THE STORY OF MME. DE STAEL
Each century, or sometimes each generation, is distinguished by someespecial interest among those who are given to fancies--not to call themfads. Thus, at the present time, the cultivated few are taken up withwhat they choose to term the "new thought," or the "new criticism," or,on the other hand, with socialistic theories and projects. Thirty yearsago, when Oscar Wilde was regarded seriously by some people, there weremany who made a cult of estheticism. It was just as interesting whentheir leader--
Walked down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily In his medieval hand,
or when Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan guyed him asBunthorne in "Patience."
When Charles Kingsley was a great expounder of British common sense,"muscular Christianity" was a phrase which was taken up by manyfollowers. A little earlier, Puseyism and a primitive form of socialismwere in vogue with the intellectuals. There are just as many differentfashions in thought as in garments, and they come and go without anyparticular reason. To-day, they are discussed and practised everywhere.To-morrow, they are almost forgotten in the rapid pursuit of somethingnew.
Forty years before the French Revolution burst forth with all itsthunderings, France and Germany were affected by what was generallystyled "sensibility." Sensibility was the sister of sentimentality andthe half-sister of sentiment. Sentiment is a fine thing in itself. It isconsistent with strength and humor and manliness; but sentimentality andsensibility are poor cheeping creatures that run scuttering along theground, quivering and whimpering and asking for perpetual sympathy,which they do not at all deserve.
No one need be ashamed of sentiment. It simply gives temper to theblade, and mellowness to the intellect. Sensibility, on the other hand,is full of shivers and shakes and falsetto notes and squeaks. It is, infact, all humbug, just as sentiment is often all truth.
Therefore, to find an interesting phase of human folly, we may look backto the years which lie between 1756 and 1793 as the era of sensibility.The great prophets of this false god, or goddess, were Rousseau inFrance and Goethe with Schiller in Germany, together with a host ofmidgets who shook and shivered in imitation of their masters. It is notfor us to catalogue these persons. Some of them were great figuresin literature and philosophy, and strong enough to shake aside thesilliness of sensibility; but others, while they professed to be greatas writers or philosophers, are now remembered only because theirdevotion to sensibility made them conspicuous in their own time. Theydabbled in one thing and another; they "cribbed" from every popularwriter of the day. The only thing that actually belonged to them was ahigh degree of sensibility.
And what, one may ask, was this precious thing--this sensibility?
It was really a sort of St. Vitus's dance of the mind, and almost ofthe body. When two persons, in any way interested in each other, werebrought into the same room, one of them appeared to be seized witha rotary movement. The voice rose to a higher pitch than usual, andassumed a tremolo. Then, if the other person was also endowed withsensibility, he or she would rotate and quake in somewhat the samemanner. Their cups of tea would be considerably agitated. They wouldmove about in as unnatural a manner as possible; and when they left theroom, they would do so with gaspings and much waste of breath.
This was not an exhibition of love--or, at least, not necessarilyso. You might exhibit sensibility before a famous poet, or a gallantsoldier, or a celebrated traveler--or, for that matter, before aremarkable buffoon, like Cagliostro, or a freak, like Kaspar Hauser.
It is plain enough that sensibility was entirely an abnormal thing, anddenoted an abnormal state of mind. Only among people like the Germansand French of that period, who were forbidden to take part in publicaffairs, could it have flourished so long, and have put forth suchrank and fetid outgrowths. From it sprang the "elective affinities" ofGoethe, and the loose morality of the French royalists, which rushedon into the roaring sea of infidelity, blasphemy, and anarchy of theRevolution.
Of all the historic figures of that time, there is just one whichto-day stands forth as representing sensibility. In her own time shewas thought to be something of a philosopher, and something more of anovelist. She consorted with all the clever men and women of her age.But now she holds a minute niche in history because of the fact thatNapoleon stooped to hate her, and because she personifies sensibility.
Criticism has stripped from her the rags and tatters of the philosophywhich was not her own. It is seen that she was indebted to the brains ofothers for such imaginative bits of fiction as she put forth in Delphineand Corinne; but as the exponent of sensibility she remains unique. Thiswoman was Anne Louise Germaine Necker, usually known as Mme. de Stael.
There was much about Mile. Necker's parentage that made her interesting.Her father was the Genevese banker and minister of Louis XVI, who failedwretchedly in his attempts to save the finances of France. Her mother,Suzanne Curchod, as a young girl, had won the love of the famous Englishhistorian, Edward Gibbon. She had first refused him, and then almostfrantically tried to get him back; but by this time Gibbon was morecomfortable in single life and less infatuated with Mlle. Curchod, whopresently married Jacques Necker.
