for whose assaults nothing was too noble or
too helpless. On the 9th April, 1807, the very anni
versary of her father's death, she received a new sen
tence of exile. It was now too evident that nothing
but the cession of her independence would content
her enemy. Counting the bitter cost, and sighing to
reflect that she disposed perhaps of the future of
others as well as her own, she proudly resolved to
maintain her consistency ; and once more, at the
bidding of her tyrant, said adieu to all that remained
of her once brilliant connexions in France.
It was impossible, indeed, that she could please the
emperor. Her very least sentence breathed a spirit
of generous enthusiasm which was distasteful to him.
He is said to have remarked peevishly, " It is no
matter what she writes, let it be politics, history, or
romance; it comes to the same thing in the end. After
reading her, people do not like me."

296 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER XLI.
In some sense, the works of Madame of Stael may be
considered the fruits of her exile : we should certainly
have wanted the greatest of her productions, if cir
cumstances had not occurred to drive her away from
Paris. Secluded from congenial society, she poured out
on paper the vivid conceptions and burning thoughts
which she would have preferred to enunciate with the
living voice.
Again removed from any hope of return to the
associations which possessed for her a fatal fascination,
she turned her weary steps towards Coppet, which
her father's tomb seemed to consecrate as her home.
Her connexions in Switzerland, to whom perhaps her
devotion for the capital had sometimes made her
unjust, received her with so much affection, that her
summer was more agreeable than she had expected.
She was honoured at this time by a visit from Prince
Augustus of Prussia, who was released from captivity
by the declaration of peace; and a few other persons,
proof against the displeasure of the master of Europe,
yet ventured to give her their society.
But the greatest alleviation of her exile was her
eloquent pen, which has left us such rich legacies.
" There was, in her conversation, in her society," says

MADAME DE STAEL. 297
Monsieur de St. Beuve, " something consoling, some
thing ameliorative, which may still be felt by her
readers." To perfect her work on Germany, so cruelly inter
rupted by her father's death in 1804, another visit to
that country was necessary, and in the autumn of 1807
she went to Vienna to resume her study of the Ger
man manners and philosophy.
This city gave her a very agreeable residence; the
kindly manners of the royal family and the great
nobility seemed doubly attractive in contrast with the
harsh rule and military precision of Napoleon. The
beauty of the situation too, which her travels in Italy
with Monsieur Schlegel had educated her to appre
ciate, gratified her taste; and her year in Vienna was
decidedly not the least happy period of her life.
Her love of Paris lends, nevertheless, a little mis
chievous severity to her pen while she chronicles the
dulness of the good society in Vienna. The Viennese
conducted their social existence in a way little calcu
lated to please a lively Frenchwoman : they performed
their visiting as if it were a solemn duty, and each
assembly was so much like its predecessor, that she
was tempted to recommend to the high nobility the
imitation of a trick she had seen on the stage, in
which Harlequin skipped out of his robe and wig,
leaving them to figure in his stead while he amused
himself elsewhere. The elaborate toilette which con
sumed much time, the terrible three hours at table,
the weary waiting on the stairs for one's carriage, all
excited her dissatisfaction ; but the regular recurrence
of the same solemn assemblies and grave ceremonies

298 LIFE AND TIMES OF
was the worst part of these affairs. The variety of
pleasures in Paris precludes this clock-like method,
so admirable in the business, but so wearisome in the
amusements of life.
In Vienna she was certain to meet to-day at one
great house, the same persons she met yesterday at
another ; for the rigorous etiquette of the day allowed
little minghng of classes; and these assemblies, almost
the only social privilege of the nobility, religiously
preserved the proprieties of rank. She adds, satiri
cally, that the people can never be excited to envy
by such pleasures as these.
For her wit and sparkling conversation there was
no place; the slow, but kindly Germans, did not
comprehend them. She was well received, and al
lowed to make her courtesy before the various mag
nates of the great world in Vienna; but one can
easily understand that this was a sad sort of hfe to
her. She owned that a lodging on a fourth story in
Paris, and a hundred louis a year, would please her
better. In the public gardens, on a summer evening,
it saddened her to see the Viennese sipping their wine
in profound indolence ; they were happy, but silent.
In the Paris she regretted, such an assemblage would
fill the atmosphere with light laughter and elegant
pleasantry. The contrast, to her mind, was all in
favour of Paris.
The city of her youth, like Jerusalem to the
mourners in Babylon, seemed all the fairer and gayer
because she was forbidden to tread its streets. At
the same time she was profoundly grateful for the
Austrian hospitality, which enabled her quietly and
pleasantly to pursue her interesting studies. And if we

MADAME DE STAEL. 299
had never before been sensible of the value of litera
ture, the tale of her exile, so wonderfully sweetened
by it, would suffice to kindle our thankfulness.
A year elapsed, during which she made such good
progress as to render her protracted stay in Germany
unnecessary. She was now familiar with her subject,
and could pursue it where she pleased.
She returned to Coppet, to find herself shunned by
almost all her neighbours; the influence of Napoleon
had increased in vigour during her year of absence ;
to be disagreeable to him, was now to be shunned by
all the respectabilities of Europe.
This tremendous power of one unbending, selfish
will, during so many years and over so large a field,
is perhaps the greatest phenomenon of modern times.
Madame de Stael was little inclined to consider it
philosophically; the place-hunting disposition which
the new regime seemed to have rendered more greedy
than ever, irritated her against even her own country
men ; all her fine wishes for France seemed unneces
sary, when very few persons were too dissatisfied with
the present state of things to accept or to intrigue for
a place under government.
Penetrated with sadness at the condition of public
affairs, she tried to forget it by busying herself over
" L'Allemagne," the finest of her philosophical works,
and the production of her ripest intellect.
Her very limited circle of friends, and the total
absence of anything like pubhc interest or amusement,
rendered desirable every means of relaxation available
in a family circle. Her dramatic talent, whose childish
exhibitions had provoked the tears of Marmontel, now
operated to beguile the tedium of her circumscribed

300 LIFE AND TIMES OF
existence. She composed many little pieces, some of
them bearing the stamp of her peculiar genius, and
these productions she and her friends acted in her
house at Coppet. Thus, varied by alternate amuse
ment and study, two quiet years wore away.
She had by this time completed her greatest work,
her three volumes on Germany, the fruit of six years'
toil and study. Germany was at that time very little
known to the French, and a kind of polite contempt
for its literature went, as is usual, hand in hand with
complete ignorance of it. Information on this inte
resting subject Madame de Stael felt convinced would
open up many sources of thought and feeling in
France ; she also wished, by giving some shght
account of the different philosophical systems which
divided the great intellects of Germany, to win the
attention of her countrymen from that thorough ab
sorption in the material present, into which they
seemed in some danger of falling. Decked with the
brightest jewels of a perfected intellect, her book is a
complete storehouse of lovely sentiments and beautiful
expressions: of philosophical ideas, and religious
emotions. It is not that she has written in a directly
didactic manner; but a sweet influence, like a delicate
perfume, a gentle radiance of genius refined by
Christianity breathes through the whole, and heightens
the power, without impairing the personality of the
writer. Compared with this, her other works resemble
Galatea, before the sculptor's kiss had wanned the
marble into life; "L'Allemagne" is the nymph perfectly
animated, and lovelier than ever for the magical
waking.

MADAME DE STAEL. 301
Her exile still permitted her to approach within
forty leagues of Paris, and bringing her precious
manuscript, she came to the old castle of Chaumont-
sur-Loire, near the city of Blois, a romantic residence,
no less from association than situation ; it having been,
successively, the home of Cardinal d'Amboise, Diana
of Poitiers, Catherine de Medicis, and Nostradamus.
Here, with her two sons, she established herself, to
see her work, as she hoped, through the press; but
her expectations were delusive. More vigorous perse
cution was in store for her.
The press was now under rigorous censorship, and
she no doubt considered herself extremely fortunate
in obtaining permission to publish. Some few pas
sages and expressions were struck out by the autho
rities, and to this she submitted, dropping the objec
tionable sentences, and adding nothing in their places
which could by any chance be construed into a for
feiture of her opinions.
Secure in the possession of a letter from her book
seller, which assured her that the censors had autho
rised the publication of her book, she set out to pay
a visit to her venerable friend, Monsieur Matthieu de
Montmorency, whose great age and childlike piety
would have endeared liim to her, had he not pos
sessed the all-powerful claim of having been her
father's valued acquaintance. She walked with Mon
sieur de Montmorency in the woods surrounding his
house, and conversed, as she might have done with
Monsieur Necker under the more familiar trees of
Coppet. The next evening she left his residence, intending

302 LIFE AND TIMES OF
to return home ; but the monotonous plains of the
Vendomois completely puzzled her people, and she
lost her way. Night had overtaken the little party,
and uncertain what course to pursue, she was not
sorry to see a horseman approaching, to whom she
confided her difficulty, which was met by a courteous
invitation to accept the shelter of his father's chateau,
not far distant. She joyfully acknowledged the kind
ness, and accompanied Monsieur Chevalier to his
house, where she received a hearty welcome, and was
treated with great politeness.
The next day Monsieur de Montmorency, who had
been informed of her accident, forwarded her a note
from her son, which begged her instantly to return
home, as her book had encountered fresh difficulties.
But she anticipated only some trifling objections, and
being amused by the Indian treasures belonging to
her host, delayed her departure several hours in order
the better to examine them.
The interference was, however, a much more serious
thing. The young Baron de Stael, ever devoted to
his mother, and anxious that she did not return,
mounted his horse, and went in search of her. He,
too, lost his way in the plain ; and, oddly enough,
happened to inquire at the gate of the very house
into which she had been received. He left his sad
message with one of her friends, and hurried home to
put her papers in a place of safety. The next morn
ing, she was told that the police agents had destroyed
the ten thousand copies of her work already printed,
and had issued an order commanding her to leave
France within three days.

MADAME DE STAEL. 303
This blow, coming when she had flattered herself
she was secure, was almost more than she could bear.
The flagrant injustice of first sanctioning the publica
tion, and subsequently cutting the work in pieces,
seemed to her so insulting, that she lost all her self-
command, and shed a flood of bitter tears. These
were of no avail but to relieve her overladen heart.
She was compelled to go, and being forbidden to em
bark from any port on the Channel coast, lest she
should come to England, she chose to return to Coppet,
which contained at least one mournful attraction —
her dear father's grave.

CHAPTER XLII.

The children of Madame de Stael had inherited the
almost religious filial tenderness which was so distin
guished an element in her own character.
Her elder son was fourteen years of age at the
time of Monsieur Necker's decease, and could well
remember his mother's devotion to her father; the
younger son and his sister were also old enough to
retain some recollections of the same kind. It seems
as if her little family loved to repay her with the
same affection wherewith she had consoled the old
age of their grandfather. She had laboured to keep
her idol before the eyes of her children ; on the
Sundays, she instructed them in religion by reading
to them from his works on the subject ; she lost no
opportunity of presenting to them the beloved image.
When she sent Auguste to Paris, to pursue his studies

304 LIFE AND TIMES OF
at a private academy, previously to his entering the
Polytechnic School, she bade him adieu, telling him
he was but a year younger than Necker when he
first arrived in the capital, where he had built up the
fortune which had raised his family to consequence.
She had heard a bad report of the pupils at the school
to which she sent her son ; but she must trust him to
keep a watch over himself, and to inform her if he
found his moral sense losing its dehcacy. He must
remember his grandfather's example.
The earnest young lad, so early the sharer of the
exile's anxieties, answered all her wishes: grave and
melancholy beyond his years, he devoted himself to
his studies with determined ardour, hoping that a
brilliant examination might soften the resentment of
her enemies. He had the satisfaction of being assured
that the authorities had never seen a candidate so
perfectly successful; but his wish on his mother's
account was vain.
He was trusted to act in her affairs at an age too
early for his own enjoyment of youth : his premature
participation in the cares of life quelled his gaiety,
but he never deceived her expectations. While yet
a child, he was wise, gentle, and persevering beyond
many men. Madame de Stael was a woman who
needed the support of a stronger arm than her own ;
when her father failed her, she seemed to depend on
her son.
In the year 1808, when Napoleon passed through
Savoy, young de Stael, then seventeen years of age,
secured a personal interview with the emperor, and
pleaded eloquently on his mother's behalf. One can-

MADAME DE STAEL. 305
not but admire the heroism inspired by the natural
affections, which could bear such a youth through an
ordeal dreaded by many older persons, who had to
deal, face to face, with the Man of Destiny. But
Napoleon was inflexible ; he playfully took the young
baron by the ear, and told him he liked to hear a son
plead for his mother, but that he would not have
Madame de Stael in Paris. " Paris is my home," he
said ; " I will have there only those who love me : to a
residence in any other European capital she is welcome.
Naples, Rome, Vienna, London" (with a sneer);
" but she will not do at Paris — she lost me the tri
bunate, I will take care that she do me no more
mischief." After a conversation which lasted an hour,
the poor young man was dismissed to acquaint his
mother with the failure of his effort.
Having detailed to her his requests, and the em
peror's replies, he says fondly, "Dear, and ever dearest
mamma, does not all this seem very cold to you ? But
indeed I tried to speak with energy."
The spoilt career of such a son was one of her
greatest troubles ; had he been an Englishman, to what
honourable employ might he not have looked forward?
The idea that her children could anticipate nothing
but a share in her exile was a terrible temptation to
give up her consistency. For the honour of human
nature be it said, that not even this most powerful
motive ever succeeded in inducing her to swerve from
the painful path of truth and duty.
Exhausted by sorrow and persecution, she returned
to Coppet after the infamous suppression of the book
to which she had attached so much value, and on
x

306 LIFE AND TIMES OF
whose success she had staked many hopes. As she
approached her father's resting-place, a rainbow sud
denly spanned the roof of the house, and her sad heart,
eager for some relief, seized on this beautiful accident
as a presage of happiness to come. This time she was
not deceived.
Her first marriage, excepting that it had given her
three loving children, had been fruitful only in dis
appointment: without blaming her own parents for
their share in that transaction, she was accustomed to
say, playfully, " I shall force my daughter to make a
marriage of inclination." The example of her father
had led her to look on love in marriage as one of the
greatest blessings in life ; and with reference to herself,
she had said, alluding to her intended visit to England,
that if she met with a noble character in that country,
she would sacrifice her liberty. There was no reason,
indeed, why she should not contract a second marriage ;
every insult offered to her seemed to hint that she
needed a protector.
A young man, of good family, who had been fight
ing under Bonaparte in Spain, exhausted by his
wounds and the weakness consequent upon them,
had come to Geneva to recruit his health, and was
there when Madame de Stael came into Switzerland
in 1810. His frail condition, and the desperate
wounds he had received, wTould have excited the pity
of a harder heart than hers; she addressed to him
some simple words of consolation, which had an effect
she had not contemplated. The young soldier forgot
his weakness when she pitied him, her glorious na
ture filled him with sympathy, and he had not seen her

MADAME DE STAEL. 307
many times before he loved her. Very early in their
acquaintance he said to one of his friends, " I shall
love her so much that she must marry me ;" and he
devoted himself to the fulfilment of his plan. He
succeeded so well as to induce her to unite herself to
him; and whether her desire to retain a name she
had made illustrious, or what other motive, induced
her to keep her marriage secret, it is not easy to say;
but it is certain that she committed this unjustifiable
step, and the fact that not all her talent was equal to
the difficulties of such a situation, may well convince
us that a concealed marriage is a fraud on society,
whose evil consequences no care can obviate. There
is one excuse to be made, which has never yet been
offered, we believe, in her behalf. The vexatious in
terference of Napoleon in the most sacred connexions
of her life might warrant the fear that, if he knew of
the marriage, he would claim Monsieur Rocca as his
soldier, and thus deprive her of the companion she
had chosen. She may have had this idea ; if so, it
proved true in the sequel. We say thus much, not
in defence, but in palliation. Any subterfuge regard
ing what ought to be a connexion recognised by
society, is to our mind a fault which nothing can
justify. She had at one time entertained the design of
sailing in an American vessel, as if she intended to
proceed thither, and of seizing the first chance of
putting back to England. But the government now
exercised such a close supervision of her actions, that
she felt afraid to undertake the risk, lest at the last
moment the authorities should pretend to discover
x 2

308 LIFE AND TIMES OF
that she meant to come to England, the compassing
of which measure, without the permission of the
minister of police, would suffice to throw her into
prison. Once under Bonaparte's key, only the fall of
his power or her death would release her from cap
tivity. Worn and weary as she was, the latter, 'at
that time, appeared by far the more probable event.
, She therefore almost resigned herself to expect
nothing but to remain at Coppet, with the children
whose hindered prospects were not the least part of
her sufferings. Her sons would have interceded for
her before she left France, and actually went to Fon-
tainebleau for that purpose, but were threatened with
arrest if they refused to abandon their project.
Madame de Stael had not long entered on her new
exile, before the prefect of Geneva received orders to
signify to the young baron and his brother, that they
would not be permitted to visit France without spe-.
cial leave from the police. This, under their mother's
present circumstances, they were not very likely to
obtain. Exile, which even the manly mind of Bolingbroke
considered a punishment scarcely inferior to death,
must be bitter enough under the least unfavourable
circumstances ; but when, in addition to personal dis
tress, the sight of a family condemned to inaction
completes the sum of sorrow, there are few misfortunes
which could not be better endured. To say that
many persons every day leave their native land to
reside in distant parts of the globe, voluntarily in
curring the necessity of bidding adieu to all the ties
of childhood and youth, is utterly beside the mark.

