CHAPTER XVIII. MADAME DE STAEL
Supremacy of Her Genius—Her Early Training—Her Sensibility—a Mariage de Convenance—Her Salon—Anecdote of Benjamin Constant—Her Exile—Life at Coppet—Secret Marriage—Close of a Stormy Life.
The fame of all other French women is more or less overshadowed by that of one who was not only supreme in her own world, but who stands on a pinnacle so high that time and distance only serve to throw into stronger relief the grand outlines of her many-sided genius. Without the simplicity and naturalness of Mme. de Sevigne, the poise and judgment of Mme. de Lafayette, or the calm foresight and diplomacy of Mme. de Maintenon, Mme. de Stael had a brilliancy of imagination, a force of passion, a grasp of intellect, and a diversity of gifts that belonged to none of these women. It is not possible within the limits of a brief chapter to touch even lightly upon the various phases of a character so complex and talents so versatile. One can only gather a few scattered traits and indicate a few salient points in a life of which the details are already familiar. As woman, novelist, philosopher, litterateur, and conversationist, she has marked, if not equal, claims upon our attention. To speak of her as simply the leader of a salon is to merge the greater talent into the less, but her brilliant social qualities in a measure brought out and illuminated all the others. It was not the gift of reconciling diverse elements, and of calling out the best thoughts of those who came within her radius, that distinguished her. Her personality was too dominant not to disturb sometimes the measure and harmony which fashion had established. She did not listen well, but her gift was that of the orator, and, taking whatever subject was uppermost into her own hands, she talked with an irresistible eloquence that held her auditors silent and enchained. Living as she did in the world of wit and talent which had so fascinated her mother, she ruled it as an autocrat.
The mental coloring of Mme. de Stael was not taken in the shade, as that of Mme. Roland had been. She was reared in the atmosphere of the great world. That which her eager mind gathered in solitude was subject always to the modification which contact with vigorous living minds is sure to give. The little Germaine Necker who sat on a low stool at her mother's side, charming the cleverest men of her time by her precocious wit; who wrote extracts from the dramas she heard, and opinions upon the authors she read; who made pen-portraits of her friends, and cut out paper kings and queens to play in the tragedies she composed; whose heart was always overflowing with love for those around her, and who had supreme need for an outlet to her sensibilities, was a fresh type in that age of keen analysis, cold skepticism, and rigid forms. The serious utterances of her childhood were always suffused with feeling. She loved that which made her weep. Her sympathies were full and overflowing, and when her vigorous and masculine intellect took the ascendency it directed them, but only partly held them in check. It never dulled nor subdued them. The source of her power, as also of her weakness, lay perhaps in her vast capacity for love. It gave color and force to her rich and versatile character. It animated all she did and gave point to all she wrote. It found expression in the eloquence of her conversation, in the exaltation and passionate intensity of her affections, in the fervor of her patriotism, in the self-forgetful generosity that brought her very near the verge of the scaffold. Here was the source of that indefinable quality we call genius—not genius of the sort which Buffon has defined as patience, but the divine flame that crowns with life the dead materials which patience has gathered.
It was impossible that a child so eager, so sympathetic, so full of intellect and esprit, should not have developed rapidly in the atmosphere of her mother's salon. Whether it was the best school for a young girl may be a question, but a character like that of Mme. de Stael is apt to go its own way in whatever circumstances it finds itself. She was the despair of Mme. Necker, whose educational theories were altogether upset by this precocious daughter who refused to be cast in a mold. But she was habituated to a high altitude of thought. Men like Marmontel, La Harpe, Grimm, Thomas, and the Abbe Raynal delighted in calling out her ready wit, her brilliant repartee, and her precocious ideas. Surrounded thus from childhood with all the appointments as well as the talent and esprit that made the life of the salons so fascinating; inheriting the philosophic insight of her father, the literary gifts of her mother, to which she added a genius all her own; heir also to the spirit of conversation, the facility, the enthusiasm, the love of pleasing which are the Gallic birthright, she took her place in the social world as a queen by virtue of her position, her gifts, and her heritage. Already, before her marriage, she had changed the tone of her mother's salon. She brought into it an element of freshness and originality which the dignified and rather precise character of Mme. Necker had failed to impart. She gave it also a strong political coloring. This influence was more marked after she became the wife of the Swedish ambassador, as she continued for some time to pass her evenings in her mother's drawing room, where she became more and more a central figure. Her temperament and her tastes were of the world in which she lived, but her reason and her expansive sympathies led her to ally herself with the popular cause; hence she was, to some extent, a link between two conflicting interests.
