‘This is my study,’ he said, opening another door, ‘and here I am free from the intrusion of all those parrots who besiege me in my little house on the wall. Here I let my pen wander as my imagination and whim prompt me.’ He showed me a great many works completed, and a number of unfinished manuscripts.
‘All this has been written for myself, to satisfy the cravings of my own heart. They are what actors would call “my asides.”’
I asked him if the world at large was not to benefit by his lessons of experience.
‘No, no,’ he replied, ‘I have too often had proof that here below a man’s reputation depends upon those who have none. And what, when all is said and done, is this glory before which one bows down, and which one pursues with all one’s might? The same day witnesses its birth and its death, so short, after all, is life. Ypsilanti, about whom we have chatted so often, has gloriously lost his arm. When at present he makes his appearance in a drawing-room, he is surrounded, he is pointed out to public curiosity, and people tell of the battle in which he distinguished himself. To-day he is a young hero; before many springs pass over our heads, and they pass very quickly, people will call him the old cripple.
‘Never had a woman a more glorious welcome than that accorded to Mme. de Staël in Vienna six years ago. Her arrival and her stay constituted, as it were, a date, for people still say—“When Mme. de Staël was here.” Well, the enthusiasm was soon succeeded by a spirit of criticism the reverse of good-natured. Nevertheless, if there be anything in this world which is not all vanity, assuredly it is the admiration one inspires; but how long does that admiration last? At the outset Mme. de Staël carried all hearts, and conquered all minds.’
‘Not in virtue of her personal attractions, for even in her portraits she did not seem to me sufficiently good-looking to please.’
‘That’s true, she could never have possessed a pleasing face; her mouth and nose were ugly. But her magnificent eyes marvellously expressed everything that went on successively in that brain so rich in lofty or virile thoughts; her hands were beautifully shaped, hence the care she took to direct attention to them by her habit of constantly fingering a branch of poplar provided with a few leaves, the shaking of which, according to herself, was the necessary accompaniment to her words. Her conversation was simply dazzling; she discussed every subject with a marvellous facility; she expressed herself in an animated, brilliant and poetical manner. The larger her audience, the loftier did her genius soar. She was only at her ease with men capable of judging her, but on such occasions she was truly great.
‘Well, all those titles to admiration were soon made light of. The human mind, by an inevitable reaction, passes from enthusiasm to carping. In a short time people laid stress on Mme. de Staël’s defects; her brilliant qualities were no longer taken into account. In general conversation, it was said, she showed herself more anxious to dazzle than to please; her monologues reduced her interlocutors to the roles of complacent listeners; when she addressed a question to some one, she rarely waited for the answer. She was fond of society in which she was calculated to shine, but she did not care for the society of women, which, as a rule, affords fewer resources to an intellect like hers than that of men. And the women have not forgiven her, however much her genius may have conferred honour on her own sex.
‘Hence, she gradually saw a diminution of her celebrity, a celebrity which had become necessary to her, and which, nevertheless, was not to her the road to happiness. She constantly regretted France, from which she was irrevocably exiled, in consequence of her opposition to the government; she had designated Bonaparte as Robespierre on horseback. It may therefore be said that she served her own cause when endeavouring to overtopple the obstacle to her return to Paris; and on the task she set herself, she brought to bear all the energy of a genius, stimulated by the hatred of a woman.
‘I have much admired Mme. de Staël; I still admire her, and I strongly suspect that the author of the Dialogue sur l’enthousiasme wanted to paint me in the character of Cleon.’ The prince, when uttering those last words, glanced at me smiling. ‘She felt much vexed at some one daring to question merit which at that time everybody agreed in pronouncing incontestable. That little bit of criticism was the first. The author particularly censures her novel Corinne. In that respect he was wrong. Wishing to attack her, he had no business to attack her writings. That, assuredly, was not her vulnerable side. But he would have been justified in blaming the pretension to refer everything to herself, the inconstancy of opinion which was so dangerous to her friends who took her at her word, the pedagogic and biting tone, the histrionic elation, in the manner of Corinne, her neologism in intellectual matters, which was so utterly antipathetic to me, and the craving to appear on the boards, where she displayed not the slightest talent, inasmuch as her true vocation lay in acting in real life. On all those points he would have been justified in venting his spite either in prose or in verse. You are aware that we were within an ace of falling out for ever in consequence of a spiteful remark which was told to her as coming from me. After the performance of her tragedy, Agar dans le Désert, in which, to be frank, she seemed more ugly than usual, some one, who was not the Prince de Ligne, is reported to have said that the proper title of the piece ought to have been La Justification d’Abraham. She sulked for a long time, and I had much difficulty in convincing her of my innocence.’