Germaine de Staël

IN ITALY

THE Pope was on his way to Paris.  Germaine resolved to go to Rome, remarking :

“ I shall pass the Pope on the road.  I should not object to take possession of the Papal chair in his absence, for it seems to me that my going is more Catholic than his coming.”

She had finished her Life of her father amid a whirl of parties, receptions, debates and battles of wits.  Coppet was at its liveliest and most contentious.  Here were Benjamin, Mathieu, Augustus William (tutor of them all and driving Benjamin mad with his Teutonic positivism), professors from Geneva ;  among the women Albertine Adrienne, the Duchess of Courland (from Berlin) and Rosalie Constant, who confessed herself shocked at the parade of grief which had become an excuse for :

“ fêtes to the Duchesse de Courlande, whom she met in Berlin, and for keeping open house at Coppet for all the German and Genevese scholars she can collect, who engage in prodigious fencing matches of wit and wisdom until it is a relief to meet a person who talks commonplace.”

The Life of Necker was much admired ;  Benjamin called it Germaine’s best work.¹  She finished it in October and packed her boxes.  Who would come to Italy ?  Not Benjamin.  That weary, bored man accompanied her only to Lyons.  There he watched the berline lurch away towards the Alps.  Germaine had Augustus William, her son and daughter, and Professor Sismondi of Geneva with her.  She was upset, irritable, sleepless ;  Benjamin had as good as given notice.  The woman’s heart beat sadly among the mountains.  But her courage was undismayed.  These Italians, Bonaparte’s own folk, must hear the gospel preached.  They arrived at Milan and unshipped the drums and cymbals.  The crowd gathered, gaping with wonder. She forgot her sorrows.  Vincenzo Monti, Italy’s greatest poet, came to pay court.  This charming man, fifty years of age, with a rake’s reputation, a beautiful face and a lovely, soft voice, made instant conquest.  What calamity that he should have accepted from Bonaparte the office of Poet Laureate !  Her heart melted in pity ;  this brand, she resolved, should be plucked from the burning.  They spent their days together ;  love gushed up from the deeps so that even Benjamin became a shadow.  She could scarcely tear herself away.  But the hungry must be fed.  She wrote to Monti from Lodi :²

“ It has become such a pleasant habit to me, Caro Monti, to spend my days with you, that henceforward I must write to you.  A habit of a fortnight ?  Yes, that is quite possible ;  I have only just succeeded in knowing you, and in knowing my own nature in yours.  You were a friend awaiting me, not a new acquaintance. . . . Every tone of your voice resounds in my heart, and you have ennobled the Italian language by all the impressions I owe to you. . . . Take care of your health ;  remember the friendship which, if you wish, will be an eternal link between us, if you are ready to preserve a love which your fascination so quickly aroused and which your qualities will make lasting.”

“ Compose a tragedy with a dedication to me,” she ordered later, “or better still, love me so deeply that it costs you something to mention my name.  I’ll understand your silence.”

She reached Rome and was bored.  “If I am ever unfaithful to you,” she told Monti, “it will be in favour of a cardinal.” The Romans, all the Italians, indeed, laboured under an illusion.  They thought she had come to drink at their sacred wells and obligingly filled vessels for the slaking of her thirst.  They addressed her in torrents of words, talked and chattered till her ears grew deaf, and, with gestures, displayed the splendour of their monuments.  She wilted.  She wrote to Mathieu :³

“ Rome, February 6, 1805

“ Here I am in this town, dear friend, which has so powerfully exercised the thoughts of mankind.  I can only say that I’ve experienced a sense of profound melancholy.  The monuments of the past are so splendid and the things of the present so trivial that one feels one is looking at the remains of a race of men which has passed away and left its empire to wholly different creatures.  The Italians don’t please me a bit.  And as I’m accustomed to live with men and not with Things, my stay at Rome has awakened no enthusiasm in me. . . .