MADAME DE STAEL. 309
What is it we love in our country? Surely not the
mere material acres that compose it, but the laws and
institutions under which we have been nurtured, the
associations of history, of religion, of friendship, of
kindred. We love her heroes, her martyrs, her social
reformers. Now the man who leaves his fatherland
to establish himself in a remote place, may bear with
him the most sacred regard for all these things, and
may be considered a true patriot if he attempt to sow
at the antipodes the seeds of knowledge and freedom
imparted to him at home. He may even nurse the
idea that by extending the influence of his land abroad
he is doing her more service than he could otherwise'
perform. He carries with him hope, energy, capability,
and desire for action. Besides this, his determination
is voluntary: the fruit of his circumstances, or his
ambition to enlarge his means. Heaven forbid that
the emigrant's lot be compared with that of the exile !
The former is fulfilling the divine command, " Subdue
the earth ;" the other suffers the sentence of the first
murderer, which even the heart hardened against fra
ternal instinct felt so keenly that the criminal bitterly
declared it to be greater than he could bear. There
is all this difference between the two.

310 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER XLIII.
Not very long after Madame de Stael's last exile
began, the prefect of Geneva, who had shown some
little moderation in carrying out the imperial orders
affecting her, was deprived of his place, and was suc
ceeded by a person whose one ambition was to recom
mend himself to his superiors ; such a desire could not
but weigh very heavily on the little liberty that yet
remained to the family at Coppet.
On this worthy's introduction to Madame de Stael,
he expended much effort to induce her to write some
thing in praise of Napoleon; he assured her flatter
ingly that the kind of enthusiasm she had exhibited in
" Corinne" was precisely the talent to illustrate such a
splendid subject as the emperor. She very modestly
answered, that persecuted as she was, any panegyric
from her pen would look like servility, and added,
that she was certain the emperor would despise any
such tribute. Of this she could not convince him ; he
asserted that four little pages would end all her annoy
ances, and honoured her with several visits, each time
pressing the theme upon her with greater warmth.
The birth of Napoleon's son seemed to him an irre
sistible occasion, but she told him the subject had no
inspiration for her ; she must confine her compliment
to the wish that the king of Rome might have a good
nurse.

MADAME DE STAEL. 311
During the summer of 1811, her younger son was
seized with a complaint which rendered necessary the
baths of Aix. Aix is in Savoy, at a distance of about
twenty leagues from Coppet ; and having warned the
prefect of her little journey, she set out at a season
when the baths were very little frequented. She had
been in this dull little place waiting on her invalid son
just ten days, when a courier from the prefect of
Geneva ordered her home again. The prefect of
Mont Blanc — a French Dogberry it may appear —
instantly imbibed the alarm of his brother in au
thority, and Aix being in his department, he was
violently afraid lest this dangerous woman should
escape thence to London, to write against the em
peror, and even took the precaution to send gendarmes
along the road to forbid her the use of post-horses.
All this against one little goose-quill ! How near
Savoy the prefect may have imagined London to lie,
history does not tell us.
Her situation became daily more painful ; on her
return from this trip to Aix, her prefect, who seems
to have had a malevolent influence, like some of the
frightful Genu in the Arabian tales, gave her to under
stand that she was henceforth forbidden to travel in
any place allied to France. As the fraternal arms of
that country were then perpetually grasping some new
state, it might soon become difficult to stir from
Coppet at all.
No longer able to use her pen with the slightest
hope of letting the world see what she did ; for, as
she says, if Napoleon forbade a publication, no con
tinental state then dared hazard it ; she was reduced

312 LIFE AND TIMES OF
to her family for every amusement and occupation ot
life. The presence of Monsieur Schlegel, whose
labours to forward the education of her sons she
counted of great value, still afforded her such conver
sation as might keep in healthy condition a mind
whose activity in solitude preyed on itself. Such an
advantage, however, Napoleon was not inchned to
spare his enemy ; he took occasion to banish Schlegel
from Coppet and from Geneva.
That accomplished man had brought out, some
time before, a pamphlet in which, comparing Racine's
" Phaedra" with the tragedy of Euripides bearing the
same title, he had awarded the palm to the work of the
Greek author. This afforded Napoleon the puerile
excuse that Schlegel's presence was calculated to make
Madame de Stael anti-French ; and her retirement
was shorn of its principal alleviation. She had still,
it is true, her children and Monsieur Rocca; but on
the first, though they generously consoled her, she
could scarcely look without self-questioning and
reproach ; and the devoted affection of her young
husband rendered still more distressing to her his con
tinued ill-health, the consequence of the frightful
wounds he had received in Spain.
Shut up to sorrow and grief, she daily studied the
map of Europe, to plan some means of escape from
her oppressor; and such means became daily more
difficult to compass. Her present situation was too
exasperating to be long borne ; she was shunned by her
neighbours, and if they, with a few honourable excep
tions, had not taken care to avoid her, she was too
generous to show them any attention. To accept a

MADAME DE STAEL. 313
seat at her dinner table, required, she says, an act of
Roman heroism ; so certain was her visitor to be
marked for the displeasure of the emperor. As in
England in the sad days of the plague, people hurried
away when they heard the melancholy beU announcing
the vicinity of the fatal dead-cart, so her acquaintances
carefully stood aloof from her ; consoling themselves, no
doubt, with the idea, that as her conscience was clear
of any guilt, she could not really be unhappy in solitude.
To understand all the annoyances of her situation, we
ought to possess her gay, kindly, social disposition,
which rejoiced in hospitality, and revelled in pleasant
company, as a selfish man rejoices over his egotism.
People in quarantine, she tells us, sometimes mis
chievously fling a handkerchief to a passing stranger,
that he too may share the ennui of detention. With
something of the same spirit, when Madame de Stael
found how the place-hunters shunned her, she was par
ticularly careful to show them more than ordinary
pohteness, if she happened to encounter them in the
streets of Geneva; the only place by which she now held
any connexion with the great world she had formerly
known. She smiled to see how these slaves of a court- '
appointment shuddered at her greetings. The pre
fect had given out that whoever wished to stand
favourably with Napoleon would do well to avoid
visiting Madame de Stael, and we may be certain the
hint was readily taken.
To see her acquaintance and society thus blight all
it touched, was a severe affliction to a creature so
generous. Beside this, she was in mortal terror of a
prison, which was certainly at no great distance from

314 LIFE AND TIMES OF
such a state of exile as hers. " I know," sh<
pathetically, " that I am not a courageous woman ;
my imagination, which heightens my every sense of
enjoyment and happiness, paints in frightful colours
all the evils that may befall me." The opinion that
she was not courageous is one we cannot echo. We
have formerly attempted to show that her courage
was the fruit of self-conquest ; and we now argue
that it was therefore all the more worthy of respect,
None but a courageous woman could have faced the
police, when they made their domiciliary visit in
search of De Narbonne ; none but a courageous
woman would have behaved as she did, in begging so
many lives from the revolutionary tyrants. All these
efforts, however, were for others ; and it is certain
that she was less brave when only her own interest
was concerned. This could scarcely impair her cou
rage now, for it was evident that the fate of her
children was wrapped up with her own.
Every circumstance of her life led her to consider
more and more seriously a plan of flight ; but to leave
the abode her father's industry had bought for his
family, and the grave consecrated by the last sleep of
her parents, required an effort she had not yet nerved
herself to make. She considered the subject in many
lights, often deciding it overnight, and debating it
afresh in the morning, as if it presented itself to her
for the first time. These cruel incertitudes and pain
ful hesitations are no mean part of the exile's lot.
She wras constantly harassed by these difficulties,
when she received a letter from the aged Monsieur
de Montmorency, to inform her that he intended to

MADAME DE STAEL, 315
pay her a visit. In spite of the emperor's displeasure
towards all who came to see her, she thought that a
hfe entirely unconnected with politics, and devoted
exclusively to works of piety and charity, must pre
vent any interference, even though her venerable
friend came to Coppet. And who can blame her
for not having much dissuaded him from his amiable
purpose ?
The prefect of Geneva had already recommended
her to confine her travels to a circle embracing two
leagues around Coppet; but she disputed the right of
the French to interfere with her proceedings in Swit
zerland, and as she had received no formal order on
the subject, concluded herself at liberty to meet
Monsieur de Montmorency at Orbe, and to return by
Fribourg to Coppet. The hints of Bonaparte's sub
alterns, however, like royal invitations, were generally
taken in the light of commands, and to contravene
them was merely to provoke a more decided inter
ference. After a little tour, which embraced a visit
to the Trappist convent, near Fribourg, and the sight
of a famous waterfall, she came back to Coppet, no
doubt a little relieved by the soothing effect of De
Montmorency's society and conversation ; for he took
a vivid interest in her, and talked to her of the reli
gion which he lived only to cultivate : striving to
lessen the pangs of her mortal suffering by repre
senting to her that beautiful land, where "the wicked
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."
On her return, her prefect was ready for her. He
intimated that she had committed a great audacity
in making a tour in Switzerland, and had positively

316 LIFE AND TIMES OF
infringed orders by treading on ground belonging to
France. She had forgotten that the waterfaU she
visited was already part of the French territory.
Somehow Napoleon's taste for annexation recalls to
us the notable Dragon of Wantley, whose appetite
was universal, and spared nothing.
The few days which Monsieur de Montmorency had
intended to spend at Coppet were not allowed to
elapse in peace. On the return of the post which had
carried to Paris the news of this estimable man's visit
to the daughter of his old friend, the prefect had the
business of bearing to Coppet an order of exile for the
aged Christian, whose only offence was fidelity to a
woman in adversity. He received the cruel command
with resignation, and besought his poor hostess to do
the same; but of such calmness she was not capable.
This seemed the last drop in the cup of suffering.
She wept, she agonised, she prayed unceasingly; all
the passionate force of her nature rebeUed against her
wretched fate; her brain reeled, and the dreadful
thoughts which rapidly succeeded each other seemed
to threaten a suspension of her reason. Exhausted
and frightened by the energy of her grief, she had
recourse to opium to relieve her, for an hour or two,
of a load to which she was quite unequal.
She was yet in the strivings of her agony, when she
received a letter from her lovely friend, Madame
Recamier, who remained true to her in all her sor
rows. Madame Recamier announced that she was
coming to the baths of Aix, and should stop on her
way to spend some little time at Coppet. In two
days she expected to arrive.

MADAME DE STAEL. 317
Alarmed lest the fate of De Montmorency should
reward the kindness of this beautiful creature, Ma
dame de Stael sent a messenger to meet her, im
ploring her by all that was dear, not to venture into
a house, to tread whose threshold was to incur disgrace
and banishment. But Madame Recamier had no
idea of passing almost under her friend's windows
without going to see her; if that friend were in dis
tress, the kind lady saw all the greater reason to seek
her out, — she insisted on coming to Coppet, and
spent a day and night there.
Madame de Stael received her with many tears.
Formerly, the presence of this kindly and lovely
woman had inadiated the residence of her gifted
friend; but now her simple intention to fulfil the
commonest duties of friendship might entail on her
an exile, which, from the reverses her fortune had
suffered, would be doubly painful to her.
The inevitable stroke came ; Madame Recamier too
was banished.
"Madame de Stael," said the prefect of Geneva,
" has made for herself an agreeable existence at home ;
her friends, and even foreigners, visit her at Coppet;
the emperor will not suffer things to go on so."
Every indignity short of actual imprisonment now
assailed her. The report was spread that the minister
of police intended to put a guard at the gates of the
avenue of Coppet, to arrest any person who came to
see her; and the few friends she possessed used every
effort to induce her to seek safety in flight.
The prefect assured her that every step she took
was seen by a gendarme, and that the authorities

318 LIFE AND TIMES OF
knew all that went on beneath her roof quite as well
as she did. He was ordered by the emperor, he said,
to surround her with observers.
There is not a falser saying current in society, than
that which asserts that the innocent are quite indif
ferent to any scrutiny which may be applied to them.
There is something so hateful to a generous and high-
toned mind in being constantly watched and suspected
— something so infamous to a person imbued with the
divine instinct of freedom, in finding himself thus
surrounded and spied upon — something so humihating
to the noblest pride of man, in affording occupation
and amusement to a set of mean subalterns of ty
ranny, that the innocent person in such a case is
probably scarcely less unhappy than a guilty one,
whose moral senses are obscured, one may presume,
by his disregard of their promptings. At one moment
her fears urged her to depart, the next she seemed
overwhelmed by a nervous dread of the effort neces
sary to separate her from Coppet. It was a thread
on which all depended ; if she were anested and
brought, back, she could expect only imprisonment,
which would probably endure until a more powerful
monarch than Napoleon ended her earthly sufferings.
Meantime, her prefect told her that any attempt to
escape would infallibly cause her ruin ; that at Berlin
or Vienna she would be claimed and ignominiously
brought back, a prisoner, into Switzerland.
It is impossible that all these troubles should have had
no effect upon her ; her health and her energies began
to yield to the repeated strokes of misfortune which
assailed her ; she was painfully conscious that her

MADAME DE STAEL. 319
moral courage began to pale before the terrors of
despotism. On all sides she heard the cry, " Why
cannot she content herself? She has wealth, a good
table, a garden for recreation, a fine chateau ; what
more is necessary for comfort?"
There is something diviner necessary to sustain the
true life of a human creature ; in how many senses are
the words of scripture true — " Man doth not live by
bread alone."
This truth, like a beacon-light, so plain to us who
walk quietly ashore, but difficult to be seen from a
frail boat out at sea, driven hither and thither by the
winds, and almost overpowered by the force of the
waves — began to grow less clear before the troubled
gaze of our distressed exile. She seemed sometimes
to take an intense and, for her, unnatural delight in
the elements of physical comfort which surrounded
her. To pass the days in peace and repose, to taste
the sunshine, and at night to rest on a pillow of down,
began to take the shape of life to her; to thrust out
the nobler ideal which had formerly inspired her with
eloquence. So true is it that tyranny debases even
the innocent whom it afflicts. But if she had sunk so
low as to be content with mere physical repose — and
she was still far from that — it was quite uncertain how
long even her present condition might remain to her.
Eight months were passed in this mournful situa
tion; every day the idea of a prison became more
horrible to her, every day her actual life grew more
like imprisonment, and yet every day seemed to de
crease her power of breaking the links that bound her
to Switzerland. Already, if she escaped, she could

320 LIFE AND TIMES OF
do it only by crossing Austria, and entering Russia
by way of Poland ; from Russia she could embark for
Sweden, and thence might hope to reach England.
Europe, she says, formerly so open to travellers, was
now one great net, whose meshes entangled one at
every step. The passage through Austria was not
unattended with danger, for it was not to be supposed
that the emperor who had felt compelled to give a
daughter to Napoleon could refuse his son-in-law the
cession of a poor refugee.
Her various and conflicting fears might have held
her longer in hesitation, had not the immense pre
parations of Napoleon for the invasion of Russia
threatened to shut the last door of hope. If he once
gained possession of the ports on the Baltic, her fate
and the fate of her children was decided for ever.
She looked on the two kind, brave sons, whose affec
tion had so relieved her exile, and on the lovely girl,
scarcely fourteen years old, whom it seemed cruel to
keep a prisoner at Coppet : their interest decided her.
She made a convulsive effort, conquered her cowardice,
and on Saturday, the 23rd of May, 1812, set out on
her perilous journey. Before she left, she made a
solemn visit to the tomb of the father whom she had
so fondly loved and honoured, and kneeling before
the gate of his burial-place, spent an hour in solitary
prayer and meditation. Uncertain whether she should
ever again gaze on the place where he had lived, she
piously visited every spot where they had sat, walked,
or talked together, invoking his spirit to sustain and
accompany her, during the dangerous enterprise on
which she was about to enter. She went to his cabinet,

MADAME DE STAEL. 321
where she had preserved everything as he had left it ;
his arm-chair, his papers, were all in their accustomed
places; and these inanimate tokens of a friend de
parted came in for a share of her regrets. His cloak,
which had rested since his death on the very chair
where he had last left it, she took with her, intending
to wrap herself in it if any danger approached her.
Her love, no doubt, endowed it with all the wondrous
power possessed by the prophet's mantle in olden
days. These adieux completed, she seriously addressed
herself to the task before her.

