Thus this extraordinary woman imbibed, as it were with her mother's milk, a taste for society and display. She learnt to take intense pleasure in the communication of ideas with intelligent men, and in sharing in the sparkling wit that gathered round her. She enjoyed the excitement of spirits that results from the sense of expressing her thoughts, and at the same time having the sphere enlarged by the instant interchange with others. The sensations of success in society, of praise and reputation, were familiar to her in childhood, and no wonder they became as necessary as her daily bread in after years.

It was her mother's plan to tax her intellects to their height. She was incited to study diligently, to listen to conversation on subjects beyond her years, to frequent the theatre; her pleasures and occupations alike were so many exertions of mind. She wrote a great deal. Her writings were read in society, and applauded. The praises she received developed also the feelings of her heart. She passionately loved her parents and her friends; she read with an enthusiasm and interest that made books a portion of her existence. She was accustomed to say, that the fate of Clarissa Harlowe was one of the events of her youth. Susceptible of impression, serious in the midst of her vivacity, she rather loved what made her weep rather than laugh.

The species of perpetual excitement in which she lived, and the excessive application and attention required of her by her mother, had at length a bad effect on her health. At the age of fourteen it became apparent that she was declining. The advice of Tronchin was asked; he was alarmed by the symptoms, and ordered her to be removed into the country, to spend her life in the open air, and to abandon all serious study. Madame Necker was deeply mortified. She saw all the materials for a prodigy of learning and knowledge in her daughter, and was almost angry that her frame was injured by the work she required from her to bring her to the perfection she meditated. Unable to continue to its height her system of education, she abandoned it altogether. Henceforth no longer looking on her as her own work, she ceased to take interest in her talents, which she regarded as superficial and slight; when she heard her praised, she replied, "Oh! it is nothing, absolutely nothing, in comparison to what I intended to make her."

The young lady meanwhile enjoyed the leisure she obtained: no longer called upon to store her mind with words and facts, she gave herself up to her imagination. She and her friend passed the summer at St. Ouen, a country-house of Necker, two leagues from Paris; they dressed themselves like muses; they composed poetry, and declaimed it; they wrote and acted plays. Giving the rein to her fancy, and impelled by natural vivacity, she became poetess, tragedian, actress, thus, almost in childhood. The carelessness that her mother showed, after her disappointment with regard to her education, had the effect of developing in the young girl the chief passion of her heart—filial affection towards her father: she had now leisure to seek his society; and his great goodness, his admiration of herself, and the perfect friendship and openness of communication that subsisted between them, gave rise to the passionate attachment towards him which she dwells upon in her writings with so much fervour. She seized every opportunity of enjoying his society; and he perceived and delighted in her talents, which displayed themselves with peculiar advantage when with him. She saw that, overwhelmed as he was by public cares and engrossing business, he needed to be amused in his moments of leisure. He adored his wife, but no one was ever less amusing; his daughter, on the other hand, exerted herself to divert him: she tried a thousand ways and risked any sally or pleasantry so to win him to smile, and smiles quickly came at her bidding. He was not prodigal of his approbation; his eyes were more flattering than his words; and he believed it to be more necessary and even more amusing to rally her for her defects, than to praise her for her excellences. She saw that his gay reproofs were just, and modelled herself by them. She often said to her friends, "I owe to the inconceivable penetration of my father the frankness of my character and the sincerity of my mind: he unmasked every affectation or pretension, and when near him I got into the habit of thinking that every feeling of my heart could be read." Madame Necker grew a little jealous of the superior power her daughter possessed of amusing her husband; besides, although she had ardently wished her to shine in society, yet she had desired her to be remarkable for her attainments and knowledge, not for her wit and imagination. She looked coldly therefore on the admiration she excited, and even protested against it. The young girl turned from her chilling and prim rebuffs to the encouragement she found in her father's sympathy and gladdening smiles. In the drawing-room she escaped from the side of Madame Necker, who regarded the mistakes which her giddiness and vivacity caused her to make with severe and correcting eyes. She listened with respect when reproved, but gladly sheltered herself behind her father's chair; at first silently, then throwing in a word, till at last, one after the other, the cleverest men in the room gathered round to listen to her sallies and to be charmed by her eloquence.