M. Necker's money made his daughter a very celebrated "catch." Hermother brought her to Paris when the French capital was brilliant beyonddescription, and yet was tottering to its fall. The rumblings of theRevolution could be heard by almost every ear; and yet society and thecourt, refusing to listen, plunged into the wildest revelry under theleadership of the giddy Marie Antoinette.
It was here that the young girl was initiated into the most elegantforms of luxury, and met the cleverest men of that time--Voltaire,Rousseau, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Volney. She set herself to be themost accomplished woman of her day, not merely in belles lettres, but inthe natural and political sciences. Thus, when her father was drawingup his monograph on the French finances, Germaine labored hard overa supplementary report, studying documents, records, and the mostcomplicated statistics, so that she might obtain a mastery of thesubject.
"I mean to know everything that anybody knows," she said, with anarrogance which was rather admired in so young a woman.
But, unfortunately, her mind was not great enough to fulfil heraspiration. The most she ever achieved was a fair knowledge of manythings--a knowledge which seemed surprising to the average man, butwhich was superficial enough to the accomplished specialist.
In her twentieth year (1786) it was thought best that she should marry.Her revels, as well as her hard studies, had told upon her health, andher mother believed that she could not be at once a blue-stocking and awoman of the world.
There was something very odd about the relation that existed between theyoung girl and this mother of hers. In the Swiss province where they hadboth been born, the mother had been considered rather bold and forward.Her penchant for Gibbon was only one of a number of adventures thathave been told about her. She was by no means coy with the gallants ofGeneva. Yet, after her marriage, and when she came to Paris, she seemedto be transformed into a sort of Swiss Puritan.
As such, she undertook her daughter's bringing up, and was extremelycareful about everything that Germaine did and about the company shekept. On the other hand, the daughter, who in the city of Calvin hadbeen rather dull and quiet in her ways, launched out into a gaiety suchas she had never known in Switzerland. Mother and daughter, in fact,changed parts. The country beauty of Geneva became the prude of Paris,while the quiet, unemotional young Genevese became the light of all theParisian salons, whether social or intellectual.
The mother was a very beautiful woman. The daughter, who was to becomeso famous, is best described by those two very uncomplimentary Englishwords, "dumpy" and "frumpy." She had bulging eyes--which are notemphasized in the flattering portrait by Gerard--and her hair wasunbecomingly dressed. There are reasons for thinking that Germainebitterly hated her mother, and was intensely jealous of her charmof person. It may be also that Mme. Necker envied the daughter'sclever
ness, even though that cleverness was little more, in the end,than the borrowing of brilliant things from other persons. At any rate,the two never cared for each other, and Germaine gave to her father theaffection which her mother neither received nor sought.
It was perhaps to tame the daughter's exuberance that a marriage wasarranged for Mlle. Necker with the Baron de Stael-Holstein, who thenrepresented the court of Sweden at Paris. Many eyebrows were lifted whenthis match was announced. Baron de Stael had no personal charm, nor anyreputation for wit. His standing in the diplomatic corps was not veryhigh. His favorite occupations were playing cards and drinking enormousquantities of punch. Could he be considered a match for the extremelyclever Mlle. Necker, whose father had an enormous fortune, and whowas herself considered a gem of wit and mental power, ready to discusspolitical economy, or the romantic movement of socialism, or platoniclove?
Many differed about this. Mlle. Necker was, to be sure, rich and clever;but the Baron de Stael was of an old family, and had a title. Moreover,his easy-going ways--even his punch-drinking and his card-playing--madehim a desirable husband at that time of French social history, when thearistocracy wished to act exactly as it pleased, with wanton license,and when an embassy was a very convenient place into which an indiscreetambassadress might retire when the mob grew dangerous. For Paris was nowapproaching the time of revolution, and all "aristocrats" were more orless in danger.
At first Mme. de Stael rather sympathized with the outbreak of thepeople; but later their excesses drove her back into sympathy withthe royalists. It was then that she became indiscreet and abused theprivilege of the embassy in giving shelter to her friends. She wasobliged to make a sudden flight across the frontier, whence she didnot return until Napoleon loomed up, a political giant on thehorizon--victorious general, consul, and emperor.
Mme. de Stael's relations with Napoleon have, as I remarked above, beenamong her few titles to serious remembrance. The Corsican eagle and thedumpy little Genevese make, indeed, a peculiar pair; and for this reasonwriters have enhanced the oddities of the picture.
