CABINET OF BIOGRAPHY. (continued 8)

1788. Ætat. 22.

We dwell upon these circumstances of Necker's life, as they were the events that chiefly interested his daughter. She had been struck with dismay at the moment of his exile. She was married at this time; but it is a singular circumstance that in her life her marriage is a very secondary event, and her husband's name seldom mentioned. As the only daughter of a millionaire, Mdlle. Necker's hand had been asked by many French nobles; but it was determined not to marry her to a Catholic, at the same time that she and her parents were anxious to make a marriage that should enable her to reside in France, and to appear at court. It is told of the childhood of madame de Staël, that, at the age of eleven, she offered to marry Gibbon. He being a favourite friend of her parents, she hoped to please them by giving them a son-in-law of whom they were fond, with little regard to his strange repulsive figure and ugly face. And now she thought of station and convenience, and not at all of finding a friend or companion—far less a lover—in her husband. The baron de Staël Holstein, chamberlain to the queen of Sweden, had resided in Paris for some years, first as counsellor to the Swedish embassy, and afterwards as ambassador. He frequented the society of the French liberals, was a friend of Necker, and entered the lists of his daughter's admirers. He was a protestant and a noble, and he was also an amiable honourable man. The only objection to the union was the likelihood of his being recalled to his own country. The king of Sweden, Gustavus III., with whom he was a favourite, favoured the match, and promised that he should continue for several years to be ambassador at the French court. In addition, M. de Staël promised never to take her to Sweden without her own consent. On these considerations the marriage took place in the year 1786, when she was just twenty. Madame de Staël appeared at court. It is related that, desirous as she had been of acquiring this privilege, yet Parisian society was ill-naturedly amused by the numerous mistakes in etiquette which the young ambassadress had made on her presentation. She gaily related them herself, so to disarm her enemies. At this time, also, she appeared as an authoress in print, publishing her letters on the writings of Rousseau. We find in this work all the traits that distinguished madame de Staël's writings to the end,—great enthusiasm and eloquence, a pleasure in divining the mysteries of existence, and dwelling on the melancholy that attends it,—considerable power of expressing her thoughts, and much beauty and delicacy in the thoughts themselves, but an absence of strength and of the highest elevation both of talent and moral feeling.

We have a "portrait" of madame de Staël at this epoch, such as it was the fashion for friends to write of friends in Paris at that time. It is a favourable description, yet marked by distinctive features and characteristic touches. "Zulma advances; her large dark eyes sparkle with genius; her hair, black as ebony, falls on her shoulders in waving ringlets; her features are more marked than delicate, yet they express something superior to the destiny of her sex. There she is! every one cried, when she appeared, and all became breathless. When she sang, she extemporised the words of her song; the celestial brightness of composition animated her face, and held the audience in serious attention; at once astonished and delighted, we knew not which most to admire, her facility or perfection. When her music ceased, she talked of the great truths of nature, the immortality of the soul,—love of liberty—of the fascination and the danger of the passions; her features meanwhile have an expression superior to beauty, her physiognomy is full of play and variety, the accents of her voice have a thousand modulations, and there is perfect harmony between her thoughts and their expression. Without hearing her words, the inflections of her tones, her gestures, her look, cause her meaning to be understood. When she ceased, a murmur of approbation ran round the room; she looked down modestly, her long eyelashes covered her flashing eyes, and the sun was clouded over." There were many people in Paris, who, of course, were willing to turn the pretensions of the young and brilliant improvisatrice into ridicule; but though her want of beauty, her heedlessness, which often led her into mistakes, her vivacity, which over-stept the mark of feminine grace, opened a field for sarcasm, no one could listen to her in public without admiration, no one could associate with her in private without love. She stept, as on to a stage, in the first brilliancy of youth, to be admired and to enjoy; but public events were swelling and disturbing the stream of time, and it became a tempestuous flood, that wrecked her dearest hopes, and consigned her at last to that domestic retirement and peace, for which her outset in life had not formed her, and which, instead of being a haven of rest and enjoyment, was as a dead sea on which she weltered in misery and despair.

Necker was restored to the ministry in August, 1788; public credit revived under favour of his name, and famine and alarm were exchanged for plenty and security. He found the king pledged to assemble the states-general, and he did not hesitate in advising him to redeem his word; yet he met the questions and difficulties that arose with regard to the details of the measure with an irresolution that showed that, however clever he might be in matters of finance, he was ill fitted for weightier questions of general politics.

The convocation of the states excited the national enthusiasm to its height; and Necker, giving the weight of his influence to the liberal party, augmented his own popularity. He admired greatly the English constitution, and wished it to be imitated in France. Madame de Staël coincided in his views, and viewed the assemblage of the different orders with sentiments resembling rapture. According to her views, the horrors of approaching famine and the perils of bankruptcy were to be averted by this measure, and the future welfare of France, individual liberty, and national prosperity, were to be placed on durable foundations. The first struggles of the tiers état with the king and privileged orders excited her sympathy. Yet her father wished to act a moderate part, while even his moderation seemed treason to the blinded royalists. He thus incurred the distrust of both parties. Though minister, he was not permitted to direct the counsels of the king; and, at the same time, by only partially upholding the pretensions of the commons, he began to excite the mixed contempt and aversion of the more democratic leaders. During the struggle of the tiers état to obtain a voice in the direction of affairs, he advised the king to meet their demands half way; but the court resolved to crush them altogether, and so fell itself into the pit. Necker saw with terror the purpose of the king in collecting troops round the capital to overawe both the Parisians and the deputies, and his remonstrances showed that he would be no party in the scenes of massacre that must ensue. He offered several times to resign; but the court party felt that it risked too much in the odium which his dismissal would excite. Driven on, however, by evil counsellors, who saw no good to arise in the constitutional liberty of their country, and weighed the blood of their countrymen as nothing in the opposite scale to their power and privileges, the king assembled troops, and the moment drew near when the people and their representatives were to feel the power of the bayonet, and to be reduced to obedience under the bolts of the artillery. The temporising spirit of Necker was more hated by the royal than the popular party, since the former saw injury, and the latter benefit, in any the least infraction of the old state of things. But the king well knew that Necker would never consent to the measures which he had in view, and that, before the military were called on to destroy his subjects, it was necessary to remove a minister round whom the popular party would rally with confidence. Necker continued to attend the king each day, but no affair of importance was discussed before him. This silence filled him with disquiet; he expected to be arrested, and communicated his suspicion to his wife and daughter. Madame de Staël wished him to go a step further in enouncing his opinions, and so to confirm the popular favour; but Necker considered his obligations as servant to the king as paramount. On the 11th of July, as he was about to sit down to dinner, he received a letter from Louis XVI., ordering him to send in his resignation, and to quit France without exciting observation. Sans bruit were the words that signified the fears of the court that his dismissal should become the signal of popular commotion. Necker obeyed to the letter and the spirit of the command. No one person was informed. He and his wife stept into the carriage prepared for their usual evening airing, and, without change of dress or attendant, travelled day and night till they reached Brussels. On the morning of the 12th of July madame de Staël received a letter from her father, announcing his departure, and bidding her retire into the country, lest the Parisians, for his sake, should pay her public homage. She obeyed, and, a new courier having brought her intelligence of his route, she set out on the 15th July to join him. "When I reached them," madame de Staël writes, "three days after, they still wore the full dress which they had on when, after a large dinner party, and while no one suspected the agitating position in which they were placed, they silently quitted France, their friends, their home, and the power which they enjoyed. This dress, covered with dust, the name assumed by my father for the sake of avoiding recognition in France, and so detention through the favour in which he was still held,—all these circumstances filled me with feelings of reverence that caused me to throw myself at his feet as I entered the room of the inn where I found him." Necker had chosen Brussels as his way to Switzerland, as not being the direct road, and so less likely to betray him to the population. To this mark of obedience to the king, he added a testimony of love for France, which, in the days of mammon, was an act of heroism in a moneyed man. Necker had borrowed two millions of livres for the royal treasury, for the purpose of purchasing corn for starving Paris. He had secured this loan on his private fortune. The transaction was not completed when he was dismissed; and he feared that the news of his exile would retard the supply. He wrote, therefore, to confirm his guarantee. These circumstances find place in the biography of madame de Staël, because, the ruling passion of her heart being love and veneration of her father, we mark the acts that naturally, by their virtue, excited to their height her filial feelings.

True to his resolve of avoiding his partizans in France, Necker proceeded to Basle through Germany. He was accompanied by M. de Staël. His wife and daughter followed more slowly by a different route. At Frankfort, the latter were overtaken by the king's courier that recalled Necker for the third time to the ministry. The commotions in Paris, the destruction of the Bastille, frightened the court into submission to the people. The recall of Necker was a necessary mark of acquiescence in the wishes of the nation. At Basle the family met together, and Necker resolved to return. He was not dazzled by his triumph; he felt the perils he was about to encounter. He wished to serve France as a constitutional minister, but he apprehended a further system of innovation; and he felt he should lose the favour of the people by opposing it, as he had lost the king's by refusing to support his arbitrary measures. He felt, as Burke afterwards expressed it, that he was recalled, like Pompey, for his misfortune; and, like Marius, that he sat among ruins; but he thought that his return at the present crisis would be serviceable to the sovereign and his adherents, and he resolved on it at once. "What a moment of happiness, notwithstanding," Madame de Staël writes, "was our journey from Basle to Paris, when my father decided to return! I do not think that the like ever occurred to any man who was not sovereign of the country. The French nation, ever so animated in the demonstration of its sentiments, gave itself up, for the first time, to hopes, the boundaries of which experience had not yet taught them. Liberty was then only known to the enlightened classes by the noble emotions with which it was associated; and, to the people, by ideas analogous to their necessities and sufferings. Necker appeared as the precursor of the expected good. The liveliest acclamations accompanied every step: the women threw themselves on their knees afar off in the fields when they saw his carriage pass: the first citizens of the different places we traversed acted as postilions; and in the towns the inhabitants took off the horses to drag the carriage themselves. It was I that enjoyed for him—I was carried away by delight, and must not feel ungrateful for those happy days, however sad were the ones that followed." Various circumstances occurred to display to the returning exiles the overthrow of the royalists and the triumph of the people. Madame de Polignac had already arrived at Basle, on her way to emigration. At ten leagues from Paris, they heard of the arrest of the baron de Besenval, who was being led back prisoner to the capital, where he would infallibly have been massacred in the streets. Necker interfered to keep him where he was till further orders. He, as his first act, went to Paris, to the Hôtel de Ville, to obtain the pardon of M. de Besenval, and a universal amnesty. He was followed and welcomed by joyful acclamations; delight at his restoration to power calmed, for the moment, all party spirit, all political hatred; the assembled people granted all he asked with transport. Madame de Staël and her mother accompanied him. "Oh! nothing," she writes, "can equal the emotion that a woman feels when she has the happiness of hearing the name of one beloved repeated by a whole people. All those faces, which appear for the time animated by the same sentiment as one's self; those innumerable voices, which echo to the heart the name that rises in the air, and which appears to return from heaven after having received the homage of earth; the inconceivable electricity which men communicate to each other when they share the same emotions; all those mysteries of nature and social feeling are added to the greatest mystery of all—love—filial or maternal, but still love; and the soul sinks under emotions stronger than itself. When I came to myself, I felt that I had reached the extreme boundary of happiness."

