( 67 ) 



CASTLE COPPET AND MADAME DE STAEL. 



COPPET MADAME DE STAEL M. DE ROCCA CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE 



OF THEIR MARRIAGE MAD. DE BOMBELLES, THE ORIGINAL OP 



CORINNA LORD LIVERPOOL EDWARD GIBBON. 



Geneva, June, 1833. 



I HAVE certainly been disappointed in the Chateau. Eynard's 

 magnificent mansion at Geneva is not worse placed than the vast 

 and otherwise imposing edifice, once inhabited by the celebrated 

 author of Corinna. Not more than a hundred feet from the shores of 

 the Leman, it is deprived of all view of the lake,, by the small dirty 

 and disagreeable town of Coppet intervening. Even the view of 

 the glorious mountains, on the opposite coast of Savoy, by the gene- 

 rous self-denial of the founder has been wholly reserved for the 

 enjoyment of the domestics in the upper stories ; while the best pros- 

 pect afforded the principal rooms is the distant nook wherein the 

 unromantic town of Geneva strives to conceal itself from too liberal 

 observation. 



Yet Coppet, with its more material enjoyments, was not ill- 

 suited to Madame de Stael, who possessed no unfavourable opinion 

 of the tangible, edible comforts of life ; and who set no inferior 

 value on a well-served board than on the ruder magnificence of the 

 Mer-de-Glace (Mother Glass, as Kitchener characteristically trans- 

 lated it), or the tranquil retreats of woody Val-Ombrosa." 



It is now many long years since that, undistinguished by political 

 notoriety ; as yet unhonoured by his memorable duel with General 

 Donnadieu, where the lame combatants fought in arm-chairs ; un- 

 noticed by the rejection of L' Academic Fra^aise ; and long ere he 

 was immortalized " by the sorrow of the Chamber of Deputies, on 

 his decease being inscribed on its minutes," Benjamin Constant, then 

 known only as one of the " small deer " of literature, but afterwards 

 acknowledged as the " Encyclopedic Ambulante" aspired to build a 

 better reputation on the broader basis of Madame de StaeTs fame, 

 supported, as it was, by the memory of her father. In so far as 

 marital rights went, his fervent solicitations were rejected. Madame 

 de StaeTs ardent attachment to liberty, not being wholly given to 

 mankind, was largely reserved for her own private use, until De 

 Rocca (unwon himself) " came, saw, and conquered." 



The circumstances attending their union were somewhat sin- 

 gular. She first met him in the year 1808, at a ball given by M. 

 Hottinguer, at Geneva. He was then a captain in the French ser- 

 vice; she in the earlier enjoyment of the brilliant success which 

 attended her ' ' Corinna." With an extravagant sense of her proper 

 merits (considerable as they confessedly were) ; imperious of cha- 

 racter, and dictatorial in discourse, she exacted and obtained, from the 

 frankness or policy of others, unbounded attention, admiration, and 

 applause in her own land : and nervously jealous of producing a 

 sensation wherever she appeared, she required that at her dictum 

 every head should bow, like the simultaneous abasement of white 

 wigs, at the termination of a judgment in Banco. On the occasion 