CHAPTER XLIV.
Although the day which saw her safely in Russia
would, no doubt, end her subjection to the tyranny of
Napoleon , it was but a kind of half hberty for which
she hazarded so much. Return to her own country —
her love for which, she says, Bonaparte, not being a
Frenchman, could never understand — was of course
impossible ; that beloved land she could scarcely hope
to see again. But by comparison with her present
state, hberty to live where she pleased out of France,
to go and come when she chose without being sur
rounded by gendarmes was a lot abounding in privi
leges. In those days a gendarme struck her with mortal
terror sooner or later she expected to be arrested
by one of them, and thrown into prison ; perhaps at
Vincennes, where the unhappy Duke d'Enghien had
so foully perished — perhaps in that cold, Alpine

322 LIFE AND TIMES OF
prison where the cruel Toussaint I'Ouverture expiated
his crimes, and where lay many patriotic Spaniards,
who by defending their country had proved traitors to
Bonaparte, and incurred his terrible vengeance. Na
poleon had already left his palace, " which," as Count
Segur says, "he was never again to enter victorious,"
and was giving the meeting at Dresden to the
monarchs of Austria and Prussia, and other chiefs
subservient to him. He brought to that city his
young archduchess, and seemed proudly to taunt his
enemy with all his power and glory. Prudence would
at this time have kept him in France ; for Spain had
rebelled, and, four months before, Ciudad Rodrigo had
been taken by the English, under an illustrious warrior,
worthy to compete with Napoleon in the field, and in
every moral regard incomparably his superior. But
Bonaparte, with fatal obstinacy, disdained the advice
of his generals, and approached the scene of conflict as
if he were returning from a victory. His health did
not second his ambition ; he was now the victim of a
painful disease, and not all his efforts and energy
could hide the fact that he was far less strong than
formerly. His rapid proceedings could not but hasten the
departure of Madame de Stael ; having concerted her
plans with all the prudence possible, taking into her
confidence only two of her servants, of whose fidelity she
was well assured, she left Coppet on the day already
indicated, at two o'clock in the afternoon. She and
her daughter, accompanied by the young Baron de
Stael and Monsieur Rocca, entered her carriage, as if
about to take their ordinary exercise. Mademoiselle

MADAME DE STAEL. 323
de Stael and her mother took their fans in their hands,
and no parcels of any kind, lest they should attract
suspicion; the more completely to disarm which,
Madame de Stael left word with her people that she
intended returning to dinner.
As she drove down the avenue of Coppet, and
realised that she was deserting, most likely for ever,
a house associated with so many and mingled recol
lections, her forces deserted her, and she was
threatened with a fainting-fit. But Monsieur de
Stael, who felt how important it was that his mother
should preserve her presence of mind at this trying
crisis of her affairs, clasped her hand and reminded
her that she was on her way to England. This word
revived her ; although the wonderful conquests of
Bonaparte had made her road from Coppet to
London embrace the traversing of half the continent,
she felt that every step brought her nearer to a land
of freedom.
She had arranged a rendezvous with Monsieur
Schlegel (who had generously offered to be her con
ductor), at a farm-house just beyond Berne; here
too she parted from the baron, who returned to
Coppet to look after her interests there, and to obtain
passports which would enable her to travel through
Austria. This was a delicate undertaking; because, if
they were refused, her plans were known, and further
escape made impossible. In this difficulty the young
man threw himself on the generosity of Monsieur de
Schraut, the Austrian minister, who readily gave him
the passports he required. Monsieur de Stael had
seen his mother so completely deserted by those who
T 2

324 LIFE AND TLMES OF
owed their hfe and fortune to her efforts, that this
kindness from a stranger touched him very deeply.
He had also the satisfaction of sending his brother to
Vienna with servants and a travelling-carriage a few
days after his mother's flight ; and it was only on this
second departure that our wise friend the prefect
began to suspect mischief. So true is it that the
greatest sages are sometimes at fault ! He might
have saved his credit if he had been kindly enough
to favour the supposition that he winked at the escape,
but as matters stand, we are compeUed to conclude
that his boast of knowing all that went on at Coppet
was a little premature, and that this Swiss Machiavel
was really and truly deceived.
When her son left her, Madame de Stael says she
felt inclined to exclaim, in imitation of Lord William
Russell, "the bitterness of death is passed!" but with
the necessity for action her courage revived, and hope,
so long an unknown guest, began to whisper sweetly,
that the days of her mourning were ended. In this
frame of mind she approached the Tyrol, for whose
inhabitants she felt the respect invariably inspired by
a people who are, or who long to be frea
At Inspruck she stopped a few hours to refresh,
and as it was not prudent to seem too anxious about
proceeding, she stayed to inspect the tomb of the
great Maximilian; thence she hurried to Salzburg,
whence she could readily reach the Austrian frontier.
The most redoubtable part of her journey, after the
few miles just beyond Coppet, lay in the passage
from Bavaria into Austria, which road she had yet to
traverse, and where she feared her anxious friend, the

MADAME DE STAEL. 325
prefect, might have preceded her coming by a courier,
who would politely insist on her return to Geneva.
But her health was so cruelly shattered that not all
her eagerness for hberty could conquer her longing
for physical repose; she was compelled to go very
gently, and frequently to arrest her progress alto
gether. As if nothing might be wanting to render this
flight difficult, on entering the inn at Salzburg, a man
approached Monsieur Schlegel, and told him in Ger
man, that a French courier, inquiring after a carriage
from Inspruck, containing a lady and a young girl,
had been at Salzburg a few hours before, and had
engaged to call again for news of any such arrival.
This terrible announcement deprived Madame de
Stael of her little strength. Meantime Schlegel put
fresh questions to his host, and the replies removed
her misfortune beyond the reach of doubt. The
courier was French indubitably. He came from
Munich. He had been to the Austrian frontier in
search of the lady, and not having found her, had
promised to return to enquire for her. He was tra
velling post, and would no doubt arrive very shortly.
In this emergency Madame de Stael took a sudden
resolution to leave her daughter and Monsieur Schle
gel at the inn, together with the carriage and servants,
and to set out alone on foot, entering the first house
where she saw a promising physiognomy, and begging
shelter and rest. Monsieur Schlegel engaged to con
duct Mademoiselle de Stael into Austria; and the
poor persecuted mother, almost exhausted by fear and
trouble, could think of no better plan than to follow

326 LIFE AND TIMES OF
them, as her strength served, on foot, in the disguise
of a peasant-woman.
She was endeavouring to master the chances of
such a course, when the awful courier himself burst
into the room, and turned out to be none other than
Monsieur Rocca; who, after one day's journey, had
been forced to return to Geneva to wind up his affairs
there. With a delightful impudence at which one
cannot but smile, he had seconded his haste to rejoin
his wife, by giving out that he was a French courier
going after a lady, whom he described. The terror
and respect inspired by his assumed office and enand
procured him the quickest horses, and sure relays at
every post. He had thus gone boldly as far as the
Austrian frontier, and had assured himself that no
evil messenger had preceded her on the road. He
now mounted the box of the carriage, to conduct her
to Vienna, and, much relieved by his assurance that
she had nothing to fear, Madame de Stael found her
" cruel terror changed into a very sweet feeling of
security and gratitude."
Before reaching Vienna, the little party stayed for
a day at the Abbey of Melk, which, from the height
on which it stands, commands a view of the smiling
country irrigated by the picturesque windings of the
Danube. She amused herself by treading in the
footsteps of Napoleon, who, from the same terrace
where she walked, had looked abroad on the peaceful
land which was to be invaded by his arms.
A httle calmed by her sense of security and peace,
she arrived at Vienna on the 6th of June, just before
the departure of a courier for Wilna, where the Rus-

MADAME DE STAEL. 327
sian emperor was then staying. The Russian ambas
sador in Vienna behaved to her with the most perfect
kindness ; he wrote by this courier to procure her the
passport from St. Petersburg, which she must have
before crossing the frontier, and assured her that in
less than three weeks she would receive the requisite
papers. These three weeks she resolved to pass in Vienna.
Her Austrian friends, who had received her with the
greatest hospitality, assured her that she might remain
in the city without any dread. The dull solitude of
Coppet, since her stricter exile began, had prepared
her to find pleasure in the society of Vienna. She
says nothing on this occasion of the heaviness of the
social life, but confesses that she found herself in
the midst of a circle of acquaintances who sympa
thised with her. The Austrian emperor was at Dres
den, entertaining Napoleon, whose wife, it is said,
provoked the jealousy of her stepmother, the empress
of Austria, by outdoing her in the splendour of her
costume. Madame de Stael found that the marriage of Maria
Louisa with Napoleon was not much to the taste of
the Austrians. The emperor, in order to escape the
heavy taxes threatened by his conqueror, had capitu
lated by agreeing to give him his daughter; but the
measure was taken without the concurrence of the
people. Monsieur de Metternich was at Dresden with his
master, and in his absence the superintendence of the
foreign police was consigned to a person whose name
need not be mentioned, as he used his " little brief

328 LIFE AND TIMES OF
authority" simply to make himself ridiculous. For
some days Madame de Stael remained in perfect
peace ; she had already passed a winter in Vienna,
very well received by the emperor, the empress, and
all the chief nobility; and it was rather difficult to
persecute her for her disgrace with Napoleon, which
she had partly incurred by her appreciation of the
German manners and literature. But, she tells us, it
was still more difficult to risk displeasing a power for
whom Austria had already sacrificed, so much; and
fresh information arriving on her relations towards
Napoleon, Monsieur de H. thought it his duty to set
spies to watch her. His manner of doing this par
took strangely of German slowness, and French cun
ning. He posted spies at her door, who followed her
on foot when her coachman drove at a moderate pace,
and who took cabriolets to look after her when she
made a little trip into the country, or travelled at a
rate quicker than ordinary. The whole value of
Napoleon's system of police depending on its secrecy,
this wretched imitation of it could not but afford her
some amusement.
It was troublesome, nevertheless. She felt con
vinced she could only save herself by flight, and her
friends began to excite her fears on the subject of her
Russian passport. They dreaded, lest, after several
months' detention in Vienna, the Declaration of War
might render it impossible to proceed. This idea ex
cessively alarmed her. There was only one route
which was altogether independent of Russia, and this
was one which had been already used by the Archduke
Francis. The Archduke Francis had been compelled

MADAME DE STAEL. 329
to travel on horseback — a thing very easy to him, but
impossible to Madame de Stael, whose timidity made
her a poor rider. There were other reasons for avoid
ing this road ; it was replete with dangers and infested
with thieves, and the adoption of it presupposed a
separation from her daughter, who was much too
young to bear a protracted and dangerous journey.
But she had many objections to leave Mademoiselle
de Stael.
And yet it was necessary she should decide on
some course, for it was not very likely she could
remain in Vienna when the French ambassador came
back from Dresden. In this strait she applied to
the Russian minister, who had already stood her
friend, to give her the means of reaching Odessa,
whence she might get to Constantinople, and so at
tain her destination by Greece, Sicily, Cadiz, and
Lisbon. Yet the first step in this route demanded a
Russian passport equally with the other course, Odessa
belonging to that empire.
Uncertain on which plan to decide, she applied at
the Foreign Office for a passport which would enable
her to leave Austria by either Hungary or Galicia, as
her convenience should determine. This she found
impossible ; the authorities were not able to give a
passport of this kind. Thus driven, she decided on
Galicia, and, in accordance with the advice of her
friends, at once left Vienna, after obtaining the pro
mise of a person in whom she confided, that he would
ride after her, night and day, with the important
missive, so soon as it should arrive from St. Peters
burg.

330 LIFE AND TIMES OF
From Monsieur Rocca she had been compelled to
separate ; for Napoleon had sent a description of him
all along the route, with orders for his arrest in the
quality of a French officer. Yet the young man was
quite incapacitated for service, and had some time
before thrown up his commission. This new piece of
tyranny was no doubt provoked by some information
which had reached the emperor regarding the rela
tions of Rocca with Madame de Stael. However that
might be, the young man was obliged to precede,
alone and in disguise, the wife he longed to protect.
A meeting-place had been appointed, as we shall see.
In his absence, Monsieur Schlegel and Albert de Stael
conducted the poor lady and her daughter. The
baron, as we have noted, had returned to Coppet, to
attend to his mother's pecuniary interests, and was
paying the penalty of her escape by a little imprison
ment, such as she had suffered.
She hoped, in leaving Vienna, to escape from the
state of espionnage (thank Heaven, there is no English
for that!) in which she had been hving, and which,
no doubt, was excited by the ill-will of the French
government. In this hope she was mistaken : she
stayed a day or two at Brunn, the capital of Moravia,
and found the difficulties of her situation rather
augmenting than diminishing. Not only was she
tormented with anxiety about the passport, which had
not yet arrived, but those she had brought from
Vienna, though perfectly correct, were looked on
with suspicion. She begged that her son might be
permitted to return to the city she had left, and
explain her condition to some person in authority.

MADAME DE STAEL. 331
The answer was, that neither her son nor any of the
party would be allowed to retrace a single league of
their road. She was also bidden to traverse Galicia
as quickly as possible, stopping at Lanzut (whither
she intended to call) no more than four-and-twenty
hours. Thus pressed, though without the means of
leaving Austria, she was in a state of some per
plexity.

CHAPTER XLV.

