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

Residence at Vienna.

I arrived at Vienna on the 6th of June, very fortunately just two hours before the departure of a courier whom Count Stackelberg, the Russian ambassador, was dispatching to Wilna, where the emperor Alexander then was. M. de Stackelberg, who behaved to me with that noble delicacy which is so prominent a trait in his character, wrote by this courier for my passport, and assured me that within three weeks I might reckon on having an answer. It then became a question where I was to pass these three weeks; my Austrian friends, who had given me the most amiable reception, assured me that I might remain at Vienna without the least fear. The court was then at Dresden, at the great meeting of all the German princes, who came to present their homage to the emperor of France. Napoleon had stopped at Dresden under the pretext of still negociating there to avoid the war with Russia, in other words, to obtain by his policy the same result as he could by his arms. He would not at first admit the king of Prussia to his banquet at Dresden; he knew too well what repugnance the heart of that unfortunate monarch must have to what he conceives himself obliged to do. It is said that M. de Metternich obtained this humiliating favor for him. M. de Hardenberg, who accompanied him, made the remark to the emperor Napoleon, that Prussia had paid one third more than the promised contributions. The emperor turning his back to him, replied: "An apothecary's bill,"— for he has a secret pleasure in making use of vulgar expressions, the more to humble those who are the objects of it. He assumed a sufficient degree of coquetry in his way of living with the emperor and empress of Austria as it was of importance to him that the Austrian government should take an active part in his war with Russia. In a conversation with M. de Metternich, I have been assured that he said, "You see very well that I can never have the least interest in diminishing the power of Austria, as it now exists; for, first of all, it suits me that my father-in-law should be a prince of great consideration: besides, I have more confidence in the old than in the new dynasties. Has not General Bernadotte already taken the side of making peace with England?" And in fact, the Prince Royal of Sweden, as will be seen in the sequel, had courageously declared himself for the interests of the country which he governed.

The emperor of France having left Dresden to review his armies, the empress went to spend some time at Prague with her own family. Napoleon himself, at his departure, regulated the etiquette that was to subsist between the father and the daughter, and one may conjecture that it was not very easy, as he loves etiquette almost as much from suspicion as from vanity, in other words, as a means of isolating individuals among themselves, under the pretence of marking the distinction of their ranks.

The first ten days, which I passed at Vienna, passed unclouded, and I was delighted at thus finding myself again in a pleasing society, whose manner of thinking corresponded with my own; for the public opinion was unfavorable to the alliance with Napoleon, and the government had concluded it without being supported by the national assent. In fact, how could a war, the ostensible object of which was the re-establishment of Poland, be undertaken by the power which had contributed to the partition, and which still retained in its hands with greater obstinacy than ever the third of that same Poland? Thirty thousand men were sent by the Austrian government to restore the confederation of Poland at Warsaw, and nearly as many spies were attached to the movements of the Poles in Gallicia, who wished to have deputies at this confederation. The Austrian government was therefore obliged to speak against the Poles, at the very time that it was acting in their cause, and to say to her subjects of Gallicia: "I forbid you to be of the opinion which I support." What metaphysics! they would be found very intricate, if fear did not explain every thing.

The Poles are the only nation, of those which Bonaparte drags after him, that create any interest. I believe they know as well as we do, that they are only the pretence for the war, and that the emperor does not care a fig for their independence. He has not even been able to refrain from expressing several times to the emperor Alexander his disdain for Poland, solely because she wishes to be free: but it suits his purposes to put her in the van against Russia, and the Poles avail themselves of that circumstance to restore their national independence. I know not if they will succeed, for it is with difficulty that despotism ever gives liberty, and what they will regain in their own cause, if successful, they will lose in the cause of Europe. They will be Poles, but Poles as much enslaved as the three nations upon whom they will no longer depend. Be that as it may, the Poles are the only Europeans who can serve under the banners of Napoleon without blushing. The princes of the Rhenish Confederation think to find their interest in it by the loss of their honor; but Austria by a combination truly remarkable, at once sacrifices in it both her honor and her interest. The emperor Napoleon wished the archduke Charles to take the command of these thirty thousand men; but the archduke fortunately saved himself from this insult; and when I saw him walking alone in a brown coat, in the alleys of the Prater, I recovered all my old respect for him.

