Germaine de Staël

LAGGARD IN LOVE

WORSE still, Narbonne was becoming an occasion of acute distress.  That man, although dependent on Germaine’s bounty, was resolved to be quit of her embraces.  He used the fact that there was a price on his head as an excuse for moving about as much as possible and especially for getting away from the neighbourhood of the Lake of Geneva.  Hence the wish of Germaine to acquire a house near Zurich in German Switzerland where, at least, her lover would be deprived of the plea of personal danger and where, with Talleyrand’s wit to cheer her, she might be able to win him back.

“ I must confess,” she wrote to Eric Magnus, “that the society of Geneva people is insupportable to me.  Their freedom of speech simply results in insolence and their impeccable morals in infinite boredom.  In any case a small town is the worst scene of action in the world for exceptional people.  Every word they say is bound to be torn to shreds by the gossips.  I am sure that, in Geneva, my father and I assume the significance of the States-General in Paris.  To create a stir without achieving fame is only an unmitigated nuisance.”

Eric Magnus was about to go to Hamburg and thence to Sweden on diplomatic business.  So far as he was concerned, Germaine could live where she liked.

“ I take advantage,” he wrote to Meister¹ from Schaffhouse on Thursday, January 2, 1794, “of the permission you have given me, to send you a letter for your lady friend.  At the same time I have the honour to renew to you my sincere thanks for the excellent consideration you have shown me during my stay at Zurich :  I’m afraid I have trespassed grossly on your time and good nature.  You told me, my dear sir, that you often see Madame Burkli.  I do beg you most earnestly to assure her of my devotion.  I am enchanted to have become acquainted with this delightful woman, whose soul, personality and mind possess such harmony and charm.  I do indeed pray that she may always be happy.  Such natures as hers suffer too much when they are not happy, for it is only the tender emotions which can really affect them.

“ I beg you, my dear sir, to be so good as to remember me to your cousin and to offer my compliments to all the other people to whom you have been kind enough to introduce me.

“ I am still here and I am furious at it.  I have given the man who drove me here a letter for M. Ott in which I have asked him in case Wednesday’s or Thursday’s post has brought letters for me, to send them to me by special messenger.  Neither letters not messenger have appeared.  I am in despair. “ Good-bye, my dear sir.  Do believe that I am always your sincere and devoted friend,

“ STAËL DE HOLSTEIN.

“ P.S.—I expect to stay here till Sunday, but not a minute longer.  I think nobody ever has been doomed to do more waiting than I have been.”

Meister did not exert himself greatly to obey Germaine’s instructions.  She wrote to him again on February 19, 1794.²

“ I have seen in the “Gazette de Schaffhouse” that the Bishop of Autun has been deported from England.  I couldn’t believe it, had I not, myself, lacked all news from England for fifteen days.  This report has upset me so much that I can scarcely hold my pen for trembling.  I’ve been trembling ever since I heard it.  If he comes here I will be only too glad ;  but he will go to America ;  but —— If God grants that this new affliction is spared me, I will write to you to ask you to deny the report in the “Gazette de Schaffhouse.”

“ What do you know about M. Ott’s country house at Zurich ? ”

The news about Talleyrand was true.  He had gone to America.  She wrote to Meister again :³

“ Nyon, 12th March, 1794.