“ You know I love you.  The more I see of foreigners the more I love my ‘ native land.’  Adieu, adieu, my dear ‘native land’--for it’s you I mean when I use that term.  Four cardinals have so far called on me, and one of them wants to make a Catholic of me.  Who can do that, if you have failed to do it ? ”

The day before, a letter had been despatched to Monti as follows :

“ The more I see of foreigners the more I love my ‘native land.’  But this ‘native land’ which is you, my dear Monti, can I count on it ? ”

The word fell here on stony ground.  “ These women without love ;  these men without independence” gave her a hearing but made it clear that they didn’t know what she was talking about.  Napoleon and the Pope were good enough for them.  She shook off the sacred dust and went to Naples.  The blue bay and Vesuvius were the first lively things she had seen, and the Neapolitan Bourbons made a fuss of her.

“ I’ve only had four great pleasures in Italy,” she wrote to Monti, “you ;  St. Peter’s ;  the sea and Vesuvius.  And you and Vesuvius may go together as one and the same.”

Albertine, her daughter, put the number of pleasures at two only.  “Mamma only liked two things in Italy, the sea and Monti.”  In May, while she sulked at Florence with Prince Charles Edward’s⁴ widow, the Countess of Albany, Napoleon descended on Milan to have himself crowned King of Italy.  She thought of going to see her enemy put the Iron Crown of Savoy on his head, but desisted, as she explained, from a loathing of “Coronations and Mamelukes”--really because she had no idea how she would be received.  Napoleon departed, leaving Josephine’s son Eugene behind him as Viceroy.  Germaine travelled to Venice and met there, in the hotel, a young Austrian officer of twenty-five years named Comte Maurice O’Donnell de Tirconnell, a descendant of the illustrious Irish family.  She fell in love with him and forgot Monti, Benjamin, everybody on earth.

Maurice was a Captain of Sappers in the Austrian army, a young man of great physical charm, with an expression of the deepest melancholy.  Like every other Austrian officer, he hated Napoleon, who had filched Italy from his sovereign.  He could do no less than flatter Napoleon’s enemy, pay her compliments, make love to her.  Germaine, at 39, found 25 more attractive than 50.  Monti, when she met him again at Milan on June 12, had ceased to charm her.  Could she overlook that the man who called himself her lover had accepted his poet-laureateship from Napoleon and was about to hurry off, after him, like any other flunkey ?  When he had gone she paid his wife compliments and wrote to him :

“ Dear Monti, I came here for your sake and now you have left me.  Ah, I must forgive you but, without meaning to do so, you have broken my heart.”

She wrote to Maurice O’Donnell :⁵

“ During the few days I spent with you, sir, you inspired me with the liveliest regard for you.  I believe in these quick impressions because they belong to the swift instincts of the heart.  I think I can promise you that there won’t be any war, not this year at least ;  one of the Russian ministers found Bonaparte in possession of proposals by England for peace.  Whether these proposals are accepted or not, they will have the effect of postponing action for some months and the measures being taken by your Government are surely only of a defensive character.  I’m talking politics to lead up to what really interests me !--namely the pleasure of seeing you.  I believe I can say boldly that not the smallest obstacle exists to your coming to Switzerland.  Will that please you ?  Are not a lovely country and the warmest welcome imaginable enough for a summer ?  I await news of you at Coppet, Pays de Vaud, Suisse, and I hope that this news will be what I want to hear. . . .

“ Do give me all the news about your health ;  everything in your personal history interests me profoundly, and I shall never cease to wish you happiness.  Adieu, sir, I hope that this adieu will soon be changed into the greeting which the Italians call Saluto di Cuore.”

As soon as she got back to Coppet Germaine sent Maurice her life of her father and added, as a further inducement to him to make the proposed visit :⁶

“ You’ll meet here, this summer, the most lovely woman in Paris, Madame Récamier, of whom no doubt you’ve heard already.  You see how I think of every way of attracting you.”

