Germaine de Staël

THE PASSIONS

GERMAINE and Benjamin had cause of complaint against Barras.  He had used them and then, when things went wrong, loaded them with the blame.

That was clear to both.  But, apart from that, these two Swiss left France without having acquired understanding of her mind, of her aims or of her needs.  They spoke the tittle-tattle of Paris, now become nearly a dead language.  The simpler tongue of the French countryside, whence had marched the soldiers to save the Fatherland and confound Europe, was unknown to them.  Again, they did not know that Royalism was dead and buried since the landing at Quiberon, or that Jacobinism had ceased to matter much since it had ceased to be identified with victory.  Gazing at Paris they failed to see France ;  listening to Paris they missed the thunder of the guns on the frontiers.  The plumed Directors bulked big in their minds, whereas now only the soldiers counted for anything.  France was already marching against England.  Jacques had returned to Coppet, where Suzanne lay buried.  They descended on him and unpacked their distresses.

“ My daughter,” he wrot¹ on January 2, 1796, to Meister, “has arrived after a long journey which has happily been free from accident.  M. Constant was her travelling companion.  They are both wonderfully full of Republican ideas and hopes ;  and seem to forgive a trifle too easily the methods employed by governments to attain these objects.  I am very far from seeing eye to eye with them. . . .”

Coppet, on its perch above the Geneva-Lausanne road, was looking bleak and cold, for all its show of wealth.  But needs does as needs must.  They fell in, as best they could, with Jacques’ method of living :

“ They gathered for breakfast in Madame de Staël’s room,” said Frédéric de Chateauvieux ;  “ They drank only coffee then.  This breakfast lasted two hours, for, as soon as they assembled, Madame de Staël raised a question, more often chosen from the realms of literature or of philosophy than from those of politics ;  and this out of consideration for her father, whose career on the political stage had ended so unfortunately.  But whatever the subject of discussion, it was attacked with a liveliness of imagination and a profundity from which Benjamin Constant derived his best training and from which gushed forth all that the human mind could conceive and create. . . . Each then retired until dinner, which passed off in a perpetual quarrel between M. Necker and some aged butlers, deaf and complaining, relics of the régime that M. Necker had overthrown, who, in their embroidered liveries, had followed his fortunes to Coppet.  The afternoon was also devoted to work until seven o’clock, when M. Necker’s whist began.  This whist was stormy.  M. Necker and his daughter quarrelled, got angry and left the table, vowing never to play with each other again, and began again the next evening.  The rest of the evening was given to conversation.”

Rosalie Constant, Benjamin’s cousin, a tidy little spinster of Lausanne, came to see them sometimes but felt unedified.

“ It is impossible,” she wrote, “to live peaceably with these queer people.  With enough to make ten fools happy she (Madame de Staël) is perfedly miserable ;  but she loves Benjamin passionately.  God knows where all this will end. . . .

“ She was seated between the ‘fox,’ the ‘kitten’ and the other one (i.e. three men) with an elbow on the chest of one, the other grasped by the head, and the third holding the back of her neck and calling her a ‘nice little pussy.’ . . I quarrelled horribly with them about our country, which they look on as the home of boredom and emptiness. . . . I did not convince Benjamin.  I came away so as to avoid having supper there.”

Everybody at Coppet was writing a book :  Jacques a four-volume work on the Revolution from the text :  “ I told you so”;  Benjamin a work in unreckoned volumes on Religion ;  Germaine a treatise :  De l’Influence des Passions sur le Bonheur des Individus et des Nations.  This last the discharge of a hundred tensions :  Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre, in the political sphere ;  Narbonne, Ribbing, in the emotional ;  Switzerland in the environmental.  The preface declared :

“ Condemned to a celebrity among those who do not know me personally, I feel it due to myself that I should be judged by my writings.  I have been ceaselessly slandered ;  and though I am unwilling to draw attention to myself I have been obliged to yield to the hope that, by publishing the fruit of my meditation, I shall be able to give some true idea of my habits of life and the nature of my character.”

The fruit of her meditation was that love is the chief ingredient of happiness, the essence of liberty for men as well as for women.  Alas, society, tyrants, Nature herself, were ranged too often in opposition to the loving heart.