“ It’s exceedingly good of you to bother about me.  If only my friends, in America and Europe, could be gathered at Zurich.  Think what a great service you will have done me if we manage that.  Mathieu precedes me with M. Bink.  He will come under a Swedish name and I will tell you what I want.  M. Ott’s house seems to be all that can be desired.  If I take it, I wish to do my own catering which is both more economical and easier.  It seems to me that, as I am not yet absolutely sure that I won’t go to London, and as I am even less sure of being happy at Zurich with the very few friends who seem likely to be tolerated there, I ought to begin by a stay of eight days at M. Ott’s (hotel) in the town.  With your help and God’s grace, I’ll exert my blandishments (on the authorities) during the period, and if these are successful I shall choose, with you, both my house and the pension for Madame de Chatre.  That lady, my good friend and a worthy Constitutional, is not happy in the Canton of Berne.  She will arrive under her maiden name of Bontems, but there are two points which must be attended to—namely, that the Government of Zurich is made aware of the real names of these people (there can be no safety without that !), and that it gives some indication of a definite preference for emigrants of democratic opinions.  I am ready to go to Winterthur, to Rapperswyl, or like Madame de Montesquieu to Bremgarten if that suits better.  I don’t want the glamour of the capital (Zurich), what I want is you and again you and still again you.  I want a shelter for our friends near enough to Zurich to allow you to come and spend the night easily.  I don’t think I need say or decide anything till I come.  I pull things off, sometimes, when I have personal interviews, and in any case (don’t you think?) I ought to take advantage of the success of M. de Staël, the memory of which is still fresh ?  I repeat that, not having fully made up my mind not to go to England, I think definite decisions should be postponed till I come.

“ Ah, England !  They’ve robbed me of my beloved, my excellent friend !  Tell Brayoud that he (Talleyrand) cannot now come here ;  it was the Emperor’s Minister who asked them to apply the provisions of the Aliens Bill against him.  There is the greatest calamity for me since the Revolution :  there was not a single interest of one of his friends with which he was not tenderly occupied at the time of his going.  What a misunderstood character !  And his mind, so richly endowed, so charming, is even more remarkable.  Nothing shall prevent me from seeing him again :  and it may be that other reasons will force me to go in search of him.  I begin to loathe Europe.  The last thing I shall do for my friends will be this visit to Zurich.  As for myself, I shall drag along for a while yet.  But who can agree, at 27, to break completely with the past ?  How to love as one has loved !  How to experience feelings as vivid as one’s memories ! . . . It isn’t true, as you seem to be convinced, that M. de Narbonne has gone to America.”

Narbonne had gone back to England.  On March 28 she wrote again to Meister :⁴

“ Mathieu writes me that you are being exceedingly kind to him ;  but can you overcome all the obstacles in the way of our being allowed to live ?  For, truth to tell, to live is now the height of our ambition.  With the Bishop in America, you know what ruin has been made of this poor society (of mine).  M. de Narbonne, too, will probably not come back for three months, when he will have obtained a permanent position either in England or Italy—and three months from now M. de Staël is due back from his special mission to Denmark and Sweden.  So I can stay for three months at Winterthur or Rapperswyl, as far away as they like, provided they leave us as undisturbed on the surface of the earth as we will be when we lie under it.

“ My mother’s state of health is so pitiful that I am keeping near Lausanne and that I ought, perhaps, to give up the idea of living at Zurich.  What a state of matters, if our friends are received there and I don’t stay with them !  If it is my fatal name which frightens everybody, I think that, this name being more formidable than its bearer, it will be better—since it has been spoken—if I show myself, for that nearly always helps matters.  I beg you to tell me what I should do.  Eight days from now I shall have fifteen days at my disposal ;  would there be any objection to my spending them at Zurich ?  Suppose I let it be known that I am only paying a visit and not establishing myself.  I can stay at an hotel and can say, what is perfectly true, that the state of my mother’s health compels me to return to Lausanne till M. de Staël arrives.  I can say, too, that my chief object in coming was to see you and to find a house to buy at some future date, which is also, really, one of my projects.  Do advise me as soon as possible about this journey.  I won’t thank you ;  it seems to me that in our troubles, and almost by reason of them, you are one of us.  So I behave towards you as I do towards them :  I love and I dispose.

“ Would you be so kind as to see if, when the English mail comes in, there is anything for me ?  A month ago I gave Zurich as my address.”

Meister advised her to come to Zurich, and she arrived there on April 17 and had meetings with several of the ruling burghers.  But these interested her far less than the news from Paris, which was to the effect that the era of blood was at an end.

¹ Madame de Staël à Henri Meister, p. 99.

² Madame de Staël à Henri Meister, p. 101.

³ Madame de Staël à Henri Meister, p. 102.

⁴ Madame de Staël à Henri Meister, p. 104.