STAEL-HOLSTE1N. 



371 



to be an essential part of ttic government of each 

 province and of the whole republic of the Nether- 

 lands. The stadtholder and his wife took advan- 

 tage to the utmost of the power thus put into their 

 hands, and declared the brightest ornaments of, the 

 opposite party, the patriots (so called), incapable of 

 holding any office. These measures induced many 

 to leave the country, and filled those that remained 

 with dissatisfaction. At the period of the revolu- 

 tion, France profited by this state of things. It 

 declared war, not against the republic, but against 

 the stadtholder ; and, in 1794, after a slight resist- 

 ance, Holland was occupied by the French, under 

 Pichegru, and the hereditary dignity of general- 

 stadtholder was abolished for ever. By the decree 

 of the imperial deputation, in 1803, the hereditary 

 stadtholder received indemnification in Germany; 

 but, by the war of 1806 and 1807, he lost it again, 

 and lived as a private man till 1813, when he was 

 recalled, and, by a decree of the congress of Vien- 

 na, received the title of king. See Nassau, and 

 Netherlands. 



STAEL-HOLSTEIN, ANNA LOUISA GERMAINE 

 NECKER, Baroness de, a highly gifted woman, who 

 has been called the greatest female writer of all 

 ages and countries, and who was certainly the 

 most distinguished for talents among the women 

 of her age. Since Rousseau and Voltaire, no 

 French writer has displayed equal power. The 

 favourable circumstances of her early life gave full 

 developement to her mind. She was born at 

 Paris, in 1766, and the elevation of her father (see 

 Necker) to the ministry of finance, in 1777, brought 

 him into close connexion with the most brilliant 

 circles of the capital. Her mother, the daughter 

 of a Swiss clergyman, a pious and sensible woman, 

 somewhat given to metaphysical 1 speculations, and 

 rather stiff in her manners, directed at first the edu- 

 cation of the lively girl, who early acquired habits 

 of diligent application, and was accustomed to hear 

 conversations above the comprehension of her age. 

 Necker's house was the resort of the most distin- 

 guished men of the capital; and, like other ladies 

 of the day, who made pretensions to literary taste, 

 Mad. Necker assembled around her celebrated 

 scholars, e. g., Raynal, Marmontel and Thomas. 

 The encouragement to converse, which the young 

 girl received in this society, and the various excite- 

 ments which it furnished to her faculties, had an 

 important influence on the formation of her mind. 

 To these she owed that rare conversational power 

 for which she was so remarkable, and her taste for 

 intellectual contests, with an inclination to ingeni- 

 ous, brilliant and striking theories, which appears 

 in her earlier works. Her lively spirit found much 

 more satisfaction in the society of her father than 

 in that of her mother. His character, in fact, was 

 much more like her own, and he better understood 

 how to act on her mind. His affection for her was 

 mingled with a father's pride, and she was enthusi- 

 astically fond of him, while her respect for him 

 bordered on veneration. Necker, however, never 

 encouraged her to write, as he disliked female 

 writers, and had forbidden his wife to occupy her- 

 self in that way, because the idea of disturbing her 

 pursuits when he entered her chamber was dis- 

 agreeable to him. To escape a similar prohibition, 

 his daughter who early began to write, accustomed 

 herself to bear interruptions without impatience, 

 and to write standing, so that she might not appear 

 to be disturbed in a serious occupation by his ap- 

 proach. When her father's compte rendu was pub- 



lished, in 1781, she wrote him an anonymous letter 

 on the subject, which he recognised, by the style of 

 thought, to be hers. In her fifteenth year, she 

 made abstracts from Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, 

 accompanied with remarks : and at this time Ilay- 

 nal wished her to furnish a treatise on the revoca- 

 tion of the edict of Nantes, for his work on the 

 Colonies and Commerce of the Europeans in the two 

 Indies. Her earliest productions were Sophia, a 

 comedy, written in 1786, and two tragedies, Lady 

 Jane Grey, and Montmorency. Her Lettres sur 

 les Ouvrages et le Caractere de J. J. Rousseau, 

 which were printed in 1788, first attracted the pub- 

 lic notice. In 1786, she was married to the baron 

 de Stael-Holstein, Swedish ambassador at the 

 French court, a man much older than herself, whose 

 suit, was favoured by Mad. Necker's desire that her 

 daughter should marry a Protestant, and by the pro- 

 mise of his king to continue him in his post several 

 years. Her heart, however, appears to have been 

 given to the viscount de Montmorency, with whom 

 she maintained a friendship during her life. 



The breaking out of the revolution (1789) ne- 

 cessarily exercised a powerful influence, both on her 

 mind and fate. She was early accustomed to take 

 an interest in public affairs. Her youth was passed 

 amid great events, which, although occurring in 

 another hemisphere, hastened the crisis of the Eu- 

 ropean states. The first period of her father's ser- 

 vice in the ministry (1777 81) brought his family 

 into connexion with the great world and public 

 affairs, and political topics formed the chief subjects 

 of conversation, even in the coteries of the ladies. 

 Familiar with the views of her father, and with the 

 liberal principles of several of the most distinguish- 

 ed French writers of the day, she was inspired with 

 an enthusiastic love of liberty, and had expressed 

 her feelings in her work upon Rousseau. " Neither 

 her disposition nor her situation," says Mad. 

 Necker de Saussure, a near relation and intimate 

 friend of Mad. de Stael, "would allow her to be 

 indifferent to the general agitation; since she was 

 placed in the focus of its influence. She admired 

 the constitution of Britain, as much as she loved 

 France; and the thought of seeing Frenchmen as 

 free as Britons, equal in all that was necessary 

 to secure the rights and maintaSn the dignity of 

 men, was her ardent wish ; and with these views 

 was connected the hope that her father would aid 

 in this great work, and earn gratitude for his ser- 

 vices; so that we need not wonder at her enthusi- 

 asm." She has related at length her share in the 

 events of the time, in her posthumous work. Her 

 father's banishment, in 1787, and his triumphant re- 

 turn, in 1788, deeply affected her; and when the 

 storm became too fierce for him, and he was obliged 

 to retire from public life, she saw with grief all her 

 hopes disappointed. During Robespierre's ascend- 

 ency, she exerted herself, even at the hazard of her 

 life, to save the victims, and published a powerful 

 and eloquent Defence of the Queen, who Tiad al- 

 ways shown a dislike to her. After the insurrec- 

 tion of August 10, she delayed her departure from 

 day to day, unwilling to provide merely for her 

 own safety, while so many of her friends were in 

 danger. On September 2, when the tocsin called 

 the populace to riot and murder, she attempted to 

 leave Paris, but was detained, and escaped the po- 

 pular fury only by a remarkable concurrence of 

 circumstances. She arrived safely at her father's 

 house, which now became the refuge of the unhappy 

 fugitives from the tyranny which preyed upon France. 

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