“ For, whatever the power and range of her mind, whatever the importance of the affairs that absorb her, a woman’s face is always either an obstacle or an advantage in the history of her life.  Men, or at any rate their male natures, have so willed it. . . . Do you think that dazzling success in a woman is specially gratifying to her lover ? . . . Love is the highest ideal of felicity that the imagination of man can conceive ;  a delight more exquisite still, almost terrifying in its bliss, if the perfect lovers are united by marriage, which makes love unique and lifts it to a giddy height of joy.  And to think that this bliss is within the scope of human experience and that almost every living soul is debarred from it. . . . When a woman’s share of public affairs is born of love for the man who directs those affairs, when feeling alone dictates her opinions and inspires their development, she is not straying from the road laid down for her by Nature.  She is a woman and she is in love. . . . Perhaps at this very moment of writing I wish to be loved once more ;  perhaps at this very moment I resign my destiny to my love.”

Ribbing appeared ;  she had another affair with him.  He went off, suddenly, to America ;  her lamentations desolated the household, which now included Albertine Adrienne.  That little lady wrote about it to Mathieu, in Paris, who replied on May 25, 1796 :²

“ What dreadful agonies her too, too feeling heart still endures.  There goes one man the more of the goodly company of those who do not know how to love ;  a man, too, who by the contrast, so frequently remarked, between his feelings and the most important act of his life (the murder of his King) conveys an impression of the greatest distinction and depth of character. . . .”

Benjamin was not a witness of this episode.  He had returned to Paris with a pamphlet of his own composing on the Strength of the present French Government and the duty of rallying to its support, which he managed to get printed in the official newspaper Le Moniteur.  He was in touch with Mathieu, who testified that he was not sparing himself to secure “our friend’s” return and that he was really a most obliging fellow.  Jacques, less lachrymose, remarked about Ribbing’s exit :  “ Bon voyage !”

Germaine decided to rush off to Paris, to Benjamin.  She was warned that if she crossed the French frontier she would be arrested.  She wrote despairing letters to Barras, to Eric Magnus, to Mathieu.³

“ If you only knew what a touching, what a desperate letter I have had from her,” wrote the latter to Albertine Adrienne.

Doomed to writhe at Coppet, she unloaded her feelings upon her book.  But her watchful eye had not lost its droop for a new lion.  The world was beginning to ring with the name of General Napoleon Bonaparte, now campaigning in Italy, who, in a few weeks, had defeated the Austrians half-a-dozen times.  She wrote him a series of four or five letters, offering her genius and her love.⁴

“ You are Scipio and Tancred,” she cried.  “ You combine the simple virtues of the one with the glorious deeds of the other.”  She added that Josephine was no fit mate for such a hero.

“ My dear Bourienne,” said Bonaparte to his secretary, “this sort of thing is inconceivable.  The woman is mad.  Good heavens, a blue Rocking, a faker of feelings, to dare to compare herself with Josephine !  Bourienne, I don’t want to answer such letters.”

And he didn’t.  Germaine shrieked that Benjamin must come back at once and comfort her.  But that young man showed himself coy.  He had made a good impression with his pamphlet and began to fancy himself as a politician and man-about-town.

“ Noisy gaiety,” wrote his cousin Charles to Rosalie,⁵ after visiting his rooms, “the most libertine conversation, the least temperate expressions, supplied the theme of the talk. . . . Benjamin looked played-out, bored.”

His pamphlet annoyed the Jacobins ;  one of them bade him mind his manners as a foreigner enjoying the hospitality of France.  Benjamin called him out, and they fired pistols into the air in the Bois and went back, arm-in-arm, to luncheon.  But the news reached Geneva and Coppet.

“ Knowing his impulsiveness,” wrote Germaine to Rosalie Constant.  “I am in torture. . . . What does Charles say ?  In God’s name, what does he say ? . . . Tell me to the smallest syllable.  Do not dare to go to bed without getting your letters (from Paris) and writing me what they contain.  I have the right to ask you.  For twenty-eight hours I have trembled and wept and perished with anxiety.  If you knew what he is to me !  What a letter, too, I have received from him !  What an angel of tenderness he is to me !  Upon him depends all that life holds for me.  In Heaven’s name hide nothing from me !  If he were wounded !  But no ! . . .”

A short time afterwards Benjamin returned.  Scarcely was he arrived and installed when the iron gates of Coppet were opened to admit another visitor, namely, Eric Magnus.  That unwelcome guest explained that, as Sweden was at loggerheads with the French, he had been told by his government to take a prolonged holiday.  He proposed to spend it with his wife and children.  Then the Baron de Staël disclosed the real object of his visit ;  his debts amounted to £8,000.  Worthy Jacques assumed immediately his counting-house manner.  The two retired to fight it out.