The position that her parents held was exceedingly calculated to enchain the affections and raise the enthusiasm of the ardent girl. Her father was looked up to as the man whose exertions and talents were saving France. When named director-general of finances, he had refused the salary appended to the situation, that he might feel more free to diminish that of others, and benefit France by his economy with a clearer reputation. Her mother used his power for the most admirable purposes. She ameliorated the condition of the hospitals in the capital; and established near Paris, at her own expense, a charitable institution, so well directed that it became the model of every other. The young are apt to think their parents superior to the rest of the world. The claims which M. and Madame Necker possessed to real superiority, from their virtues and talents, naturally added to the warmth of their daughter's affection. The distinction in which they were held made the path of her life bright; and even the first check that occurred in her father's career tended to excite still more her admiration for him, as opposition gives form and strength to every power exerted to overcome it. Necker was too conscientious and too firm in his schemes of reform not to have enemies: he was too vain also not to desire to have his plans universally known and approved. Publicity is indeed the proper aim of every honest public man; but it was in utter variance with the policy of the old French government. 1781.
Ætat.
15. For the purpose of making his system known to the nation, Necker published his "Compte Rendu," which was a statement of the past and present condition of the finances, addressed to the king. It occasioned a great clamour. His daughter read his pamphlet, and heard the discussions concerning it. She addressed an anonymous letter to her father on the subject: he recognised the style; and his affection was increased by this testimony of her talents and filial affection. The "Compte Rendu," however, increased the number and importance of his enemies; the impropriety of the act was urged upon the king: Maurepas had already become hostile to him. Necker was attacked and calumniated. He, and his wife still more, were very susceptible to public blame: they wished to silence the libellers, who grew the more bitter and active the more they perceived that their stings were felt. Necker then demanded a sign of favour from the king, necessary, he thought, for the support of his influence: he asked for the entrée au conseil (a seat in the cabinet), which was refused on the score of his being a protestant. On this he committed an act which he ever after regretted, an act that showed that he preferred his own private feelings to the good of the country which he had promised to save,—he resigned his office.

His daughter gathered pleasure rather than mortification from his resignation. It was acknowledged that by so doing he had plunged the royal family in distress. He had repaired, on the first moment of his returning to a private station, to St. Ouen: all France, as she calls it—that is, all the nobility and all the best society of the capital, the magistrates, the clergy, the merchants and men of letters—came to see him, to express their regrets, their fears for France, their hopes that he would return to office. She heard that Paris was in commotion. At the theatre, every verse in the play of the night ("Henri IV." was acted, and the mention of Sully afforded wide scope) that could be converted into an allusion to the favourite minister was applauded with acclamations; the public walks, the cafés, every public place, were filled by an eager yet silent crowd. Consternation was painted on every face—ruin was anticipated for the country which Necker had abandoned. From St. Ouen the ex-minister proceeded to Switzerland. He bought the mansion and estate of Coppet; on the lake of Geneva, and varied his residence between that place and visits to Paris. He was addressed by various sovereigns—Catherine II., Joseph, emperor of Austria, and the king of Naples, to undertake their affairs as minister of finance; but he preferred literary leisure and domestic peace, with a wife whom he adored, and a daughter who was becoming each day dearer and more interesting.

