648 



Madame de Staets Ten Years'' Exile: 



BERLIN. 

 •; I left Weimar for Berlin, and there 

 t'saw that charming Queen, since des- 

 tined to so many misfortunes. The 

 • King received me with great kindness, 

 and I may say that during (he six weeks 

 I remained in that city, I never heard 

 an individual who did not speak in 

 praise of the justice of his government. 

 This, however, does not prevent me 

 from thinking it always desirable for a 

 country to possess constitutional forms, 

 to guarantee to it, by the permanent 

 co-operation of (he nation, the advjin- 

 tages it derives from the virtues of a 

 good king. Prussia, under the reign 

 of its present monarcli, no doubt pos- 

 sessed the greater part of these advan- 

 tages ; but the public spirit which mis- 

 fortune has developed in it did not 

 then exist; the military regime had 

 prevented public opinion from acquir- 

 ing strength, and the absence of a con- 

 stitution, in which every individual 

 could make himself known by his me- 

 rit, had left the state unprovided with 

 men of talent, capable of defending it. 

 The favour of (lie King being necessa- 

 rily arbitrary, cannot be sufficient to 

 excite emulation ; circumstances which 

 are peculiar to the interior of courts, 

 may keep a man of great merit from 

 the helm of affairs, or place there a 

 very ordinary person. Routine, like- 

 wise, is singularly powerful in coun- 

 tries where tlie regal power has no one 

 to contradict it; eve»i the justice of a 

 King leads him to place barriers around 

 him, by keeping ever)' one in his place; 

 and it was almost without example in 

 Prussia, to find a man deprived of Jiis 

 civil or military employments on ac- 

 count of incapacitj'. 



HER RESIDENCE IN LA VENDEE. 



Being unable to remain longer in (he 

 castle of Chaumont, the pioprietors of 

 which had returned from America, I 

 went and fixed myself at a farm called 

 Fosse, which a generous friend lent me. 

 The house was inliabited by a Vendean 

 soldier, who certainly did not keep it 

 in the nicest order, but who had a loyal 

 good nature that made every thing easy, 

 and an originalKj' of character that was 

 very amxising. Scarcely had we arrived 

 when an Italian musician, whom I had 

 with me to give lessons U> my daughter, 

 began playing upon the guitar; my 

 daughter accompanied upon the harp 

 the sweet voice of my Ijeautiful friend 

 Madame Recamier; tlie peasants col- 

 lected round the windows, astonished 

 to see this colony of troubadours, which 



had come to enliven the solitude of 

 their master. It was there I passed my 

 last days in France, with some friends^ 

 whose recollection lives in my heart. 



HER GERMANY. 



On the 23<l of Sep(ember, 1810, I 

 corrected the last proof of Gennani/ ; 

 after six years' labour, 1 felt the great- 

 est delight in putting the word End to 

 my three volumes. I made a list of one 

 hundred persons to whom I wisheil to 

 send copies, in different parts of France 

 and Europe; I attached great impor- 

 tance to this book, which I thought 

 well adapted toconimimicate new ideas 

 to France ; it appeared to :ne that a sen- 

 timent, elevated without being hostile, 

 had inspiied it, and that jicople would 

 find in it a language which was no 

 longer spoken. 



Furnished with a letter from my pub-' 

 lisher, which assured me that (he cen- 

 sorship had authorised the publication 

 of my work, I believed that I had no- 

 (hing to apprehend, and set out with 

 my friends for an estate of M. Mathieu 

 de Montmorency, at five leagues from 

 Blois. The house belonging to this 

 estate is situated in the middle of a 

 forest ; there I walked about wit(» the 

 man whom I most respect in the world 

 since I have lost my father. The fine- 

 ness of the weather, the magnificence 

 of the forest, the historical recollec- 

 tions which the place recalled, being 

 the scene of the battle of Fretteval, 

 fought between Philip Augustus and 

 Richard Cceur-de-Lion, all contributed 

 to fill my mind with the most quiet and 

 delightful impressions. My v'ortby 

 friend, wlio is only occupied in this 

 world with rendering himself worthy of 

 heaven, in this conversation, as in all 

 those we have had together, paid no 

 attention to affairs of the day, and only 

 sought to do good to my sou!. We re- 

 sumed our journey the next day, and 

 in these plains of the Vendomois, 

 where.you meet not with a single habi- 

 tation, and which like the sea seems to 

 present every where the same appear- 

 ance, we contrived to lose otirselves 

 completely. It was already midnight, 

 and we knew not what road to take, in 

 a countiy every where the same, and 

 where fertility is as monotonous as 

 sterility is elsewhere, when a young 

 man on horseback, perceiving our em- 

 barrassment, came and requested us to 

 pass the night in the chateau of his 

 parents. We accepted his invitation, 

 which was doing us a real service, and 

 we found ourselves all of a sudden ia 



the 



