Ten Years' Exile / Memoirs of That Interesting Period of the Life of the Baroness De Stael-Holstein, Written by Herself, during the Years 1810, 1811, 1812, and 1813, and Now First Published from the Original Manuscript, by Her Son.

by Madame de Staël

END OF THE FIRST PART.

ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR.

There is at this place in the manuscript a considerable vacuum, of which I have already given an explanation*, and which I am not sufficiently informed to make the attempt to fill up. But to put the reader in a situation to follow my mother's narrative, I will run over rapidly the principal circumstances of her life during the five years which separate the first part of these memoirs from the second.

* See the Preface.

On her return to Switzerland after the death of her father, the first desire she felt was to seek some alleviation of her sorrow in giving to the world the portrait of him whom she had just lost, and in collecting the last traces of his thoughts. In the Autumn of 1804, she published the MSS. of her father, with a sketch of his public and private character.

My mother's health, impaired by misfortune, necessitated her to go and breathe the air of the South. She set out for Italy. The beautiful sky of Naples, the recollections of antiquity, and the chefs-d'oeuvre of art, opened to her new sources of enjoyment, to which she had been hitherto a stranger; her soul, overwhelmed with grief, seemed to revive to these new impressions, and she recovered sufficient strength to think and to write. During this journey, she was treated by the diplomatic agents of France without favor, but without injustice. She was interdicted a residence at Paris; she was banished from her friends and her habits; but tyranny had not, at least at that time, pursued her beyond the Alps; persecution had not as yet been established as a system, as it was afterwards. I even feel a real pleasure in mentioning that some letters of recommendation sent her by Joseph Bonaparte, contributed to render her residence at Rome more agreeable.

She returned from Italy in the summer of 1805, and passed a year at
Coppet and Geneva, where several of her friends were collected.
During this period she began to write Corinne.

During the following year, her attachment to France, that feeling which had so much power over her heart, made her quit Geneva and go nearer to Paris, to the distance of forty leagues from it, which was still permitted to her. I was then pursuing my studies, preparatory to entering into the Polytechnic school; and from her great goodness to her children, she wished to watch over their education, as near as her exile could allow her. She went in consequence to settle at Auxerre, a little town where she had no acquaintance, but of which the prefect, M. de la Bergerie, behaved to her with great kindness and delicacy.

From Auxerre she went to Rouen: this was approaching some leagues nearer the centre to which all the recollections and all the affections of her youth attracted her. There she could at least receive letters daily from Paris; she had penetrated without any obstacle the inclosure, entrance into which had been forbidden to her; she might hope that the fatal circle would progressively be contracted. Those only who have suffered banishment will be able to understand what passed in her heart. M. de Savoie-Rollin was then prefect of the Lower Seine; it is well known by what glaring injustice he was removed some years afterwards, and I have reason to believe that his friendship for my mother, and the interest which he shewed for her, during her residence at Rouen, were no slight causes of the rigor of which he became the object.

Fouche was still minister of police. His system was, as my mother has said, to do as little evil as possible, the necessity of the object admitted. The Prussian monarchy had just fallen; there was no longer any enemy upon the Continent to struggle with the government of Napoleon; no internal resistance shackled his progress, or could afford the least pretext for the employment of arbitrary measures; what motive, therefore, could he have for prolonging the most gratuitous persecution of my mother? Fouche then permitted her to come and settle at the distance of twelve leagues from Paris, upon an estate belonging to M. de Castellane. There she finished Corinne, and superintended the printing of it. In other respects, the retired life she there led, the extreme prudence of her whole conduct, and the very small number of persons who were not prevented by the fear of disgrace from coming to visit her, might have been sufficient to tranquillize the most suspicious despotism. But all this did not satisfy Bonaparte; he wanted my mother to renounce entirely the employment of her talents, and to interdict her from writing even upon subjects the most unconnected with politics. It will be seen that even at a later period this abnegation was not sufficient to preserve her from a continually increasing persecution.