655 



STAEL, ANNE OERMAINE DE. 



STAEL, ANNE GERMAINE DE. 



666 



the hardships of the inferior clergy, especially those in and about 

 London. This appeared in the form of 'A Letter to a Right 

 Reverend Prelate' in 1722. In the next year he published 'Memoirs 

 of Bishop Atterbury,' and in 1729 appeared his 'Complete Body of 

 Divinity,' in a folio volume. He engaged at this period in the controversy 

 with the Freethinkers of the time, and in a manner to gain great 

 credit. In 1731 he published 'Reflections on the Nature and Property 

 of Languai/e' In 1732 he was engaged in an acrimonious dispute 

 with a bookseller, for whom he had engaged to write a work, to be 

 published in numbers, entitled ' A History of the Bible.' A full 

 account of this affair is given in Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes of the 

 Eighteenth Century,' vol. ii., p. 394-398. The work appeared, and 

 forms two volumes in folio. It embraces the whole of the Sacred 

 History from the beginning to the establishment of Christianity, with 

 maps, priuts, and useful tables. In 1747 he published in folio 'A 

 New aud Practical Exposition of the Apostles' Creed.' There arc 

 other published writings of his not here particularly named. He 

 lived a laborious and necessitous life, and ju^t before his death he 

 " deplored his miserable condition in all the keen expressions of 

 despair and bitter disappointment," in a poem published in the year 

 of his decease, which he entitled ' Vana Doctriuse Emolumeuta.' 



STAKL, ANNE GERMAINE DE, born at Paris in 1768, was the 

 only child of Necker, the wealthy Genevese banker, and afterwards 

 minister of finance to Louis XVI. Her mother, a Swiss lady, was a 

 woman of considerable acquirements, and her house was resorted to 

 by the men of learning or of wit who lived in Paris. Madame Necker 

 began very early to subject her daughter to a systematic and laborious 

 course of study, until the physicians prescribed relaxation as absolutely 

 necessary for her daughter's health. Mademoiselle Necker, being 

 now left to follow her own taste, applied herself to literary composi- 

 tion, for which she had a natural facility. Her first essays were some 

 tales and plays, which were soon forgotten. In 1788 she published a 

 work of higher pretensions, ' Lettres eur les Ouvrages et le Caractere 

 de J. J. Rousseau,' which began to attract public attention. About 

 this time she was married, through her mother's management, to the 

 Baron of Stael Holstein, the Swedish ambassador at Paris, a nobleman 

 of high character and attainments, but disproportionately older than 

 herself. This marriage however gave her rank aud independence ; 

 and when the French Revolution broke out, and her parents had retired 

 to Switzerland, the baron's diplomatic character was a protection to 

 his household, and Madame de Stael remained at Paris through the 

 first storms of that period. Her warm imagination was at first capti- 

 vated by the Bright prospects of a revolution which promised the 

 reform of abuses, but her generous nature soon shrunk from the sight 

 of the more frightful abuses which took the place of the old ones. 

 She wrote several articles on the factious conduct of the various 

 parties, and upon their total disregard of the true meaning of liberty. 

 Madame de Stael felt for the oppressed, who were at that time the 

 nobles, the priests, and the royal family. She interested herself 

 especially for the royal family ; and she even ventured to publish a 

 defence of the Queen Marie Antoinette, then upon her trial, ' Rdflexions 

 sur les Proces de la Reiue,' August 1793. But the triumph of the 

 terrorists drove her at last out of Paris, to seek refuge in other 

 countries. 



After the fall of the terrorists Madame de Stael returned to Paris, 

 where she became the leader of a distinguished circle of literary men 

 and politicians. Being anxious for the preservation of something like 

 order and individual security, she gave the support of her influence to 

 the existing government of the executive directory. But that govern- 

 ment, without morality, sincerity, or dignity, was dying a natural 

 death, when Bonaparte, after his return from Egypt, extinguished it 

 by a bold manoeuvre, and established a military dictatorship in its 

 place. Madame de Stael appears to have dii-liked and mistrusted 

 Bonaparte from the first, and her salon became the opposition club of 

 the time. She is said to have encouraged Benjamin Constant and 

 other members of the tribunate in their opposition to the projects of 

 law presented by the executive, and to have publicly applauded them 

 for their independent speeches. When the concordat with the pope 

 was under negociation, Madame de Stael loudly expressed her disap- 

 probation, professing to see in it a new device of Bonaparte's growing 

 tyranny. About the same time, being on a visit to her friends in 

 Switzerland, she was supposed to have encouraged her father to pub- 

 lish his last work, ' Dernieres Vues de Politique et de Finance,' in 

 which he descanted against the government of a single man. The 

 work was forbidden in France. At last Bonaparte, first consul, sent 

 Madame de Stael an order to quit Paris, and not to come within forty 

 leagues of it. Strange as it may seem, Madame de Stael, wealthy and 

 independent, wan sorely grieved at this prohibition ; and she and her 

 friends exerted themselves, though in vain, to have the order recalled. 

 Bonaparte is said to have replied, that he left the whole world open to 

 Madame de Stael, except Paris, which he reserved to himself. (Tbibau- 

 deau ; Las Ca-es.) For Madame de Stael however the ealons of Paris 

 were her own element ; she felt the want of applause, and of literary 

 and fashionable celebrity ; for she had as much ambition as Bonaparte 

 himself, though of a different and more innocuous kind. She went 

 first to Switzerland, and then travelled through Italy, where she 

 gathered materials for her ' Corinne,' which is a poetical description of 

 Italy in the shape of a novel The work was much admired : it is 



eloquent and impassioned ; and the authoress has sketched with great 

 truth many peculiarities of the Italian character and habits, which had 

 been overlooked, or misrepresented or caricatured by other travellers. 

