Little Journeys to the Homes of Famous Women — Madame De Stael, Part 2

* * * * * Madame De Stael was of an intensely religious nature throughout her entire life; such characters swing between license and asceticism.

But the charge of atheism told largely against her even among the so-called liberals, for liberals are often very illiberal.

Marie Antoinette gathered her skirts close about her and looked at the "Minerva of Letters" with suspicion in her big, open eyes; cabinet officers forgot her requests to call, and when a famous wit once coolly asked, "Who was that Madame De Stael we used to read about?"

people roared with laughter.

Necker, as Minister of Finance, had saved the State from financial ruin;

then had been deposed and banished; then recalled.

In September, Seventeen Hundred Ninety, he was again compelled to flee.

He escaped to Switzerland, disguised as a pedler.

The daughter wished to accompany him, but this was impossible, for only a week before she had given birth to her first child.

But favor came back, and in the mad tumult of the times the freedom of wit and sparkle of her salon became a need to the poets and philosophers, if city wits can be so called.

Society shone as never before.

In it was the good nature of the mob.

It was no time to sit quietly at home and enjoy a book--men and women must "go somewhere," they must "do something."

The women adopted the Greek costume and appeared in simple white robes caught at the shoulders with miniature stilettos.

Many men wore crape on their arms in pretended memory of friends who had been kissed by Madame Guillotine.

There was fever in the air, fever in the blood, and the passions held high carnival.

In solitude, danger depresses all save the very strongest, but the mob (ever the symbol of weakness) is made up of women--it is an effeminate thing.

It laughs hysterically at death and cries, "On with the dance!"

Women represent the opposite poles of virtue.

The fever continues: a "poverty party" is given by Madame De Stael, where men dress in rags and women wear tattered gowns that ill conceal their charms.

"We must get used to it," she said, and everybody laughed.

Soon, men in the streets wear red nightcaps, women appear in nightgowns, rich men wear wooden shoes, and young men in gangs of twelve parade the avenues at night carrying heavy clubs, hurrahing for this or that.

Yes, society in Paris was never so gay.

The salons were crowded, and politics was the theme.

When the discussion waxed too warm, some one would start a hymn and all would chime in until the contestants were drowned out and in token of submission joined in the chorus.

But Madame De Stael was very busy all these days.

Her house was filled with refugees, and she ran here and there for passports and pardons, and beseeched ministers and archbishops for interference or assistance or amnesty or succor and all those things that great men can give or bestow or effect or filch.

And when her smiles failed to win the wished-for signature, she still had tears that would move a heart of brass.

About this time Baron De Stael fades from our vision, leaving with Madame three children.

"It was never anything but a 'mariage de convenance' anyway, what of it ?"

and Madame bursts into tears and throws herself into Farquar's arms.

"Compose yourself, my dear--you are spoiling my gown," says the Duchesse.

"I stood him as long as I could," continued Madame.

"You mean he stood you as long as he could."

"You naughty thing!

--why don't you sympathize with me?"

Then both women fall into a laughing fit that is interrupted by the servant, who announces Benjamin Constant.

Constant came as near winning the love of Madame De Stael as any man ever did.

He was politician, scholar, writer, orator, courtier.

But with it all he was a boor, for when he had won the favor of Madame De Stael he wrote a long letter to Madame Charriere, with whom he had lived for several years in the greatest intimacy, giving reasons why he had forsaken her, and ending with an ecstacy in praise of the Stael.

If a man can do a thing more brutal than to humiliate one woman at the expense of another, I do not know it.

And without entering any defense for the men who love several women at one time, I wish to make a clear distinction between the men who bully and brutalize women for their own gratification and the men who find their highest pleasure in pleasing women.

The latter may not be a paragon, yet as his desire is to give pleasure, not to corral it, he is a totally different being from the man who deceives, badgers, humiliates, and quarrels with one who can not defend herself, in order that he may find an excuse for leaving her.

A good many of Constant's speeches were written by Madame De Stael, and when they traveled together through Germany he no doubt was a great help to her in preparing the "De l'Allemagne."

But there was a little man approaching from out the mist of obscurity who was to play an important part in the life of Madame De Stael.

He had heard of her wide-reaching influence, and such an influence he could not afford to forego--it must be used to further his ends.

Yet the First Consul did not call on her, and she did not call on the First Consul.

They played a waiting game, "If he wishes to see me, he knows that I am home Thursdays!"

she said with a shrug.

"Yes, but a man in his position reverses the usual order: he does not make the first call!"

"Evidently!"

said Madame, and the subject dropped with a dull thud.

Word came from somewhere that Baron De Stael was seriously ill.

The wife was thrown into a tumult of emotion.

She must go to him at once--a wife's duty was to her husband first of all.

She left everything, and hastening to his bedside, there ministered to him tenderly.

But death claimed him.

The widow returned to Paris clothed in deep mourning.

Crape was tied on the door-knocker and the salon was closed.

The First Consul sent condolences.

"The First Consul is a joker," said Dannion solemnly, and took snuff.

In six weeks the salon was again opened.

Not long after, at a dinner, Napoleon and Madame De Stael sat side by side.

"Your father was a great man," said Napoleon.

He had gotten in the first compliment when she had planned otherwise.

She intended to march her charms in a phalanx upon him, but he would not have it so.

Her wit fell flat and her prettiest smile brought only the remark, "If the wind veers north it may rain."

They were rivals--that was the trouble.

France was not big enough for both.

Madame De Stael's book about Germany had been duly announced, puffed, printed.

Ten thousand copies were issued and--seized upon by Napoleon's agents and burned.

"The edition is exhausted," cried Madame, as she smiled through her tears and searched for her pocket-handkerchief.

The trouble with the book was that nowhere in it was Napoleon mentioned.