The independence of Poland was made Napoleon's
excuse for this war with Russia : how much he really
cared about her freedom, may be judged by the fact
that the third of Poland belonged to his father-in-
law, and with this portion he expressly declared he
did not intend to interfere. Austria now held, there
fore, a most anomalous position : she was, on the one
hand, tyrannising over part of Poland, and on the
other, raising soldiers to avenge her enslavement by
Russia. Madame de Stael endeavoured to represent to the
governor of Moravia, that, if she were thus compelled
to approach the frontier without the means of clearing
it, she must spend her life at Brody, a town between
the two empires, inhabited chiefly by Jews, who
supported themselves by the carriage of merchandise.
All her horror at such a necessity, the official in ques
tion would not probably understand; he merely
bowed, apologised, and appealed to his instructions.
She further urged, that as Austria had sent Prince

332 LIFE AND TIMES OF
Schwartzenberg at the head of thirty thousand men to
fight for the re-establishment of Poland, she was
puzzled to know why she was precluded remaining some
longer time at Lanzut, the estate of a Pohsh princess
well affected towards Austria. Her remonstrances,
however, served no purpose, but to vent a little honest
resistance. She set out for Galicia completely de
prived of spirits ; tyranny seemed to pursue her
wherever she went ; and the Germans, whom she had
formerly known so candid and openhearted, seemed de
praved by their subjection to the French, whose worst
qualities they tried to imitate. The journey through
Poland was not calculated to revive her : the educa
tion of the people she found miserably defective, and
their condition, of course, lamentable. The Jews, she
says, filled all the posts of industry, and were accus
tomed to buy of the peasants, for a supply of brandy,
the harvest of the year. And the contrast between
the luxury of the nobles, and the sordid poverty of
the lower classes, painfully affected her. The country
seemed inhabited by three sorts of people, who ran
round her carriage at every halt. These were Jewish
merchants, Polish beggars, and German spies. The
processions of psalm-singers, carrying the standard of
the cross, and bearing in their countenance every sign
of misery; and the abject servility of the common
people, who crowded round every person of respectable
appearance, bending to embrace his knees, were also
features in the scene. In the midst of such dismal
spectacles, she saw a man or two, in old coats, keeping
guard over misery: for these spies could see little
beside. Such wretched subalterns refused passports

MADAME DE STAEL. 333
to the Polish nobility, who were obliged to present
themselves once a week, to answer for their presence.
No device more odiously offensive to a proud race,
could possibly be chosen.
Her own situation, however, engrossed her chief
thoughts. The route she had taken obliged her to
have her passport examined at every third stage by
the captain of the circle. In the police-offices of every
such town, she found herself placarded, and read
directions to the authorities to survey her strictly as
she went through. This was performed after the
German fashion; at the offices a corporal or a clerk,
sometimes both (pipe in mouth), would come out to
stare at her ; and after making the tour of the car
riage, retired in silence. The publicity of these police
advertisements amused her : she says they recalled to
her memory our old friend, Monsieur de Sartines, of
geographical memory, who, while lieutenant of pohce,
wisely proposed putting the spies into uniform. Mean
time, she went as slowly as possible in order to be
overtaken by the important Russian passport. Her
path lay through roads of which only they who have
travelled in Poland can form any idea It was a
melancholy kind of journey, though it had hope at
the end. One morning as she, accompanied by her
son, crossed a kind of desert, she was saluted in
French by a man on horseback ; before she could
reply, he was already at some distance, but this simple
accident recalled a flood of recollections concerning
the country whose government so persecuted her.
The character of the Poles she considered pleasing;
the servants of the Austrian government seemed like

334 LIFE AND TIMES OF
men of wood, compared with the mobile and kindly
race they were sent to manage. The greatest con
trasts met in the social condition of the people; some
of the houses most remarkable for elegance did not
contain a single bed; in others, though the inhabitants
had neither meat nor white bread, she found exqui
site Hungarian wine, and perfumes thrown on the
hearths to scent the atmosphere.
From the consideration of these painful contrasts,
she was recalled by the arrival of the long-expected
Russian passport, a circumstance which gave her in
tense pleasure. Her Viennese friends also assured her
that they had prevailed on the government to inter
fere and prevent the annoyances to which she was
subjected by the pohce. But the circular which had
commanded the captains of circles to watch her had
not been recalled, and the mere word of the minister
availed little against positive orders. She forgot this
probability, and considered that the kindness of her
friends had put it in her power to stay at Lanzut with
Princess Lubomirska, according to her first intention.
Here she meant to stay two days, a period of rest
which her exhausted strength imperatively demanded.
She had determined to go on, after this repose, with
the greatest possible haste, because everywhere she
heard the news that war was already declared between
France and Russia. It was early in July that Ma
dame de Stael arrived at the chief town of the circle
whence Lanzut depends; her carriage stopped, and,
as usual, her son took charge of the passport, and
went to submit it to the authorities. She had suffered
so many disappointments and accidents that we can-

MADAME DE STAEL. 835
not wonder she felt alarmed when a quarter of an hour
elapsed without bringing the return of Monsieur Albert
de Stael. She begged Monsieur Schlegel to ascertain
the cause of the delay. Both the gentlemen returned,
followed by a man, whose features Madame de Stael
never forgot; his stupid face, she says, was veiled by
a broad smile, which gave his physiognomy a mean
and disagreeable expression. Albert de Stael, a young
man of high courage and hasty temper, was enraged
at the news he had to tell. The captain of the circle
declared that only eight hours delay would be allowed
at Lanzut, and that to ensure obedience, an agent of
police would accompany the party to the house of the
princess, remain while they stayed, and see them
safely off! In vain had Albert represented that his
mother's state of fatigue demanded more than eight
hours' rest, and that she was already so overcome with
distress as to render any fresh interference the last
degree of inhumanity. The servile subaltern of a
wretched and demoralising system came up to his
victim, bowing to the ground, and exasperating by his
politeness the woman he insulted by his presence. So
he entered a caleche whose wheels almost touched
those of her carriage; thus accompanied, she was to
enter the house of her friend, where she had fondly
flattered herself she should find a little rest. She
had another reason for alarm ; at Lanzut she was to
join Monsieur Rocca, who had gone there to await her
coming; and who could tell that this agent of police
might not see and arrest him? In his present weak
state, a few months imprisonment would infallibly end
his days. Added to these sources of wretchedness,

336 LIFE AND TIMES OF
was a feeling of intense anger and indignation, a kind
of mental fever of which, perhaps, only the victims
of injustice have an adequate idea. To hear these
wheels close on her own, to know that this miserable
servant of oppressors was to sit as a spy at her friend's
table, to dog her every step, and note her every ges
ture, was too much. Before she attained her desti
nation, she was seized with a nervous attack of so
violent a nature, that her son and Schlegel were
obliged to take her out of the carriage, and lay her
by the road-side. The agent sent his servant for a
little water to revive her, and she says she hated
herself for the weakness that provoked his detestable
pity. After a time she recovered sufficiently to pro
ceed, and the two carriages entered the courtyard of
the chateau together.
Prince Henry Lubomirska, nephew to her hostess,
quite unprepared for any such visitor as the obsequious
agent, came forward joyfully to greet her. But she
was helpless from terror, and well might she be so,
for Rocca came rushing from the house, eager to
assure himself of her safety. Happily a Polish gen
tleman, who happened to be present, saw there was
something in Rocca's appearance which distressed
Madame de Stael, and he managed to cover the re
treat of the poor husband, before the pohce agent
discerned his presence.
After supper, the commissary pohtely approached
Monsieur de Stael, and told him, in the softest way,
that he had received orders to watch during the night
in Madame's bedchamber, to see that she held no
conversations of a treasonable nature ; but, he added,

MADAME DE STAEL. 337
that out of regard to the lady, he should not press
this point.
The young man was maddened by the treatment
his mother received, and he answered, angrily, " You
may as well add, out of regard to yourself ; for if you
dare to plant a foot in Madame de Stael's bedcham
ber, I, her son, will fling you out of window."
This a little frightened the agent. He bowed
lower than ordinary, and ejaculating, " Ah ! Monsieur
le Baron," was shown to his room. The next morning
at breakfast, Prince Henry's secretary took possession
of him, and kept him so occupied with the delicacies
of the table, that there seemed every probability of
his being willing to remain a few extra hours ; but
Madame de Stael felt humiliated by his presence
under her friend's roof, and she left in haste, not half
refreshed, and without having time to see the lovely
gardens and pictures for which the chateau of Lanzut
was famous. She says she shed tears of bitterness
at the circumstances in which she was compelled to
appear. After all these annoyances, she arrived safely
at the capital of Galicia, and obtained an order to go
into Russia. When she cleared the barrier which
separates the two empires, she took a secret oath
never again to enter a country subject to Napoleon.
By a rather odd coincidence, she entered Russia on
the 14th of July, the anniversary of the Revolution.
The person who first received her in Russia, hap
pened to be a Frenchman, formerly in Necker's
employ. This man spoke to her, with tearful eyes, of
her father ; and such a reception seemed to her affec
tionate heart an omen of good fortune. She was not
z

338 LIFE AND TIMES OF
attended by a single servant who could speak Russian,
and had not a German physician kindly offered to
act interpreter for her, until she found means to
supply the deficiency, she would have been most
awkwardly situated. She was delighted with the
hospitality shown by the people to a woman who
spoke the language of their enemies.
The direct route to St. Petersburg she could not
travel, for it was already occupied by the armies ; she
found she must go by way of Moscow. This was two
hundred leagues out of her nearest line, but she had
become so accustomed to winding roads, that this
seemed a trifle. She was out of Austria — out of
danger. The first province she had to cross, that of Vol-
hynia, is part of Russian Poland : the country is
fertile, and much less miserable than Gahcia, though,
like it, ovemm with Jews. She had a letter to a
Polish nobleman here, which she presented, but was
advised to proceed as soon as possible, because the
French were expected to arrive in the course of a week.
That immense army, of which so small a portion
hved to return to France, was already rapidly ap
proaching. She was, indeed, half afraid of being
overtaken by them, and would have turned south
ward to Odessa, had not her son persuaded her that
her strength would scarcely bear the fatigues neces
sarily involved in such a course. She therefore wisely
determined to continue her journey through Russia,
with all possible speed.
The next place of consequence was Kiev, the chief
town in the Ukraine, and formerly the capital of the

MADAME DE STAEL. 339
country, at a time when the Russians had many rela
tions with the Constantinopolitan Greeks, and other
eastern peoples. Of these connexions Madame de Stael
fancied she could trace many remains in the character
of the present Russians, who, according to her think
ing, have much more in common with the southern
and eastern than with the northern nations.
The Ukraine struck her as a fertile, but not an
agreeable country; vast tracts of land are occupied
by crops of grain, but there is scarcely a house or a
human being to be seen. When she reached Kiev, the
houses, which are built in wood after the figure of a
tent, presented a perfectly novel sight, and the green
and gilt cupolas of the churches, when lighted up by
the sun, seemed to her more hke a hohday illumina
tion than real parts of a city. The Russian native
costume, which partakes somewhat of the oriental
character, also attracted her attention.
Meantime her Russian coachmen drove with incre
dible swiftness through large tracts of monotonous
country; not varied, for they occurred at too regular
intervals, by sandy plains, a few forests of birch, and
villages immensely far apart, the houses of which
seemed nevertheless to have been all built on the same
model. She was passed on the road by large bodies of
Cossacks, going towards the theatre of war. They
carried in their hands long lances, and wore a kind of
gray cloak, the hood of which was drawn over the
head. They looked, she thought, like ghosts.
She reached the government of Toula, and now felt
quite out of danger. Her reception here much pleased
z 2

240 LIFE AND TIMES OF
her. Several gentlemen came to her inn to compli
ment her on her writings; and she confesses, with her
usual frankness, that she was delighted to find her
literary reputation extending so far north. " Zulma,
the priestess of Apollo, is still well pleased to be ad
mired." The governor's wife received her in the Asiatic
fashion, presenting her with sherbet and roses. The
saloon was elegantly ornamented with pictures and
musical instruments; and not only from the governors,
but from all with whom she had to deal, she experi
enced noble hospitality. The admixture of the orien
tal element was very fascinating to the imagination
of Madame de Stael, who dehghted in everything
vivid and picturesque. Setting aside her admiration
for the patriotism of the nobles, who cheerfully made
large sacrifices to support the charges of the war, she
does not seem to have formed a very high opinion of
the national character.
At last, after traversing a great plain, the gilded
cupolas of Moscow — so soon to blaze otherwise than
with the sunlight — met the weary gaze of our fugitive,
who was delighted thus to complete another most
important step in her long journey. The size of the
city, and the many eastern associations, the public
buildings, including the Kremlin — the old residence
of the czars — where, a month afterwards, Napoleon
took up his quarters ; and the churches, some of them
full of national memories, occupied the brief space of
her stay, and might have induced her to delay, had
not the fear of the countrymen whose society she had
spent her life in regretting, urged her rapidly north-

MADAME DE STAEL. 341
wards. During her visit to Moscow, she dined with
Count Rostopschin, whose name has become histori
cal, from the circumstance of his having, on the
approach of the French army, set fire with his own
hand to his elegant and lovely residence. She had
also time for a very hurried meeting with the few
literary men in Moscow. In this hne, however, there
was nothing to give much delight.
The road from Moscow to St. Petersburg was very
bad,* being of a sandy nature; and on the falling of
rain, it was immediately converted into mud, so that
there existed considerable difficulty in finding the
high-road. By the gradual disappearance of the
birch-trees, Madame de Stael could trace her north
ward progress. There was something in the sterility
of the north which seemed to oppress her spirits. In
England, and North Germany (though it is not fair
positively to compare either with Russia in this
respect), the want of the southern richness of nature
was compensated by great social and intellectual trea
sures; in Russia, these also were wanting. She be
longed truly to the south and east by her passionate
nature, extreme mobility, and the delicacy of her
organs. The fragrance of a rose, a fair sky, an elegant
dance, a beautiful face, sufficed at any moment to give
her pleasure ; even when she records the banishment
of Madame Recamier, she cannot help calling her
" my beautiful friend ;" and during her flight in Russia,
she does not forego the inspection of objects of love
liness, or forget to chronicle her picturesque impres-
* It is now macadamised the whole distance.

342 LIFE AND TIMES OF
sions. This force of the sensuous pleasures is the
dower of the southern and eastern nations.
On the other hand she had a strong reflective
nature, and a power of analysing her mental operations
which belongs to the graver northern countries ; from
this mingling of aptitudes and faculties we believe
much of her fascinating power as a writer to spring, and
dare venture to say that the more her works are stu
died the clearer this will appear. These elements of
her character form her hero and heroine in " Corinne;"
Oswald is her reflective melancholy northern element,
Corinne the passionate, changeful, eloquent child of
the south ; reassured by a word or a look, but as
easily tormented. Who can study the character of
Madame de Stael, and fail to acknowledge the truth
of this resemblance ? Nevertheless the kindly recep
tion accorded by Russia, and the real but simple
virtues of the people interested her ; it was a land of
liberty to her; and the part which Russia seemed
about to take in contending against Napoleon, of
course, and naturally, disposed her to be very
favourable towards the nation at large. She could
not disguise from herself that the government was
despotic, and a great proportion of the people in
bondage ; nor does she for a moment cease to avow
that these are mighty evils. But her respect for the
character of the emperor Alexander induces her to
say that he administers despotism with a discriminat
ing and gentle rule. Her impressions of St. Peters
burg, the Paris of the north, must be reserved for
the next chapter.

MADAME DE STAEL. 343

CHAPTER XLVI.
From Moscow, Madame de Stael went to Novgorod,
and thence to St. Petersburg. The great effort she
had made to reach the Russian capital, and its com
parative vicinity to her ark of hope — England — pre
pared her to look on all she saw with indulgent eyes ;
and she spent her time here very pleasantly.
Her first sentiment on arriving was one of gratitude
to Providence, who had led her in safety to the sea
shore. There never was a woman who mingled more
than Madame de Stael the warmth of her affections
with her devotional feelings. Her religious sentiment
was touchingly like her love for her father; indeed,
we know that those beautiful words, the hope of
humanity through long generations, " Our Father,"
shut up most of her ideas on this subject.
There is little but marshy land in the immediate
vicinity of St. Petersburg, and as there is no acclivity
whence the city may be anticipated, the traveller
enters it unprepared. To use Madame de Stael's
happy comparison, it seems as if a magician's wand
had suddenly called up in the midst of the desert all
the wonders of Europe and Asia. The building of
St. Petersburg on such a soil she considers the most
forcible proof of the strength of the Russian will, which
knows no impossibility.

