Germaine de Staël

TOWARDS PERFECTION

GERMAINE rushed off to Saint-Ouen to tell her father that he was about to be recalled to power.  The good man was peaceably at work on his book on the import­ance of religious opinions.

“Oh,” he cried piously when his daughter burst in upon him, “if only the fifteen months of the Archbishop of Sens’ (Brienne’s) ministry had been granted me !  Now it is too late !”¹

Germaine didn’t hide her joy at the spectacle of this worthy walrus lamenting the fate of the Royal oysters.  Her father chided her gently.

“Only the agreeable side of office,” he said, “is seen by a minister’s daughter.  She lives in the reflected light of power.  But the power itself, especially just now, is a fearful responsibility.”

Even so sobering a thought could not damp Germaine’s ardour.

“ While driving through the Bois de Boulogne that night,” she re­counted, “on my way to Versailles, I was in horrible fear of being attacked by robbers ;  for I felt that the happiness which my father’s restoration to power was giving me was bound to be offset by some cruel blow.”

Every moment brought its new delight.  She wrote :

“ I presented myself to the Queen, according to custom, on St. Louis’ day.  The Archbishop of Sens had been dismissed that morning and his niece had come at the same time as myself to take leave of Marie Antoin­ette.  The Queen made it quite clear, by her manner of receiving us, that she much preferred the Minister who was quitting office to the Minister who was entering upon it.  The courtiers, however, behaved differently ;  never before had so many people wanted to conduct me to my carriage.”

The stage, so Germaine thought, was now set for the final scene, namely, the superannuation of the King and the ascent to power of the nobility and the wits under the joint leadership of her father and herself.  She had prepared Eric Magnus’s mind for the change which was coming, and he and his were harnessed ready for the moment when their services might be required.  Meanwhile she suffered ;  the lawful raptures of the Swede were hindering the evolution of her soul towards per­fection at a moment when her soul bore the responsibility of nourishing the new France.

“How I thank you,” she wrote to Meister, who had sent her his De la Morale Naturelle, “for having emphasised the importance of loving !  If men of high intelligence will not defend loving, on philosophical grounds, as the crown of life, it will soon be spoken of as a woman’s game, in the same tones as one uses of the games of children.”²

This, perhaps, was how Eric Magnus spoke about loving, for he had flirted with the prettiest women at Versailles.  Certain it is that his little Swiss had no joy of him, mentally or physically ;  the more he desired her the more vehemently she determined that this great office of loving must be rescued from the titterings and slyness of a naughty world, full of the whispers of milliners and maid servants, and established in honour as the authentic bread of the new life.

She had been working for some months on a book entitled Lettres sur Jean Jacques Rousseau, the object of which was to prove that the author of Du Contrat Social had provided a place for women in that Paradise of his to which all Frenchmen were now marching.  Woman’s place, she argued, like man’s place, would be the reward of perfection.  But whereas men were made to have careers, woman ought to stake all on the object of her love, since by love alone could she achieve citizenship.  How to reconcile this shining truth with poor Eric Magnus ?

“ Happy that being,” she wrote, “who has never had to respond in relations not springing from the heart ;  who has never had to submit except gladly out of love !”  And she adds :  “ It is our custom to educate young girls in convents ... what choice have they ?  Everything in this education tends to suppress emotional liberty.”  But after marriage “the whole atmosphere has been changed.  Everybody scoffs and jokes about the things which used to be held up as the objects of deepest reverence.”³

The moral is obvious.  In the new France Liberty must be supplemented by Lovers’ Lane, so that virtue may no longer be compelled to exhaust herself in fruitless resistance to passion.  The writer is not yet bold enough to proclaim her evangel, but she hints discreetly :

“ In countries where public opinion is the only bulwark against tyranny, the applause and support of women constitute an additional motive for men’s contending together.  It is important to preserve this motive.”⁴

Liberty for all ;  but love for women, so that, by love, “which prepares the soul for virtue,” women may become the guaran­tors of liberty.  Germaine dwelt piously on all that love had ac­complished for her father, thus calling worthy Jacques to the support of ideas which frightened him out of his wits.  Then Rousseau was summoned from the tomb to do Jacques honour :

“ Arise, O Rousseau !  Arise from your ashes.  And may your life-giving prophecies inspire the man who departs from all evil in quest of perfection ;  the man whom France has named her guiding spirit, the man who sees only his duty towards France in her enthusiasm for him ;  the man to whom all must give their help and support.”⁵

Madame Necker, reading her daughter’s book on a bed of continuing sickness, was moved to write :

“ The old age of women ... is only bearable ... on condition that they do not take up any room, do not make any noise, do not ask any service.”

Eric Magnus and his mother-in-law had many thoughts as they had many afflictions in common.  Both, without doubt, felt regrets for the world that was passing away, the world in which husbands and old women had been accorded a measure of toleration.

“ Conversation in Society,” wrote Germaine to the King of Sweden, “is no longer unprofitable since public opinion is formed and declared in that way.  Words have become actions.”

¹ Considerations, Part I, pp. 155 et seq.

² Madame de Staël à Henri Meister, p. 79.

³ Lettres sur J.J. Rousseau.

⁴ Lettres sur J.J. Rousseau.

⁵ Lettres sur J.J. Rousseau.