Benjamin was at Coppet.  Chateaubriand, famous now as the author of the Génie du Christianisme, which Napoleon had used to smite his atheist enemies, arrived with his wife and talked pompously about people who did not know when they were well off.  “How little Chateaubriand knows the human heart,” cried Germaine, indignantly, “if he thinks I’m happy.”  She was no better pleased with Benjamin, who had drifted far and was still drifting fast, though his fear of hurting her served even yet as a bond.  Coppet, delivered from Jacques, his deaf butlers and his whist, was Liberty Hall :

“ Life seemed to be as lazy as it was aimless,” wrote a guest.  “ There was no system about anything.  No one knew where to go, to stay, or to meet.  There was no special meeting place for any hour of the day.  Everybody’s room stood open.  You stayed there hours, days, without any of the ordinary habits of life coming in to interrupt.  Talk was everybody’s chief concern.  The word ‘genius’ was much overworked.  Everybody was occupied with his genius or, in a less degree, with somebody else’s genius.  ‘ This is not in accord with your genius.  That doesn’t suit my genius.  You ought to dedicate your genius.’  Probably not a single needle was to be found in all Coppet.”

Meanwhile Germaine was writing a novel about Maurice O’Donnell.⁷  She called the book “Corinne or Italy.”  O’Donnell appeared as Oswald, Lord Nelvil, a Scottish nobleman of 25, beautiful and melancholy, who, travelling in Italy, met the woman of his dreams.  Alas !  His father, in Scotland, summoned him home to marry as family needs dictated.  Duty called ;  Corinne was left lamenting.  Love had been sacrificed on the altar of Society.

It was Delphine over again, everything over again, the old gospel in new words.  There was Society and there was Lovers’ Lane always in opposition.  Nor was Bonaparte forgotten.  Out of this Italy which he had freed from the Austrians, which called him Saviour as well as King and of which he was the most distinguished living son, she sent him packing into exile.  His name was not mentioned !  Never a word ;  never a hint.  There were the usual praises of England and the English, the usual sneers at the French.  She had emptied her heart.  She put the MS. away and wrote to Maurice :⁸

“ Though I only saw you during five days, I am certain that I don’t deceive myself about you.  There is a simplicity and a nobility in your bearing which must have sprung from your heart.”

Napoleon saw a great Austrian army gathering on his frontier, England’s reply to the army on the cliffs of Boulogne.  He wrote to Fouché.⁹

“ August 29, 18o5

“ Madame de Staël is giving it to be understood that I have allowed her to come to Paris to live.  She can stay at Coppet.  As you know I’m not fool enough to want to see her anywhere near Paris.  She’s perpetually meddling in French affairs at Geneva. . . . Let her friends know that if she approaches nearer than 120 miles she’ll be arrested.  It’s essential just now to keep every kind of troubler away from Paris.  It is simply out of the question that, when I am going to be 6,000 (sic) miles away, at the other side of Europe, I should give bad citizens the chance to disturb the peace of my capital.”

M. de Barante, the Prefect of Geneva, was told to refuse passports to Madame de Staël but to allow her, if she liked, to enter Geneva itself.  He was one of her friends and tempered the wind as much as he could.  Germaine, in lively indignation, sent her son Auguste to school in Paris.  War began and Napoleon, in a few weeks, destroyed the combined Russian and Austrian armies.  France, in delirium, heard the names Ulm and Austerlitz.  The greater name, Trafalgar, was slurred over.  The new Emperor told his soldiers that their victories would compel England to make peace.

“ The love of the people for absolute power,” wrote Benjamin in his diary, “is amazing.”

“ Not liberty only, but free-will,” said Germaine, “has been abolished from the earth.”

She had not counted on these resounding victories, nor yet on their effect on the French mind.  Napoleon, she began to see, was something more than the little tyrant she had delighted to call him.  No wonder she had felt difficulty in breathing in his presence.  Admiration, which her hate could not strangle, choked her anew.  She remained at Coppet watching, while the Emperor allied himself to those Kings of Bavaria and Wurtemburg upon whose heads he had just placed crowns, and called the old nobility of France to his Court.  Bitter her mortification when the bearers of the greatest names answered that call--Narbonne among the number.  But she kept a stiff lip and received visitors by the hundred, gave innumerable parties, talked, acted, and plagued all her friends to plead for her with Napoleon.  That little band displayed an astonishing fidelity.  At one time or another Benjamin, Joseph, Mathieu, Murat, Junot, Juliette and even Monti, who had gone to Paris, pulled wires for the exile.  They got nothing except a repetition of the warning that if she came nearer than 120 miles she would be arrested.  She decided to stretch her tether and on April 19, 1806, with Augustus William, Albert and Albertine, drove off from Coppet.  They put up at Auxerre, 129 miles from Paris, in the Chateau of Vincelles.  It was the dreariest spot on earth.  Frantic appeals to the Faithful were sent off by every post and these came running to the rescue, Mathieu and his brother Adrien, Jordan, Juliette, among others.  Why did Benjamin tarry ?  Germaine learned that he had broken his journey to visit his father, who was ill.  That was no excuse.  She wrote and told him so.¹⁰  He arrived, humble and uneasy.