344 LIFE AND TIMES OF
The sight of the British flag — "the signal of
liberty," gave her a delightful sense of ease and
security, to which she had been too long a stranger.
We, who are happily able to dwell in perfect peace
and safety, no man daring, or wishing, to make us
afraid, can scarcely comprehend the whole force of her
feelings when she beheld the English standard floating
over the majestic course of the Neva. The immense
quays of granite wherewith Peter the Great had bor
dered the river of his city, and the superb houses,
shining white in the moonlight, like ranks of im
movable phantoms, calmly watching the Sowings of
the silent water, presented a picturesque appearance
which she did not fail to note. The house she occu
pied was just opposite the celebrated statue of Peter,
erected by Catherine II. With this monument,
Madame de StaeTs excellent taste could not, of course,
be altogether pleased. The monarch is represented
on horseback, climbing a steep mountain, whose slope
is covered with serpents which endeavour to arrest his
progress : these reptiles were no necessary part of the
design, but were thrown in to support the immense
weight of the horse and his rider, which could scarcely
be safe on the summit of a block smaller at the top
than at the foundation, unless something were done to
counterbalance the weakness of the tapering height.
The serpents, therefore, representing envy, with whom
he is supposed triumphantly to contend, form a con
venient accessory to the original idea of an equestrian
statue. Madame de Stael says it is not envy which a
sovereign has to fear, and that those who are servile
enough to crawl, are not to be looked on as his

MADAME DE STAEL. 345
enemies; and we may safely add, that everything
which in the development of a thought fails directly
to strengthen it, must be a cause of weakness. Per
haps a statue of Peter on a colossal plinth of granite,
would be more effective than the present monument,
which seems to savour, somehow, of the circus. The
action is too theatrical; the grandeur of simplicity
ought to mark the treatment of a great subject.
Her theory regarding the Russian character seems
to be fortified by her experience at St. Petersburg. In
this city of the north, which seems set like a jewel on
the brow of the frigid earth, the manners of the great
nobility partake of the manners of the south and east.
She was hospitably entertained; and had an oppor
tunity critically to observe all she chronicles. The
noble dwellings which adorn an island formed by the
Neva in the very heart of the city, pleased her. She
found here the perfumes of the east and an imitative
southern Flora, cultivated and preserved beneath
gigantic conservatories. The sun, she says, is feted
like a friend ; his every ray is accepted as a benefit.
The day after her arrival, she dined with one of the
most considerable merchants in the place, who, ac
cording to the Russian fashion, had announced to his
friends, by raising a flag on his roof, that he dined at
home, and would be very glad to receive his acquaint
ance. The gentle reception given by the Russians,
she says, would induce people to believe that they
readily admit strangers to their confidence, but this is
not the case ; one knows them as well by the third
day as at the end of ten years, and no better at the
end of ten years than on the third day. Yet the

346 LIFE AND TIMES OF
sweetness with which every one greeted her gave her
much pleasure; and although, when her host the
merchant spreads his dinner-table in the garden, she
cannot forbear a little sneer at the few poor summer-
days, to which the people of southern Europe would
scarcely accord that title, she allows that the garden
was very lovely, and weU filled with trees and flowers.
Nature here, she says, is an enemy who must be per
petually conquered; directly man relapses in his
efforts, she reclaims "the marsh and the sandy desert,
her proper rights in these barren quarters. The pub
lic buildings much interested her: she had a very
amiable habit of throwing herself for the moment
into the sensations of a patriotic native of the country
she visited ; at St. Petersburg she seems almost as
proud of Peter as if she were a Russian, while at
Rome she is equally penetrated with the heroic senti
ment proper to the place. This cosmopolitan sym
pathy, while it did not impair her love for France,
certainly gave her an advantage in seizing the salient
points of a national character, and in presenting the
features and ideas most favourably illustrative of it.
She has been accused of making every place she de
scribed too lovely, but a remark of Monsieur Mar-
mier on this subject is full of force. " If a painter,"
he says, " busied over a landscape, choose for his
picture the moment when the whole scene is bathed
with a brilliant sunlight, when the lake mirrors the
flaky cloudlets of azured silver, and the plain recedes
in the distance, bright with golden harvests and ver
dant turf, when the bird sings from the pendent
branches of the old willow, while children play be-

MADAME DE STAEL. 347
neath, around the dwelling of their father; will not
this picture, seen by the same sun, bear a precise
resemblance to the real scene? And yet the artist
will not have displayed the black clouds wherewith
winter darkens the sky, nor the lake agitated by the
tempest, nor the torrent which sometimes falls from
the mountain heights, to lay waste the valley below,
and alarm the shuddering peasant."
In most of Madame de Stael's travels, peculiar ci;
cumstances led her rather to overvalue whatever ol
beauty or of attraction the land of her sojourn pre
sented: liberty, after harsh tyranny — society, after
solitude, were things she was certain to appreciate
very highly.
The church built by Peter in imitation of St. Peter's
at Rome she did not admire ; it was just enough like,
she thought, to disgust one with the points wherein it
differs. After her visit to this, she inspected the con
vent of St. Alexander Newski, and saw the tomb of
Suwarrow, bearing simply the inscription of his name.
This was enough for him, she says, but not enough
for the Russians, to whom he had rendered such mag
nificent services. But here we must differ from her;
there seems to us something noble in the idea that
the name alone will call up all the enthusiasm where
with one should view the last resting-place of a mighty
patriotic conqueror.
Monsieur de Romanzow; the Russian Minister of
Foreign Affairs, received her with great respect : at
his house she met Lord Tyrconnel and Admiral Ben-
tinck, despatched from England on business concern
ing the peace between that country and Russia. They

348 LIFE AND TIMES OF
were, she tells us, the first Englishmen who appeared
on the continent whence their nation had been banished
by Napoleon. Their presence delighted her; they
seemed to create an atmosphere of truth to which she
had long been unused ; she says eloquently, that their
nation, after a fitful struggle of ten years, was found
faithful to conscience, the constant compass of her
politics. She spent a Sunday with the family of Count Orloff,
at a residence situated on a little island of the Neva,
called after the proprietor of the estate. The gardens
here, too, were magnificent, and adorned with fine
oaks, a rather uncommon feature so far north. Count
Orloff was one of the best educated of the Russian
nobility, and moreover, a patriotic man. He seems
to have gained the respect of Madame de Stael.
It was his custom on the Sunday to throw open his
gardens for the pleasure of the public ; a real bene
faction, in a country where any beauty of scenery is
obtained only at a vast expense. Of this liberahty
the people largely availed themselves: among the
motley crowd were seen many merchants wearing the
old Russian costume ; their grave faces rendered yet
more striking by the long beards depending from
their chins. The count had an excellent band, and
the people clustered round the musicians, to listen to
the English national anthem, which Orloff commanded
in celebration of the newly-declared peace. This air,
says Madame de Stael, is the song of liberty in a
country where the monarch is its first guardian.
When the merchants heard that the sea was once

MADAME DE STAEL. 349
more open to them, they made the sign of the cross,
and ejaculated their gratitude.
Count Orloff's island was in the midst of those
httle islands on the Neva, where the great nobility
and the royal family have their summer residences.
Not far from this was the island of Strogonoff, the
mansion of whose proprietor was adorned with anti
quities brought, at a vast expense, from Greece.
Count Strogonoff's hospitality seems almost fabulous:
he issued no invitations; all who had once been pre
sented to him were at liberty to sit at his table when
ever they chose ; sometimes he did not know half the
persons with whom he sat down to dinner. Madame
de Stael says, very truly, that such extensive recep
tions allow no real conversation, and preclude all
intimacies. Every day during her stay seemed a kind of fete-
day, so constant and so brilliant was the display of
luxury. But while the eye was gratified, and the
imagination stimulated to a certain degree, the boun
dary was soon reached, and there was nothing to
affect her deeply. It was very well for a holiday
spectacle, but moral interests and the serious business
of life had no place in such an existence. Again she
longed to reach England, but she had yet to see the
Russian Royal Family.

350 LIFE AND TIMES OF

CHAPTER XLVII.
The Emperor Alexander had formerly been much
dazzled (and who can refuse to be dazzled) by the
resplendent military genius of Napoleon, and there
had been a time when Bonaparte had not thought a
coalition between his forces and those of the north,
having for its object the entire subjection of Europe,
an impossible thing; this, however, was over long
since. Napoleon now seemed to dread the energy
and increasing power of the Russian autocrat, who
was full of strength and force, while the French
conqueror began to suffer very painfully from de
clining health. From the testimony of Count Segur,
who was an eyewitness of the Russian expedition,
there is no doubt that, during the whole of that
unhappy enterprise, Bonaparte was contending with
a foe more insidious than the hardy Sclavonian
troops. He began to be easily fatigued, and im
patient of even short rides on horseback. The all-
enduring strength, the fiery energy of youth, were no
longer his. He ceased to command and direct with
a comprehensive glance as formerly ; he began to
falter and to hesitate ; his long and painful cam
paigns had sapped the fountain of his strength ; it
was evident to those who were nearest him, that their
master was giving way before the fire of even a
mightier conqueror than himself.
To humble the pride of Alexander was a tempt-

MADAME DE STAEL. 351
ing prospect ; it was also a bold idea to turn the
southern lands, till now the conquered, against the
north ; whence the victorious peoples had ever issued,
to deck themselves with the glories of riper civilisa
tion than theirs, and to take possession of fields,
whose golden fertility mocked the paler harvests of
their sterile and painfully cultivated lands.
A mighty army, composed from many peoples and
tongues, ranged themselves under the banners of
Bonaparte, and penetrated to Moscow, where they
had promised themselves such a winter (climate ex
cepted), as the troops of Hannibal enjoyed at Capua.
But they found a city on fire :* the Russians had
dared to sacrifice their old capital to the hope of
freedom ; even the Kremlin, the ancient abode of
the czars, took the flames, which were only extin
guished with great pains. The stoves, around which
it had been calculated the poor, half-frozen French
troops would eagerly cluster, had been filled with
detonating balls of tremendous power. The silence
and misery of the scene would require many strokes
to describe ; we may picture to ourselves the sad
effect of the bells chiming midnight on the very
arrival of the foe, while the churches were in flames,
and the half-naked creatures who had ignited the
buildings strove to avoid the element themselves had
put in possession of the place. And as the imagina
tion busies herself with the sublime but mournful
scene of a vast city in flames, around and amid which
is gathered an almost countless army, surely reason
suggests, that only tremendous interests at stake can
* Appendix, Note 0.

352 LIFE AND TIMES OF
justify the use of armed force. National indepen
dence is worth any sacrifice, and we cannot hold with
those who consider war the last misery of human
nature, and a crime which, at all hazards should be
avoided ; though this is a very good doctrine for the
exchange and the market. To our mind, however, a
nation enslaved, a people over-ridden, is a more
melancholy object than any field of battle after a col
lision. But surely every concession compatible with
honour should be made — every resort tried — ere this
brute force be called in to settle the disputes of
reasonable men. How much progress and civilisa
tion, the fruits of peace, are devoured at every meal
of this monster ? One shudders to think of it. But
universal subjection and meanness were worse. War,
we firmly believe, is being silently but surely
abolished by the glad increase of all that is hopeful,
by the spread of intelligence and the application of
Christianity to the real circumstances of life. The
less we view religion as an abstract system, and the
more as a real living thing, impregnating every
thought and phase of our condition, the better shah
we be.* Away with the false, we had almost said
the impious notion, that the world and humanity are
degenerating. Never was either in so fair and blessed
a state as now. Never, since our planet was first
launched in the fields of space to take her turn in the
lovely dance around the central sun, has that sun
glanced on so many pure homes, so many bright
hopes, so many heavenward aspirations as at the
present time. "Human nature," says Luther, "is
* Why is it compared with salt ? We do not eat salt alone,, but it
seasons all our food.

MADAME DE STAEL. 353
like a drunken peasant on horseback — supported on
one side, he bends towards the other. And yet the
horse and the man get on." There is profound truth
in this homely comparison ; it is a sentence enwrap
ping a real thought, and the nearer we get to the
heart of it, the more forcible will it appear. Like a
bee in a rose, we shall find the perfume strengthened
and concentrated in the very middle of the flower;
as is the case with everything worth our attention.
Madame de Stael paid her respects at the Imperial
Palace, and was received by the empress, who excited
her admiration, not by any display of grandeur or
power, but by the harmony of her soul, to which all
her words seemed to testify. Who has not felt the
sweet influence of this mental proportion? It is
pleasing to the heart, as an instrument in perfect
tune is satisfying to the ear.
As she talked with the empress, the door opened,
and the emperor, who kindly came to chat with her,
made his appearance. There was in him, she says, a
mingled aspect of dignity and kindness, of which two
quahties he seemed to have made but one.* She was
struck with the noble simplicity which marked his
manner while he talked with her unreservedly of the
great interests of Europe. She praises him as highly
as she knows how, by saying he acted just as would
act an English statesman, who depends on himself,
not on external circumstances, for his greatness. He
confessed to her that he regretted the admiration with
which he had formerly beheld Napoleon ; and said
* Her opinion of Alexander subsequently underwent considerable
modification. A A

354 LIFE AND TIMES OF
that the Machiavelian principles of Bonaparte, re
vealed in conversation, had first opened his eyes to
the real character of the great Corsican soldier.
Alexander expressed his regret that he himself was
not a military genius, but Madame de Stael truthfully
assured him that a good sovereign is a rarer man than
a clever general, and that to sustain the public spirit
by his example was to gain the most important of all
battles. The emperor spoke enthusiastically of his
nation and her capabilities; he also assured Madame
de Stael that he earnestly desired the liberation of the
serfs. She suggested, " Sire, your personal character
is a constitution for your people, and your conscience
is its guarantee." He gracefully replied, " Admitting
that to be true ; you must allow, after all, madam,
that I am only a lucky accident."
From the emperor's palace, she went to that of his
mother, an estimable princess, who devoted the
evening of life to munificent works of charity. The
charitable establishments of course attracted Madame
de Stael's attention. She visited the Institute of St.
Catherine, where two hundred and fifty young ladies
of the upper and middle classes received a compre
hensive and elegant education. This noble foundation
was under the personal superintendence of the em
press. The grace so natural to the Russian women
did not fail to excite the notice of our observant
visitor, when she saw it displayed by the pupils of the
house. A peculiarly delicate compliment was here
prepared for her ; the young girls were invited to dis
play their talents, and one of them recited several
pages from Monsieur Necker's " Course of Christian
Morality."

MADAME DE STAEL. 355
After this, there was graceful dancing, which no
doubt recalled to her mind the lovely Madame Reca
mier, who excelled in this poetical amusement. Then,
before placing themselves at table, the young ladies
of St. Catherine's Institute sang, in chorus, certain
psalms chosen for the occasion. Madame de Stael
praises their music, and we may safely accept her
verdict, for she herself had a splendid voice, and
knew how to use it.
She also visited an Asylum for the Bhnd, and one
for the Deaf and Dumb. She found both perfectly
well appointed and controlled, and perhaps, as she
inspected them, remembered her mother, who had
lavished so much care on the prisons and hospitals of
Paris. These multiplied occupations and interests
had almost driven from her memory the war, which
was, in a manner, to decide the fate of Europe.
This was probably recaUed to her mind by the de
parture of the emperor for Abo in Finland, where he
was to meet the Prince Royal of Sweden, formerly
General Bernadotte, and Prince Monte Corvo, under
Bonaparte. The sudden death of the heir to the
Swedish crown in 1810, had produced a meeting of
the diet, having for its object the choice of a successor
to the then reigning King of Sweden. This body,
with the concurrence of the monarch, and probably
hoping to conciliate Napoleon by their choice, fixed
on the French marshal, Bernadotte, with whom Bona
parte parted reluctantly. It was thought by some
that the French emperor did not very well relish the
promotion of his general; however that might be,
Bernadotte went to Sweden, and ever after made his
A A 2

356 LIFE AND TIMES OF
interest in Bonaparte subordinate to the welfare of
the country to whose throne he was called to succeed.
His conduct has been variously canvassed, according
to the prejudices of historians ; but it certainly appears
to us, that the first duty of a sovereign is towards his
own people, even though its execution may militate
against the interests of his most valued foreign re
lations. Putting the names of this case out of the
question, we look on this principle as a simple truth
in government which almost all will readily admit.
But such a genius as Bonaparte, by the strange be
wilderment his glory creates, often causes us to deviate
from the simplest conclusions.
The emperor's conference with Bernadotte at Abo
succeeded in procuring the assistance of Sweden
against Napoleon. The news of the entry of the
French into Smolensk arrived during the important
correspondence between Sweden and Russia ; and, in
consequence, Alexander and his new aUy made a
solemn engagement never to sign peace with Bona
parte. This resistance was destined to end in the
utter fall of the great warrior, who had held Europe
in thrall, pulling down and setting up kings at his
pleasure. On the emperor's return from Finland, Madame de
Stael had the honour of a second interview with him.
He told her that General Berthier, after the taking-
Smolensk, had written a letter to the Russian general,
which epistle he closed by saying, that Napoleon
would ever preserve the very tenderest friendship for
Alexander ! Under the circumstances, such an expres
sion would, no doubt, meet with reciprocation.
The health of Madame de Stael really required rest

MADAME DE STAEL. 357
before she ventured to England, where a reception
which would need some energy in the acknowledg
ment was sure to await her. In that day, a woman
who had in a sense conquered Napoleon,* was certain
to be enthusiastically received in England, the country
which had systematically opposed his daring encroach
ments. Not being strong enough for the society which
awaited her arrival in London, she determined to put
in at Stockholm, there to refresh and recruit herself
before proceeding to England. She had every confi
dence in the kindness of the Swedish Prince Royal,
and the sequel proved that she had rightly judged
him. At the end of September, Madame de Stael left
St. Petersburg, which city, by presenting to her scenes
and situations entirely novel, had done much to erase
from her mind her previous persecutions and unhap-
piness. The passage through Finland affords little occasion
for remark, though on entering the country she was
struck by the dissimilarity between the Finlanders
and the Russians. The Finlanders give every evidence
of belonging to the great German stock — their fair
hair, light complexion, and extremely gentle manners,
faithfully witnessing to their origin. They possess,
she says, a conscientious honesty, which they owe to
their Protestant instruction, and the purity of their
manners. The aspect of nature, also, presented a contrast ;
instead of the marshes and plains which gird St.
Petersburg, she came on a rocky and wooded country-
* Appendix, Note P.