She had reached it, and the recoil soon came. The popular party, each hour rising in power, disdained the half measures and weak concessions of the minister:—from that hour, in spite of his feeble, though virtuous, endeavours to restrain popular violence, and, at the same time, to supply the wants of the people, and mitigate their sufferings by great and unwearied exertions and personal sacrifices, the popularity of Necker declined. His propositions were weak and inconsistent; the king had no confidence in him; the people withdrew their favour. His daughter could not perceive that his want of energy, and total incapacity to cope with the necessities of the times, were the occasion of this change; she saw only ingratitude, perversity, and ignorance. Her father still continued, in her eyes, the first of men; when he triumphed he was a hero, when he fell he was a martyr.

Madame de Staël witnessed nearly all the more deplorable events of the revolution. On the 5th October, when she heard of the march of the people to Versailles to bring the king and queen to Paris, she hastened to join her parents, who were in attendance at court. When she arrived, Necker hastened to the castle to join the council, and madame Necker and her daughter repaired to the hall preceding the one where the king remained, that they might share Necker's fate. The tumult, the inquietude, the various projects, and the trembling expectation of the hour agitated all, and augmented as night approached. A noble arrived from Paris with the latest news. He appeared in the royal presence in a common dress. It was the first time that any man had entered the king's apartment, except in court dress. His recital of the furious armed multitude, which was gathering and approaching, increased the general terror. On the morrow the storm burst. Murder assailed the gates of the palace, and the royal personages, for the first time, were attacked by those outrages, at once sanguinary and insulting, which, thus beginning, never stayed till their destruction was accomplished.

Madame de Staël was present during the whole scene. She stood near when the crowd forced the queen to appear before them, and when at their demand the royal family were carried to Paris. Such scenes could never be forgotten. When the king and queen set off to the capital, the family of Necker repaired by another route. "We crossed," madame de Staël writes, "the Bois de Boulogne; the weather was beautiful, the breeze scarcely stirred the trees, and the sun was bright enough to dispel alt gloom from the scenery. No exterior object replied to our sadness." When they arrived at the Tuileries, the Parisian palace of the kings of France, which had not been inhabited for many years, they found that the beds of the royal children were put up in the room where the queen received them; Marie Antoinette apologised. "You know," she said, "that I did not expect to come here." Her beautiful face expressed anger as she spoke; and madame de Staël must have felt that her father, as popular minister, and herself, as a lover of liberty, were included in the sentiments of resentment which filled the queen's heart.

1790. Sept. 8.

The resignation and departure of Necker, some months after, was a circumstance full of mortification for his daughter. He traversed the France which had hailed him with such transport on his return from Basle, and found himself surrounded by enemies. Execrations followed his steps, and he was arrested at Arcis-sur-Aube, and obliged to wait for a decree, of the national assembly before he was suffered to proceed; his name was held in detestation—his acts reviled. He did not deserve this; for, though weak as a politician, his acts were those of an honourable and generous man. The immediate cause of his resignation of office was the issue of the assignats, which he looked on as the ruin of the public credit; yet he left 2,000,000 of francs, the half of his fortune, in the funds, to run a risk of loss, which he himself deemed, as indeed it proved, inevitable. He retired to Coppet, while his daughter was detained in Paris by illness. 1791. Ætat. 25. She continued to remain there, and, according to French manners, mingled deeply in various political intrigues. Her friend M. de Narbonne was named minister of war, and many of his projects were discussed in her drawing-room. She shared in the project set afoot by Lafayette, of facilitating the escape of the king to the army at Metz. Narbonne, at the head of the royal guard, and several thousand national guards belonging to the department of Jura, were to carry off Louis by force from the Tuileries. Talleyrand was informed of the plan, and approved, but the king rejected it; he was averse to any project that needed the co-operation of Lafayette, whom he hated. Soon after Narbonne was dismissed, and the nomination of Dumouriez and Roland placed the power in the hands of the girondists.

1792. Ætat. 26.

Madame de Staël was in Paris during the fatal August that decided the fate of the French monarchy. On the 9th of that month she stood at her window with some friends, and heard the forty-eight tocsins of Paris sound the alarm, which continued all night their monotonous, frequent, and lugubrious tolling. The volunteer patrole sent her intelligence of all that passed, but no one knew what the morrow would bring forth. The attack on the Tuileries began early in the morning; madame de Staël was told that three of her friends, who guarded the outside of the palace, had been seized and massacred. She instantly, with all the intrepidity of a French woman, hurried out to learn the truth. Her carriage was stopped on the bridge. She was told that the work of slaughter was going on the other side. Still she persisted, and, after a delay of two hours, crossed the bridge, and learnt that her friends were alive, and hiding from the enraged multitude. In the evening she went to see them in the obscure houses in which they had taken refuge; drunken men were lying about on the steps of doors, who roused themselves only to vociferate oaths and execrations. Many women were in the same state; their howlings were still more frightful. She fled when the patrole approached; for they maintained order by protecting the assassins, and assisting them in the work of murder. The interval between the 10th of August and the 2d of September was one of horror; arrests were frequent, and it became known that the massacre of the prisoners was meditated. The outlawed friends of madame de Staël went from house to house as danger menaced; she received two in her own, hoping that, though her husband was absent, the name she bore, of Swedish ambassadress, would protect her from a domiciliary visit. She was mistaken; the commissioners of police, men named from among the lowest class, accompanied by the soldiery, who guarded the outlets of the house to prevent escape, demanded to search. She resolved to dispute their right, as the only means of saving her friends. She talked to the men; told them that the laws of nations declared an ambassador's house inviolable, and assured them that Sweden was a country on the frontiers of France, and that it would declare war at once if its ambassadress were insulted. She perceived that her arguments made some impression; and, while her heart sank within her, she roused herself to joke them on the folly of their suspicions, and dismissed them with every appearance of politeness and gaiety.

She had already prepared to leave France, and obtained passports. She delayed a few days, anxious to be re-assured with regard to her friends, before she placed herself in safety. During this interval she exerted herself to save M. de Lally-Tollendal, and succeeded, by applying to Manuel, a member of the commune of Paris: he who published Mirabeau's letters, written in the prison of Vincennes, and who, six months afterwards, during the reign of terror, died on the scaffold. On the 2d of September, when the news of the taking of Longwy and Verdun had roused the ferocity of the Parisians to the utmost, and those massacres of helpless prisoners began which remain a perpetual sanguinary stain on the French character, she prepared to set out. Her passports were all regular; and, fancying that the title of wife of a foreign ambassador would be her safeguard, she set out in her carriage, drawn by six horses, and her servants in full livery. Her calculations failed; scarcely had her carriage advanced a few steps when it was surrounded by a crowd of furious women, who seized the horses, and, with ferocious cries, ordered the postilions to drive to the assembly of the section of St. Germain, to which she belonged. She entered the chamber of the assembly, which was in full deliberation, and by it she was ordered to proceed to the Hôtel de Ville. To reach this latter place she was obliged to traverse Paris; and on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville several men had been assassinated on the 10th of August. She trembled to obey, and yet had no resource. She was three hours on her way, as she was slowly drawn through a crowd who threatened death with hideous shouts and unremitting cries. She addressed several gendarmes who passed near, asking protection; they replied by disdainful and menacing gestures. At length, one gendarme, who had been put in the carriage with her, was touched by her situation (she was with child), and promised to defend her at the peril of his life. She alighted from the carriage at the Hôtel de Ville, in the midst of an armed multitude, and advanced under an avenue of pikes. As she went up the steps a man pointed one against her; the gendarme protected her with his sabre, and she reached the chamber of the commune, where Robespierre presided. Collet d'Herbois and Billaud Varennes acted as his secretaries. The hall was full of people—men, women, and children, shouting Vive la nation! She was taken to the raised platform where the president sat, and told to sit down. While she was representing her right, as ambassadress from Sweden, to depart, Manuel, whom she had persuaded to liberate Lally-Tollendal, entered: he was astonished to see her in such a miserable position, and, answering for her, withdrew her from the dreadful hall, and shut her up in his cabinet with her maid. They remained for six hours, oppressed by hunger, thirst, and terror. The windows of the room looked on the Place de Grève, and assassins passed from the prisons, their arms bare and covered with blood, uttering horrible shouts. Her carriage remained in the square. The crowd wished to pillage it: it was defended by Santerre. He respected the daughter of Necker, whose exertions to victual Paris during the scarcity he had witnessed; and besides he made this task his pretext for not doing his duty in protecting the prisoners. He boasted to Madame de Staël of the service he rendered her; but she could not help reminding him of the manner in which he ought to have been employed. Manuel exclaimed, as he entered, "Ah! how glad I am I set your two friends at liberty yesterday!" When night came on he conveyed her home in his carriage. The lamps were not lighted in the streets, but men passed with torches, whose flare occasioned more terror than darkness itself. The following day she was allowed to depart with her maid only, and a gendarme to conduct her as far as the frontier, so to make sure that she should take with her none of the unfortunate outlaws doomed to death. Tallien conducted her to the barrier. After some difficulties it was passed. "Leaving the capital," she writes, "the tempestuous waves grew calmer, and the mountains of Jura gave no token of the frightful tumults of which Paris was the theatre." And there she found calm refuge beneath her father's roof. Such were the scenes that awaited the early womanhood of madame de Staël:—the sight of every cruel and horrible passion in action in others,—pity, fear, and generous self-devotion excited to their height in her own heart,—harrowing grief, when those whom she loved were butchered,—throbs of transport, when she felt that she had secured their safety. Had she been of a concentrated disposition, such scenes and emotions must have given sublimity to her character. As it was, it confirmed the active generosity and warm benevolence of her disposition; it gave animation to her expression of every sad and heart-moving feeling; while to her credit it must be said, that, even in the midst of such iniquitous and cruel scenes, she gathered no misanthropy, no gall, no hatred, and no revenge.