“ There’s going to be an explosion,” he wrote in his diary.  “ The news from Paris is bad ;  the Master is inexorable.  I’ve had to take the kicks.  This evening a scene, incredible, horrible, senseless ;  vile abuse.  She’s mad or I’m mad.  How will it end ? ”

A heat wave began most unseasonably and Augustus William fell ill.  Germaine began to take opium.  On May 4, 1806, she wrote to Maurice telling him where she was :¹¹

“ I’ve come to France, to the prescribed limit of my exile, to try to secure payment of the £100,000 deposited in the public Treasury by my father.  You’ve heard me speak about it.  I haven’t had a shilling up till now.  I mean to give some weeks of hard work to this duty which my motherhood imposes on me. . . . Are you thinking of getting married ? . . . Adieu, sir, you contrived, in a day or two, to awaken in me an interest that remains ;  I can never be indifferent to your fate.”

Benjamin had to purge his offence by a fresh effort to melt the stony heart in Paris.  She took more opium and had a nervous breakdown.  Mathieu ran helplessly about or comforted Juliette Récamier, who was doubly afflicted in that her husband had just lost his money.  One day Germaine ordered a post-chaise, drove to Blois, and spent a week there.  On September 14 she left Auxerre and travelled to Rouen, accompanied by her troupe, which again included Benjamin.  The Norman city was duly excited, but Germaine, who had fallen in love with Prosper de Barante, son of the Prefect of Geneva, remained hidden.  This young man possessed both good looks and wit and was ready to be mothered.  The affair marched at the double.  Germaine, in truth, had lost her taste for men of her own age ;  she favoured now boys in their twenties.

Napoleon, in these autumn days, was driving the Prussians from Jena like sheep, as, a year before, he had driven the Aufrians and Russians.  Berlin bowed her head.  The King and Queen who had been Madame de Staël’s hosts became fugitives, without an army, without a kingdom.  The shadow of one man lay upon Europe from the North Sea to the frontiers of Russia.  It seemed that the world was tumbling into pieces.  But Germaine hugged the thought that England had destroyed her enemy’s ships and that his victories had not broken the resistance of the Islanders.  Demands to be allowed to return to Paris flowed hourly from her pen, for, with the cat away on the Polish plain, she had new hope of success.  So insistent was she that, on January 23, 1807, a permit from Fouché to approach within 36 miles of Paris reached her.  She went to the Chateau of Acosta, near Aubergenville.  But the cat spied her :

“ Don’t let that vixen Madame de Staël come near Paris,” he had written to his Minister of Police in December.¹²

“ I know that she’s not far away.”  He wrote again in March :  “ Please obey my orders and see to it that Madame de Staël does not approach nearer than 120 miles from Paris.  That wicked intriguer had better take care.”

She was warned to go.  The usual antics began.  She had bought a house ;  her daughter was ill ;  she must come to Paris for money.  Fouché had no wish to quarrel with her ;  like most of those who served Napoleon, he kept a foot in the enemy’s camp.  But the fear of his Master was in his heart.