The same subaltern diplomatist who had so unworthily advised the abandonment of the Tyrolese, was entrusted, during the absence of Prince Metternich from Vienna, with the police of foreigners, and he acquitted himself as you shall see. The first few days he allowed me to remain undisturbed; I had formerly passed a winter at Vienna, and been very well received by the emperor and empress, and by the whole court: it was, therefore, rather awkward to tell me that this time I would not be received, because I was in disgrace with the emperor Napoleon; particularly as this disgrace was partly occasioned by the praises which I had bestowed in my book on the morality and literary genius of the Germans. But what was much more awkward was to run the risk of giving the least umbrage to a power, to which it must be confessed, they might very well sacrifice me, after all they had already done for it. I suppose, therefore, that after I had been some days at Vienna, the chief of the police received some more exact information of the nature of my situation with Bonaparte, and in consequence thought it necessary to watch me; and this was his method of inspection. He placed spies at my gate in the street, who followed me on foot, when my carriage drove slowly, and got into cabriolets in order not to lose sight of me, when I took an airing into the country. This method of exercising the police appeared to me to unite both the French machiavelism, and German clumsiness. The Austrians have persuaded themselves that they have been beat, because they had not so much wit as the French, and that the wit of the French consists in their police system; in consequence they have set about making a methodical espionage, organizing that ostensibly which should it all events be concealed; and although destined by nature to be very honest people, they have made it a kind of duty to imitate a state which unites the extremes of jacobinism and despotism.

I could not help, however, being uneasy at this espionnage, when the least common sense was sufficient to see that flight was now my only object. They tried to alarm me about the arrival of my Russian passport; they pretended that I might have to wait several months for it and that then the war would prevent me from passing. It was easy for me to judge that I could not remain at Vienna after the French ambassador returned to it; what would then become of me? I intreated M. de Stackelberg to give me some means of passing by Odessa, to repair to Constantinople. But Odessa being Russian, a passport from Petersburg was equally necessary to go there; there therefore remained no road open but the direct one to Turkey through Hungary; and this road passing on the borders of Servia was subject to a thousand dangers. I might still reach the port of Salonica by going across the interior of Greece; the archduke Francis had taken this road to get into Sardinia; but the archduke Francis is a good horseman, and of that I was scarcely capable: still less could I think of exposing so young a person as my daughter to such a journey. I was obliged, therefore, although the idea was most painful to me, to determine on parting with her, and sending her by the way of Denmark and Sweden in the charge of persons in whom I could confide. I concluded at all hazards an agreement with an Armenian to take me to Constantinople. From thence I proposed to pass by Greece, Sicily, Cadiz, and Lisbon, and however hazardous was this voyage, it offered a fine perspective to the imagination. I addressed the office for foreign affairs, directed by a subaltern during the absence of M. de Metternich, for a passport which would enable me to leave Austria by Hungary, or by Gallicia, according as I might go to Petersberg or to Constantinople. I was told that I must make my election; that they could not give me a passport to go by two different frontiers, and that even to go to Presburg, which is the first city of Hungary, only six leagues from Vienna, it was necessary to have an authority from the committee of the States. Certainly I could not help thinking that Europe, which was formerly so open to all travellers, is become, under the influence of the emperor Napoleon, like a great net, in which you get entangled at every step. How many restraints and shackles there are upon the slightest movements! And can it be conceived that the unhappy governments which France oppresses, console themselves for it by making the miserable remains of power which has been left them, fall heavy in a thousand ways upon their subjects!

CHAPTER 8.

Departure from Vienna.

Obliged to make my election, I decided at last for Gallicia, which would conduct me to the country I preferred, namely, to Russia. I flattered myself, that once at a distance from Vienna, all these vexations, excited no doubt by the French government, would cease; and that at all events, I might, if it was necessary, quit Gallicia, and regain Bucharest by Transylvania. The geography of Europe, such as Napoleon has constituted it, is but too well learned by misfortune; the turnings which I was obliged to take to avoid his power were already near two thousand leagues; and now at my departure even from Vienna I was constrained to borrow the Asiatic territory to escape from it. I departed, therefore, without having received my Russian passport, hoping thereby to quiet the uneasiness which the subaltern police of Vienna appeared to feel about the presence of a female who was in disgrace with the emperor Napoleon. I requested one of my friends to rejoin me, by travelling night and day, as soon as the answer from Russia arrived, and I proceeded on my road. I did very wrong in taking this step, for at Vienna I was protected by my friends and by public opinion; I could there easily address myself to the emperor or to his prime minister: but once confined to a provincial town, I had only to do with the stupid wickedness of a subaltern, who wished to make a merit with the French government, of his conduct towards me; this was the method he took.