"Napoleon," says one, "did not wish any one to be near him who was asclever as himself."
"No," adds another, "Mme. de Stael made a dead set at Napoleon, becauseshe wished to conquer and achieve the admiration of everybody, even ofthe greatest man who ever lived."
"Napoleon found her to be a good deal of a nuisance," observes a third."She knew too much, and was always trying to force her knowledge uponothers."
The legend has sprung up that Mme. de Stael was too wise and witty tobe acceptable to Napoleon and many women repeated with unction that theconqueror of Europe was no match for this frowsy little woman. It is,perhaps, worth while to look into the facts, and to decide whetherNapoleon was really of so petty a nature as to feel himself inferior tothis rather comic creature, even though at the time many people thoughther a remarkable genius.
In the first place, knowing Napoleon, as we have come to know himthrough the pages of Mme. de Remusat, Frederic Masson, and others, wecan readily imagine the impatience with which the great soldier wouldsit at dinner, hastening to finish his meal, crowding the whole ceremonyinto twenty minutes, gulping a glass or two of wine and a cup of coffee,and then being interrupted by a fussy little female who wanted totalk about the ethics of history, or the possibility of a new form ofgovernment. Napoleon, himself, was making history, and writing it infire and flame; and as for governments, he invented governments all overEurope as suited his imperial will. What patience could he have withone whom an English writer has rather unkindly described as "an uglycoquette, an old woman who made a ridiculous marriage, a blue-stocking,who spent much of her time in pestering men of genius, and drawing fromthem sarcastic comment behind their backs?"
Napoleon was not the sort of a man to be routed in discussion, buthe was most decidedly the sort of man to be bored and irritated bypedantry. Consequently, he found Mme. de Stael a good deal of a nuisancein the salons of Paris and its vicinity. He cared not the least for herepigrams. She might go somewhere else and write all the epigrams shepleased. When he banished her, in 1803, she merely crossed the Rhineinto Germany, and established herself at Weimar.
The emperor received her son, Auguste de Stael-Holstein, with much goodhumor, though he refused the boy's appeal on behalf of his mother.
"My dear baron," said Napoleon, "if your mother were to be in Parisfor two months, I should really be obliged to lock her up in one of thecastles, which would be most unpleasant treatment for me to show a lady.No, let her go anywhere else and we can get along perfectly. All Europeis open to her--Rome, Vienna, St. Petersburg; and if she wishes to writelibels on me, England is a convenient and inexpensive place. Only Parisis just a little too near!"
Thus the emperor gibed the boy--he was only fifteen or sixteen--and madefun of the exiled blue-stocking; but there was not a sign of malice inwhat he said, nor, indeed, of any serious feeling at all. Thelegend about Napoleon and Mme. de Stael must, therefore, go into thewaste-basket, except in so far as it is true that she succeeded inboring him.
For the rest, she was an earlier George Sand--unattractive in person,yet able to attract; loving love for love's sake, though seldomreceiving it in return; throwing herself at the head of everydistinguished man, and generally finding that he regarded her overtureswith mockery. To enumerate the men for whom she professed to care wouldbe tedious, since the record of her passions has no reality about it,save, perhaps, with two exceptions.
She did care deeply and sincerely for Henri Benjamin Constant, thebrilliant politician and novelist. He was one of her coterie in Paris,and their common political sentiments formed a bond of friendshipbetween them. Constant was banished by Napoleon in 1802, and when Mme.de Stael followed him into exile a year later he joined her in Germany.
The story of their relations was told by Constant in Adolphe, while Mme.de Stael based Delphine on her experiences with him. It seems that hewas puzzled by her ardor; she was infatuated by his genius. Togetherthey went through all the phases of the tender passion and yet, atintervals, they would tire of each other and separate for a while, andshe would amuse herself with other men. At last she really believed thather love for him was entirely worn out.
"I always loved my lovers more than they loved me," she said once, andit was true.
Yet, on the other hand, she was frankly false to all of them, and hencearose these intervals. In one of them she fell in with a young Italiannamed Rocca, and by way of a change she not only amused herself withhim, but even married him. At this time--1811--she was forty-five, whileRocca was only twenty-three--a young soldier who had fought in Spain,and who made eager love to the she-philosopher when he was invalided atGeneva.