In the retreat at Coppet he published a work on finance, of which 80,000 copies were sold in one day. Mdlle. Necker shared the triumph; she was his companion, his friend. On her part she was not idle; and, even at an early age, began the career of authorship in which in after life she became so distinguished. It was the custom in French society to meet to hear an author read his productions. In this country, such a style of amusement would be considered very dull and tiresome; but it was otherwise in Paris. The audience was easily pleased. The women wept at the right moment—the men were ready to start from their chairs: enthusiasm became contagious. If the subject were pathetic, the room resounded with sobs and suppressed cries; if comic, with bursts of laughter. Mediocre authors reaped easy but animating success; and many works, like the "Saisons" of St. Lambert, were vaunted to the skies by listening friends, which were acknowledged to be poor and wearisome when published. In the same way, the plays and tales of Mdlle. Necker were read by her in numerous companies. These productions were afterwards printed, and possess slight merit. The plays are flat, and what in common parlance is called maudlin; the tales inflated, and without originality: when read in society, they were applauded with transport. It cannot be doubted that this sort of encouragement must rouse to its height the power of an author of real genius. In this country, writers receive little praise except that which results from the number of copies that are sold; and must rely entirely on the spirit of inspiration to carry them through the toils of authorship. How seldom, how very seldom, does an English author hear one word of real sympathy or admiration! Over reserve, over fear of compromising our opinions, and being laughed at for being in the wrong, holds us in. Madame de Staël, animated by the fervour of her French friends, believed in her own genius, even before it was developed; and self-confidence gave it a strength of wing that enabled her to soar to the extreme height that her abilities permitted.

The were stirring days in which she lived. Calonne succeeded to Necker as minister, and, having thrown every thing into confusion, was obliged to yield his place; he was succeeded by Fouquereux and Villedeuil, men of nothing, who abandoned the state of finances as hopeless. Lomenie de Brienne, archbishop of Toulouse, replaced them; and he caused the king to engage to assemble the states-general, and plunged the finances in a worse state than ever. Necker looked on with anxiety, partly for France, and partly for himself; for he felt sure that he would be summoned to save the country at the last gasp, and trembled to lose his reputation if called in too late. "Why have they not given me the archbishop's fifteen months?" he exclaimed, when at the end of that time he was called in to repair Brienne's faults. Calonne had attacked his "Compte Rendu." He wrote a memoir, addressed and sent to the king, to defend himself, which the king requested him not to publish. But Necker laid great store by the public voice, and did not hesitate to act in opposition to the king's wish, and, in consequence, was exiled by a lettre de cachet to forty leagues from Paris; but four months after he was recalled and named minister.

1788.
Ætat.
22.

We dwell upon these circumstances of Necker's life, as they were the events that chiefly interested his daughter. She had been struck with dismay at the moment of his exile. She was married at this time; but it is a singular circumstance that in her life her marriage is a very secondary event, and her husband's name seldom mentioned. As the only daughter of a millionaire, Mdlle. Necker's hand had been asked by many French nobles; but it was determined not to marry her to a Catholic, at the same time that she and her parents were anxious to make a marriage that should enable her to reside in France, and to appear at court. It is told of the childhood of madame de Staël, that, at the age of eleven, she offered to marry Gibbon. He being a favourite friend of her parents, she hoped to please them by giving them a son-in-law of whom they were fond, with little regard to his strange repulsive figure and ugly face. And now she thought of station and convenience, and not at all of finding a friend or companion—far less a lover—in her husband. The baron de Staël Holstein, chamberlain to the queen of Sweden, had resided in Paris for some years, first as counsellor to the Swedish embassy, and afterwards as ambassador. He frequented the society of the French liberals, was a friend of Necker, and entered the lists of his daughter's admirers. He was a protestant and a noble, and he was also an amiable honourable man. The only objection to the union was the likelihood of his being recalled to his own country. The king of Sweden, Gustavus III., with whom he was a favourite, favoured the match, and promised that he should continue for several years to be ambassador at the French court. In addition, M. de Staël promised never to take her to Sweden without her own consent. On these considerations the marriage took place in the year 1786, when she was just twenty. Madame de Staël appeared at court. It is related that, desirous as she had been of acquiring this privilege, yet Parisian society was ill-naturedly amused by the numerous mistakes in etiquette which the young ambassadress had made on her presentation. She gaily related them herself, so to disarm her enemies. At this time, also, she appeared as an authoress in print, publishing her letters on the writings of Rousseau. We find in this work all the traits that distinguished madame de Staël's writings to the end,—great enthusiasm and eloquence, a pleasure in divining the mysteries of existence, and dwelling on the melancholy that attends it,—considerable power of expressing her thoughts, and much beauty and delicacy in the thoughts themselves, but an absence of strength and of the highest elevation both of talent and moral feeling.