She paid at this period a short visit to England, and then returning to Geneva, found personal safety and peace with her parents at Coppet; but the political events passing in France, and the horrors of the reign of terror, spread darkness and dismay even to Switzerland. Her father published a pamphlet, the object of which was to save Louis XVI.; and she wrote an eloquent appeal in favour of Marie Antoinette. Soon even the impression made by the fate of these illustrious victims was almost lost in that of the death of added thousands immolated by Robespierre. Madame de Staël by turns feared for the lives and deplored the death of beloved friends, who day after day died under the axe of the guillotine. She concealed in her house many of the friends of liberty outlawed by the revolutionary tribunal. They assumed Swedish names, under the sanction of M. de Staël. Scaffolds were erected for them on the frontier by their countrymen, as enemies of freedom; foreign nations held them in detestation, as accomplices of the butchers of Paris; but Necker and his daughter, with sounder views and more humane hearts, befriended and saved virtue, whatever might be the opinions which it assumed as the guise in which to manifest its spirit to the world. "One of the reflections that struck us most," madame de Staël writes, "in our long walks on the shores of the lake of Geneva, was the contrast of the beautiful nature by which we were surrounded with the desolation of mankind." In these walks she conversed with her father: his benevolence; the pain he expressed at the idea of being hated by the French, to serve whom he had sacrificed so much; the interchange of intimate and virtuous thought, filled her heart with still more ardent affection towards him, and made him, in her eyes, the greatest as well as the best of men. 1794. Ætat. 28. It was at this time of comparative retirement that she wrote "Reflections on the Peace," which Fox quoted as full of sound political views and just argument.

This period was checkered by the illness, and finally the death, of madame Necker. She died of a lingering nervous disorder. Her husband was unwearied in his attentions and watchful tenderness, and madame de Staël shared his fatigues, and sympathised with and consoled him in his grief. The warmer kindness testified by her father caused her to prefer him; and madame Necker herself, looking on her daughter as a rival in her husband's affections, had repelled her. But death obliterated these passions, and madame de Staël acknowledged her mother's talents and virtues; she lamented her death, and respected her memory.

It might be thought that madame de Staël, escaped from the sanguinary scenes of the reign of terror, would have been averse to returning to that Paris which had been the theatre of such harrowing tragedies. Far from it. Accustomed to the society of the French, the pedantic, precise, and presumptuous tone of the Genevese was particularly disagreeable to her. While considering herself a French woman, she was eager to mix in the busy scenes that followed the death of Robespierre—to be of use to her friends, and even to influence the choice of a system of government which was to be established in France. She had some remorse in quitting her father; but he encouraged her to go. He felt for her struggle between her dislike to leaving him and her tastes, her friends, her hopes of glory, which called her to France; and, with the truest feelings of sympathy, persuaded her to seek her own happiness, promising to find his in her letters from the scene of action.

1795. Ætat. 29.

M. de Staël being sent by the king of Sweden as minister to Paris, she repaired thither. Her arrival formed an epoch in society. She threw open her drawing-rooms, and all foreigners of distinction, ambassadors, and literary men were charmed to meet in them. It attracted universal attention, and became the signal of the revival of refinement in the capital. Her chief exertions tended to getting the names of various friends erased from the list of emigrants, which, while party spirit ran so high, and the name of monarch and Bourbon was still held in detestation and terror, was matter at once of difficulty and odium. Legendre, a man who had figured during the reign of terror, denounced her in the tribune of the convention, while the newspapers complained of the influence exercised by women in their salons dorés, as they were vulgarly called, and by the society that gathered there. She succeeded in benefiting several of her friends, and this happiness counterbalanced the attacks made against her.

1797. Ætat. 31.

During the whole of the reign of the directory, the influence of madame de Staël was great. The expectation of a civil war became more imminent as the royalists rested their hopes on the armies of la Vendée, and the victories of the republican troops on the eastern frontiers, supporting the new state of things, gave energy to the men in power. Moderate and enlightened lovers of freedom desired to reconcile the two parties, and prevent a struggle. Madame de Staël attempted to effect this reconciliation. She had no desire for the return of the Bourbons; for such a change could only have been operated through the subjugation of France by foreign troops, a circumstance to be looked upon as the lowest fall in its political greatness. She was the centre of a brilliant society, which, while it regarded the chiefs of the republic as vulgar, was attached to a form of government full of promise of distinction and power to able and daring men. In France the influence of women is one of the engines used by the other sex for their advancement. Madame de Staël had already placed one of her friends in an elevated post; she exerted herself for others. She was generous and active. No gall—no bad feelings of hatred, or love of mischief, mingled in her desire to be influential. But passionately loving glory, and eager to take a part in the busier scenes of life, she made her house the rendezvous of all parties, and sought her own elevation in trying to reconcile them all, and to diffuse abroad a spirit of moderation and mutual toleration, and was often exposed to the danger of imprisonment and exile from the preponderance of the more popular party. Her mind was active, her imagination lively; but she was without prudence. Her father said of her, that she was like the savages, who sell their cabin in the morning and find themselves without shelter at night. Ardent but without forethought, ambitious of distinction without selfishness, she looked on danger as a crown of laurel, and, as far as she was personally concerned, cared more for the excitement of the combat than the repose of success. Thus, though she failed in her attempts to reconcile contending factions, she felt neither despondency nor sorrow. Meanwhile, the struggle of parties—the violence of each occasioning the weakness of all—became the stepping-stone to the man who, raising himself by the sword, and establishing and increasing his power by the same method, fell, when his weapon failed to be able to deal with all the enemies from the extremities of the earth whom he challenged to the contest.

Bonaparte and madame de Staël were neither impressed favourably by the other when first they met. He saw in her a factitious but a not the less powerful influence with which he could only cope by trampling it in the dust; and she found in him a man unimpressible by words or sentiments, aiming at one goal, and wholly indifferent to the thousands to be mowed down or the one tortured by the methods he used for his success. In their encounter she felt her existence strike against a rock which, while it wrecked whole fleets, did not disdain to swamp a skiff which had every right to expect shelter beneath its shadow. When, after the treaty of Campo-Formio, Bonaparte arrived in Paris, he and madame de Staël often met in society. She declared that a feeling of fear always overcame her in his presence. She was struck by his superiority, but repelled by a certain coldness that remained as a wall between them. When, for the sake of amassing funds for his expedition to Egypt, Bonaparte proposed the invasion of Switzerland to the directory, madame de Staël regarded the cause of the independence of that country as so sacred, that she sought a conference with the general for the purpose of turning him from his design. Nothing can better show the difference of French manners from ours than this circumstance; and Bonaparte, a child of the army, little conversant with the spirit of French society, regarded a woman's interference on such a subject as impertinent and out of character with her sex; but, although he was not to be moved by her, such was her acknowledged influence that he did not disdain to discuss the question with her with an appearance of candour, till, having pronounced certain words which he considered sufficient to refute her arguments, declaring that men must have political rights, and advancing the falsehood that the Swiss would have more as a portion of France than as an independent insignificant state, he turned the conversation, and talked of his love of retirement,—of the country and the fine arts,—expressing himself as sharing many of the lady's own tastes. Madame de Staël felt the influence of his power of pleasing, but was mortified to be treated like a mere woman. He, on the other hand, perceiving that she had talents sufficient to persuade and influence men, and that she was likely to exert this power against himself, conceived a dislike, which he afterwards showed in a series of persecutions.

1798. Ætat. 32.