 Madame de Stael had already published a novel in 1803, entitled 

 ' Delphine,' which, though powerfully written, is a work of very ques- 

 tionable morality, and she felt herself obliged to write an apology for 

 it in her ' Reflexions sur le But moral de Delphine.' ' Corinne ' dis- 

 plays a purer morality, and produces a much more elevating impression 

 on the mind. As a work of fiction however it is decidedly weak : the 

 plot is defective in arrangement, and deficient in dramatic power. 

 The authoress has endeavoured to embody in some of her characters 

 the national characters of their respective countries ; she has succeeded 

 in some, and has certainly failed in others. But as a descriptive work, 

 a work of glowing and impassioned eloquence, on some of the most 

 interesting topics with which man is concerned, religion, poetry, the 

 beauties of nature, history, and love, as a poetical picture of a most 

 poetical country, ' Corinne ' has the highest merits, aud they are of a 

 permanent character. 



After having published her book upon Italy, Madame de Stael, still 

 debarred from Paris salons and Paris society, proceeded to visit and 

 study a very different country Germany, and after her return she 

 composed her work 'De 1'Allemagne,' in which she described the feel- 

 ings, the literature, and the habits of the German people : in this work 

 she is understood to have had considerable assistance from Augustus 

 Schlegel. [ScHLEGEL, AUGUST W. VON]. This work was printed at 

 Paris in 1810. The authoress was not allowed to go to Paris herself, 

 but she was residing either at her seat at Coppet on the banks of the 

 lake of Geneva, or in some provincial town of France forty leagues 

 from the capital. The manuscript was submitted to the censors, 

 according to the existing laws, and after several passages had been 

 expunged, the publication was authorised; 10,000 copies were struck 

 off, when Euddenly the whole stock was seized at the publisher's, by 

 gendarmes sent by Savary, Napoleon's minister of police, and sup- 

 pressed by his order. Madame de Stael, who was staying at Blois, 

 received at the same time order to quit France immediately. She 

 retired to Coppet in Switzerland, when she remonstrated with Savary 

 against this arbitrary proceeding, which was illegal even according to 

 the new law of Napoleon L, as the minister might have seized a work 

 which he considered dangerous, even after the censors had permitted 

 its being printed, but he had no right to destroy it, being bound to 

 refer the matter to the council of state. (Thibaudeau, ' Empire,' c. 

 69.) Madame de Stael understood or imagined that one reason for 

 this severity was her having omitted to mention the namfe of the 

 Emperor Napoleon and his invincible armies, which, Savary said, had 

 become so familiar with Germany. Madame de Stael wrote from 

 Coppet to Savary, saying that she did not see how the emperor any 

 his armies could be introduced with propriety in a work pureld 

 literary. Savary 's answer is characteristic of the man and the times; 

 and it was prefixed by Madame de Stael to a new edition of her work 

 in 1813. *' You must not seek for a cause of the order which I have 

 signified to you in the silence which you have kept respecting the 

 emperor in your last work, for there was no place in it worthy of him. 

 Your exile is a natural consequence of your constant behaviour for 

 years past. I have thought that the air of France was not suitable to 

 you, for we are not yet reduced so low as to seek for models among 

 the nations which you admire. Your last work is not French ; and I 

 have stopped its publication. I regret the loss which the bookseller 

 will suffer in consequence, but I could not allow it to appear." Inde- 

 pendently of Madame de Stael's political opposition to Napoleon's 

 arbitrary government, there was a decided antipathy between her turn 

 of mind and literary taste and that of France in her time. French 

 literature ever since the time of Louis XIV. had become exclusive 

 and intolerant; it looked down upon the literature of other countries 

 as semi-barbarous, and the national vanity had raised round itself a 

 kind of Chinese wall of pedantic criticism, which had withstood all 

 the storms of political and religious change. It suited the policy and 

 the taste of Napoleon to encourage this feeling of overweening vanity, 

 for as France was to be, according to him, the mistress of all Europe, 

 and was to dictate laws to all nations, it was proper that the language 

 and literature of France should be considered superior to those of all 

 other countries. Madame de Stael, by extolling the literary produc- 

 tions of the Germans and English, had run against all the predilec- 

 tions and aspirations of the French and of Napoleon ; and therefore 

 Savary said, and said truly at the time, that "her work was not 

 French." In the end however her work has become French, and her 

 example has had a most beneficial influence upon French literature. 



Madame de Stael remained for a time at Coppet, closely watched, 

 even on Swiss ground, by the omnipresent French police. She was 

 forbidden to stir more than ten leagues from her residence in any 

 direction, and her friends were prohibited from visiting her, but at last 

 the contrived to escaped from thraldom, and went to Russia ou her way 

 to England ; for at that time a person from the Continent wishing to 

 ivach England must find his way to it through the extremities of 

 Europe. She has given an account of her wanderings and the petty 

 but galling persecution to which she was subjected, in her 'Dix 

 Anne'es d'Exil,' a work which, bating some egotism and exaggeration, 

 may be useful to those who wish to form an accurate idea of Napoleon 

 and his principles of government. 



