Part 35

In the year 1810 there came to Geneva a young Spaniard of the name of Rocca. He was an officer in the French army, and had been wounded dangerously in Spain. He inspired great interest through the reputation he enjoyed for brilliant courage and for talent. He was young and very handsome; but his wounds had reduced him to a state of great weakness and suffering; and the contrast was striking and interesting between his youth and noble physiognomy, and his extreme pallor and attenuated figure. He heard madame de Staël talk, and was seized with enthusiastic admiration. Necker said of his daughter that her conversation imparted an idea of the beautiful; and thus, though twenty years older than himself, and, except for her eyes, with no beauty of face, the young Rocca was attracted by that of her mind, and said, "I shall love her so much that at last she will marry me." These words were soon fulfilled. But she refused to acknowledge a marriage which, from disparity of age, might have excited ridicule; and in all things of that sort madame de Staël was singularly timid. She was averse also to change her name. "Mon nom est à l'Europe," she replied to Rocca, when they were in England, and he jestingly asked her to marry him. She does not in her narratives advert to this marriage; but the fear must have haunted her that Napoleon would exile Rocca from Coppet; while, on the other hand, she found it difficult to leave an infant child, the offspring of their union, uncertain when again she could rejoin it.

These terrors and doubts threw her into a nervous state of the most painful kind. Now, she thought it wrong and foolish to leave her house, where she enjoyed every bodily comfort and the society of her children,--again, the fear of prison, the terror of who next among her friends would be the tyrant's victim, distracted her. At length she resolved to depart, and ultimately to reach England; whether by Russia and Sweden, or Greece and Constantinople, was to be decided by circumstances that might occur during her progress.

Her account of her journey is full of interest. An abridgment can give little idea of its difficulties,--the petty yet stinging annoyances by which she was beset,--the delays, the terror, the disappointments. Now she feared for her daughter's health,--and then still more for the safety of M. Rocca. The order for his arrest as a French officer had been forwarded through Germany. It is true he had sent in his resignation, his wounds preventing him from active service; but, if he had been taken, there is no doubt that he would have been treated with the utmost rigour. They were often obliged to separate, and he rejoined her once or twice in moments full of peril to himself. She traversed Germany and Poland in this way; and even in Russia she was not sure of escape from Napoleon. His armies had entered that vast empire, and were close behind her.

It was matter of joy to her when at last, after passing through Moscow, she arrived at St. Petersburg, to find the emperor Alexander full of resolution and ardour to resist the despot. He treated her with great distinction; and she proceeded on her way to her old friend Bernadotte, at that time crown prince of Sweden. She remained eight months at Stockholm. She had begun a portion of her "Dix Années d'Exil" at Coppet, it being copied as fast as written by her friends, feigned English names and old dates being substituted for the real; since under Napoleon's police regulations it was not safe to preserve a page of manuscript in which he was blamed.

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. [Sidenote: 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.

Abbeville, condemnation of the chevalier de la Barre at, II. 84.

Academy, the French, its judgment on the "Cid," I. 47. Cardinal de Richelieu's marginal observations on that critique, 48. Question of electing Molière, 141. La Fontaine, academician, 167. Boileau's election, 167. The "Dictionary" of, 168. Furetière's Dictionary in competition to it, 168.

Academy of Sciences, the French Royal, II. 25.

Æschylus, I. 40.

Alembert, _see_ D'Alembert.

Amelot, M., secretary of state, II. 46, 47.

Angennes, Mlle. Julie d', deity of the Hôtel Rambouillet, I. 108. Duchess of Montauzier, 123. 263, n.

Angennes, Angélique, married to the chevalier de Grignan, I. 247, 248.

Anne of Austria, regent during the minority of Louis XIV., I. 66. She withdraws from Paris, with the young king and Mazarin, to St. Germain, 70. The capital blockaded by Condé, 70. A short peace, 71.

Antoine, Faubourg St., battle between Condé and Turenne near the gates of the, I. 81. Turenne victorious, 81.

Arbuthnot, Dr., character of, I. 30.

Argenson, M. d', anecdote relative to, I. 235.

Argental, count d', II. 53. 100.

Ariosto, I. 154. Imitated by La Fontaine, 165. 181.

Aristotle, controversy respecting, excited by Rabelais, I. 31. Ramus's Anti-Stagyrite, 31.

Arlechino, or Harlequin, Italian actor, I. 102.

Arnaud, Antony, the abbé, controversialist, I. 198. 267. 315. 339.

Arnaud d'Andilli, brother of Antony, I. 198.

Arnaud, Angélique, abbess of Port Royal, I. 198.

Arouet, M., father of Voltaire, II. 4. 7. 9. 11.

Artagnan, M. d', I. 223, n.

Assoucy, d', musician and poet, kindly entertained during his peregrinations by Molière and his brother comedians, I. 104.

Atmospheric air, properties of, I. 191.

B.