The invasion of Switzerland being resolved on, madame de Staël quitted Paris to rejoin her father at Coppet. His name was still on the list of emigrants, which, as he was a Genevese, was altogether unjust. His daughter implored him not to risk the danger of being condemned to death when the country he inhabited should be occupied by a French army; but he refused to stir: he would not in his old age wander over the earth, nor would he quit the neighbourhood of the tomb of his wife, which had been erected under her own directions, with the fervent hope that her husband's remains would repose near hers. When the day came, fixed for the violation of the Swiss territory by the French armies, Necker and his daughter, with her infant children, remained alone at Coppet. Their servants assembled in the avenue to see the passage of the troops, while they themselves stood in a balcony which commanded the high road. It was mid winter, but the weather was clear: the alps were reflected in the lake at their feet, while the sound of military music alone broke the silence of the scene. Madame de Staël's heart beat with fear for her father's sake. Her vivid imagination painted, her impetuous heart anticipated, a thousand horrors which transported her with terror. She perceived an officer quit a troop on its way, and direct his steps towards the château,—it was Suchet. He came charged by the directory to offer a safeguard to her father. Thus re-assured with regard to the dearest interest of her life, she began to feel fresh anguish for the Swiss, attacked thus against the law of nations. She heard at Coppet the cannon of the battle between the Bernese and French;—her heart, for the first time, was against the latter. As soon as the triumph of France united Geneva to its own territory, it became necessary that Necker's name should be erased from the list of emigrants. Madame de Staël visited Paris, and presented a memorial from her father to the directory. His request was accorded instantly and unanimously; and his daughter, so much more easily moved to kindly than angry emotions, felt grateful for this act of simple justice. She endeavoured also to treat with the French government for the payment of the two millions of francs which Necker had deposited in the public treasury. The directory acknowledged the debt, and were ready to defray it from the property of the church. Necker refused so to be repaid, from the noble motive of not choosing to mingle his worldly interests in the great question of the revolution, and so to forfeit the reputation for impartiality by which he laid store.

1799. Ætat. 33.

Madame de Staël witnessed, in Paris, the 18th Brumaire, when Bonaparte overthrew the power of the directory and established his own supremacy. Her feelings were much divided: if the jacobins triumphed, sanguinary scenes might be renewed; but she anticipated with prophetic grief the result of Bonaparte's success. As she always lived in a numerous circle, and openly discussed her opinions, the first consul soon heard of the dissatisfaction that she expressed with regard to his rising power. Joseph Bonaparte, to whom she was partial, came to her and said, "My brother complains of you. 'Why,' he said yesterday, 'does not madame de Staël attach herself to my government? What does she want? The payment of her father's deposit? I will order it to be made. To remain in Paris? I will permit it. In short, what does she want?'" "The question," she replied, "is not what I want, but what I think."

A tribunate made a portion of the constitution instituted in the first instance by Bonaparte. The tribunes were to have the right to speak. The first consul was aware that he must please the French at first by a shadow of freedom; but a few men were found among the tribunes who wished to turn the shadow into substance, and then Bonaparte put forth his power, and claimed the lion's share. Benjamin Constant, on the eve of attacking a measure proposed by the first consul, consulted madame de Staël. She encouraged him, through noble and conscientious motives, while she felt in her heart the injury that might redound to herself. The possibility of being forced to quit Paris filled her with alarm and wretchedness: her love for its society, her horror of retirement, had been implanted, as we have seen, in her breast from her earliest infancy; her brilliant powers of conversation fostered the taste, and she well knew also that Bonaparte was aware of her weakness, and would wound her through it. "He joined," she writes, "to the power by which he could threaten, and the wealth by which he could entice, the dispensation of ennui, which is held in terror by the French." Her drawing-room on this occasion was crowded by men ready to give in their adherence to the new government. Benjamin Constant drew near, and said, "your room is filled with persons whose society is pleasing to you: if I speak, to-morrow it will be a desert. Think of this." "One must follow one's conviction," she replied. In narrating this anecdote, she frankly adds that she spoke on the impulse of the moment; but that, if she could then have foreseen the sufferings in store, she should not have had strength to refuse the offer Constant made to remain silent. He proved a true prophet. On the following day she received multiplied excuses for a party she gave. As they came she felt disturbed, and she began to find fault with her courage of the preceding day. To add to her inquietude, the minister of police, Fouché, sent for her to say, that the first consul suspected that she had excited her friends to speak against him. She replied that Constant was a man of too superior talents to need the interference of a woman in his political conduct. The result was that Fouché advised her to go into the country for a few days, saying that all would be well on her return. Such is the account that she gives of the commencement of Bonaparte's persecution. Other writers vary. The flatterers of Napoleon insinuate that she wished to gain an interest in his heart. Napoleon himself, when at St. Helena, says, that she became his enemy because he would not become her pupil. It were, perhaps, a fairer statement to assert, that he oppressed her because she refused to be his tool. At the same time it must be remembered, in exculpation of Bonaparte's arbitrary acts with regard to her, that he was then making difficult way up the slippery path of power; that she opposed his progress not only by epigrams and repartees, but by political intrigues. It was necessary to reduce her to silence and inaction. But this does not excuse his after persecution, which was wanton and unmanly.

Soon after, when Bonaparte passed through Switzerland on his way to Italy, having expressed a wish to see Necker, the latter waited on him, and spent two hours in conversation. The fallen and aged minister was gratified by this mark of interest on the part of the first consul, and pleased with his conversation. He did not mention, as a meaner minded man would have done, the debt owed him by the French government; but he alluded to his daughter's position, and spoke of her as one whose name and talents would adorn the society of the capital. The first consul replied with courtesy; and the result was that she was hereafter to be permitted to reside in Paris.

Bonaparte felt that his present power needed the prop of opinion. Perhaps he hoped to gain the daughter by his civility and apparent respect for the father. But neither were to be bent from their convictions. This became apparent when, towards the end of the same year, she published her work on literature. Her talents had now reached their full development, and this book is one of the most masterly that has emanated from her pen. It is full of liberal opinions; it restored her to popularity; her salons again became thronged. Her society was chiefly composed of foreigners and the corps diplomatique. Fouché granted various requests made by her with regard to emigrants, and she had thus the pleasure of being useful to, and moreover became popular among, a class distinguished for urbane manners and the various charms that attend refinement. But her book added to the irritation nourished against her by the first consul. He wished the world to be filled with his name; and, in this point of view, the influence possessed by literary persons was of value in his eyes. Madame de Staël had not mentioned him, nor alluded to his achievements, in her work; and he looked on the omission as a wilful and galling insult. She never appeared at his court; he said of her that every one left her house less attached to him than when they went in; the rebel tribunes were among her friends; and all tended to nourish his discontent. One day she was asked to dinner by general Berthier, in company with Bonaparte. As she heard that he often expressed himself sarcastically with regard to her, she conjectured that he might address her with some of those rude speeches which were so much feared by the courtiers; and, afraid of losing her presence of mind, she went prepared with various studied repartees. But he scarcely spoke to her, and she had the comfort of believing that he feared to sting a dangerous enemy.

She spent her summers at Coppet with her father. In 1799, M. de Staël had been recalled to Sweden. His extravagance had occasioned a separation from his wife, who feared that the fortunes of her children might be injured. 1802. Ætat. 36. A reconciliation was, however, set on foot, and it was agreed that the whole family should take up their residence at Coppet. On their way thither M. de Staël fell ill and died, his wife attending on his last moments.

Her novel of "Delphine" appeared about this time. It was attacked by the French critics as immoral. Madame de Staël was indignant. "They dared blame a book approved by Necker!" she exclaims. "Delphine" affords scope, however, for such criticism. She allows that it displays too eager a desire for happiness, the result of young and ardent feelings; but, worse than this, it inculcates no spirit of courage under disaster. Balwer speaks of "fortitude, the virtue of the ancients, and resignation, the duty of Christians," as the chief aim of a philosophic or pious mind: madame de Staël—and in this she is the founder of the Byronic school—made the chief feeling of her work impatience of life under sorrow, suicide in despair. This at once blights existence. To feel that adversity and prosperity are both lessons to teach us a higher wisdom, the fruition of which we hope hereafter to inherit, and which at the same time is the ornament and crown of good men during life, ought to be the aim of every writer. Sorrow is rife with desperation; we fly to the pages of the sage to learn to bear; and a writer fails in his duty when he presents poison instead Of medicine. With all this, "Delphine" is a beautiful book. The character of the heroine is full of charm: the hero is delineated with a truth, a fervour, and a reality, that reaches home. The characters of madame de Valmont and her daughter are finely portrayed. "Delphine," it was said, was an ideal of the authoress herself; and the false friend was drawn from Talleyrand. "They tell me," he said to her, "that you have put us both in your novel in the character of women." Madame de Staël could well bear this sarcasm: she was truly feminine; her very faults belonged to her sex.

Her father published a book at this time which greatly irritated Bonaparte, and added to his dislike of the daughter. In his "Last View of Politics and Finance" Necker unveiled the progress which the first consul of the republic was making towards a throne. This untimely disclosure of his secret ways injured Bonaparte: he spoke bitterly of Necker, and said of madame de Staël that she should not visit Paris again, since she conveyed such false impressions to her father.

Love for this father was the master passion of madame de Staël's life. She looked on him as the wisest and best of men; but, more than this, his kindness and sympathy gifted him with something angelic in her eyes. He was her dearest friend—the prop of her fortunes; her adviser, her shelter, her teacher, her approver—the seal of her prosperity and her glory. He was an old man, and this imparted unspeakable tenderness to her attachment. Her very love of Paris, and her consequent absences from him, added force to her feelings. While away she gathered anecdotes and knowledge for his amusement. Their correspondence was regular and full. It contained a thousand narrations and sallies, observations on events and persons full of piquancy, a gaiety adopted for the purpose of diverting him; and over all was spread a tone of tenderness and reverence, which accompanied the very idea of her father. When she returned to him, she checked a little the demonstrations of her delight, but it overflowed in her conversation. Things, men, and politics, the effect she had herself produced, were all related with an effusion of joy, accompanied by caresses, by tears of gladness, and laughter full of love. Necker listened with proud delight. He loved her fondly. Her very faults, her want of forethought, which made his cares necessary; her uncertainty and doubts with regard to all the minor affairs of life, which she joyfully submitted to his direction; her exuberant yet uncertain spirits; her imagination that often plunged her in gloom, were so many ties to unite father and daughter in bonds of the fondest affection.

