Madame de Stael (page [282]).
“Madame de Stael was at Mickleham, in Surrey, in 1793, with Talleyrand, Narbonne, Jaucourt, Guibert (who proposed to her), and others. There was not a little scandal about her relations with Narbonne (see Fanny Burney’s Letters). Narbonne’s place was supplied by Benjamin Constant, who had a very great influence over her, as in return she had over him. At Coppet, she found consolation in a young officer of Swiss origin, named Rocca, twenty-three years her junior, whom she married privately in 1811. She had married Baron de Stael in 1786, and in 1797 they separated. He died in 1802; and she in 1817.”—Life of Mad. de Stael, by A. Stevens, 1880.
“On the 28th of January” (says Crabb Robinson in his Diary, 1804), “I first waited on Madame de Stael. I was shown into her bedroom, for which, not knowing Parisian customs, I was unprepared. She was sitting, most decorously, in her bed, and writing. She had her night-cap on, and her face was not made up for the day. It was by no means a captivating spectacle, but I had a very cordial reception, and two bright black eyes smiled benignantly on me. After a warm expression of her pleasure at making my acquaintance, she dismissed me till three o’clock. On my return then I found a very different person——the accomplished Frenchwoman surrounded by admirers, some of whom were themselves distinguished. Among them was the aged Wieland. There was on this, and, I believe, on almost every other, occasion, but one lady among the guests: in this instance Frau von Kalb. Madame de Stael did not affect to conceal her preference for the society of men to that of her own sex.”
Count d’Orsay related of Madame de Stael, whose character was discussed, that one day, being on a sofa with Madame de Récamier, one who placed himself between them exclaimed: “Me voilà entre la beauté et l’esprit!” She replied: “That is the first time I was ever complimented for beauty!” Madame de Récamier was thought the handsomest woman in Paris, but was by no means famed for esprit.—Crabb Robinson’s Diary.
“Madame de Stael was a perfect aristocrat, and her sympathies were wholly with the great and prosperous. She saw nothing in England but the luxury, stupidity, and pride of the Tory aristocracy, and the intelligence and magnificence of the Whig aristocracy. The latter talked about truth and liberty and herself, and she supposed it was all as it should be. As to the millions, the people, she never enquired into their situation. She had a horror of the canaille, but anything of sangre azul had a charm for her. When she was dying she said; ‘Let me die in peace; let my last moments be undisturbed’. Yet she ordered the cards of every visitor to be brought to her. Among them was one from the Duc de Richelieu. ‘What!’ exclaimed she, indignantly; ‘what! have you sent away the Duke? Hurry. Fly after him. Bring him back. Tell him that though I die for all the world, I live for him.’”—Bowring’s Autobr. Recollections, pp. 375–6.
Madame de Stael prepared her bons-mots with elaborate care, some being borrowed.... She was ugly, and not of an intellectual ugliness. Her features were coarse, and the ordinary expression rather vulgar. She had an ugly mouth, and one or two irregularly prominent teeth, which perhaps gave her countenance an habitual gaiety. Her eye was full, dark, and expressive; and when she declaimed, which was almost whenever she spoke, she looked eloquent, and one forgot that she was plain. On the whole, she was singularly unfeminine; and if, in conversation, one forgot she was ugly, one forgot also that she was a woman.—J. W. Croker’s Note-Books.—[Ed.]
The Rev. Gilbert Wakefield (page [284]).
“It is well known that the French Revolution turned the brains of many of the noblest youths in England. Indeed when such men as Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, caught the infection, no wonder that those who partook of their sensibility, but had a very small portion of their intellect, were carried away. Many were ruined by the errors into which they were betrayed; many also lived to smile at the follies of their youth. ‘I am no more ashamed of having been a Republican,’ said Southey, ‘than I am of having been a child.’ The opinions held led to many political prosecutions, and I naturally had much sympathy with the sufferers. I find in my journal, Feb. 21, 1799 (says Crabb Robinson): ‘An interesting and memorable day. It was the day on which Gilbert Wakefield was convicted of a seditious libel, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. This he suffered in Dorchester Gaol, which he left only to die. Originally of the Established Church, he became a Unitarian, and Professor at the Hackney College. By profession he was a scholar. His best known work was an edition of Lucretius. He had written against Porson’s edition of the Hecuba of Euripides.’ It is said that Porson was at a dinner-party at which toasts were going round, and a name, accompanied by an appropriate sentence from Shakespeare, was required from each of the guests in succession. Before Porson’s turn came, he had disappeared beneath the table, and was supposed to be insensible to what was going on. This, however, was not the case, for when a toast was required of him, he staggered up and gave: ‘Gilbert Wakefield—what’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?’ Wakefield was a political fanatic. He had the pale complexion and mild features of a Saint, was a most gentle creature in domestic life, and a very amiable man; but when he took part in any religious or political controversy, his pen was dipped in gall. The occasion of the imprisonment before alluded to was a letter in reply to Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, who had written a pamphlet exhorting the people to loyalty. Wakefield asserted that the poor, the labouring classes; could lose nothing by French conquest. Referring to the fable of the Ass and the Trumpeter, he said: ‘Will the enemy make me carry two panniers?’ and declared that, if the French came, they would find him at his post with the illustrious dead.”—[Ed.]
John Thelwall (page [284]).
“Coleridge and Southey spoke of Thelwall, calling him merely ‘John’: Southey said: ‘He is a good-hearted man; besides we ought never to forget that he was once as near as possible being hanged, as there is some merit in that’.”—Crabb Robinson’s Diary.—[Ed.]