Bacon, Francis lord, his opinion of Rabelais, I. 23.

Ballads, Spanish and Moorish, I. 45.

Balzac, poetry of, I. 153.

Barante, M., his "Literature of the Eighteenth Century," II. 14, n.

Bardou, French poet, I. 265.

Baron, excellent comedian, I. 131. 132. 143.

Barre, chevalier de la, execution of the, II. 84.

Beauvilliers, duke de, I. 335.

Béjart, brothers, comedians in Molière's troop, I. 102. Facetiousness of the younger, 121.

Béjart, Madeleine, actress, her beauty, I. 102.

Béjart, Armande, is married by Molière, I. 102. Their union infelicitous, 117. 131. Implores Louis XIV. that her deceased husband should be buried in holy ground, 140. She marries M. Guérin, comedian, 148.

Bellay, du, archbishop of Paris, friendly to Rabelais, I. 24, 25. 27. Ambassador from Francis I. to Paul III., 28. He receives Rabelais in his household at Paris, 33. Supposed dying message by Rabelais to, 39.

Bellerose, Pierre le Meslier named, tragedian, I. 98.

Benedictine order, claims of for respect, I. 25.

Benserade, court poet, I. 226.

Bergerac, Cyrano de, I. 99.

Bernier, traveller in the East, I. 99. 100.

Bible, English, an example for language, I. 61.

Boccaccio, his works acknowledged to be diverting by La Fontaine, I. 154. 181.

Boétie, Etienne de la, friendship of Montaigne for, I. 7. Latin poem by, 16. Death-bed of, 9.

Boileau Despréaux, Nicholas, epigram on Corneille by, I. 57. His high estimate of Molière's genius, 97. 118. 146. His regret for the loss of Molière's early farces, 105. He criticises "Les Fourberies de Scapin," 134. His advice to Molière, 142. His poetry remarkable for wit, but without humour, 146. His observations on La Fontaine, 160. 165. In favour with Louis XIV., 163. Is elected of the French Academy, 167. His admiration of the "Lettres Provinciales" of Pascal, 202. His father, Giles Boileau, 259. Birth of Nicholas in 1636, 259. At school he commenced writing poetry, 260. Studies law, and named advocate, 261. Attacks Chapelain and Cotin, 263. 265. Substitutes fresh victims of his satire in place of such as had surrendered at discretion, 265. His friends, 267. He speaks of his own success, 268, n. His "Art Poétique," 270. The "Lutrin," 270. Passages from, 272-279. Leigh Hunt's parallel of Boileau and Pope, 271, n. Boileau eulogises Louis XIV., and is favourably received at court, 278. Is named historiographer conjointly with Racine, 279. These poets accompany Louis to Ghent, 280. Is liable in camp to alarms, his phlegmatic disposition, 281. His conversations with madame de Maintenon and Racine, 283. Desires a seat in the French Academy, 167. 284. Repairs to the baths of Bourbon for health, 285. His correspondence by letter of much interest, 285. 286. Is indignant as to Perrault's "Siècle de Louis Quatorze," 287. His Satire on Women, 288. His pension, 289. His tender regard for Racine, 289. He loses his valued friend, 290. His interview with Louis as sole historiographer, 291. His retirement, 291. His amusements in old age, 291. Sells his house at Auteuil, 292. His piety, 293. Completes an edition of his works, 293. Account of several of his works, 293. _et passim._ Dies of dropsy on the chest at seventy-five years of age, 294. His superior wit, 294. His verses highly finished and regular, 295. The "Lutrin" his best poem, 295. Teaches Racine that easy versification is the result of painstaking, 307. He reconciles Antoine Arnaud, and Racine, 315. His enduring kindness for Racine, 327. His name of Despréaux, II. 21.

Boisrobert, French poet, I. 43. 47.

Bonaparte, general, his first interview with madame de Staël, II. 322. Appointed first consul, 323. Surmises as to the causes of Bonaparte's enmity, 324. His interview with M. Necker, 325. He permits madame de Staël to reside in Paris, 326. Not being lauded by her, he seizes her "Germany," and exiles her from France, 332. On his return from Elba, invites her to assist him in forming a constitution; her answer, 340.

Bonnecorse, French writer, I. 265. 266.

Bordeaux, the father of Montaigne mayor of, I. 1. Michel Montaigne (the Essayist) mayor, 19. Re-election of Montaigne, 19. Warfare of the Fronde against the royal party, at, 73. The prince of Condé joyfully received by the Bordelais, 77. Molière patronised by the duke d'Epernon at, 102.

Bose, M., letter from madame Roland to, II. 272. He visits her in prison, 289.

Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, witnesses the death of the duke of Rochefoucauld, I. 90. His intended marriage, 334. Abandons it for the church, 334. Appointed preceptor to the dauphin, 334. 336. His funeral oration on Henrietta, duchess of Orléans, 334, n. His "Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle," 334. He causes the misfortunes of Fénélon by his zeal against the doctrines of quietisme, 345. No reconciliation takes place between Bossuet and Fénélon, 356.