Yet she could not contentedly remain with him long. She disliked Genevese society; she was wrapt up in that of Paris. Her parents had planted the seeds of this love of display and eager desire for the arena, where wit and all that is the salt of life is to be met in perfection, and it was but fair that her father should reap the fruits of the education he had bestowed. He felt for her, and was deeply grieved that his publication had augmented the annoyances of her position. 1803. Ætat. 37. When the peace of Amiens was broken, and Bonaparte and all France were occupied by the meditated descent on England, she hoped to be forgotten. She drew near Paris, and established herself at the distance of thirty miles. The first consul was told that the road to her retreat was crowded by people paying her visits. This was not true, but it alarmed his jealousy; she heard that she should receive an order to depart. Hoping to escape by leaving her home, she went from house to house of her friends, but in vain. She was at that of madame Recamier when she received the fatal order to leave France in twenty-four hours. She would not at once yield; she asked for day after day of reprieve. Junot and Joseph Bonaparte interceded with the first consul for her; she pleaded as for life; but the petty resentment of the great man could not be mollified. He has done worse deeds during his reign, but take the worst said of madame de Staël, by his chief flatterers, and still no revenge could be meaner, no act of tyranny more flagrant, than that which exiled from his capital, and the country he ruled over, a woman, whatever offence she had committed against him, who promised silence; who asked but for the society of a few friends; whose crime was that she would not celebrate the liberticide in her writings.

Forced to go, she could not persuade herself to appear disgraced and driven away among the Genevese. She hoped, and her father hoped for her, that new scenes, and the welcome afforded her among strangers, would blunt the blow she had received, and revive her spirits. She determined to visit Germany, with the intention of seeing its great writers, studying their productions, and of afterwards presenting the French with an account of the, to them, sealed book of German literature. Joseph Bonaparte gave her letters of introduction for Berlin, and she set out. Benjamin Constant accompanied her; yet this very kindness was the source of pain, as he also was partial to a residence in Paris. "Every step of the horses," she writes, "was a pang; and, when the postilions boasted that they had driven fast, I could not help smiling at the sad service they did me. I travelled forty leagues before I recovered possession of myself. At length we stopt at Chalons, and Benjamin Constant rousing him self, through his wonderful powers of conversation, lightened, at least for a few moments, the burden that weighed me down."

Constant continued to accompany her. She was well received at Weimar and Berlin. She was at Berlin at the time of the assassination of the duke d'Enghien, and shared the horror that this unnecessary act of cruelty excited. This circumstance added to her detestation of Napoleon. Meanwhile she greatly enjoyed the kindness she found, and the vast field of knowledge opened before her. 1804. Ætat. 38. A fatal event put an end to her pleasure. She received tidings of the dangerous illness of her father—the intelligence of his death quickly followed. She left Germany. She returned to Coppet overwhelmed with grief. Generally speaking, there is exaggeration and traces of false sentiment in her writings. Her best work for style and simplicity of narration is her "Dix Années d'Exil;" and the best portion of this book describes her feelings during her journey from Weimar to Coppet. All who have suffered the worst of sorrows—the death of one dearly loved—will find the echo of their inmost thoughts in that passage.

The death of Necker changed the course of her existence, as far as internal feelings operate on the exterior of life. Her father had looked on her as incorrigibly thoughtless in all worldly and pecuniary concerns; but she was no longer in the heyday of youth; experience taught her prudence; and, being thrown entirely on herself, her conscience bade her preserve the fortunes of her children. She was a good mother. Having obeyed and reverenced her father—she exacted the same towards herself from her offspring; nor did she ever regard them with the exuberant trembling tenderness she had lavished on her beloved parent. But was kind—ever ready to serve them, and eager for their well-being. Her notions on education were sensible and just: she did not give trust to extraordinary systems; she contented herself by inspiring them with piety and generous sentiments; and was perfectly open and true in her conduct. They sincerely loved, while they a little feared her.

The society of her children and her friends could not console her for the loss of her father and exile from the country she loved. Her first occupation was to publish the writings of Necker, accompanied by a biographical memoir, in which she pours forth, with touching earnestness, all the ardour of her filial affection. Her health sunk beneath her sorrow. 1805. Ætat. 39. To revive her spirits and change the scene she visited Italy. There, as everywhere, her astonishing powers of conversation gathered an admiring audience round her. She enjoyed, with all the warmth of her disposition, the delights afforded by that enchanting country; and, impelled to express on paper the overflowing of her thoughts, she embodied her enthusiasm, her pleasure, and the knowledge she gained, in her novel of "Corinne." There is a charm in that work that stamps it as coming from the hand of genius. The personages live, breathe, and speak before you. We hope or fear for, admire or censure them, as if they were our friends. She speaks of love with heartfelt knowledge of the mighty powers of passion, and of all those delicate, so to speak, fibres and evanescent tints that foster and adorn it. The faults of such a book are a very secondary consideration. The Italians will not allow that it is by any means a true representation of society in their country; and any one who has lived there can perceive that she had but a superficial knowledge of Italy and the Italians; still she gives a true picture of the surface such as she saw it. Her account of Corinne's life in England is admirable. The English, with all their pride, are less vain than the Italians, and readily acknowledge their faults. Every English person is at once astonished and delighted with the wonderful truth of her sketch of county society in England. In this novel, as in "Delphine," the heroine dies broken-hearted. Her lover proving false, she lives miserably a few years, and then closes her eyes on a world grown dark and solitary. Madame de Staël was naturally led to portray death as the result of sorrow; for when we are miserable, we are apt to dwell on such as the dearest relief; yet we do not die. The authoress also might wish to impress on men an idea of the misery which their falsehood produces. That is a story as ancient as Dido, and told by Virgil more impressively and beautifully than by any other writer. For the dignity of womanhood, it were better to teach how one, as highly gifted as Corinne, could find resignation or fortitude enough to endure a too common lot, and rise wiser and better from the trial.

Madame de Staël was exiled to forty leagues from Paris; her love of France caused her to approach so near to its capital. She established herself first at Auxerre and afterwards at Rouen. Here she terminated and brought out "Corinne." She exercised the utmost caution in her conduct, saw but few friends, and observed that silence with regard to politics which Napoleon rigorously exacted throughout his empire. Fouché, who had no love of wanton mischief, allowed her to settle herself within twelve leagues of Paris. But the publication of her novel put an end to this indulgence, and redoubled the oppression in force against her. She continued to refuse to advert to Napoleon's victories and Napoleon's power; and the great man, than whom no hero was ever less a hero in all magnanimous sentiments, ordered her to quit the country. She returned to Coppet half broken-hearted.

1807. Ætat. 41.

The visits she received from her friends and illustrious foreigners somewhat relieved the tedium of her life. She was occupied by her work on Germany, and visited Vienna to gather additional materials for it. On her return, she devoted two years to its completion. She tried to make an existence for herself at Coppet, but did not succeed. Alas! for her. Goldsmith's lines on French society are but too applicable to her state of mind:—

She was, with all her vivacity, naturally melancholy. The society of nature, as she termed it, nursed her darkest reveries, and she turned from her own thoughts as from a spring of bitterness. As existence became stagnant, ennui generated a thousand imaginary monsters of mind; she felt lost and miserable. Death and solitude were, in her mind, closely allied. Take away the animation of conversation; the intercommunication of ideas among the many; the struggle, the applause, the stirring interest in events; the busy crowd that gave variety to every impression; and the rest of life was, in her eyes, a fearful vigil near the grave. It is beautifully said, that God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. Sometimes, however, the exact contrary has place, and our weak and sore points are sought out to be roughly handled. Thus madame de Staël, brought up to act a foremost part on the brilliant theatre of the civilised world, was cast back on herself, and found there only discontent and misery. To us sober English, indeed, her life at Coppet seems busy enough. She assembled all travellers about her; her domestic circle was large; she acted plays; she declaimed; but it would not do: Paris was interdicted, and she was cut off from happiness.

1810. Ætat. 44.

Having finished her "Germany," she desired to overlook its progress through the press at the permitted distance of forty leagues from Paris. She established herself near Blois, in the old château of Chammont-sur-Loire, erst inhabited by cardinal d'Amboise, Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de Medicis, and Nostradamus. A few friends gathering round her, she enjoyed the amusements and occupations she shared with them. Madame Recamier was chief among them, and very dear to her. Her plan was, as soon as her book was printed, to reach England by America, that being the only path left open to our island by Napoleon. She had submitted her work to the censor, and, having made all the alterations exacted, she felt herself safe. But the storm gathered, and broke unexpectedly. She had not praised Napoleon; she had not mentioned the success of the French armies in Germany; she had tried even to enlarge the sphere of French literature, by introducing a knowledge of and taste for the German—an attempt anti-national in the emperor's eyes. He did not hesitate to condemn such a work. The duke de Rovigo, minister of police, sent to seize on the edition, to demand the manuscript, and to order her to quit France in three days. She was proud of her book, and had every right to be so; and she gladly anticipated the applause and increased reputation that would follow it. The loss of this could be borne, but the renewed sentence of exile struck her to the heart. She was forced to obey. Her first idea was to embark for America; but her purpose in so doing was to get on board an English ship, and reach England. Her plans were disturbed by an intimation from Savary that she must embark only at the ports of France furthest from her desired goal. The minister wrote to her with flippancy, that her book was not French, and that her exile was the consequence of the course she had followed for years. The air of France evidently disagreed with her; but the French were not reduced to seek for models in the countries which she admired. Savary was still more frank when speaking on the subject. He asked why she had made no mention of the emperor or his armies? He was told that such allusions were out of place in a book that treated solely of literature. "Do you think," he replied, "that we have carried on a war in Germany for eighteen years for so well-known an author to omit all mention of us? The book shall be destroyed, and we should do well to send the writer to Vincennes."

