Madame de Staël

Katie Daffan intends to write a eulogy of a woman who had the brilliance and courage to withstand the heroism and hostility of Napoleon. As presenter, Daffan loves redundant adjectives and fauns over historical celebrity; her heroine is an exception rather than a demonstration of women's equality with men (she asserts, for instance, that there were no other learned women writers at that time, and that women in general have no sense of justice). This short biography belongs in a chronological series of queens and female leaders, beginning with Cleopatra and including Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, Madame Roland, and Queen Victoria. Madame de Staël's life is characterized as a spectacle with surprising turns of events, all eyes on the heroine. Her many admirers and distinguished friends and visitors add to the theme of recognition. Writing in the early twentieth century (1908), Daffan subscribes to a belief in genius, and begins with high praise for it:

Genius is a combination of native strength and will power. A "genius" is sure to accomplish something, his presence will be felt, and his influence exerted....through years and years which follow his brief existence.

I do not share the opinion of some that the world is full of "unrecognized genius".... When a genius has "common" sense along with his other powers and attributes, he commands recognition from the world at the time in which he lives, and admiration from his biographers. This combination is invincible and brings in its train acuteness, observation, and impressiveness.

Daffan recounts the birth of "Madame Anna L. de Staël" in Paris, April 22, 1766: "In the inquiring, infidel, though certainly brilliant age, the eve of the French revolution, there appeared a genius...recognized then as now.... Up to the time of Madame de Staël letter-writing was the only literary accomplishment attained by women, but to such a degree was it attained, as specimens still extant show, that it was considered a very decided literary accomplishment."

She was the first woman to make a place for herself in the literary world; she stood far ahead of any woman of her time. By her pen, which was always brilliant, though sometimes sarcastic, she pleaded for that which was true and permanent, and condemned the false and unstable. Her charm, manner, and wonderful power in conversation brought to her side many who were first admirers and later sympathizers.

As a rule conversation as an accomplishment or an art develops in middle life, after the mind is enriched by reading and travel and broadened by experience; but to this pretty general rule Madame de Staël was an exception; as a young girl, even as a child, her conversation was remarkable for command of words and beautiful sentiment.

Napoleon Bonaparte paid few compliments; ...he usually demanded that they be paid to him. But the highest compliment a man ever paid a woman was the one which he, in the zenith of his power, paid to this woman.

He was the monarch of the world ... except the part to be reached by his unconquerable foe, the English navy. His name was on every tongue, ... odes and songs were written to him, princes and kings were his guests when they were not his prisoners, he was dazzling, intoxicating and dazing France.... This woman alone kept an even equilibrium ....and not one time would she do him homage.

Daffan repeatedly singles out her heroine as the true patriot and counterpart of the great leader, the only one who could persuade others that "it was selfishness and love of personal power that moved the new hero....She and Bonaparte crossed swords and were avowed antagonists. Both were foreigners...." The conflict seems to have the potential to be a Darcy-Elizabeth Bennet or Tracy-Hepburn romance with its emphasis on how they understand each other: he "knew that she understood him; he recognized her power and influence, the magnetic qualities which she exerted upon all who came near her...." Napoleon's emnity and efforts to banish her should be understood as a "compliment."

When he came into power one of his first official acts was to exile her, ... one hundred and twenty miles from Paris under police guard, with instructions "to keep that bird of ill-omen; her appearance bodes mischief." He said of her: "The arrows of Madame de Staël could reach a man if he were seated upon a rainbow."

The biography abruptly turns to the task of telling the subject's life: of this woman with the capacity to bother the emperor, "a few items are very interesting. Her mother, Madame Neckar, was an unusual and most interesting woman, though severe....She had been a teacher, and her habits of precision and systematic work clung to her; she rarely commended her daughter's work, the nearest approach to approval being: "In time I think you may do very well."

"Gibbon the great historian had been in their youth greatly attached to Madame Neckar" and remained an admirer and frequent visitor; "he said she was the most learned women he had ever known and entirely free from pedantry."

The daughter stood in great awe of the mother...; when a child she showed literary inclination and wrote dramas, making kings and queens act all of the parts. Her mother discouraged her writing — in fact, forbade it, so it was to her father that she went for sympathy and encouragement, and to whom she was the more deeply attached.