Had Napoleon never noticed the book, the author would have been woefully sorry.

As it was she was pleased, and when the last guest had gone she and Benjamin Constant laughed, shook hands, and ordered lunch.

But it was not so funny when Fouche called, apologized, coughed, and said the air in Paris was bad.

So Madame De Stael had to go--it was "Ten Years of Exile."

In that book you can read all about it.

She retired to Coppet, and all the griefs, persecutions, disappointments and heartaches were doubtless softened by the inward thought of the distinction that was hers in being the first woman banished by Napoleon and of being the only woman he thoroughly feared.

When it came Napoleon's turn to go and the departure for Elba was at hand, it will be remembered he bade good-by personally to those who had served him so faithfully.

It was an affecting scene when he kissed his generals and saluted the swarthy grenadiers in the same way.

When told of it Madame picked a petal or two from her bouquet and said, "You see, my dears, the difference is this: while Judas kissed but one, the Little Man kissed forty."

Napoleon was scarcely out of France before Madame was back in Paris with all her books and wit and beauty.

An ovation was given the daughter of Necker such as Paris alone can give.

But Napoleon did not stay at Elba, at least not according to any accounts I have read.

When word came that he was marching on Paris, Madame hastily packed up her manuscripts and started in hot haste for Coppet.

But when the eighty days had passed and the bugaboo was safely on board the "Bellerophon," she came back to the scenes she loved so well and to what for her was the only heaven--Paris.

She has been called a philosopher and a literary light.

But she was only socio-literary.

Her written philosophy does not represent the things she felt were true--simply those things she thought it would be nice to say.

She cultivated literature, only that she might shine.

Love, wealth, health, husband, children--all were sacrificed that she might lead society and win applause.

No one ever feared solitude more: she must have those about her who would minister to her vanity and upon whom she could shower her wit.

As a type her life is valuable, and in these pages that traverse the entire circle of feminine virtues and foibles she surely must have a place.

In her last illness she was attended daily by those faithful subjects who had all along recognized her sovereignty--in Society she was Queen.

She surely won her heart's desire, for to that bed from which she was no more to rise, courtiers came and kneeling kissed her hand, and women by the score whom she had befriended paid her the tribute of their tears.

She died in Paris aged fifty-one.

* * * * * When you are in Switzerland and take the little steamer that plies on Lake Leman from Lausanne to Geneva, you will see on the western shore a tiny village that clings close around a chateau, like little oysters around the parent shell.

This is the village of Coppet that you behold, and the central building that seems to be a part of the very landscape is the Chateau De Necker.

This was the home of Madame De Stael and the place where so many refugees sought safety.

"Coppet is Hell in motion," said Napoleon.

"The woman who lives there has a petticoat full of arrows that could hit a man were he seated on a rainbow.

She combines in her active head and strong heart Rousseau and Mirabeau; and then shields herself behind a shift and screams if you approach.

To attract attention to herself she calls, 'Help, help!'

" The man who voiced these words was surely fit rival to the chatelaine of this vine-covered place of peace that lies smiling an ironical smile in the sunshine on yonder hillside.

Coppet bristles with history.

Could Coppet speak it must tell of Voltaire and Rousseau, who had knocked at its gates; of John Calvin; of Montmorency; of Hautville (for whom Victor Hugo named a chateau); of Fanny Burney and Madame Recamier and Girardin (pupil of Rousseau); and Lafayette and hosts of others who are to us but names, but who in their day were greatest among all the sons of men.

Chief of all was the great Necker, who himself planned and built the main edifice that his daughter "might ever call it home."

Little did he know that it would serve as her prison, and that from here she would have to steal away in disguise.

But yet it was the place she called home for full two decades.

Here she wrote and wept and laughed and sang: hating the place when here, loving it when away.

Here she came when De Stael had died, and here she brought her children.

Here she received the caresses of Benjamin Constant, and here she won the love of pale, handsome Rocco, and here, "when past age," gave birth to his child.

Here and in Paris, in quick turn, the tragedy and comedy of her life were played; and here she sleeps.

In the tourist season there are many visitors at the chateau.

A grave old soldier, wearing on his breast the Cross of the Legion of Honor, meets you at the lodge and conducts you through the halls, the salon and the library.

There are many family portraits, and mementos without number, to bring back the past that is gone forever.

Inscribed copies of books from Goethe and Schiller and Schlegel and Byron are in the cases, and on the walls are to be seen pictures of Necker, Rocco, De Stael and Albert, the firstborn son, decapitated in a duel by a swinging stroke from a German saber, on account of a king and two aces held in his sleeve.

Beneath the old chateau dances a mountain brook, cold from the Jura; in the great courtway is a fountain and fish-pond, and all around are flowering plants and stately palms.

All is quiet and orderly.

No children play, no merry voices call, no glad laughter echoes through these courts.

Even the birds have ceased to sing.

The quaint chairs in the parlors are pushed back with precision against the wall, and the funereal silence that reigns supreme seems to say that death yesterday came, and an hour ago all the inmates of the gloomy mansion, save the old soldier, followed the hearse afar and have not yet returned.

We are conducted out through the garden, along gravel walks, across the well-trimmed lawn; and before a high iron gate, walled in on both sides with massive masonry, the old soldier stops, and removes his cap.

Standing with heads uncovered, we are told that within rests the dust of Madame De Stael, her parents, her children, and her children's children--four generations in all.

The steamer whistles at the wharf as if to bring us back from dream and mold and death, and we hasten away, walking needlessly fast, looking back furtively to see if grim spectral shapes are following after.

None is seen, but we do not breathe freely until aboard the steamer and two short whistles are heard, and the order is given to cast off.

We push off slowly from the stone pier, and all is safe.