“ This woman,” Napoleon wrote, “is a carrion crow ;  she thinks disaster is at hand and is getting ready to profit by it by means of intrigues and follies.  Send her back to her lake.  Haven’t these Genevese done us enough harm ? ”

He wrote again the next day :

“ Among the thousand and one things relating to Madame de Staël which have come into my hands you will see from this letter how good a Frenchwoman she is. . . . My decision is that she is never to leave Geneva. . . . One day she runs after lords and ladies ;  the next she’s the wildest of democrats.  It makes me furious to see all the different forms she takes.  She’s a whore and an ugly one at that.  I won’t trouble you with the plans her absurd coterie has made in case, by a lucky chance, I get killed ;  a Minister of Police ought to know them.  All I hear of this contemptible woman makes it obvious that I must leave her in her Coppet, among her Genevese, and her Necker relations.”

On April 20 he wrote :

“ Every day I obtain fresh proofs of the exceeding badness of this woman, who is not only the enemy of the Government but also of France, that France from which she cannot keep away.”

Fouché pretended that he had obeyed orders.

“ I see from your bulletin,” wrote the Emperor on May 7, “that Madame de Staël left Paris for Geneva on the 21st (April).  I’m very much annoyed that you should be so badly informed.  Madame de Staël was in Paris on the 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th, and is probably still there.  She’s been dining out a great deal with literary people.”

This was the truth.  Germaine had slipped back into her old haunts as soon as news reached her of Napoleon’s drawn battle with the Russians at Eylau.  Eylau was the first hint that the great captain might not, after all, be invincible.  There were ugly rumours running about and Paris was nervous.  Suppose he was killed or got badly beaten !  All his enemies had begun to gather together.  Could she be absent ?  Chief among these enemies was Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador, burning with zeal to avenge his country’s defeats at Ulm and Austerlitz and ready, if Napoleon’s luck turned in Poland, to send a new Austrian army to attack him in the rear and cut off his retreat through Germany.

“ I am staying some thirty miles from Paris . . .,” wrote Germaine to Maurice O’Donnell,¹³ “ but as soon as Corinne is published I’m going back to Coppet.  I’ll send you a copy of the novel by the hand of M. de Metternich, whom I don’t see, because he’s in Paris, but with whom I’m in touch.”

Corinne appeared in April, at the time of its author’s secret visit to the Capital ;  it served her purpose of belittling Napoleon and pouring contempt on his methods.  Everybody read it ;  editions followed each other without a break.  The plotters within and the enemies without were encouraged by the spectacle of a self-styled Frenchwoman turning her back on the Emperor.  Even French readers of the novel were apt to lose sight of the fact that the campaigns in Austria, Germany and Poland had been conducted against enemies all of whom were in receipt of subsidies from England and all of whom were engaged, indirectly, in supporting England’s claim to world power.  Napoleon, like so many other rulers of France, had been baulked in his attempt to engage England in a duel.  It was the obvious policy of the English Government now to represent his successes as conquests undertaken solely to gratify a ruthless ambition.  Hence the great value of Madame de Staël and her novel to the English Government, to the Governments of Austria and Prussia and to the Royalists in France who desired nothing so much as the Emperor’s ruin.  She called the French leader a tyrant, enemy of liberty and of the domestic hearth ;  henceforward that was to be the slogan of every foe of France.

¹ He contributed a Preface to it after her death, in which he made amends for much.

² These and some of the succeeding letters are given in Madame de Staël, by Lady Blennerhasset :  others are given in Madame de Staël and the United States, by R.L. Hawkins.

³ Madame de Staël and the United States, by R.L. Hawkins.

⁴ “Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

⁵ Madame de Staël et Maurice O’Donnell, by Jean Mistler, p. 3.

⁶ Madame de Staël et Maurice O’Donnell, p. 6.

⁷ There has always been doubt about the original of the hero of Corinne, Oswald.  The work of Jean Mistler, though he offers no suggestion on the subjed, seems to the present writer to set that doubt at rest.

⁸ Madame de Staël et Maurice O’Donnell, p. 12.

⁹ Letter published by M. Lecestre.

¹⁰ This, like all her other letters, was opened by the police and submitted to Napoleon, who greatly enjoyed it.

¹¹ Madame de Staël et Maurice O’Donnell, p. 14.

¹² These and the letters following are from Lettres Inédites, published by Lecestre.

¹³ Madame de Staël et Maurice O’Donnell, p. 16.