Madame de Staël was the most distinguished authoress of her time. As a woman, she was always independent and sincere, and her faults—vanity and an uncontrollable thirst for applause—may easily be pardoned in view of her many talents. Napoleon could have won her to his government at any moment, had he chosen to do so. It is perhaps fortunate for literature that she was compelled to live in isolation, as neither "Corinne" nor "Germany" would have been written had she been able to reside in Paris, instead of travelling to occupy her exile. It is a singular and not unfair commentary upon Napoleon's reign, that its most remarkable literary celebrity—in point of mere chronology—owed her supremacy to his persecution; and it is a permissible inference, that had his government preferred to foster and cherish her genius, Madame de Staël would have been known to posterity as little more than a precocious child, a brilliant conversationalist, an unsexed woman, and a factious politician.
[1] Mém. de Madame de Genlis, 92.
[2] Soc. Franç. sous le Directoire, 298.
[3] Napoléon et ses Contemporains, i. 229.
[4] Lac. Rév. Française, ii. 140.
[5] Vide "Delphine," vol. ii. 386.
[6] Ducrest, Mém. de Joséphine, 23.
[7] It is from a copy of this portrait, by Gérard, in the Historical Gallery of Versailles, that the most accurate likenesses of Madame de Staël are taken.
[8] Bour. viii. 101.