Madame de Staël

by Bella Duffy

Moreover, although Constant first saw Madame Récamier at Coppet in 1806, and confided to her those grievances of his against Madame de Staël, which just then were rising to exasperation point, it was only in 1813, when she called upon him to defend the interests of Murat at the Congress of Vienna, that he fell in love with her. The correspondence which ensued between them does more honor to her than to him. Leaving aside the questionable nature of his passion, he allowed himself to speak of Madame de Staël with a fractious mistrust which, even if transitory, could have come from nobody with a more deplorable grace. The basis of the sentiment appears to have been jealousy of Madame de Staël’s influence over her devoted friend. Such a jealousy was as futile as paltry; for it would have needed a more witching tongue even than Constant’s to have shaken the loyalty of the loving Juliette. To gratify a request of hers he wrote some fragments of memoirs and sketched a portrait of Madame de Staël which, besides much praise, contains some furtive sarcasm at her inexpugnable belief in herself—that large quality, too grand to be called conceit, which, according to Constant, amounted to a cultus and inspired a “religious respect.”

It is interesting to record that the first time Châteaubriand ever saw Madame Récamier was at Madame de Staël’s. He had gone to thank the latter for having occupied herself about his recall to France. He found her at her toilette, talking eagerly, and twirling in her fingers, as usual, a little green twig. Madame Récamier suddenly entered, dressed in white. From that moment Châteaubriand was so absorbed in her that he had no longer any attention to bestow on her eloquent friend. This was in 1800. He did not see her again for twelve years. Benjamin Constant, in the “portrait” already mentioned, has left an account of Madame Récamier and Madame de Staël, which gives a very good idea of both of them, and is specially interesting as coming from such a source. He relates that, at the first interview between them, Madame Récamier felt very shy. He says:—

Madame de Staël’s appearance has been much discussed, but a magnificent glance, a sweet smile, and an habitual expression of kindness, the absence of all minute affectation and of all embarrassing reserve, flattering words, praise a little direct but apparently dictated by enthusiasm, an inexhaustible variety in conversation, astonish, attract, and reconcile almost everybody who approaches her. I know no woman, and even no man, who is more convinced of her immense superiority over the whole world, and who renders this conviction less oppressive to others. Nothing could be more charming than the conversations between Madame de Staël and Madame Récamier. The rapidity of the one in expressing a thousand new thoughts, the rapidity of the second in seizing and judging them; on the one side a strong and masculine intelligence which unmasked everything, on the other a delicate and penetrating mind which understood everything. All this formed a whole impossible to render for those who did not enjoy the privilege of witnessing it.

Madame de Staël scattered golden rain of the frankest and sincerest praise over Madame Récamier every time that she addressed her. “You are exquisite,” “you are beautiful,” “you reign as a queen over sentiment,” are among the sentences that stud every other line of her letters. Another of her female friends was she whom she named the “sweet Annette de Gérando,” the wife of the author of The Signs and Art of Thinking in their Mutual Relations, the Origin of Human Intelligence, the Comparative History of Philosophic Systems, etc. He was a philanthropist as well as a philosopher, and Madame de Staël in later years once made rather a bitter allusion to this fact. As time went on, and Napoleon’s star blazed brighter, De Gérando was unable to resist the general infection of idolatry; moreover, he had accepted a post under the new Government, and the withering blight of officialism fell to a certain extent on his spirit. “There is too much philanthropy in his friendship,” wrote Madame de Staël to Jordan. “One is afraid of being treated by him like a pauper.”

But in the summer of 1801 all this was still in the future, and harmony and wit reigned at Coppet. Sismondi about this time appears on the scene; discreet, observant, serene, reasonable, he conceived for Madame de Staël a friendship which remained moderate in expression and sincere in feeling to the last. He was not as much dazzled by her as many, and saw her failings clearly. Occasionally she even wounded his quiet self-love, and once or twice, when very restless and excited, she offended him. But he was invariably drawn back to her by the spell of her goodness. He appears as a rock of strength amid all the sparkling, moving, changing tide of ideas and feelings that rippled, dashed, recoiled, and returned unceasingly in every hour of the sojourn at Coppet. His steady sense and calm judgment bring out into sharper contrast the unrest of Constant; the flashing splendor of Madame de Staël; the dreamy refinement of Mathieu de Montmorency; the fantastic charm of Madame de Krüdener, and the unfailing grace of the lovely “Juliette.”

Bonstetten was yet another visitor at the château. He was called the Swiss Voltaire, was eternally young, and even grew younger and more plastic in mind as the unnoticed years crept over him. He had seen Madame Necker in Paris when she was still unmarried, and reappeared in her daughter’s home at Coppet as gay, as smiling, as vivacious and witty as he had shown himself in the long-vanished salon of Madame de Vermenoux. He laid himself at Madame de Staël’s feet at once, was received by her with her usual gracious warmth, and profited by her keen but generous criticism of his works. Everybody began by gently laughing at Bonstetten’s incurable youthfulness, and ended by adoring him for it. He wanted steadiness of intellectual purpose—a “belfry,” as St. Beuve expresses it; in other words, some central fact of mind round which all his ideas could rally—but he had plenty of insight, and, amid the universal eulogium of Madame de Staël’s powers, seems to have been the first to point out a defect in her which Schiller commented on later. For when writing of her to Frederica Brun, he says: “Her goodness is extreme, and nobody has more intellect; but that which is best in you, in her does not exist. She lacks feeling for art, and sees no beauty except in eloquence and intelligence. She has more practical wisdom than anybody, but uses it more for her friends than herself.”

Frederica Brun herself came to Geneva about this time, and has left enthusiastic descriptions of Madame de Staël, of Necker, Madame Necker de Saussure and Madame Rilliet-Hüber. She also bore testimony to Madame de Staël’s devotion to her children. Her eldest son, Auguste, and her only daughter, Albertine, were destined all her life to solace her by their love for much that she suffered. She directed the education of both her boys, but occupied herself especially with that of the girl. She was accused by some of her friends, even by Sismondi, of not caring very much for her children; but no word of theirs ever betrayed any sense of such a deficiency in her. On the contrary, both Auguste and Albertine always spoke and wrote of her with the utmost enthusiasm.

After spending two summers and one winter uninterruptedly at Coppet, during which period she wrote and published Delphine, the desire to return to France grew into an overpowering force. Napoleon had now been declared Consul for life, and was preparing to invade England. She hoped, she said, that amid such multifarious occupations he would not have leisure to conceive any objection against her establishing herself within a few miles of Paris, near enough, in fact, to enjoy the society of such friends as would not be too much in awe of the potentate to pay her occasional visits. She further deluded herself with the notion that Napoleon would shrink from the odium of exiling a woman so well known as herself. Such a hope shows how simple Madame de Staël could still be at times. Napoleon was no longer in a position in which blame for mere details of conduct could touch him, and his career from this moment was to be one long outrage on public opinion.

Madame de Staël established herself in a country house about ten miles from Paris. Then there happened a circumstance which she had not foreseen. In the eighteen months of her sojourn at Coppet, the society which she knew formerly had grown baser. A whole race of parasites had arisen, whose real or fancied interest it was to obtain the favor of Napoleon by denouncing the people whom he detested. A woman, whose name is suppressed, lost no time in informing Napoleon that the road leading to Madame de Staël’s dwelling was crowded with her visitors. Immediately one of her friends warned her that a gendarme would probably be sent to her without loss of time. She instantly became a prey to anxiety, an excessive anxiety it is certain, for she was excessive in most things.