“ I propose going to Sweden,” threatened Eric Magnus, “and taking my wife and family with me.”

Jacques paid.  The Ambassador departed to drink the waters at Aix-les-Bains, promising to return early in October.  Germaine declared that her mind was made up to divorce him and marry Benjamin.  The proofs of the Passions were coming to hand from the Lausanne printer, and they spent their days discussing and correcting them.  Before Eric Magnus came back, Germaine was pregnant by Benjamin.  They began to make plans, personal and political.  She wrote to Gouverneur Morris in Vienna urging him to plead with the Austrian authorities for the liberation of Lafayette from the fortress of Olmutz to which, on his desertion from the French army, they had consigned him.⁶  Crazy visions of a Congtitutional Republic, with “the General” at its head and themselves in effective control, filled their minds.  The Passions arrived.  On October 2 (1796) Benjamin, his luggage bulging with copies, took the road for Paris ;  Eric Magnus returned from Aix on the 7th.  On the 10th Germaine sent copies to Meister for distribution to a number of literary men, including Goethe.  Speaking of Paris and her hope of returning there, she added, in her covering letter :

“ One mustn’t shut the gates of Paradise against oneself.”⁷

In November she wrote to him again :

“ Ah, how bored I am in this country.”⁸

Eric Magnus lingered a little while, took his money and returned to France.  Benjamin, in Paris, redoubled his efforts to persuade Barras that Germaine was not really dangerous and so might be allowed to re-enter France.  The Passions had had some success, especially with the women ;  they liked to think that Robespierre had erred chiefly in attempting to govern without their loving help, and to be assured that, for the future, love must season statescraft.  It was doing so.  “ The women are everywhere,” Bonaparte had remarked before leaving for Italy.  “And the men are mad about them.”⁹  He had dragged reluctant Josephine from Paris ;  but Thérèse remained to provide Barras with inspiration and the Jacobin newspapers with copy.  One of these suggested that Tallien’s wife ought to be treated like the great houses in the Faubourg Saint Germain and inscribed, across the back, with the words :  “For Sale :  National Property.”  The lady found Madame de Staël’s philosophy comforting as an antidote to that sort of thing, and so did her lover.  Barras was grown rich, vainglorious, bloated ;  more and more resentful of every obstacle to the play of his lusts and his acquisitiveness.  He had just pocketed a tip of £2,000,000 from Bonaparte in Italy, the price of his non-interference with the campaign in that country, and had good hopes of getting more ;  why should he suffer longer the pryings and censoriousness of his fellow-Directors, especially of Carnot ?

These two men had carried daggers for one another for more than a year.  Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot belonged to that small company of honest Jacobins who had made no money out of the Revolution.  He had sat with Robespierre on the Committee and single-handed organised the victory of the French armies against Austria and Prussia and Spain and England.  Eight pitched battles won, 80,000 enemies slain, 91,000 prisoners, 116 towns and fortresses occupied, 90 enemy flags—these were the spoils of his office, laid on the nation’s altar.  He had been Terrorist while victory remained in doubt ;  had attacked Robespierre when, victory secure, the guillotine was not put away ;  had shared the honours of Thermidor, but had come to the tribune to defend Barras’s scapegoats, Billaud-Varenne and Collot d’Herbois, after that event.  Fréron, murderer of Marseilles, now leader of the gilded youth, attacked Carnot on Barras’s behalf ;  the deputies of the nation rose to call Carnot blessed.  Fourteen departments elected him as their representative ;  the Council of Five Hundred chose him to be a member of the Council of Ancients.  He was made Director.  That calm, strong face with its high brow and lively eyes began to haunt the dreams of the men who had renounced murder to praise brigandage.  What would happen to them if Carnot got the upper hand ?