Her plans disturbed, hope dead within her, she returned to Coppet, almost resigned to pass her life in the château; but the hour had passed away when she was allowed to enjoy the tribute of visits from foreigners of distinction, and to gather round her such friends as she best loved. A series of the most tormenting and cruel persecutions were instituted, that acting on an imagination easily disquieted, and on a temperament that needed the atmosphere of joy to feel at ease, drove her into a state of intense and uninterrupted suffering. She gave up all idea, which must always be agreeable to an author, of publishing; she scarcely dared write. All her acquaintance as well as friends were looked on with unfavourable eyes. She could not venture to ask a guest to dinner; she was so afraid of compromising the whole family of any one who came near her. The prefect of Geneva was changed as being too favourably disposed. The new magistrate urged her to eulogise Napoleon as the sure means of putting an end to all her annoyances: would she only celebrate the birth of the king of Rome? She replied that she did not know how to do so: she could only express her hopes that he would have a good nurse. The prefect took his leave, and never came near her again. Her children were forbidden to enter France. She went to Aix, in Savoy, for the benefit of the health of her youngest son; she was ordered to return; she was advised never to go further than two leagues from Coppet. William Schlegel, whom she had engaged to live with her to assist in the education of her children, was ordered to quit her château. He had published a work, in which he showed a preference to the Phædra of Euripides over that of Racine; he was judged anti-Gallican; and she was told that his society was injurious to her. A thousand terrors seized her. Confined within narrow precincts, deprived of her friends, she began to fear a prison, where she would have been left to perish, miserable and forgotten. She resolved to escape—it was difficult to choose a route. She was told that she would be arrested on her way through any country under the dominion of the French. She passed her life, she says, in studying a map of Europe, to find how she could escape beyond the wide-spread poison tree of Napoleon's power. She traced a route through the Tyrol on her way to Russia and Sweden, and thence to England. A thousand difficulties presented themselves for the execution of this plan, but it was her best.

"There is physical pleasure," she writes, "in resisting unjust power;" the act of resistance was animating, but when the hour of defeat came all was stagnant, fearful, and oppressive. The worst blow dealt her was when she found that any friend who visited her was involved in the same oppression. An old friend, M. de Montmorency, visited Coppet; the delight of seeing him made her blind to danger. She made a tour through Switzerland with him in spite of the advice given her not to go further than two leagues from Coppet. They afterwards returned to her château, where M. de Montmorency speedily received an order of exile. This news plunged her in agony—that her friends should be wounded through her was worse than her own misfortunes. While still suffering from this disaster, she received a letter from madame Recamier, saying that she was on her road to Aix, in Savoy, and announcing her intention of visiting Coppet in her way. Madame de Staël implored her not to come; but her generous friend could not pass so near without spending a few hours with her;—a few hours only, but they sufficed to call down banishment on her head: henceforth she was driven from her home and friends, and forced to take up her residence at Lyons in solitude and exile. All this was done to drive her to dishonour herself by praising him whose tyranny made him every day more odious, as the persecutor of herself and the oppressor of France. The prefect of Geneva was ordered to annul her, and he took pains to impress every one with the dangers that would accrue from any intercourse with her. He waylaid every stranger, and turned them aside from the path to her house; her correspondents in Paris were exiled; she felt that she ought to refrain from seeing any one. By a natural struggle of feeling she was disquieted when her friends generously sought, and still more miserable when they selfishly abandoned her.

She never saw the day return, she says, that she did not repine at being obliged to live to its end. She was married again at this time. This event, which was kept secret till after her death, is one of the most singular of her history.

In the year 1810 there came to Geneva a young Spaniard of the name of Rocca. He was an officer in the French army, and had been wounded dangerously in Spain. He inspired great interest through the reputation he enjoyed for brilliant courage and for talent. He was young and very handsome; but his wounds had reduced him to a state of great weakness and suffering; and the contrast was striking and interesting between his youth and noble physiognomy, and his extreme pallor and attenuated figure. He heard madame de Staël talk, and was seized with enthusiastic admiration. Necker said of his daughter that her conversation imparted an idea of the beautiful; and thus, though twenty years older than himself, and, except for her eyes, with no beauty of face, the young Rocca was attracted by that of her mind, and said, "I shall love her so much that at last she will marry me." These words were soon fulfilled. But she refused to acknowledge a marriage which, from disparity of age, might have excited ridicule; and in all things of that sort madame de Staël was singularly timid. She was averse also to change her name. "Mon nom est à l'Europe," she replied to Rocca, when they were in England, and he jestingly asked her to marry him. She does not in her narratives advert to this marriage; but the fear must have haunted her that Napoleon would exile Rocca from Coppet; while, on the other hand, she found it difficult to leave an infant child, the offspring of their union, uncertain when again she could rejoin it.

These terrors and doubts threw her into a nervous state of the most painful kind. Now, she thought it wrong and foolish to leave her house, where she enjoyed every bodily comfort and the society of her children,—again, the fear of prison, the terror of who next among her friends would be the tyrant's victim, distracted her. At length she resolved to depart, and ultimately to reach England; whether by Russia and Sweden, or Greece and Constantinople, was to be decided by circumstances that might occur during her progress.

Her account of her journey is full of interest. An abridgment can give little idea of its difficulties,—the petty yet stinging annoyances by which she was beset,—the delays, the terror, the disappointments. Now she feared for her daughter's health,—and then still more for the safety of M. Rocca. The order for his arrest as a French officer had been forwarded through Germany. It is true he had sent in his resignation, his wounds preventing him from active service; but, if he had been taken, there is no doubt that he would have been treated with the utmost rigour. They were often obliged to separate, and he rejoined her once or twice in moments full of peril to himself. She traversed Germany and Poland in this way; and even in Russia she was not sure of escape from Napoleon. His armies had entered that vast empire, and were close behind her.

It was matter of joy to her when at last, after passing through Moscow, she arrived at St. Petersburg, to find the emperor Alexander full of resolution and ardour to resist the despot. He treated her with great distinction; and she proceeded on her way to her old friend Bernadotte, at that time crown prince of Sweden. She remained eight months at Stockholm. She had begun a portion of her "Dix Années d'Exil" at Coppet, it being copied as fast as written by her friends, feigned English names and old dates being substituted for the real; since under Napoleon's police regulations it was not safe to preserve a page of manuscript in which he was blamed.

From Sweden she passed over to England, where she occupied herself in publishing her "Germany." She was courted as a lion in English fashionable society; and, though her style of life and conversation were very opposite to our manners, still she impressed every one with high ideas of her talents and genius. The Whig party were a little surprised at her tone in politics. They were not yet accustomed to regard Napoleon as the tyrant and oppressor, and they thought that madame de Staël had changed her principles when she warmly advocated war against the emperor. She was intimate with all the English of distinction. Her compliments seemed a little outré to us, and she made a few mistakes that excited smiles; still she was liked. Lord Byron was among her favourites,—his genius possessed fascination for her. There was a notion at one time that he would marry her daughter, whom he admired; but Albertine was reserved for a better fate.

All her patriotism as a Frenchwoman was painfully roused when the allies entered France; still she hailed the overthrow of Napoleon, and the restoration of the Bourbons, with delight, hoping that the latter would deserve well of their country. She was liked by Louis XVIII., who repaid her the two millions which Necker had lent the state. The return of Napoleon from Elba filled her with terror, and she instantly left Paris for Coppet. He, who now appeared with a professed attachment to constitutional liberty, invited her to return and assist him in modelling a constitution. She replied, "He did without me or a constitution for twelve years, and has no liking for either of us." The occupation of France by the allies filled her with grief; that her "belle France" should be held in these degrading chains seemed desecration, and she retreated to Coppet not to witness the humiliating spectacle. 1816. Ætat. 50. She was there when lord Byron resided at Diodati in 1816. He visited her, and she gave him a good deal of advice to which he listened, and was induced to make an attempt to be reconciled to his wife. When she preached lessons of worldly wisdom, he quoted the motto to "Delphine"—"Un homme doit savoir braver l'opinion, une femme s'y soummettre." But she replied that she feared that both sexes would reap evil only from resistance.

The marriage of her daughter to the duke de Broglie, and the admirable character of this lady, formed the chief happiness of her latter life. Her children were all dutiful and affectionate. Her chief sorrow resulted from the ill health of M. Rocca, who tottered on the brink of the grave. He deserved the affection he inspired. His tenderness towards her was extreme, and his admiration never waned. His chivalrous sentiments, his wit, and his poetic imagination, varied and filled her life. His ill state of health, while it disquieted her, yet annihilated their difference of age. At one time she visited Pisa, that he might be benefited by a milder climate. He was there at the point of death: she compared herself to marshal Ney, who was then expecting at each moment to receive his sentence. Endowed by an imagination which never blunted any sorrow, but which exaggerated all, she said afterwards that she had composed a book, with the title, "The only Misfortune of Life, the Loss of a Person beloved."

Her character softened as she advanced in life, and she appreciated its real blessings and disasters more rationally, at the same time that she acquired greater truth and energy in her writings. This may often be observed with women. When young, they are open to such cruel attacks, every step they take in public may bring with it irreparable injury to their private affections, to their delicacy, to their dearest prospects. As years are added they gather courage; they feel the earth grow steadier under their steps; they depend less on others, and their moral worth increases. She was an affectionate and constant friend, and the sentiments of her heart replaced the appetite she formerly had for the display of talent: she placed a true value on courage and resignation, when before she had reserved her esteem for sensibility. She grew calmer, and ceased to fabricate imaginary woes for herself, happy when she escaped real ones. She grew pious. From her earliest years she had strong feelings of religion, resulting from dependence on Providence, from adoration for the Supreme Being, and hope of a future life. The Christian principles mingled more entirely with these sentiments in her latter years. As her health declined, her sleepless hours were spent in prayer, and existence lost, as it often does to those about to leave it, its gay and deceptive colours. "Life," she said, "resembles Gobelin tapestry: you do not see the canvass on the right side; but when you turn it the threads are visible. The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes. I never committed an error that was not the cause of a disaster." And thus, while the idea of death was infinitely painful, the hope of another life sustained her. "My father waits for me on the other side," she said, and indulged the hope of hereafter being rejoined by her daughter.