Bonhours, le père, jesuit, I. 203, n.

Bouillon, duke of, I. 73. His death of typhus fever, 82.

Bouillon, duchess of, I. 70. Niece of Mazarin, 158. She conducts La Fontaine to Paris, 159. 172. 177.

Bouillon, M., his "Joconde," I. 165.

Bourdaloue, le père, I. 202, n. 257, n. Said to surpass his instructor, Bossuet, in pulpit eloquence, 334.

Boursault, French dramatic author, I. 265. His visit to Boileau, 266.

Bretons, character of this race, I. 216. Their loyalty romantic and excessive, 216.

Brissot, M., and the Girondists, II. 273. 314. He falls into disrepute, 276. Their known moderation, 281. 283. Louvet accuses Robespierre, but is ill supported except by the Gironde deputies, 284. Act of accusation against them, 290. Execution of Brissot, 291.

Brittany, province of, I. 214. 216. Affairs of, 243.

Broglie, duke de, espouses Albertine, daughter of madame de Staël, II. 340.

Bruyère, _see_ La Bruyère.

Buchanan, George, applauds the early teaching Latin to Montaigne, I. 4.

Budæus, referred to as to Rabelais, I. 24.

Burke, right hon. Edmund, his opinion of Oliver Goldsmith, I. 182.

Burgundy, duke of, grandson of Louis XIV., his preceptors, I. 335. 359. 364. His death, 365. II. 10.

Bussy-Rabutin, Roger, count de, cousin of madame de Sévigné, I. 217. Her letters to the count, 217. His letters to madame de Sévigné, 217. 219. Particulars of his career, 218, n. His licentious works, 221.

C.

Cailhava, his "Art de la Comédie," I. 154, n.

Calas, Jean, inquiry into the injustice of the condemnation of, II. 80.

Calonne, administration of this financier, II. 304.

Calvin, John, his reproof of Rabelais, I. 31.

Castro, Guillen de, the "Cid" of, I. 45.

Catherine II., her correspondence with M. de Voltaire, II. 107.

Caumartin, M. de, II. 10.

Cavoie, M. de, I. 281. 317.

Chamfort, his éloge of Molière, I. 148.

Champmélé, mademoiselle de, celebrated actress, I. 307.

Charles VI., the emperor, death of, II. 42.

Chapelain, French poet and critic, I. 47. 48. Character of, 262. His poem of "La Pucelle d'Orléans," 262. 263, n. Other allusions to, 301.

Chapelle, poet, education of, I. 99. His good-fellowship, 115. 131. 132. Allusions to, 216.

Chateauneuf, the abbé de, II. 5. 6.

Chateauneuf, marquis de, II. 7.

Châteauroux, duchess of, II. 44. 47.

Châtelet, marquis du, his castle of Cirey affords a refuge to Voltaire, II. 24. 26.

Châtelet, madame du, Voltaire's intimacy with, II. 21. She learns English of Voltaire, 25. 26. Her literary taste, 25. 29. She revisits Paris with Voltaire, 42. Visits Sceaux, 48. Her death, 52.

Châtillon, duchess of, I. 217.

Chaulnes, duke of, governor of Britany, I. 248.

Chaulnes, duchess of, I. 243. 248. 252.

Chavigni, duke of, I. 82.

Chevreuse, duchess de, favourite of Anne, regent of France, I. 64. 65. 66. Is banished, 67.

Chimène, or Ximena, part of, critique, I. 45. 46.

Choiseul, duke of, II. 81. 82. 101.

"Cid," the, of Guillen de Castro, I. 45. 101.

"Cinna," tragedy of, by Corneille, I. 49.

Cirey, château of the marquis du Châtelet in Champagne, II. 24. 27. Voltaire's mode of life there, 28.

Clairon, mademoiselle, actress, II. 44.

Clement VII., pope, I. 25.

Clement XI., I. 367.

Colbert, minister of Louis XIV., I. 163. 166. 222. 287, n. 301.

Colletet, French author, I. 43.

Comedy, French: Corneille's "Mélite," I. 42. His "Illusion," 44. His "Le Menteur," 51. Racine's "Les Plaideurs," 53. _See_ Theatre.

Condé, the great prince of, I. 53. 60. Defeats the Spaniards at Rocroi, 67. Blockades Paris, 70. Is imprisoned, 70. And liberated by de Retz and the Frondeurs, 73. Joined by the Spaniards in the south of France, 77. Quits Guienne to join the forces of the duke of Nemours, 78. Perilous journey, 79. Is opposed by Turenne, 80. Contest between these great commanders near Paris, 81. The Parisians show great regard for him, 82. On occasion of a tumult and partial massacre, he incurs their hatred, 82. His admiration of Molière, 113. 124. Further allusions to, 278. 313. 327. 331.