There was danger of that.  Carnot was in close touch with the great generals of the Republic, the young Hoche, who had crushed Royalism in La Vendée, Moreau on the Rhine, Bonaparte in Italy.  All were in some measure his protégés, all held him in respect.  They had but to speak and he would be armed with an overwhelming strength.  Barras set about the task of sowing suspicion of Carnot in the minds of the generals.  He was quicker-witted than his rival, craftier, with a surer grasp of political strategy.  Carnot’s weak point had always been his association with Robespierre.  Barras attacked him there, accused him of a secret wish to play the tyrant, and suggested adroitly that between the tyranny of the guillotine and that of the throne there was nothing to choose.  The Jacobins, equally with the Royalists, were the enemies of Liberty.  That was the cue ;  a hundred pens, Benjamin’s among them, developed the theme in such a way as to suggest that guillotine and throne had joined hands, secretly, to destroy the Republic.  The official Moniteur was bidden to publish extracts from the Passions, and its readers heard, on the authority of Madame de Staël, that despotism was represented by the Royalists and anarchy by the Jacobins.  Royalists and Jacobins were, therefore, equally dangerous ;  the Republicans, standing between the two, were the real friends of Liberty.  Benjamin then stepped forward.  The Royalists, he cried, were at the door, athirst for vengeance.  He warned them :¹⁰

“ All you who, for a day, for an hour, had faith in the Revolution, you who endorsed or applauded or profaned (Constituents, Législatifs, Conventionnels, Feuillants, Jacobins), malefactors (in Royalist eyes) by participation, or criminals by non-interference, you are threatened by the same anathema.  The fate of every one of you is sealed.  To you who were guilty :  under the Republic, life—she has promised it ;  under Royalty, death.  To you who were only ambitious :  under the Republic, pardon—she owes it to you for, in spite of your mistakes, you have served Liberty ;  under Royalty, death.  To you whose ever-upright conduct offends none but the tyrant :  under the Republic, glory ;  under Royalty, death.”

In short, Barras had blessings for all who repented and supported him, reformed Jacobins (like himself) not excluded ;  whereas Carnot, no doubt in spite of himself, was playing the Royalist game.  Benjamin was become so useful that Germaine’s recall was certain.  On December 14, 1796, Mathieu, in Paris, informed Albertine Adrienne :¹¹

“ You and I are of one mind about Benj.  (sic) . . . Let me tell you that he has come to me sometimes in a state of mental disorientation, the prey of furious political views which do not seem to have any root in his heart or in his convictions.  All that, taken in conjunction with certain small but not unimportant details, such as the look on his face, his clothes and his maniacal manners, leaves me dumbfounded when I think of the feeling he can inspire in our friend’s heart. . . My position as a privileged person has enabled me to recount these different impressions of him to your cousin ;  I have returned more than once to the charge, to question her, to warn her, to beg her not to surrender herself to an unhappiness, more certain of accomplishment than all those she has already experienced.  I wasn’t dissatisfied with her reply, because I found no enthusiasm (for Benjamin) in it.  You have stripped away the veil. . . Still, don’t let us despair of the ability of a friend like you to save such a heart as hers from what is not even a passion but only an error of the imagination.  As for me, I have dared to present our prayers and plans to that Providence which cannot surely refuse to save from the abyss one of the most lovable and most astounding of His creatures. . . .”

Before this letter was delivered, Benjamin had arrived at Coppet, with leave for Germaine to live in France, though not yet in Paris.  He proposed to take her to the country house he had bought, named Hérivaux.  Wild, almost delirious with joy, she scarcely listened to her father’s protests.  She would take her two little sons with her in case Eric Magnus was recalled to Sweden and felt tempted to possess himself of them.  Jacques compelled attention on that point.  The boys, he ordered, would remain with him.  On Christmas Day, Benjamin and Germaine crossed the frontier.

¹ Madame de Staël à Henri Meister, p. 134.

² Mathieu de Montmorency et Madame de Staël, p. 68.

³ Mathieu de Montmorency et Madame de Staël, p. 74.

⁴ Bourrienne :  Mémoires, Vol. VI. See also De Casse :  Mémoires du Roi Joseph, Vol. X, p. 269.  The subject is dealt with fully by Paul Gautier in his Madame de Staël et Napoléon, pp. 2, 3 et seq.

⁵ Correspondence of Charles and Rosalie de Constant in the Library of Geneva.  See also Schermerhorn :  Benjamin Constant.

⁶ Revue rétrospective, 1ère série, Vol. III, p. 465.  See Madame de Staël and the United States, by Dr. Hawkins, p. 19.

⁷ Madame de Staël à Henri Meister, p. 144.

⁸ Madame de Staël à Henri Meister, p. 145.

⁹ Letter to Joseph Bonaparte.

¹⁰ Des Réactions Politiques, by Benjamin Constant.

¹¹ Mathieu de Montmorency et Madame de Staël, p. 83.