Unpublished correspondence—that delight of the eager biographer—is not to be had in the case of Madame de Staël, for, as is well known, the De Broglie family either destroyed or successfully hid all the papers which might have revealed any facts not already in possession of the world. The writer of the present brief memoir has, consequently, had to fall back upon the following well-known works: The Correspondance of the Abbé Galiani, of Mme. Du Deffand, of Rahel Varnhagen, and of Schiller; the M

“My dear friend having the same tastes as myself, would certainly wish always for my chair, and, like his little daughter, would beat me to make me give it up to him. To keep peace between our hearts, I send a chair for him also. The two are of suitable height and their lightness renders them easy to carry. They are made of the most simple material, and were bought at the sale of Philemon and Baucis.” Thus wrote Madame Geoffrin to Madame Necker when the intimacy between them had reached such a p

When Germaine was about six years old, M. Necker retired from the bank, and devoted himself to the study of administrative questions. This was in preparation for the career to which he felt himself called. For years past his wealth had come frequently to the aid of a spendthrift Government and an exhausted exchequer; and it was natural that he should seek his reward in power. In his Éloge de Colbert , published in 1773, he was at no pains to conceal that he was thinking of himself when drawing t

In the brilliant world in which she awoke, Germaine very soon found her place. It is a very familiar little picture that which we have of her, seated on a low stool beside her mother at the receptions, and fixing on one speaker after another her great, astonished eyes. Soon, very soon, she began to join in the conversation herself, and by the time she was ten or eleven years old she had grown into a person whose opinion was quite seriously consulted. Some of the friends of the house, Marmontel,

Some spiteful ridicule awaited the young ambassadress on her first entrance into official life, and, strangely enough, among these detractors was Madame de Boufflers herself, who wrote to Gustavus III.: “She has been virtuously brought up, but has no knowledge of the world or its usages … and has a degree of assurance that I never saw equalled at her age, or in any position. If she were less spoilt by the incense offered up to her, I should have tried to give her a little advice.” Another courti

Necker’s victory over the rage of the populace was a fleeting one. He had, indeed, overstepped the prerogatives of a Minister in asking for the amnesty. Misled by the elation of his gratified vanity and the impulse of his benevolent heart, he, an ardent defender of order, forgot that in placing himself between the Assembly and King on the one hand and the people on the other, he practically recognized the right of a faction to act without the consent of the Government. It was for the latter to r

Madame de Staël arrived at Coppet about the beginning of September, 1792. The life there, after her recent experiences in Paris, so far from seeming to her one of welcome rest, fretted her ardent spirit almost beyond endurance. She longed to be back in France, even under the shadow of the guillotine, anywhere but in front of the lake, with its inexorable beauty and maddening calm. “The whole of Switzerland inspires me with magnificent horror,” she wrote to her husband, who was still in Sweden. “

In all its varied story, the world probably never offered a stranger spectacle than that presented by Paris when Madame de Staël returned to it in 1795. The mixture of classes was only equalled by the confusion of opinions, and these, in their turn, were proclaimed by the oddest contrasts in costumes. Muscadins in gray coats and green cravats twirled their canes insolently in the faces of wearers of greasy carmagnoles ; while the powdered pigtails of reactionaries announced the aristocratic cont

The hostility between Madame de Staël and Napoleon was inevitable, since not a single point of sympathy existed between them. Her moral superiority, unselfishness, romantic ardor and sincerity, were precisely the qualities for which he would feel contempt, as being incompatible with the singleness of individual purpose, serene indifference to suffering, and calm acceptance of means which are necessary to material success. Madame de Staël was intimately convinced that not only honesty, but every

Some remarkable people had already begun to cluster round the Châtelaine of Coppet. De Gérando, Sismondi, Camille Jordan, Madame de Krüdener, Madame Récamier—all are interesting names. Camille Jordan, who was introduced by De Gérando, appears to have been taken up at once with characteristic ardor by Madame de Staël. His Vrai Sens du Vôte National sur le Consulat à Vie , published in 1802, was just the kind of trumpet-call to which she always responded. Straightway her letters to him became freq

At Metz Madame de Staël was received in triumph. The Prefect of the Moselle entertained her, parties were given in her honor, and all the literary big-wigs of the place hastened to do her homage. She there, for the first time, came into personal contact with Charles de Villers, with whom she had previously corresponded on the subject of Kant. Of course she was charmed with him, her first impulse invariably being to find every clever or distinguished person delightful. Her friendship with him res

Madame de Staël sought to solace her grief for her father’s death by writing “The Private Life of Necker,” a short sketch intended to serve as preface to a volume of his fragmentary writings. Constant spoke very feelingly of this sketch, and pronounced it to be a revelation of all that was best in the writer’s head and heart. He said that all her gifts of mind and feeling were here devoted to express and adorn a single sentiment, one for which she claimed the sympathy of the world. This is all q

Madame de Staël arrived at Coppet in a condition of despair, which she partially solaced by writing to Madame Récamier and thanking her again and again for the constancy of her friendship. Evidently many of her friends had already dropped away, or she fancied they had. Perhaps she wearied them a little with her lamentations, for one knows that silence was never her forte. But all at once a happy change came over her. Sismondi, writing to the Countess of Albany, mentioned the transformation, and

After quitting Sweden Madame de Staël went to England. Some eighteen years or so had passed since she had wept in the lanes at Mickleham at the thought of separating from the charming colony at Juniper Hall. Her heart was still almost as young as in those days; the vivid flame of enthusiasm for all that was good still burnt as brightly in her soul. If her spiritual horizon had widened, and a fervent if rather vague religious sentiment had succeeded to her unquestioning faith in men—that was almo

After Waterloo, Madame de Staël did not return to France. The thought of the second occupation by foreign troops was odious to her, and, besides this, she feared the outbreak of reactionary feelings, and foresaw a political condition in which her pure and ideal liberalism would be equally unwelcome to all parties. Rocca’s state of health finally induced her to go to Italy. From Milan she sent a letter to Madame Récamier, which is interesting as showing how little her fine mind and noble heart we

Any notice of Madame de Staël would be imperfect without a review of her works. She did not begin, like so many famous authors, to write at an abnormally early age—it is true, she composed Portraits , which were read aloud in her mother’s salon, but everybody did as much in those days, and her attempts were not sufficiently remarkable to stamp her at once as a literary genius. It has been said how much her father discouraged her writing. This may account in part for the tardy development of the