358 LIFE AND TIMES OF
The features of mountain and forest generally pro
duce romantic scenery ; but, on observation, the great
granite rocks of Finland grow monotonous, and the
melancholy forests are composed of only two trees —
the fir and the birch. There is nothing inviting here.
At Abo, the Finnish capital, is a university, where
some laudable attempts at mental culture were made ;
but, as she says, the bears and wolves are such close
neighbours, that the Finlanders are necessarily almost
absorbed in securing a safe physical existence. In
these northern countries, she thinks the creations of
genius must needs be fraught with mystery, be
cause man draws everything from the resources of
his own spirit, his narrow circle of natural objects
presenting little or no inspiration.
At last she came to the place of embarkation, and
here she makes the following touching revelation : —
" Since I have been so cruelly persecuted by the em
peror, I have lost all confidence in my destiny ; T believe
all the more in the protection of Providence, but not
under the form of happiness in this life* It follows,
that every undertaking frightens me, and yet my
exile has frequently obliged me to take decisive steps.
I now much feared the sea-voyage, though people re
assured me by saying that hundreds sailed from Abo
to Stockholm without any accident. Such are the
commonplaces by which most travellers are consoled ;
but my imagination was not thereby withdrawn from
the idea of the vast abyss, from which a few frail
planks only would separate me. Monsieur Schlegel
perceived my alarm concerning the little vessel which
* It seems to us that these few words in italics indicate the com-
pletest fortitude and Christian faith.

MADAME DE STAEL. 359
was to take us to Stockholm. He showed me, near
Abo, the prison where the unhappy Eric XIV. of
Sweden had been confined, and said, ' If you were
there, how would you long for the chance of the little
voyage which now so much alarms you !' "
This just reflection, she adds, a little consoled her ;
but when she lost sight of land, her terror returned.
" Infinity," she says, " is as frightful to the senses, as
it is pleasing to the soul."
After a somewhat stormy voyage she reached
Stockholm, where she was received with as much
kindness as Bernadotte and the nobility could possibly
display. Her health, however, was wretchedly shat
tered by the anxieties and fatigues of an eventful and
somewhat mournful life. She felt that her strength
was decreasing.
During her stay in Sweden, she published an Essay
on Suicide, which, in her grief, she had written to
fortify herself against her temptation to this mode of
ending her perplexities. In some of her earlier works,
where the mention of this subject occurs, there is
perhaps too much of the sentiment of that false line,
" What Cato did and Addison approves,
Cannot be wrong."
As if the approval or adoption of a wrong thing by all
the heroes and Christians in the world could make a
rio-ht one of it. The foundations of morals lie on a
deeper basis than the approval of even the greatest of
men, or we were unhappy indeed in striving to dis
cern the path of right. Part of her early tolerance of
suicide, though this term is almost too strong for the
thing, we should rather say, her merciful verdict re-

360 LIFE AND TIMES OF
garding it, sprung, no doubt, from her Latin studies ;
and perhaps from Rousseau, who asserts that the
Creator, by sometimes making a man's life unbearable,
gives him the right to take it away. But who tells a
man his life is unbearable ? Certainly a voice from
heaven ought to be heard confirming the promptings
of our misery, before we venture to lift a hand against
the wonderful frame, the vehicle and instrument of
our relations with the universe of God. Her more
confirmed religious opinions caused her to shudder at
the idea that her critics might be right, that she
might have seemed indifferent to the guilt and in
dulgent to the commission of this fearful crime. She
therefore occupied herself in her solitary exile by the
composition of this work, which, as we have seen, was
published at Stockholm in 1813.
She passed eight months in Sweden, at the expira
tion of which period she found herself sufficiently
restored to embark for London. Her second experi
ence of English life and manners will now occupy our
attention.

CHAPTER XL VIII.
We formerly described at some length the circum
stances attending Madame de Stael's first visit to
England ; we have now to notice a somewhat length
ened residence in that country, made under auspices
of a far more favourable nature.
Of all the little party gathered at Juniper Hall in
1793, she was almost the only one who had been true

MADAME DE STAEL. 361
to her early ideas. Talleyrand, the political chame
leon, a bishop under the old Bourbons, a minister
under the directory, a courtier under Napoleon, was
now preparing the way for the return of the ancient
royal race, in whose antechambers he was content to
linger still. Louis XVIII. received, in his retirement
at Hartwell, a letter from the prince of courtiers,
couched in terms of hope and promise. On this
occasion the king remarked, "Napoleon's fate is
settled when Talleyrand writes thus; he is always
pretty sure of the course of events before committing
himself; we shall soon return to Paris."
The Count de Narbonne, Minister of War under
Louis XVI., in whose defence Madame de Stael had
made such heroic efforts, had succumbed to the em
peror, and taken a military appointment in his service.
He was in the Russian expedition, and was one of the
thousands who perished in the frightful retreat from
Moscow. General d'Arblay, who had been in the king's ser
vice, and had kept guard on the night of the unhappy
attempt at escape, wished to resume his sword under
Napoleon. He objected, however, to take arms
against his wife's country, and begged that in the
event of war with England, he might be allowed to
throw up his commission. Bonaparte, of course, de
murred to such an unusual reservation; and a civil
appointment at once saved the conscience and eased
the pocket of the poor soldier, who henceforth la
boured at the Bureaux de I'Interieur, where he was
not likely to hear any very favourable report of his
old friend, Madame de Stael.

362 LIFE AND TIMES OF
She landed at Harwich in June, 1813, with pro
found emotions of affection towards a country she and
her father had always loved. The road from Harwich
to London pleased her ; the neat houses, each en
circled by a garden plot; the green hedges, the stand
ing harvest, the shadowy trees, the cottages which
appeared to her in excellent repair, all seemed to tell
of English comfort and peace. She came, we must
remember, prepared to admire us extravagantly; we
shall see whether, when a nearer view gave her the
opportunity critically to analyse our liberty and its
sources, she preserved her respect for her model-
country. If she did, we may safely conclude there
really was something to love and value.
Arrived in London, she took up her abode at No.
30, Argyll-place, Regent-street, and soon beheld in
her drawing-room the rendezvous of all the rank
and fashion in town. She was the lion of the season,
and according to an aristocratic witness, spoiled the
campaign of Doctor and Miss Edgeworth, who had
been the fashion during the earlier part of the year.
The first nobihty received her ; at the house of Lord
Lansdowne, at that time a young man, now the
Nestor of the party he then dowered with the promise
of his talent, immense crowds assembled to see her :
the eagerness to catch a glimpse of her dark and
striking face conquered all the ordinary restraints of
high society, and the first ladies in the kingdom, we
are told, mounted on chairs and tables to gaze at the
woman who for ten weary years had endured almost
unexampled insult and persecution. No wonder,
she found the London parties so insufferably

MADAME DE STAEL. 363
crowded that to elbow her way through a fashion
able reception-room, required no mean degree of phy
sical energy. Whatever truth there may be in this
statement, in a general way, the great crush of ] 813
was caused by the universal desire to see and hear the
person whom Lord Byron has called the first female
author of his or any age.*
She was now as completely in her element as, out
of Paris, she could possibly find herself. Sir James,
Mackintosh had returned from his Indian appoint
ment, and was one of the first to honour her ; he
wrote, at that time, a review of her works in the
" Edinburgh Review," in the course of which article
he says, " The voice of Europe has already applauded
the genius of a national painter in the author of
' Corinne.' " Everywhere she was received with fervour.
It is a hbel on the English, she tells us, to say they
are cold and passionless. " They are like the Albanian
dogs sent by Porus to Alexander, which disdained to
fight any animal but a lion." This idea was probably
the fruit of the brilliant and enthusiastic reception
wherewith she was greeted. Lords Holland, Grey, and
Harrowby, Erskine, Jersey, Lansdowne, and Byron,
were successively her hosts, or her visitors ; sometimes
both. She revelled in the free atmosphere of England,
breathing which, she might say all the truth she
thought and fear no evil.
Her society was, to be sure, not very well assorted.
Her political consequence and connexions gave her
friends of a certain class and kind, while her literary
reputation gathered around her admirers of all ranks.
* Appendix, Note Q.

364 LIFE AND TIMES OF
She was too kindly, if not indeed too fond of incense
to turn any away. Her hospitality was extended to
all. Her table, Lord Byron says, reminded him of
the grave, where all distinctions are levelled. He
saw there peers and dandies, the azure jackets of the
litterateur, and the regular Grub-street scribes. But a
foreigner could not be expected to understand the
delicate yet marked gradations of English society; and
her trifling mistakes were forgiven for the sake of her
enthusiasm and her honesty. Her maternal heart
must have been gladdened by the admiration attracted
by Mademoiselle de Stael, whose proficiency in music
and graceful dancing made her as charming as she
was amiable : Lord Byron, no mean critic, says he saw
her dance a Russian saraband with much ease and
elegance. Madame de Stael was joined, soon after her arrival,
by her elder son, who had remained in Switzerland
to watch over her fortune. Sir Walter Scott says, the
Baron Auguste de Stael was the only foreigner he ever
heard who could speak English hke a native, and the
grave courtesy and kindly manners of the young man
recommended him to the regard of all who saw him.
In the first flush of her triumph, however, Madame
de Stael suffered a great loss. We have seen how,
during her exile, she grieved over the spoilt prospects
of her sons; Auguste, had much the same kind of
talent as his grandfather, and had he lived under
different conditions, might have aspired to pohtical
eminence. Albert, the younger, a generous, fiery, hot-
tempered youth, was enamoured of a military career :
and the revolt against Napoleon gave him an oppor-

MADAME DE STAEL. 365
tunity of adopting the profession of arms ; but his
maiden sword was yet unfleshed when he was killed
in a duel at some town in Germany, of which the name
escapes us. This was a severe blow to the whole
family, who had placed high hopes in his ardour and
bravery. The poor young baron, whose serious
character was beyond his years, had learned to treat
Albert with almost paternal care, and the impetuous
lad had loved to have it so. We, who know Madame
de Stael's passionate devotion to those she loved, can
readily understand how very much grieved she also
must have been by this unhappy occurrence.
She now devoted herself afresh to the study of
English history, particularly to that portion of it which
she beheved contained many points of correspondence
with the Revolution of France. Since her day
Monsieur Guizot has enunciated a similar idea regard
ing the revolutionary crises of our annals. Indeed,
most of her opinions are now the common property of
Europeans; but they are not often traced to their
source. Her failing energies warned her that her mortal
career would not be very much protracted, and she
began to work on a treatise concerning the wondrous
Revolution which had changed the aspect of her
country. Her design at first, indeed, was merely to
write a history of her father's political career, which
was intended to rescue his memory from the shameful
misrepresentations with which the Legitimists, the
Jacobins, and the Bonapartists had alike delighted to
cover it. Thus, good Protestants who wrangle and
dispute among themselves, are willing to unite at the

366 LIFE AND TIMES OF
rallying-cry, " Rome !" Her plan gradually swelled
beneath her hands, and she had not elaborated her
materials when she was called away to share her father's
rest. The " Considerations on the French Revolution"
must be viewed, then, with the indulgence necessarily
claimed by an unfinished work. In parts it is diffuse,
in parts bold; one can see the scaffolding yet about it;
which is not the case, we are bold to assert, with any
of her completed works.
Our political system, though essentially the same as
at present, was then encumbered with much which
has since yielded to the hand of wise and gradual
reform. Many of us, whose fathers were then almost
in their cradles, are too apt to look back on those
times with something like contempt. Let us remember,
however, that those days were training for us the men
who have made 1853 so far beyond 1813, and be
grateful for the bud which has flowered so richly.
Madame de Stael brought to the consideration of
our system experience of no mean length or character;
it had been her fate to hve under many kinds of
government, and her active intellect had analysed and
criticised them all. She had, too, the penetrating eye
which at once separates all unnecessary accessories
from the main parts of a system ; she does not, like
some of her compatriots, conclude that rotten boroughs
are as much an integral part of the British constitu
tion as the Habeas Corpus Act and the Trial by Jury.
She unhesitatingly pronounced them to be abuses, and
does not despair of their correction when the pubhc
once get clear ideas on the subject. Neither need we
yet despair, although the last few months have pre-

MADAME DE STAEL. 367
sented some curious revelations in regard to elections.
So long as a nation hesitates to pronounce its system
perfect and unalterable, so long is there hope of its
endurance for an indefinite period; but if once it
assert its completeness, and refuse to let it absorb any
fresh element, or to fling off any needless hindrance,
it is doomed to death, nothing can save it. Suppose
a human being on attaining the full growth of his
stature were to say, "Now I am perfect; my organs
are fully developed, my system is all it was intended
to be ; I will eat and drink no more, for my structure
is complete." We should smile at such absurdity.
But how much more fatal is it for a nation, while yet
in its infancy, to register such a vow? Media and
Persia have not been exempted from the decay which
waits on corrupted states, although their laws were
fixed and unchangeable. The only rational hope of
our country lies in the power to adapt her laws to the
improvements and necessities of the times. But
Heaven avert that her abuses should be corrected with
rash and untaught hands ! The old story in Esop, of
the man who, asleep, had the flies brushed from his
face by a bear, and was more hurt by the bear than he
had been annoyed by the flies, has not been without
its parallel in the histories of nations.
Madame de Stael, in her half-finished work on the
French Revolution, makes a rapid survey of the
English political system, and decides afresh that, all
things considered, it is as near perfection as mortal
men can hope to bring their works. We must hesitate,
even at the present day, to follow her quite so far as
she goes; but only because we believe there is no

365 LIFE AND TIMES OF
degree of perfection of which Christian humanity,
patient in the present, trustful for the future, ought
to despair. But we must remember that she saw
England in contrast with harsh and arbitrary states ;
and can then easily comprehend how, like a man
dazzled by sudden light after darkness, she was con
scious of nothing but brightness and beauty. After<a
brief but lucid summary of what she conceives to be
the political advantages of England, — that is to say,
the barriers around the royal prerogative, the repre
sentative system, the mercy and purity of the criminal
law, and the publicity of the proceedings of govern
ment, — she adds, that Providence no doubt placed this
example of wise and just rule so near the French
coast, on purpose that France might look and imitate.
And with a natural preference for her compatriots,
for which we honour her, she decides that, if they will
enter the field, they may even hope to leave us far
behind. Scandal, which had dared to blight her name in
1793, now recalled, or at any rate silenced, her pesti
lent whisperings. In a letter written about this time,
Madame d'Arblay has the following : — " I am truly
glad you had a gratification you so earnestly coveted —
that of seeing Madame de Stael ; your account of her
was extremely interesting to me. As to myself, I have
not seen her at all. Various causes have kept me in
utter retirement, and, in truth, with respect to Ma
dame de Stael, my situation is truly embarrassing."
(Deservedly so, we think; but Madame d'Arblay
further says) " I do not recollect if I communicated
to you our original acquaintance, which, at first, was

MADAME DE STAEL. 369
intimate. I shall always, internally, be grateful for
the partiality with which she sought me out upon her
arrival in this country before my marriage, and still
and far more, if she can forgive my dropping her  .
She is now received by all mankind — but that, indeed,
she always was (all womankind, I should say) — with
distinction and pleasure."
Madame de Stael attended a public charitable
meeting, where the Dukes of York and Sussex, and
Mr. Wilberforce, successively addressed the audience ;
our asylums and other foundations of charity she
inspected and admired; in fact, she tried hard to
master all the details of common English life.
The London season ended, she was invited to see
some of the nobility in their country homes : among
the rest, she visited Lord Jersey at Middleton, Lord
Lansdowne at Bowood. "How is it possible," she
exclaims, "that a French courtier is content, nay,
even enraptured, with a life frittered away between
Paris and Versailles, when an important and kindly
career, like that of an English nobleman on his estate,
is equally within reach of his realisation ?"
The current of affairs in the course of the following
spring brought about the abdication of Bonaparte,
and the recall of Monsieur, now Louis XVIII., who
went to Paris to take possession of the throne of his
fathers. Before entering Paris, he stayed a little time
at St. Ouen, formerly Necker's residence, whence he
promulgated a constitution almost precisely the same
as that projected by the minister at the meeting of
the states-general. "As if," says Lamartine, "he
wished to recall the memory of a popular minister
B B

370 LIFE AND TIMES OF
whom he himself had supported in the convention of
the states."
The overthrow of Bonaparte — an event which some
few years before had appeared almost impossible —
gave Madame de Stael the long-desired opportunity
of again beholding the centre alike of her hopes and
memories. Having seen her proscribed book pub
lished in England, and received with enthusiasm by
the whole of Europe, she returned shortly after the
Restoration in 1814, to the city of her birth, there to
take up a position infinitely more brilliant than any
she had yet occupied.