It was in 1786 that Mme. de Stael entered the world as a married woman. This marriage was arranged for her after the fashion of the time, and she accepted it as she would have accepted anything tolerable that pleased her idolized father and revered mother. When only ten years of age, she observed that they took great pleasure in the society of Gibbon, and she gravely proposed to marry him, that they might always have this happiness. The full significance of this singular proposition is not apparent until one remembers that the learned historian was not only rather old, but so short and fat as to call out from one of his friends the remark that when he needed a little exercise he had only to take a turn of three times around M. Gibbon. The Baron de Stael had an exalted position, fine manners, a good figure, and a handsome face, but he lacked the one thing that Mme. de Stael most considered, a commanding talent. She did not see him through the prism of a strong affection which transfigures all things, even the most commonplace. What this must have meant to a woman of her genius and temperament whose ideal of happiness was a sympathetic marriage, it is not difficult to divine. It may account, in some degree, for her restlessness, her perpetual need of movement, of excitement, of society. But, whatever her domestic troubles may have been, they were of limited duration. She was quietly separated from her husband in 1798. Four years later she decided to return to Coppet with him, as he was unhappy and longed to see his children. He died en route.
The period of this marriage was one of the most memorable of France, the period when noble and generous spirits rallied in a spontaneous movement for national regeneration. Mme. De Stael was in the flush of hope and enthusiasm, fresh from the study of Rousseau and her own dreams of human perfectibility; radiant, too, with the reflection of her youthful fame. Among those who surrounded her were the Montmorencys, Lafayette, and Count Louis de Narbonne, whose brilliant intellect and charming manners touched her perhaps too deeply for her peace of mind. There were also Barnave, Chenier, Talleyrand, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, and many others of the active leaders of the Revolution. A few woman mingled in her more intimate circle, which was still of the old society. Of these were the ill-fated Duchesse de Gramont, Mme. de Lauzun, the Princesse de Poix, and the witty, lovable Marechale de Beauvau. As a rule, though devoted to her friends and kind to those who sought her aid, Mme. de Stael did not like the society of women. Perhaps they did not always respond to her elevated and swiftly flowing thoughts; or it may be that she wounded the vanity of those who were cast into the shade by talents so conspicuous and conversation so eloquent, and who felt the lack of sympathetic rapport. Society is au fond republican, and is apt to resent autocracy, even the autocracy of genius, when it takes the form of monologue. It is contrary to the social spirit. The salon of Mme. de Stael not only took its tone from herself, but it was a reflection of herself. She was not beautiful, and she dressed badly; indeed, she seems to have been singularly free from that personal consciousness which leads people to give themselves the advantages of an artistic setting, even if the taste is not inborn. She was too intent upon what she thought and felt, to give heed to minor details. But in her conversation, which was a sort of improvisation, her eloquent face was aglow, her dark eyes flashed with inspiration, her superb form and finely poised head seemed to respond to the rhythmic flow of thoughts that were emphasized by the graceful gestures of an exquisitely molded hand, in which she usually held a sprig of laurel. "If I were queen," said Mme. de Tesse, "I would order Mme. de Stael to talk to me always."
But this center in which the more thoughtful spirits of the old regime met the brilliant and active leaders of the new was broken up by the storm which swept away so many of its leaders, and Mme. de Stael, after lingering in the face of dangers to save her friends, barely escaped with her life on the eve of the September massacres of 1792. "She is an excellent woman," said one of her contemporaries, "who drowns all her friends in order to have the pleasure of angling for them."
Mme. de Stael resumed her place and organized her salon anew in 1795. But it was her fate to live always in an atmosphere surcharged with storms. She was too republican for the aristocrats, and too aristocratic for the republicans. Distrusted by both parties and feared by the Directoire, she found it advisable after a few months to retire to Coppet. Less than two years later she was again in Paris. Her friends were then in power, notably Talleyrand. "If I remain here another year I shall die," he had written her from America, and she had generously secured the repeal of the decree that exiled him, a kindness which he promptly forgot. Though her enthusiasm for the republic was much moderated, and though she had been so far dazzled by the genius of Napoleon as to hail him as a restorer of order, her illusions regarding him were very short-lived. She had no sympathy with his aims at personal power. Her drawing room soon became the rallying point for his enemies and the center of a powerful opposition. But she had a natural love for all forms of intellectual distinction, and her genius and fame still attracted a circle more or less cosmopolitan. Ministers of state and editors of leading journals were among her guests. Joseph and Lucien Bonaparte were her devoted friends. The small remnant of the noblesse that had any inclination to return to a world which had lost its charm for them found there a trace of the old politeness. Mathieu de Montmorency, devout and charitable; his brother Adrien, delicate in spirit and gentle in manners; Narbonne, still devoted and diplomatic, and the Chevalier de Boufflers, gay, witty, and brilliant, were of those who brought into it something of the tone of the past regime. There were also the men of the new generation, men who were saturated with the principles of the Revolution though regretting its methods. Among these were Chebnier, Regnault, and Benjamin Constant.