She perished gradually: the use of opium, from which she could not wean herself, increased her danger; nor could medicine aid her. She died in Paris on the 14th July, 1817, in her fifty-second year. Rocca survived her but a few months.

She possessed too much merit not to have many enemies during her life, and these were increased by her passion for display, and the jealous spirit with which she competed with those whom she looked on as rivals. The eagerness with which during the days of the republic she mingled in politics, and her attempts to acquire influence over Napoleon, were arms that she put into the hands of her enemies to injure her. They accused her of an intriguing meddling disposition, saying of her, that to make a revolution she would throw all her friends into the river, content with fishing them out the next day, and so showing the kindness of her heart. But her faults were more than compensated among her friends by the truth and constancy of her attachment. Her temper was equable, though her mind was often tempest-tost, clouded by dark imaginations, torn by unreal but deeply felt anxieties and sorrows. "I am now," she said, in her last days, "what I have ever been,—sad, yet vivacious." To repair wrong, to impress on the minds of princes benevolence and justice, were in her latter years the scope of, so to speak, her public life. She loved France with passion. Lord Brougham records the alarm and indignation which caused her to pant for breath, as she exclaimed, "Quoi donc, cette belle France!" when lord Dudley, half in jest half seriously, wished the Cossacks, in revenge for Moscow burnt, to nail a horse-shoe on the gates of the Tuileries.

Our memoir has extended to so great a length that we can only advert cursorily to her writings. M. Anneé, a French critic, observes of her, that her understanding had more brilliance than profundity; and yet that no writer of her epoch had left such luminous ideas on her route. Chateaubriand, while he deplores the party spirit which gave irritation to her sentiments and bitterness to her style, pronounces her to be a woman of rare merit, and who would add another name to the list of those destined to become immortal. She wrote on a vast variety of subjects, and threw light on all. Yet she gathered her knowledge, not by profound study, but by rapid dipping into books and by conversation with learned men; thus her opinions are often wrongly grounded, and her learning is superficial. Still her conclusions are often admirable, granting that the ground on which she founds them is true. She has great felicity of illustration, and her style is varied and eloquent, the fault being that it sometimes abounds in words, and wants the merit of concentration and conciseness; often, too, she is satisfied with a sentiment for a reason. Her wit is not pleasantry, but it is pointed and happy. She neither understood nor liked humour; but she enjoyed repartee: many are recorded as falling from her, and they are distinguished by their point and delicacy. Her "Dix Années d'Exil" is the most simple and interesting of her works; but her "Germany," perhaps, deserves the highest rank, from its research, and the great beauty of its concluding chapters. Of her novels we have already spoken. They do not teach the most needful lesson—moral courage; but they are admirable as pictures of life and vivid representations of character, for subtle remark and vivid detail of what in youth forms our joys and sorrows. She puts much of herself in all; and thus adds to the charm and truth of her sentiments and ideas. Her "Considerations on the French Revolution" is valuable, from its affording us a personal picture of the impressions made by that epoch; but the great preponderance of praise which she gives to Necker renders it a work of prejudice. Like him, she had no strong republican sentiments. She desired an English constitution; she disliked the girondists as well as the mountain, and attempted the impossible task of reconciling the interests of the nation as established by the revolution with that of the ancienne régime. Her feelings are praiseworthy, but her views are narrow.

Such is the defect of human nature that we have no right to demand perfection from any individual of the species. We may sum up by saying that, though the character and writings of madame de Staël, in some respects, display weaknesses, and though she committed errors, her virtues and genius raise her high; and the country that gave her birth, and which she truly loved, may, with honest pride, rank her among its most illustrious names.

INDEX

A.

Abbeville, condemnation of the chevalier de la Barre at, II. 84. Academy, the French, its judgment on the "Cid," I. 47. Cardinal de Richelieu's marginal observations on that critique, 48. Question of electing Molière, 141. La Fontaine, academician, 167. Boileau's election, 167. The "Dictionary" of, 168. Furetière's Dictionary in competition to it, 168. Academy of Sciences, the French Royal, II. 25. Æschylus, I. 40718 . Alembert, see D'Alembert. Amelot, M., secretary of state, II. 46, 47. Angennes, Mlle. Julie d', deity of the Hôtel Rambouillet, I. 108. Duchess of Montauzier, 123. 263, n. Angennes, Angélique, married to the chevalier de Grignan, I. 247, 248. Anne of Austria, regent during the minority of Louis XIV., I. 66. She withdraws from Paris, with the young king and Mazarin, to St. Germain, 70. The capital blockaded by Condé, 70. A short peace, 71. Antoine, Faubourg St., battle between Condé and Turenne near the gates of the, I. 81. Turenne victorious, 81. Arbuthnot, Dr., character of, I. 30. Argenson, M. d', anecdote relative to, I. 235. Argental, count d', II. 53. 100. Ariosto, I. 154. Imitated by La Fontaine, 165. 181. Aristotle, controversy respecting, excited by Rabelais, I. 31. Ramus's Anti-Stagyrite, 31. Arlechino, or Harlequin, Italian actor, I. 102. Arnaud, Antony, the abbé, controversialist, I. 198. 267. 315. 339. Arnaud d'Andilli, brother of Antony, I. 198. Arnaud, Angélique, abbess of Port Royal, I. 198. Arouet, M., father of Voltaire, II. 4. 7. 9. 11. Artagnan, M. d', I. 223, n. Assoucy, d', musician and poet, kindly entertained during his peregrinations by Molière and his brother comedians, I. 104. Atmospheric air, properties of, I. 191.

B.

Bacon, Francis lord, his opinion of Rabelais, I. 23. Ballads, Spanish and Moorish, I. 45. Balzac, poetry of, I. 153. Barante, M., his "Literature of the Eighteenth Century," II. 14, n. Bardou, French poet, I. 265. Baron, excellent comedian, I. 131. 132. 143. Barre, chevalier de la, execution of the, II. 84. Beauvilliers, duke de, I. 335. Béjart, brothers, comedians in Molière's troop, I. 102. Facetiousness of the younger, 121. Béjart, Madeleine, actress, her beauty, I. 102. Béjart, Armande, is married by Molière, I. 102. Their union infelicitous, 117. 131. Implores Louis XIV. that her deceased husband should be buried in holy ground, 140. She marries M. Guérin, comedian, 148. Bellay, du, archbishop of Paris, friendly to Rabelais, I. 24, 25. 27. Ambassador from Francis I. to Paul III., 28. He receives Rabelais in his household at Paris, 33. Supposed dying message by Rabelais to, 39. Bellerose, Pierre le Meslier named, tragedian, I. 98. Benedictine order, claims of for respect, I. 25. Benserade, court poet, I. 226. Bergerac, Cyrano de, I. 99. Bernier, traveller in the East, I. 99. 100. Bible, English, an example for language, I. 61. Boccaccio, his works acknowledged to be diverting by La Fontaine, I. 154. 181. Boétie, Etienne de la, friendship of Montaigne for, I. 7. Latin poem by, 16. Death-bed of, 9. Boileau Despréaux, Nicholas, epigram on Corneille by, I. 57. His high estimate of Molière's genius, 97. 118. 146. His regret for the loss of Molière's early farces, 105. He criticises "Les Fourberies de Scapin," 134. His advice to Molière, 142. His poetry remarkable for wit, but without humour, 146. His observations on La Fontaine, 160. 165. In favour with Louis XIV., 163. Is elected of the French Academy, 167. His admiration of the "Lettres Provinciales" of Pascal, 202. His father, Giles Boileau, 259. Birth of Nicholas in 1636, 259. At school he commenced writing poetry, 260. Studies law, and named advocate, 261. Attacks Chapelain and Cotin, 263. 265. Substitutes fresh victims of his satire in place of such as had surrendered at discretion, 265. His friends, 267. He speaks of his own success, 268, n. His "Art Poétique," 270. The "Lutrin," 270. Passages from, 272-279. Leigh Hunt's parallel of Boileau and Pope, 271, n. Boileau eulogises Louis XIV., and is favourably received at court, 278. Is named historiographer conjointly with Racine, 279. These poets accompany Louis to Ghent, 280. Is liable in camp to alarms, his phlegmatic disposition, 281. His conversations with madame de Maintenon and Racine, 283. Desires a seat in the French Academy, 167. 284. Repairs to the baths of Bourbon for health, 285. His correspondence by letter of much interest, 285. 286. Is indignant as to Perrault's "Siècle de Louis Quatorze," 287. His Satire on Women, 288. His pension, 289. His tender regard for Racine, 289. He loses his valued friend, 290. His interview with Louis as sole historiographer, 291. His retirement, 291. His amusements in old age, 291. Sells his house at Auteuil, 292. His piety, 293. Completes an edition of his works, 293. Account of several of his works, 293. et passim. Dies of dropsy on the chest at seventy-five years of age, 294. His superior wit, 294. His verses highly finished and regular, 295. The "Lutrin" his best poem, 295. Teaches Racine that easy versification is the result of painstaking, 307. He reconciles Antoine Arnaud, and Racine, 315. His enduring kindness for Racine, 327. His name of Despréaux, II. 21. Boisrobert, French poet, I. 43. 47. Bonaparte, general, his first interview with madame de Staël, II. 322. Appointed first consul, 323. Surmises as to the causes of Bonaparte's enmity, 324. His interview with M. Necker, 325. He permits madame de Staël to reside in Paris, 326. Not being lauded by her, he seizes her "Germany," and exiles her from France, 332. On his return from Elba, invites her to assist him in forming a constitution; her answer, 340. Bonnecorse, French writer, I. 265. 266. Bordeaux, the father of Montaigne mayor of, I. 1. Michel Montaigne (the Essayist) mayor, 19. Re-election of Montaigne, 19. Warfare of the Fronde against the royal party, at, 73. The prince of Condé joyfully received by the Bordelais, 77. Molière patronised by the duke d'Epernon at, 102. Bose, M., letter from madame Roland to, II. 272. He visits her in prison, 289. Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, witnesses the death of the duke of Rochefoucauld, I. 90. His intended marriage, 334. Abandons it for the church, 334. Appointed preceptor to the dauphin, 334. 336. His funeral oration on Henrietta, duchess of Orléans, 334, n. His "Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle," 334. He causes the misfortunes of Fénélon by his zeal against the doctrines of quietisme, 345. No reconciliation takes place between Bossuet and Fénélon, 356. Bonhours, le père, jesuit, I. 203, n. Bouillon, duke of, I. 73. His death of typhus fever, 82. Bouillon, duchess of, I. 70. Niece of Mazarin, 158. She conducts La Fontaine to Paris, 159. 172. 177. Bouillon, M., his "Joconde," I. 165. Bourdaloue, le père, I. 202, n. 257, n. Said to surpass his instructor, Bossuet, in pulpit eloquence, 334. Boursault, French dramatic author, I. 265. His visit to Boileau, 266. Bretons, character of this race, I. 216. Their loyalty romantic and excessive, 216. Brissot, M., and the Girondists, II. 273. 314. He falls into disrepute, 276. Their known moderation, 281. 283. Louvet accuses Robespierre, but is ill supported except by the Gironde deputies, 284. Act of accusation against them, 290. Execution of Brissot, 291. Brittany, province of, I. 214. 216. Affairs of, 243. Broglie, duke de, espouses Albertine, daughter of madame de Staël, II. 340. Bruyère, see La Bruyère. Buchanan, George, applauds the early teaching Latin to Montaigne, I. 4. Budæus, referred to as to Rabelais, I. 24. Burke, right hon. Edmund, his opinion of Oliver Goldsmith, I. 182. Burgundy, duke of, grandson of Louis XIV., his preceptors, I. 335. 359. 364. His death, 365. II. 10. Bussy-Rabutin, Roger, count de, cousin of madame de Sévigné, I. 217. Her letters to the count, 217. His letters to madame de Sévigné, 217. 219. Particulars of his career, 218, n. His licentious works, 221.