CHAPTER XLIX

In her salon at Paris now congregated all the rea
sonable members of every party; the universal tole
rance of her enthusiastic genius seemed to point her
out as the head and defender of talent and progress;
and there was no pure aim, no good ambition, which
lacked a representative at her brilhant receptions.
Lafayette and Guizot, the old and the young, were
there, both sustained by the lofty courage her words
expressed, and cheered by an eloquence which had
never degraded itself in favour of tyranny. A list of
her company after the Restoration embraced the
most celebrated names of Europe. Among her visitors
might be seen Wellington and Chateaubriand; from

MADAME DE STAEL. 371
Berlin, Humboldt and Blucher; from Switzerland,
Sismondi and Benjamin Constant; from Hanover,
the two Schlegels; Canova, the sculptor, swells the
list, and Madame Recamier, whom the fall of Napo
leon once more restored to hberty. The English, we
are told, attended her with such zeal, that it seemed
as if a general emigration of British rank and talent
had taken place. Of all this circle she was the in
spiring genius — the centre of attraction.
As for the king, he looked on her, according to
Lamartine, as an ally of his crown, because she was
the representative of European public opinion. All,
indeed, now delighted to honour a woman, unspoiled
by a long course of adversity, who brought from her
exile a chastened piety, and an undimmed hope in the
final triumph of truth, justice and liberty. She was
still busy in disseminating the ideas for which she
had made such sacrifices; the newspapers brought
daily demands on her pen, and she devoted a portion
of time to her book on the Revolution.
Thus occupied, she was startled in March 181 5 by
the sudden return of her old tyrant. " I felt," she
says, " when I heard of his coming, as if the ground
yawned beneath my feet." She once more took re
fuge at Coppet, and would have come back to Paris
when the second abdication took place, had not the
health of Monsieur Rocca excited her serious alarm.
Italy was recommended for him, and thither he
was accompanied by Madame de Stael, who lavished
on him in his weakness every care affection could
suggest, or activity execute. Her tenderest anxieties
for him were awakened ; it would have been a cruel
B B 2

372 LIFE AND TIMES OF
misfortune to lose him just as her life was restored,
and more than restored, to the brilliance of its youth
ful days.* This was spared her ; the frail invalid out
lived her by a few months.
In the spring of 1816, she returned to Coppet, and
during the following summer, her house in Switzer
land was full of pleasant society. Lord Byron, who
since her visit to England had married and was now
separated from his wife, hired a house near Geneva,
the Villa Diodati, and was frequently her guest.
There is no doubt that he was at this time profoundly
unhappy, for though he tried hard to be a stoic, he
never succeeded. Madame de Stael, with the right
her superior age allowed, kindly and seriously ad
dressed him, and did not hesitate to tell him where
she saw him in fault. His wayward but affectionate
heart melted at this treatment. She even prevailed
on him to seek a reconciliation with Lady Byron ;
but the negotiations were fruitless. He retained,
however, the most vivid sense of her kindness. In a
letter, dated Diodati, 1816, he says, " Madame de
* We get the following little glimpse of her from Maronoelli's
sketch of the life of Silvio Pellico, who was, at the time of Madame
de Stael's second visit to Italy, tutor to the sons of Count Luigi
Porro : — "Torno a Milano, e visse dappoi sempre in casa Porro, ov' era
il raduno di quanti nel paese erano piu distinti soienziati ed artisti,
e di quanti piu distinti viaggiatori traversavano la peninsola. La
vide e parlo alia Stael e a Schlegel, che furono quasi veicolo presso
noi tra i capi della letteratura germanica e quelli della italica. La
vide Lord Byron ed Hobhouse, che furono altrettanto tra la lettera
tura inglese e la nostra. La Davis, Brougham, Thorwaldsen, e cento
e cento. Cosi pud dirsi che Dante e Shakespeare, Petrarca e Schiller,
la poesia e la scienza, 1' artista e il cittadino, venivano a darsi la
mano in questo templo d' Insubria, ove Silvio era sacerdote." What
varied associations do all these names awaken !

MADAME DE STAEL. 373
Stael has made Coppet as agreeable to me as kind
ness and pleasant society can make a place." One
cannot but lament he had not earlier fallen into such
hands. The party at Coppet was now permanently enlarged
by the presence of the Duke de Broglie, to whom
Madame de Stael had married her lovely daughter.
Between the young baron and his brother-in-law a
tender sympathy reigned, and the marriage itself had
been altogether prompted by affection. The ties of
the family, instead of loosening with the lapse of time,
seemed to be clasping the heart of Madame de Stael
more firmly than ever.
Yet full of hfe and vigour, and having, it appeared,
many years before her, she returned to Paris in the
autumn of this year, little expecting that she went
thither for the last time. She resumed all the acti
vities of her city life, wrote for the Mercury, chatted
with her friends, received her visitors; but in Febru
ary, 1817, she was threatened with a violent fever,
whose germs had, no doubt, been some time lurking
in her system. The use of strong remedies succeeded
in throwing off the excitement for a season, and she
once more ralhed ; but the enemy was routed only to
return, and the disorder finally took full possession of
her. The keenest interest was felt in her condition ; many
of the wisest men in France considered her recovery
of great importance to the country, because it was
apprehended she would be useful in assisting to settle
on a firm basis the infant hberties of France; the
hope was vain. After a long separation, she had been
enabled to return to the city of her love, and there

374 LIFE AND TIMES OF
triumphantly to excite into admiration the voices
which had harshly judged and falsely condemned her;
but this brilliant period was, alas, very brief.
Life gradually left the extremities, and before she
expired her limbs were helpless ; her intellect, however,
continued fresh and active, she conversed with her
children on family concerns, and even on important
topics of general interest. Not all the care of her
friends could save her ; some of the royal family were
constantly seeking news of her state, and the Duke
of Wellington daily came to her door to ask if hope
might yet remain; but the close of the earthly career
of this kindly and gifted being rapidly approached.
The day before her death she read a portion of
Lord Byron's Manfred, and emphasised some of the
most melancholy and beautiful passages. After this,
she gave herself up to religious reflection and prayer ;
spoke tenderly of her father, and said in reference to
him, " I know he is waiting for me on the other
shore;" she then commended her children to the care
of that Providence in whom she had ever trusted.
At one period of her illness, the nervous excitement
consequent on her disorder, created a terrible fear of
death ; this painful symptom, however, entirely ceased
before she really died. An Enghshwoman, Miss
Randall, who for years had been her friend and com
panion, watched by her to the last.
Madame de Stael took leave of her son in the
tenderest manner, and recommended to him the poor
little infant by her second marriage, who was so soon
to be completely orphaned. The baron undertook the
charge, which he most faithfully executed.
To her daughter she tried to perform a similar part,

MADAME DE STAEL. 375
but here the mother's heart failed ; her voice was
drowned in convulsive sobs, and the duchess was
obliged to leave the room in order to allow her time
to calm herself.
She subsequently murmured many ejaculations and
prayers, such as, " God is good, he will soften the last
struggle." " Merciful Saviour." " Oh, forgive me,"
and others.
At two o'clock she fell asleep, and without awaking,
without one sigh or struggle, at four she yielded up
her spirit. She died in perfect peace on Monday,
14th July, 1817, aged fifty-one. The day of her
death, by a somewhat striking coincidence, was the
anniversary of the Revolution which had exerted so
large an influence on her life.
Monsieur de Stael, almost heart-broken by the loss
of a mother to whom he had been devoted beyond the
example of most sons, took charge of the beloved
remains, and did not once leave her coffin until he
arrived at Coppet. There he laid her in the dust
beside her father ; and so long as genius can charm,
and filial piety excite the admiration of the world, so
long will that grave in the garden at Coppet be one of
the hohest shrines of the imagination.
Her husband did not long survive the blow he now
sustained. He went into Provence to be near a
brother whom he loved, where he soon yielded to the
pressure of sorrow and disease.
What remains to be said ? If this life have been
sketched with any power, if, in the faintest degree, it
be calculated to answer the purposes of a biography,
there is no chapter of it without a serious lesson. To

376 LIFE OF MADAME DE STAEL.
point out a moral at the close, is, at best, the expe
dient of a clumsy workman.
Lovingly, we admit, have we traced the progress of
her mind, and the fluctuations of her fortunes, and
we have lingered ever on the brightest and best side
of her character. Of human enors she had her share,
but they were such as are the excrescences of a proud,
high-toned, faithful, and most kindly spirit. To the
father who trained her, to the friends who loved her,
was she invariably loyal and true: no petty interest, no
threatening danger, ever tempted her to fail in the
steadfastness of love and friendship. To be sad was
to have an irresistible claim on her bounty; to be
faulty, was to secure her pity and her aid. She de
spised nothing but meanness and dishonesty, and
these, though sitting in kings' palaces, and clad in
imperial purple, she attacked to the very utmost of
her strength.
Farewell, beloved shade ! We have in fancy
journeyed with thee through all the changes and
chances of a very varied career. Rest with those
who were dear unto thee, until the day when " there
shall be a resurrection not of persons alone, but of
names and reputations ! "

APPENDIX.

Note A, page 2.
Necker's family was originally of Irish extraction, but his
ancestors being Protestants, were driven to expatriate them
selves by the troublous persecutions under Queen Mary.
They found refuge in Prussia, whence their offshoots emi
grated into Switzerland. Note B, page 23.
We have seen a curious little tract, entitled " Frau Von
ITrudner in der Schweitz," containing an account of Madame
Von Eriidner's proceedings during a visit to Switzerland, and
reporting some of her addresses on religious subjects. Her
career is replete with strange interest ; in her most pious days
there is such a smack of the pretty woman of the world in all
she does, that but for her evident sincerity she would be
laughable. Her novel " Valerie," is remarkable for nothing
but that a Livonian woman should have written such easy
and elegant French. Her vanity was laughable: during her
widowhood, when her daughter's suitor applied to her for her
consent to his offer, she mistook his object, and was about to
murmur her own willingness to marry him, when some timely
word discovered the mistake, and she fainted. This seems to
us a situation worthy of either comedy or tragedy, according
to the character the author might choose to give his heroine.
Notb C, page 37.
On the subject of expression in features, the following
quotations are interesting: —
" His person and temper (Charles the Second's), his vices
as well as his fortune, resemble the character that we have
given us of Tiberius so much, that it were easy to draw the
parallel between them  At Rome I saw one of the last

378 APPENDIX.
statues made for Tiberius, after he had lost his teeth. But,
bating the alteration which that made, it was so like Eing
Charles, that Prince Borghese and Signor Dominico, to whom
it belonged, did agree with me in thinking that it looked like
a statue made for him." — Burnet, History of his Own Times.
" Jugurtha, Tamerlane, and some other great warriors, are
celebrated for a certain ferocity of aspect, which they had, no
doubt, contracted from a perpetual and unrestrained exertion
of fortitude, contempt, and other violent emotions. These
produced in the face their correspondent expressions, which
being often repeated, became at last as habitual to the features,
as the sentiments they arose from were to the heart." — De.
Beattie.
Note D, page 101.
" "Who can describe the rage, the horror of hope deceived,
on the news of Necker's dismissal. Necker was not a poli
tician ; he was, as we have seen, timid, vain-glorious, and
ridiculous. But in what concerned subsistence, it is but
justice to say, that he was an indefatigable, ingenious admi
nistrator, full of industry and resources. What is far better,
he showed himself to be an honest, good, kind-hearted man ;
when nobody would lend to the state, he borrowed in his
own name and engaged his credit as far as two millions of
francs, the half of his fortune. When dismissed, he did not
withdraw his security, but wrote to the lenders that he main
tained it. In a word, if he knew not how to govern, he
nourished the people, and fed them with his own money." —
Michelet, History of the French Revolution, Cocks's trans
lation. We quote this testimony, because it is the verdict of
Michelet, a writer decidedly not inclined to partiality for
men of moderate opinions.
Note E, page 113.
" L'augustissima imperatrice regina incinta dell' ultima
delle sue figliuole, poi regina di Francia, fece scomessa a dis-
crezione che partorirebbe un' arciduchessa. Subito sgra-
vata, fece dire al conte Carlo Dietrichstein, che aveva soste-
nuto il contrario, che il parto era una principessa, e che so-
migliava alia Madre, comme due gocce d' acqua. II perditore

APPENDIX. 379
pago il suo debito con una elegante figurina di porcellana,
rappresentante il proprio di lui ritratto, con un ginocchio in
terra, ed in atto di porgere con la destra mano i Versi se-
guenti, scritti in un minutissimo pezzuol di carta.
To perdei ; 1' augusta figlia
A pagar mi ha condannato ;
Ma s' e ver che a Voi soraiglia,
Tutto il mondo ha guadagnato.
Metastasio, Works, Vol. 10.
Note F, page 142.
The revolutionary treatment of names and titles has some
thing comic in it. A gentleman presents himself at the barrier ,
" Your name P"
" Monsieur de St. Janvier, at your service."
" Monsieur is no longer used."
" De St. Janvier."
" De has been resigned since the new era. '
" Saint Janvier, then."
" Saints are no more."
" As you will — simple Janvier."
" Pardon me, the calendar has been reformed. Janvier
has changed its name. Your passport will be made out in
the name of the Citoyen Nivose."
Note G-, page 170.
Burke — " Whose genius was such
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much,
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind."
Had Burke lived, it is a question whether the peace of
1802 would have been effected ; but he was sleeping several
years before at Beaconsfield, beside the son whose untimely
death dropped a veil over the closing years of the orator.
His reflections on the French Revolution abound in eloquent
passages ; but the line of argument he took provoked the
ardour of Mr. Mackintosh, then a young man, who, in answer

380 APPENDIX.
to Burke, produced in 1791 his Vindicice Gallicce. The ex
cesses which were subsequently committed by the revolution
ists considerably modified the ideas of Mackintosh.
It would be impossible to reckon how many great minds
have received an impulse from the French Revolution. The
eloquence and genius it has called forth cannot be computed ;
it is the era whence the modern revival of arts, letters, and
philosophy will date. Nor has social progress failed to be
proportionably accelerated by its influence, direct or other
wise. Note H, page 182.
We have met somewhere with an account of the manner in
which the days, if no accident occurred to disturb them, were
passed by the family at Coppet and their refugee guests ; but,
as must occasionally happen to desultory readers, we forget
the source of the information, which we subjoin. In the
morning, all assembled to breakfast in Madame de StaeTs
apartment ; she generally started the conversation, avoiding
politics, which still formed a painful subject for Monsieur
Necker, and choosing in preference social, philosophical, or
literary subjects. On such themes she was eloquent, so that
the first meal was often a long one. But the breakfast at
Coppet, like all mortal concerns, came to an end ; and then
Madame de Stael and her visitors walked or drove out, while
Monsieur Necker saw his major-domo and ordered the dinner.
The afternoon was given to study ; at seven in the evening,
the whist-table was drawn out, and Monsieur Necker and his
daughter were usually partners. It is added, that at this
game they generally disagreed, and there is probably some
truth in the report. We can well imagine that Madame de
Stael's play would not be so strictly in accordance with rule
and precedent as Necker's love of order would have had it.
Sometimes, instead of cards they had music or recitations,
and in these harmless recreations (for though they played
whist they were no gamesters) attempted to forget the ex
ternal evils that threatened them.
This account, which contains no reference to Madame
Necker, probably refers to a period rather later than the pre
cise time indicated in the text.