Her father, M. Neckar, was resident minister from Geneva at the court of Versailles, and later minister of finance under Louis XVI. He was a man of integrity, enjoying the esteem and confidence of the French people, and his culture was very broad. During his residence in Paris his home was the resort of philosophers, orators and artists.

The Bourbon throne was tottering because of the vices of the nobles, the impurity of the clergy, the literature of the infidel writers, ..., and the weakness... of Louis. Taxation was heavy, and the people clamored and rebelled against the tyrannical rule, and their children "cried for bread in the streets."

Neckar and others still hoped to prevent revolution, and he "loaned the government two million dollars of his private fortune... but it was too late; more than dollars is required when revolution once lives in men's hearts." Although Neckar was exiled for his exposure of corruption and bad fiscal policy in the government, he was repeatedly recalled to rescue the situation: "the people were wild with delight."

The revolution...had gone too far to be prevented....The mob hastened to Versailles, men, women and children, and it could not be appeased. Neckar fled to his country seat at Coppet and remained until his death.

Mlle. Neckar was not considered beautiful; she was impressive and fascinating, astonishing; she understood the art of complimenting, and she was cordial and generous. While a brilliant conversationalist, she drew to herself the thoughts and confidences of others.... She enjoyed the confidence of all of her friends. She was charitable in speech, leaving unkind things unsaid, and this alone won for her the respect of those who knew her.

She was, altogether, a gracious, delightful woman....She was sought in marriage by many of the best men in Europe. William Pitt, the minister of England, paid her repeated visits and asked her father's permission to pay his addresses to her, as did Count Fersen of Switzerland. Her parents were very exacting in regard to her marriage and were ready to find fault with each suitor in his turn.

Here Daffan establishes the desirable qualities of her subject through the prestigious suitors and parents' discrimination. The presenter has already tied her subject to historical events and great men while disposing of the issue of beauty and playing up the childhood or youthful promise, the social talent. Daffan follows custom in identifying parental influence, religion, and the careful upbringing; the subject is herself not ambitious, vain, or husband-hunting:

Her mother was much prejudiced against Catholics and exacted a promise from her daughter that she would marry a Protestant. Her father inquired minutely into the private life and family heritage of each, and there were few young men, though many were considered eligible, whose characters could bear the scrutiny. She was certainly not concerned or harassed with affairs of the heart, her attachments were intellectual and no tax upon her affections.

Baron de Staël-Holstein was Swedish minister to Paris, a nobleman of good standing at court, and a Protestant, so her parents decided that he was a proper suitor. In a mechanical sort of way, realizing that her social position was being enhanced, and glad that her parents approved, she became his wife. Her dowry was two million francs a year; she became the center of a brilliant, intellectual circle in Paris, the toast of princes, princesses and noblemen. Later she became a good friend to brave Marie Antoinette.

Daffan's account highlights the topos of recognition, in this instance friendship with a queen: "The queen received her at court, giving special entertainments in her honor, and invited her to visit at the royal country houses." The friendship was rewarded when "in the dark days of the revolution" (note the trope of darkness) the queen was defended and comforted by Mme. de Staël. This benevolent picture contrasts sharply with the next relationship, her marriage. Daffan is direct: "it was not a happy one." The fault is his character and their incompatibility: "He was extravagant and self-indulgent... he could not rise to the plane upon which she lived and thought. As they "grew very tired of each other," they were soon "separated."

After as before the separation her home was the resort of intellectual Paris. She remained in the city in the midst of the seething revolutionary mass, her advice being constantly sought by Narbonne, Lafayette, Talleyrand and others identified with the awful times. Hers was the home of wit and wisdom. She discussed and wrote about all of the affairs of the day in a manner all her own, and with all of its sparkle and brilliancy her mind was fundamental, practical and far-seeing.

She understood people, she could draw them out and anticipate them; ... her idea of justice was clear and true; and how many women — the best women — have any conception of justice? They can condemn a wrong, sustain a right, love their own, and some have toleration; but how many women are just?

This fulsome praise of a peer of great men (who is their charming hostess) leads to a gratuitous swipe at women in general (which goes on to rephrase the rhetorical question once more). The heroine not only grasps masculine moral code but also writes like and with a man: "She wrote Talleyrand's report on public instruction in 1790, which is said to have been the best exhibit of its kind ever published." Further, she managed the careers and promotions of Narbonne, Talleyrand and other ministers, as she shaped "public opinion."