The marriage was made on terms imposed by the middle-aged woman whobecame his bride. In the first place, it was to be kept secret; andsecond, she would not take her husband's name, but he must pass himselfoff as her lover, even though she bore him children. The reason she gavefor this extraordinary exhibition of her vanity was that a change ofname on her part would put everybody out.
"In fact," she said, "if Mme. de Stael were to change her name, it wouldunsettle the heads of all Europe!"
And so she married Rocca, who was faithful to her to the end, though shegrew extremely plain and querulous, while he became deaf and soon losthis former charm. Her life was the life of a woman who had, in her ownphrase, "attempted everything"; and yet she had accomplished nothingthat would last. She was loved by a man of genius, but he did not loveher to the end. She was loved by a man of action, and she tired of himvery soon. She had a wonderful reputation for her knowledge of historyand philosophy, and yet what she knew of those subjects is now seen tobe merely the scraps and borrowings of others.
Something she did when she introduced the romantic literature intoFrance; and there are passages from her writings which seem worthy ofpreservation. For instance, we may quote her outburst with regard tounhappy marriages. "It was the subject," says Mr. Gribble, "on which shehad b
egun to think before she was married, and which continued to haunther long after she was left a widow; though one suspects that the word'marriage' became a form of speech employed to describe her relations,not with her husband, but with her lovers." The passage to which I referis as follows:
In an unhappy marriage, there is a violence of distress surpassing allother sufferings in the world. A woman's whole soul depends upon theconjugal tie. To struggle against fate alone, to journey to the gravewithout a friend to support you or to regret you, is an isolation ofwhich the deserts of Arabia give but a faint and feeble idea. Whenall the treasure of your youth has been given in vain, when you can nolonger hope that the reflection of these first rays will shine upon theend of your life, when there is nothing in the dusk to remind you ofthe dawn, and when the twilight is pale and colorless as a livid specterthat precedes the night, your heart revolts, and you feel that you havebeen robbed of the gifts of God upon earth.
Equally striking is another prose passage of hers, which seems less thecareful thought of a philosopher than the screeching of a termagant. Itis odd that the first two sentences recall two famous lines of Byron:
Man's love is of man's life a thing apart; 'Tis woman's whole existence.
The passage by Mme. de Stael is longer and less piquant:
Love is woman's whole existence. It is only an episode in the livesof men. Reputation, honor, esteem, everything depends upon how a womanconducts herself in this regard; whereas, according to the rules ofan unjust world, the laws of morality itself are suspended in men'srelations with women. They may pass as good men, though they have causedwomen the most terrible suffering which it is in the power of one humanbeing to inflict upon another. They may be regarded as loyal, thoughthey have betrayed them. They may have received from a woman marks ofa devotion which would so link two friends, two fellow soldiers, thateither would feel dishonored if he forgot them, and they may considerthemselves free of all obligations by attributing the services tolove--as if this additional gift of love detracted from the value of therest!
One cannot help noticing how lacking in neatness of expression is thiswoman who wrote so much. It is because she wrote so much that she wrotein such a muffled manner. It is because she thought so much that herreflections were either not her own, or were never clear. It is becauseshe loved so much, and had so many lovers--Benjamin Constant; VincenzoMonti, the Italian poet; M. de Narbonne, and others, as well as youngRocca--that she found both love and lovers tedious.
She talked so much that her conversation was almost always mere personalopinion. Thus she told Goethe that he never was really brilliant untilafter he had got through a bottle of champagne. Schiller said that totalk with her was to have a "rough time," and that after she left him,he always felt like a man who was just getting over a serious illness.She never had time to do anything very well.
There is an interesting glimpse of her in the recollections of Dr.Bollmann, at the period when Mme. de Stael was in her prime. The worthydoctor set her down as a genius--an extraordinary, eccentric woman inall that she did. She slept but a few hours out of the twenty-four, andwas uninterruptedly and fearfully busy all the rest of the time. Whileher hair was being dressed, and even while she breakfasted, she used tokeep on writing, nor did she ever rest sufficiently to examine what shehad written.
Such then was Mme. de Stael, a type of the time in which she lived, sofar as concerns her worship of sensibility--of sensibility, and notof love; for love is too great to be so scattered and made a thing toprattle of, to cheapen, and thus destroy. So we find at the last thatGermaine de Stael, though she was much read and much feted and muchfollowed, came finally to that last halting-place where confessedlyshe was merely an old woman, eccentric, and unattractive. She sued herformer lovers for the money she had lent them, she scolded and foundfault--as perhaps befits her age.
But such is the natural end of sensibility, and of the woman whotypifies it for succeeding generations.