C.

Cailhava, his "Art de la Comédie," I. 154, n. Calas, Jean, inquiry into the injustice of the condemnation of, II. 80. Calonne, administration of this financier, II. 304. Calvin, John, his reproof of Rabelais, I. 31. Castro, Guillen de, the "Cid" of, I. 45. Catherine II., her correspondence with M. de Voltaire, II. 107. Caumartin, M. de, II. 10. Cavoie, M. de, I. 281. 317. Chamfort, his éloge of Molière, I. 148. Champmélé, mademoiselle de, celebrated actress, I. 307. Charles VI., the emperor, death of, II. 42. Chapelain, French poet and critic, I. 47. 48. Character of, 262. His poem of "La Pucelle d'Orléans," 262. 263, n. Other allusions to, 301. Chapelle, poet, education of, I. 99. His good-fellowship, 115. 131. 132. Allusions to, 216. Chateauneuf, the abbé de, II. 5. 6. Chateauneuf, marquis de, II. 7. Châteauroux, duchess of, II. 44. 47. Châtelet, marquis du, his castle of Cirey affords a refuge to Voltaire, II. 24. 26. Châtelet, madame du, Voltaire's intimacy with, II. 21. She learns English of Voltaire, 25. 26. Her literary taste, 25. 29. She revisits Paris with Voltaire, 42. Visits Sceaux, 48. Her death, 52. Châtillon, duchess of, I. 217. Chaulnes, duke of, governor of Britany, I. 248. Chaulnes, duchess of, I. 243. 248. 252. Chavigni, duke of, I. 82. Chevreuse, duchess de, favourite of Anne, regent of France, I. 64. 65. 66. Is banished, 67. Chimène, or Ximena, part of, critique, I. 45. 46. Choiseul, duke of, II. 81. 82. 101. "Cid," the, of Guillen de Castro, I. 45. 101. "Cinna," tragedy of, by Corneille, I. 49. Cirey, château of the marquis du Châtelet in Champagne, II. 24. 27. Voltaire's mode of life there, 28. Clairon, mademoiselle, actress, II. 44. Clement VII., pope, I. 25. Clement XI., I. 367. Colbert, minister of Louis XIV., I. 163. 166. 222. 287, n. 301. Colletet, French author, I. 43. Comedy, French: Corneille's "Mélite," I. 42. His "Illusion," 44. His "Le Menteur," 51. Racine's "Les Plaideurs," 53. See Theatre. Condé, the great prince of, I. 53. 60. Defeats the Spaniards at Rocroi, 67. Blockades Paris, 70. Is imprisoned, 70. And liberated by de Retz and the Frondeurs, 73. Joined by the Spaniards in the south of France, 77. Quits Guienne to join the forces of the duke of Nemours, 78. Perilous journey, 79. Is opposed by Turenne, 80. Contest between these great commanders near Paris, 81. The Parisians show great regard for him, 82. On occasion of a tumult and partial massacre, he incurs their hatred, 82. His admiration of Molière, 113. 124. Further allusions to, 278. 313. 327. 331. Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine de Caritat, marquis de, born in Picardy, II. 175. His scientific works, 172. et seq. His examination of the "Pensées de Pascal," 177. Intimacy with men of science, 178. Replies to Necker's book, 178. His edition of Voltaire, and a life of that author, 103. 178. Replies to De Lolme on the English Constitution, 179. Character of Condorcet, 179. What share he had in the French revolution, 180. Violent speech of against monarchy, 182. 184. His political writings, 182. 184. 187. Supports in his speeches the cause of liberty, 182. 184. 187. Esteemed for his integrity, 184. His metaphysical deductions, 185. His enlarged views regarding national education, 186. His vote went to save Louis XVI., 188. Denounced by Chabot, as an accomplice of Brissot, 190. His "Historical Sketch of the Progress of the Human Mind," 190. His views of human perfection, 191. His epistle in verse to his wife, 192. He retires to Chamont, 192. Is discovered, and imprisoned at Bourg-la-Reine, 193. Dies of cold and hunger in jail, 193. His character as given by madame Roland, 193. His wife escaped the dangers of the revolution, 194. She wrote some philosophical works, 194.; and died in 1822, 194. Mademoiselle de Condorcet married Arthur O'Connor, 194. Conti, Armand de Bourbon, prince of, I. 60. 68. Engaged in the civil war on the side of the Fronde, I. 60. 68. Holds out in Bordeaux and Guienne for several years, 83, n. Educated in the college of Clermont, 99. He patronizes Molière at Pezenas, 105. 106. Allusions to, 236. Conti, the princess of, I. 286. Conti, the prince of, entertains J. J. Rousseau, II. 159. Affords him a refuge, 162. Corbinelli, M., account of, I. 256. His wit, 237. His letters, 245. Corneille, Pierre, the father of French tragedy, I. 40. His parents, 40. His brother, Thomas Corneille, also a dramatist of celebrity, 41. His sister Marthe, mother of Fontenelle, 41. Taught at Rouen by Jesuits, 41. His first work, "Mélite," a comedy, 42. Mediocrity of his first dramas, 42. Corrects the plays of Richelieu, 43. His associates in that task, 43. He retires from Paris to Rouen, 43. His poems to madame Du Pont, 43. His "Medée" unsuccessful, 44. "Illusion," a comedy, 44. His genius fires with the study of Spanish dramas, 44. Reads the "Cid" of Guillen de Castro, 45. Corneille's drama of the "Cid," 45. 46. 101. Its plot and action, 101. Its renown, 47. Critique of the "Cid," by the Académie Française, 47. 48. Richelieu's observations thereon, 48. Corneille's tragedy of "Horace," 48. His tragedy of "Cinna," 49. "Polyeucte," 50. His comedy of "Le Menteur," 51. "Rodogune," 52. Ill success of "Don Sancho," "Theodore," and "Pertharite," 52. His "Essays on the Theatre," 54. His translation of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ," 54. Tragedy of "Œdipe," 54. Its success, 54. His genius afterwards unequal to his former fame, 54. Pension granted him by Louis XIV., 55. 60. Character of the great dramatist, 60. His fruitless attempts in later tragedies, 56. His "Agesilas and Attila," 57. His wife and sister described, 56. Is established in Paris, 56. Parallel of Racine and Corneille, 57. "Berenice," a subject treated by both poets, 58. Corneille less successful than his rival, 59. "Pulchérie," and "Suréna," his last plays, 59. Death of Corneille, aged seventy-nine, 59. Unison of his character with his works, 59. Public applause of the poet, 60. Eloge of, by Racine, 61. A great-niece of, adopted by Voltaire, 61, n. II. 78. His sons, I. 61. Allusions to, 262. Corneille, Thomas, dramatic author, I. 41. Success of his "Timocrates," 56. "Le Comte d'Essex" popular, 56. He and his brother Pierre marry the demoiselles de Lamperière, 56. Harmony of the Corneille family, 56. Some quotations from, 43, n. 55, n. 59, n. Corneille, Marthe, the mother of Fontenelle, I. 41. 56. Cotin, l'Abbé, his death hastened by critics and satirists, I. 147. Molière's attack on, 153, 154. Boileau's satire on, 263. Coulanges, Marie de, baronne de Chantal, mother of madame de Sévigné, I. 215. Coulanges, Christophe de, abbé de Livry, takes charge of his orphan niece, madame de Sévigné, I. 215. His consolations afforded her on the death of the marquis her husband, 218. His death, 251. Coulanges, M. de, cousin of madame de Sévigné, I. 232. Lawsuit of, pleaded by himself, 232. Dialogue in verse by, 232, n. Impromptu by, 235. His death, 235. Coulanges, madame de, I. 232. Celebrated for wit and beauty, 234. 339. Couvreur, mademoiselle, death and mode of sepulture of this actress, II. 23. Crébillon, dramatic poet, II. 43. 50. A rival of Voltaire, 51. 57. Cuspidius, Lucius, will of, I. 37.