The entire burden of her thought was "Liberty." She ...never ceased her efforts for the cause of the people, risking her health, often her life, in her efforts to save Robespierre's victims. During his ascendancy she published many powerful defenses advocating liberty, and her work was read everywhere.

During the Reign of Terror, she "saved the lives of many. She had many miraculous escapes from assassination; upon one occasion her carriage was held eight hours by the assembly, while she waited for the decision of the council." This is an exception in Daffan's narrative, when fabula (or baseline story) and story (or discourse, the way it is told) share the same time or duration; that is, a scene or episode. As in many women's biographies, it is a kind of threatened captivity narrative in which the heroine brings out virtue in one of the most unredeemable men in a lower class mob.

Employed assassins, their arms and bodies covered with blood, their hard cruel faces indicating that they were equal to their beastly work, passed all around her. When the mob attempted to seize her carriage a strong man mounted the box and vigorously defended It. He killed four of the ruffians, beat the others away with the heavy carriage-whip, called a body of armed men to his assistance, and drove her safely through the city. She learned later that it was the notorious Sauterre, the bloodiest, fiercest criminal in Paris, who afterwards conducted the execution of Louis XVI, ordering the drummers to drown the last words of the king.

Daffan attempts to explain the good deed on the part of a villain in the drama of the French Revolution. "Sauterre had seen M. Neckar distribute corn to the poor in Paris"; Sauterre's "bloodthirstiness" could nevertheless be controlled by "gratitude," an example that no one is entirely evil (and an opportunity to turn the narrative to instructive purpose).

At this time, Madame de Staël fled to Geneva, "from the horrors of the commune...to the quiet retreat" with friends. "Hospitality was extended to ...every traveler who asked for shelter...; this home was a refuge to the unhappy ones fleeing from the terrors in Paris. ..."

Madame de Staël never ceased to watch the rapidly growing power of the Corsican; ....It was only a matter of time....before he would extend this power over Europe. No one seemed to understand him as she did...She felt his vanity, utter heartlessness and his total disregard for the real needs of the people... and ...his passion to conquer at any cost....His brothers, Lucien and Joseph, were her good friends and visited her until forbidden by their brother.

A great mass meeting was held in Paris and a bold speech was made on the "rising tyranny." The people were much impressed with it and Bonaparte at once suspected that Madame de Staël had prompted it. He declared through the press that "he did love the republic; that he did love the people," and he openly denounced Madame de Staël. He declared that all who visited her home "were less his friends when they came away than when they entered." She knew to what extent Bonaparte would carry his designs, so she again fled from Paris, fearing imprisonment.

The pattern of exile and return becomes a bit blurred in Daffan's account; the theme remains the heroine's talent, goodness, and historical prominence in her tug of war with Napoleon. At the same time, she is a loving nurse of a dying husband, an inspiring focus of a salon, and a suffering exile. She tended "Baron de Staël, who was in his last illness...., giving him every care and attention. After his death she retired to Coppet.... Artists, writers, philosophers and orators found a home with her, for to be near her was to be electrified." Her "talent" and strong passions made her more sensitive to "the exile and the tyranny to which she was subjected." Drawn to the metropolis, she set up residence "within twenty leagues...but when Bonaparte heard that the road to her home was constantly thronged with visitors," he exiled her "forty leagues, giving her only two days' notice."

A phase of her "broken-hearted" wanderings led to the Prussian court, where she met recognition of kindly Queen Louise, but "this German hospitality" could hardly substitute for her cultural homeland. "She met Goethe and Schiller and other bright lights then shedding luster in literary circles, but she refused to be comforted and thought constantly of Paris and how she should manage to return."

Her health became impaired, and her son interviewed Bonaparte in regard to his mother's return to her beloved city. The autocratic emperor was unrelenting — he said positively and cruelly: "She would not be six months in Paris before I should be compelled to send her to the temple. * * * I would regret this, for it might injure me in public opinion. She will commit follies, she will have the world about her."

After completing her book "Allemagne," she moved near enough to Paris to receive regularly and to correct proof sheets; for months she worked diligently on this cherished volume. As soon as the ten thousand copies were printed, Napoleon ordered them destroyed, and this order was carried out to the letter. The only reason ever given for the destroying of this work was the fact that she had chronicled nothing in praise of the proud, haughty, egotistical emperor, and he was unwilling for posterity to read a volume written in his day which did not exalt and glorify him.

