From Sweden she passed over to England, where she occupied herself in publishing her "Germany." She was courted as a lion in English fashionable society; and, though her style of life and conversation were very opposite to our manners, still she impressed every one with high ideas of her talents and genius. The Whig party were a little surprised at her tone in politics. They were not yet accustomed to regard Napoleon as the tyrant and oppressor, and they thought that madame de Staël had changed her principles when she warmly advocated war against the emperor. She was intimate with all the English of distinction. Her compliments seemed a little outré to us, and she made a few mistakes that excited smiles; still she was liked. Lord Byron was among her favourites,—his genius possessed fascination for her. There was a notion at one time that he would marry her daughter, whom he admired; but Albertine was reserved for a better fate.
All her patriotism as a Frenchwoman was painfully roused when the allies entered France; still she hailed the overthrow of Napoleon, and the restoration of the Bourbons, with delight, hoping that the latter would deserve well of their country. She was liked by Louis XVIII., who repaid her the two millions which Necker had lent the state. The return of Napoleon from Elba filled her with terror, and she instantly left Paris for Coppet. He, who now appeared with a professed attachment to constitutional liberty, invited her to return and assist him in modelling a constitution. She replied, "He did without me or a constitution for twelve years, and has no liking for either of us." The occupation of France by the allies filled her with grief; that her "belle France" should be held in these degrading chains seemed desecration, and she retreated to Coppet not to witness the humiliating spectacle. 1816.
Ætat.
50. She was there when lord Byron resided at Diodati in 1816. He visited her, and she gave him a good deal of advice to which he listened, and was induced to make an attempt to be reconciled to his wife. When she preached lessons of worldly wisdom, he quoted the motto to "Delphine"—"Un homme doit savoir braver l'opinion, une femme s'y soummettre." But she replied that she feared that both sexes would reap evil only from resistance.
The marriage of her daughter to the duke de Broglie, and the admirable character of this lady, formed the chief happiness of her latter life. Her children were all dutiful and affectionate. Her chief sorrow resulted from the ill health of M. Rocca, who tottered on the brink of the grave. He deserved the affection he inspired. His tenderness towards her was extreme, and his admiration never waned. His chivalrous sentiments, his wit, and his poetic imagination, varied and filled her life. His ill state of health, while it disquieted her, yet annihilated their difference of age. At one time she visited Pisa, that he might be benefited by a milder climate. He was there at the point of death: she compared herself to marshal Ney, who was then expecting at each moment to receive his sentence. Endowed by an imagination which never blunted any sorrow, but which exaggerated all, she said afterwards that she had composed a book, with the title, "The only Misfortune of Life, the Loss of a Person beloved."
Her character softened as she advanced in life, and she appreciated its real blessings and disasters more rationally, at the same time that she acquired greater truth and energy in her writings. This may often be observed with women. When young, they are open to such cruel attacks, every step they take in public may bring with it irreparable injury to their private affections, to their delicacy, to their dearest prospects. As years are added they gather courage; they feel the earth grow steadier under their steps; they depend less on others, and their moral worth increases. She was an affectionate and constant friend, and the sentiments of her heart replaced the appetite she formerly had for the display of talent: she placed a true value on courage and resignation, when before she had reserved her esteem for sensibility. She grew calmer, and ceased to fabricate imaginary woes for herself, happy when she escaped real ones. She grew pious. From her earliest years she had strong feelings of religion, resulting from dependence on Providence, from adoration for the Supreme Being, and hope of a future life. The Christian principles mingled more entirely with these sentiments in her latter years. As her health declined, her sleepless hours were spent in prayer, and existence lost, as it often does to those about to leave it, its gay and deceptive colours. "Life," she said, "resembles Gobelin tapestry: you do not see the canvass on the right side; but when you turn it the threads are visible. The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes. I never committed an error that was not the cause of a disaster." And thus, while the idea of death was infinitely painful, the hope of another life sustained her. "My father waits for me on the other side," she said, and indulged the hope of hereafter being rejoined by her daughter.
She perished gradually: the use of opium, from which she could not wean herself, increased her danger; nor could medicine aid her. She died in Paris on the 14th July, 1817, in her fifty-second year. Rocca survived her but a few months.
She possessed too much merit not to have many enemies during her life, and these were increased by her passion for display, and the jealous spirit with which she competed with those whom she looked on as rivals. The eagerness with which during the days of the republic she mingled in politics, and her attempts to acquire influence over Napoleon, were arms that she put into the hands of her enemies to injure her. They accused her of an intriguing meddling disposition, saying of her, that to make a revolution she would throw all her friends into the river, content with fishing them out the next day, and so showing the kindness of her heart. But her faults were more than compensated among her friends by the truth and constancy of her attachment. Her temper was equable, though her mind was often tempest-tost, clouded by dark imaginations, torn by unreal but deeply felt anxieties and sorrows. "I am now," she said, in her last days, "what I have ever been,—sad, yet vivacious." To repair wrong, to impress on the minds of princes benevolence and justice, were in her latter years the scope of, so to speak, her public life. She loved France with passion. Lord Brougham records the alarm and indignation which caused her to pant for breath, as she exclaimed, "Quoi donc, cette belle France!" when lord Dudley, half in jest half seriously, wished the Cossacks, in revenge for Moscow burnt, to nail a horse-shoe on the gates of the Tuileries.
Our memoir has extended to so great a length that we can only advert cursorily to her writings. M. Anneé, a French critic, observes of her, that her understanding had more brilliance than profundity; and yet that no writer of her epoch had left such luminous ideas on her route. Chateaubriand, while he deplores the party spirit which gave irritation to her sentiments and bitterness to her style, pronounces her to be a woman of rare merit, and who would add another name to the list of those destined to become immortal. She wrote on a vast variety of subjects, and threw light on all. Yet she gathered her knowledge, not by profound study, but by rapid dipping into books and by conversation with learned men; thus her opinions are often wrongly grounded, and her learning is superficial. Still her conclusions are often admirable, granting that the ground on which she founds them is true. She has great felicity of illustration, and her style is varied and eloquent, the fault being that it sometimes abounds in words, and wants the merit of concentration and conciseness; often, too, she is satisfied with a sentiment for a reason. Her wit is not pleasantry, but it is pointed and happy. She neither understood nor liked humour; but she enjoyed repartee: many are recorded as falling from her, and they are distinguished by their point and delicacy. Her "Dix Années d'Exil" is the most simple and interesting of her works; but her "Germany," perhaps, deserves the highest rank, from its research, and the great beauty of its concluding chapters. Of her novels we have already spoken. They do not teach the most needful lesson—moral courage; but they are admirable as pictures of life and vivid representations of character, for subtle remark and vivid detail of what in youth forms our joys and sorrows. She puts much of herself in all; and thus adds to the charm and truth of her sentiments and ideas. Her "Considerations on the French Revolution" is valuable, from its affording us a personal picture of the impressions made by that epoch; but the great preponderance of praise which she gives to Necker renders it a work of prejudice. Like him, she had no strong republican sentiments. She desired an English constitution; she disliked the girondists as well as the mountain, and attempted the impossible task of reconciling the interests of the nation as established by the revolution with that of the ancienne régime. Her feelings are praiseworthy, but her views are narrow.
Such is the defect of human nature that we have no right to demand perfection from any individual of the species. We may sum up by saying that, though the character and writings of madame de Staël, in some respects, display weaknesses, and though she committed errors, her virtues and genius raise her high; and the country that gave her birth, and which she truly loved, may, with honest pride, rank her among its most illustrious names.
[INDEX]
A.