APPENDIX. 381

Note I, page 182.

The following piece, descriptive of the Reign of Terror,
assumes to imitate Tacitus ; it is quoted from Mignet's
Mistoire de la Revolution Francaise.
" A cette epoque, les propos devinrent des crimes d'Btat ;
de la il n'y eut qu'un pas pour changer en crimes les simples
regards, la tristesse, la compassion, les soupirs, le silence
meme. Bientot ce fut un crime de lese-majeste ou de contre-
revolution a. Cremutius Cordus, d'avoir appele Brutus et
Cassius les derniers des Romains ; crime de contre-revolution
a, un descendant de Cassius, d'avoir chez lui un portrait de son
bis-aieul ; crime de contre-revolution a, Mamercus Scaurus,
d'avoir fait une trag^die, ou il y avait des vers a qui Ton pou-
vait donnerdeux sens; crime de contre-revolution a, Torquatus
Silanus, de faire de la depense ; crime de contre-revolution a
Pomponius, parce qu'un ami de Sejan e"tait venu chercher un
asile dans une de ses maisons de campagne ; crime de contre-
revolution a la mere du consul Fusius Geminius, d'avoir pleure
la mort funeste de son fils.
" H fallait montrer de la joie de la mort de son ami, de son
parent, si Ton ne voulait s'exposer a perir soi-meme. Sous
Neron, plusieurs dont on avait fait mourir les proches, allaient
en rendre graces aux dieux. Du moins, il fallait avoir un air
de contentement : on avait peur que la peur meme ne rendit
coupable. Tout donnait de l'ombrage au tyran. Un citoyen
avait-il de la populariteP C'etait un rival du prince qui
pouvait susciter une guerre civile. Suspect. — Fuyait-on au
contraire la popularity, et se tenait on au coin de son feu?
Cette vie retiree vous avait fait remarquer. Suspect. — Etiez-
vous riche? II y avait un peril imminent que le peuple ne
fut corrompupar vos largesses. Suspect. — Etiez-vous pauvreP
II fallait vous surveiller de plus pres ; il n'y a personne d'en-
treprenant comme celui qui n'a rien. Suspect. — Etiez-vous
d'un caractere sombre, melancolique, et d'un exterieur neglige?
Ce qui vous affligeait, c'est que les affaires pubkques allaient
bien. Suspect. — Un citoyen se donnait-il du bon temps et des
indigestionsP C'est parceque le prince allait mal. Suspect.
Etait-il vertueux, austere dans ses mceurs? II faisait la
censure de la cour. Suspect. — Etait-ce un philosophe, un

382 APPENDIX
orateur, un poete? H lui convenait bien d'avoir plus de re-
nommee que ceux qui gouvernaient. Suspect. — Enfin, s'etait-
on acquis de la reputation a la guerre ? On n'en etait que
plus dangereux par son talent. H fallait se defaire du general
ou l'eloigner promptement de l'armee. Suspect.
" La mort naturelle d'un homme celebre ou seulement en
place, etait si rare que les historiens la transmettaient comme
un evenement a la memoire des siecles. La mort de tant de
citoyens innocents et recommandables semblaient une moindre
calamite que I'insolence et la fortune scandaleuse de leurs
meurtriers et de leurs denonciateurs. Chaque jour le delateur
sacre et inviolable faisait son entree triomphale dans le palais
des morts, et recueillait quelque riche succession. Tous les
denonciateurs se paraient des plus beaux noms, se faisaient
appeler Cotta, Scipion, Regulus, Saevius, Severus. Pour se
signaler par un debut illustre, le marquis SerSnus intenta une
accusation de contre-revolution contre son vieux pere deja
exile, apres quoi il se faisait appeler fierement Brutus. Tels
accusateurs, tels juges; les tribunaux, protecteurs de la vieet
des proprietes etaient devenus des boucheries, ou ce qui por-
tait le nom de supplice et de confiscation n'etait que vol et
assassinat." Note J, page 187.
The following quotation is also from Mignet's work on the
French Revolution : —
L'histoire de la revolution frangaise commence en Europe
l'ere des societes nouvelles, comme la revolution d'Angleterre
a commence l'ere des gouvernements nouveaux. Cette
revolution n'a pas seulement modifie le pouvoir politique,
elle a change' toute l'existence interieure de la nation. Les
formes de la societe du moyen age existaient encore. Le sol
etait divise en provinces ennemies, les hommes etaient distri-
bues en classes rivales. La noblesse avait perdu tous ses
pouvoirs, quoiqu'elle eut conserve ses distinctions ; le peuple
ne possedait aucun droit, la royaute' n'avait pas de limites, et
la France etait livree a la confusion de l'arbitraire ministeriel,
des regimes particuliers et des privileges des corps. A cet
ordre abusif, la revolution en a substitue un plus conforme a,
la justice et plus approprie a nos temps. Elle a remplace

APPENDIX. 383
l'arbitraire par la loi, le privilege par l'egalite : elle a delivre
les hommes des distinctions des classes, le sol des barrieres
des provinces, l'industrie des entraves des corporations et des
jurandes, ragriculture des sujetions feodales et de l'oppression
des dimes, la propriete des gSnes des substitutions; et elle
a tout ramene a un seul etat, a un seul droit, a un seul
peuple." Note E, page 190.
The following is Monsieur Villemain's sketch of France
after the Revolution : —
" La France offrait alors un des spectacles les plus curieux
dans l'histoire morale des peuples. La lassitude du crime
avait amene des lois plus donees. Une sorte de treve avait
suspendu les vengeances civiles ; dans cette intervalle, l'ordre
social essayait de renaitre. Ses maux s'oubliaient rapide-
ment ; on se hatait d'esperer, et de se confier au sol trem-
blant de la France. Une joie frivole et tumultueuse s'etait
emparee des ames, comme par l'etonnement d'avoir survecu ;
et l'on ceiebrait des feites sur les ruines. Ainsi, dans les cam-
pagnes ravagees par le Vesuve, quand le torrent de flamme a
detruit les ouvrages et les habitations des hommes, bientot la
securite succede au peril, on se reunit, on se rapproche, et
Ton batit de nouvelles demeures avec les laves refroidies du
volcan." Note L, page 191. — Jours de decade.
See Chateaubriand's eloquent work, " Le Genie du Chris-
tianisme," for some striking arguments drawn from various
departments of the creation, but all tending to establish the
propriety of the division of time into the scriptural week of
seven days. It is much to be regretted that this lovely and
impressive book contains so much that is peculiar to the
Romish church. It presents, perhaps, some of the most con
clusive arguments ever put forward in advocacy of the essen
tial truth and beauty of the Christian system ; and he must
have a cold heart indeed who can read it without emotion.
At the same time, it is a work which wavering Protestants,
anxious to keep on this side the pale, should avoid ; for though
there is nothing Romish in it which a good Bible student

384 APPENDIX.
could not readily refute, it addresses itself so touchingly to
the affections, that few young persons, at any rate, could
keep cool enough for argument during its perusal. We speak
from experience.
Note M, page 269. — Murder of the Due d'Enghien.
Our brief account of this infamous transaction is substan
tially that given by De Bourrienne, a devoted imperialist,
who had a personal account of the affair from Harrel, one of
the culprits, the man who dug the pit. — See De Botjebienne's
Memoirs. Note N, page 291.
Her high idea of the Roman character, may be best seen
by the following passage, in which she compares her father to
the great men of that nation : —
Mais en vain ce beau ciel, cette vive nature,
Ces chants delicieux ressemblaient au bonheur,
Toujours j'ai ressenti la cruelle blessure
Du poignard que la mort a plonge dans mon coeur.
Oil fair cette douleur ? Sur ces debris antiques,
D'un antique moderne on croit trouver les pas ;
Aussi grand qu'un Romain par ses vertus publiques,
Persecute comme eux, trabi par des ingrats;
Mais plus sensible qu'eux, et pleure sur la terre,
Comme un obscur ami dont les paisibles jours
Aux devoirs d'un epoux, aux tendresses d'un pere,
Auraient ete voues, dans leur tranquille cours.
Zephyr que j'ai senti, caressiez-vous sa cendre ?
Harmonieuses voix, cantique des elus,
Dans le sein de la tombe a-t-il pu vous entendre,
Et nos coeurs separes se sont-ils repondus ?
Ciel parseme de feux, aujourd'hui sa demeure,
Eternite des temps, eteruite des mers,
Ne me direz-vous pas, et devant que je meure,
Si ses bras paternels me sont encore ouverts t"
Note O, page 351.
The French did not at first compass the idea that the Rus
sians had set fire to Moscow. The following is from the English
translation of Count Segur's " History of the Expedition to
Russia:" —

APPENDIX. 385
" Most of us imagined that want of discipline in our troops
and intoxication, had begun the disaster, and that the high
wind had completed it. We viewed ourselves with a sort of
disgust. The cry of horror which all Europe would not fail
to set up, terrified us. Filled with consternation .by so tre
mendous a catastrophe, we accosted each other with downcast
looks : it sullied our glory ; it deprived us of the fruits of it ;
it threatened our present and our future existence ; we were
now but an army of criminals, whom heaven and the civilised
world would severely judge. From these overwhelming
thoughts and paroxysms of rage against the incendiaries, we
were roused only by an eagerness to obtain intelligence ; and
all the accounts began to accuse the Russians alone of this
disaster. In fact, officers arrived from all quarters, and they
all agreed. The very first night, that of the 14th, a fire-
balloon had settled on the palace of Prince Trubetskoi, and
consumed it : this was a signal. Fire had been immediately
set to the Exchange : Russian police soldiers had been seen
stirring it up with tarred lances. Here howitzer shells, per
fidiously placed, had discharged themselves in the stoves of
several houses, and wounded the military who crowded round
them. Retiring to other quarters which were still standing,
they sought fresh retreats ; but when they were on the point
of entering houses closely shut up and uninhabited, they
heard faint explosions within; these were succeeded by a
light smoke, which immediately became thick and black, then
reddish, and, lastly, the colour of fire, and presently the whole
edifice was involved in flames.
Note P, page 357.
Et, si Ton me demande comment Philippe l'a emporte?
tout le monde repondra pour moi : par ses armes, qui ont
tout envahi ; par son or, qui a tout corrompu. II n'en etait
pas en moi de combattre ni l'un ni l'autre; je n'avais ni
tresors, ni soldats. Mais, pour ce qui est de moi, j'ose dire
que j'ai vaincu Philippe; et comment? en refusant ses lar
gesses, en resistant a sa corruption. Quand un homme s'est
laisse acheter, l'acheteur peut dire qu'il a triomphe de lui,
C C

386 APPENDIX.
mais celui qui demeure incorruptible, peut dire qu'il triomphe
du corrupteur." — Fragment d'une harangue de Demosthene.
Quoted from La Haepe's Cours de Litterature.
Note Q, page 363.
The following beautiful notice of Madame de Stael occurs
in the historical notes to the fourth canto of Childe Harold.
" In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie."
Stanza liv. line 1.
" This name will recall the memory, not only of those whose
tombs have raised the Santa Croce into the centre of pilgrim
age, the Mecca of Italy, but of her whose eloquence was poured
over the illustrious ashes, and whose voice is now as mute as
those she sung. Corinna is no more ; and with her should ex
pire the fear, the flattery, and the envy, which threw too
dazzling or too dark a cloud round the march of genius, and
forbad the steady gaze of disinterested criticism. We have her
picture embellished or distorted, as friendship or detraction
has held the pencil : the impartial portrait was hardly to be
expected from a contemporary. The immediate voice of her
survivors will, it is probable, be far from affording a just esti
mate of her singular capacity. The gallantry, the love of
wonder, and the hope of associated fame, which blunted the
edge of censure, must cease to exist. — The dead have no sex ;
they can surprise by no new miracles ; they can confer no
privilege : Corinna has ceased to be a woman — she is only an
author : and it may be foreseen that many will repay them
selves for former complaisance, by a severity to which the ex
travagance of previous praises may perhaps give the colour of
truth. The latest posterity, for to the latest posterity they
will assuredly descend, will have to pronounce upon her
various productions ; and the longer the vista through which
they are seen, the more accurately minute will be the object,
the more certain the justice, of the decision. She will enter
into that existence in which the great writers of all ages and
nations are, as it were, associated in a world of their own, and,
from that superior sphere, shed their eternal influence for the
control and consolation of mankind. But the individual will
gradually disappear as the author is more distinctly seen:
some one, therefore, of all those whom the charms of involun-

APPENDIX. 3S7
tary wit, and of easy hospitality, attracted within the friendly
circles of Coppet, should rescue from oblivion those virtues
which, although they are said to love the shade, are, in fact,
more frequently chilled than excited by the domestic cares of
private life. Some one should be found to portray the un
affected graces with which she adorned those dearer relation
ships, the performance of whose duties is rather discovered
amongst the interior secrets, than seen in the outward manage
ment, of family intercourse ; and which, indeed, it requires
the dehcacy of genuine affection to qualify for the eye of an
indifferent spectator. Some one should be found, not to cele
brate, but to describe, the amiable mistress of an open man
sion, the centre of a society, ever varied, and always pleased,
the creator of which, divested of the ambition and the arts of
public rivalry, shone forth only to give fresh animation to
those around her. The mother tenderly affectionate and ten
derly beloved, the friend unboundedly generous, but still
esteemed, the charitable patroness of all distress, cannot be
forgotten by those whom she cherished, and protected, and
fed. Her loss will be mourned the most where she was .known
the best ; and, to the sorrows of very many friends, and more
dependants, may be offered the disinterested regret of a
stranger, who, amidst the sublimer scenes of the Leman lake,
received his chief satisfaction from contemplating the engaging
qualities of the incomparable Corinna."
Lord Byron somewhere remarks on Madame de Stael's
affectation in assuming to be able to write in one room only.
But had she this affectation ? In Sweden, England, Germany,
and France, she exercised her pen as well as in Switzerland.
No doubt there was one room at Coppet which she preferred
to all others as a study. Was not that room her father's
cabinet, from whose window she could see the boughs that
waved over his grave ? That she wrote better here than any
where else might be no fancy, for every object was calculated
to affect her. and all that deeply stirs the soul may minister
to the inspiration of genius. Lord Byron himself very truly
says, "the fit of composition is like a fever," and a fever we all
know is fed by excitement. Every one who uses the pen
must remember some season of pain or violent agitation when
every word seemed doubly forcible, and when the very agony

388 APPENDIX.
of the soul lent new life and vigour to the theme that occu
pied him. That theme might be very foreign to his woe — a
comedy even — and yet the circumstance that excited him
roused the hidden forces of his soul, as, after an eruption of
Vesuvius, the vine grows very quickly and beautifully near
the heated substances that seemed to threaten its destruction.
This is true of only a certain kind of suffering ; there are
griefs so crushing that they deaden every power and talent.
I should say such griefs are those only that involve deep
repentance, remorse, or terror. Some persons ascribe to
insensibility the instinct that compels an author to confide his
sorrows to his pen, but they who thus judge have never
fathomed certain depths of the experiences of all passionate
natures. Hartley Coleridge — and I write that name with in
finite tenderness and respect — Hartley Coleridge writing to
his mother on the occasion of his father's death, after writing
a snatch of poetry, says — " Dear mother, this is a sad attempt
at verse, and it may seem to you to evidence small sense of
my orphan state that I should choose such a vehicle; but I
have so long used myself to express my deeper feelings in
metre, that I find a difficulty in expressing them in prose."
But Hartley Coleridge never wrote a line, I believe, on the
dark passages of his own wrecked life; that life, which like a
strain of music, joyous at first, suddenly changes into the
minor mode, and dies away pathetically into silence. It was a
song incomplete on earth; and has, we hope, returned to its
primal key. " What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted."

the EA"D.

Suvill & Edwards, Friutei's, 4, C'handos-street, Coveut-garden.