Humbled..., a sad, broken woman, she retired to Geneva, and here came a chapter in her life entirely new and unexpected — unexpected to her as it was to those who looked on and wondered.

She met and very soon married a young officer in the French army, Rocca, of Spanish or Italian extraction. To explain why she did this... would be impossible. Rocca was twenty-five and she forty-five years of age; he was a weak-bodied, dilapidated officer, though accomplished somewhat, and he wielded a strange influence over her.... Her friends discouraged Rocca's attentions, but he replied that "he would love her so much that he would finish by making her marry him."

Daffan believes Madame de Staël was weary of exile, starved for love; all her friends including fellow-heroine-of-Revolution Madame Recamier, were exiled. She and Roca could not return to Paris on pain of death, so they and children made the arduous journey to England "through Russia, Austria and Sweden, everywhere being placed under greatest peril and difficulty." Recognition sweetened the journey, however: "Alexander, czar of Russia, offered her courtesies, as did Bernadotte, the general who had become king of Sweden. Toward the end of this journey she became much 'the woman of the hour,' and in England was given an ovation."

The English people took special delight in entertaining her, ... and giving her every opportunity to display her accomplishments and talents. They did this partly from their real appreciation of her, and partly from the satisfaction of honoring one who was so antagonistic to their great enemy. All of Europe knew of the continued exile ... and... watched with interest.

Daffan's narrative repeatedly personifies Europe as audience: "Europe looked on now, guessing at the next shift of scene," as Napoleon abdicated and went to Elba and "Madame de Staël returned to her beloved Paris" to preside over "salons" starring "the representative men and women of Russia, England and France. Alexander of Russia and the Duke of Wellington were constant and admiring visitors."

Her friends vied with each other to do her homage, and at this time she was nearer being really happy than she had been since her father's death. She glowed under the light of friendship and drew, as a magnet, all people of her kind unto her. When Napoleon returned from Elba she fled again, fearing him and never believing in him.

Although Napoleon invited a reconciliation, she "remained away from Paris until after his final defeat." Napoleon at St. Helena seems, in this account, to deprive his antagonist of purpose, in what ought to be a domestic idyll, reward for a life's principled struggle: "When she no longer had to fight and force her way, somehow life lost zest and animation. She spent the days quietly with Rocca and their children; his attentions and tenderness making life calm and sweet." Daffan's text appears to attempt closure several times in successive paragraphs, seeking the defining accomplishment or attachment, including her writings.

In her last interview with Chateaubriand, when they were going over their interesting lives together, their narrow escapes and wonderful experiences, she told him that she had endured much, had tolerated many annoying, even ill, conditions; had grown weary under the burden of admiration and praise which had so often been hers, that she had tried many times to fancy or believe herself able to love, and to be dependent upon a single personality for happiness, but, as her life was nearing an end, she could look back and realize that the only real love she had ever known in her life was the ardent love which she gave to her father.

She loved God and her country, but alone in her affections stood her estimable father, M. Neckar. She was survived seven months by Rocca.

Napoleon was so dominant in his hostility and so continuous was her exile that she embraced literature as a means of rescue from its monotony.

After her death, July, 1817, her "Considerations on the French Revolution" and "Ten Years of Exile" were published. Her best work, "Corinne," is used as a reading book in some of the French schools; as a work of art by many it is not considered strong, but it abounds in admirable phrases, carefully selected words and, more than her other works, bears the stamp of her own personality.

"Allemagne," her book on Germany, was republished in 1867 in Paris. At the same time the books of Napoleon reappeared, both being widely read and generously received.

It is said that her tomb is more often visited than any woman's tomb in Europe. It bears a very unusual epitaph, "Hie tandem quiescat quae unquam quierit" — "Here rests one who never rested."

Madame de Staël had faults and committed errors, but withal she was a great woman. She was persecuted during the best years of her life, and this would have crushed the life out of some women. Her spirit and powers of resistance were wonderful; society and the association with people of her kind was a necessity to her, just as friendship and affection were a necessity to her. Her character and mind ...knew no repose, because she was ambitious....The worst thing that can be said of her is that she was worldly and perhaps vain. She had strong individuality, good nature, a marked power for friendship and a generous, loving heart.