Madame de Staël: Her English period

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MADAME DE STAEL:

HER ENGLISH PERIOD

A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the -Graduate School University of Southern California

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

by Roberta J. Forsberg June 1950

UMI Number: DP71534

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This dissertation, written by ..

under the g u id a ti^ J if h.F^S. Faculty Committee on Studies, and approved by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Council on Graduate Study and Research, in partial fu lfillm ent of requirements fo r the degree of D O C TO R OF P H IL O S O P H Y

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TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION..................................... CHAPTER I.

i

THE PERIOD FROM 1793 TO 1813 . .

The Emigres at Juniper Hall

..

1

Englishmen Abroad.............................. 24 CHAPTER II.

THE PERIOD FROM 1813 TO 1817

Swiss Friends in England...................... 49 Lord B y r o n .................................... 56 Sir James Mackintosh ....................... William Wilberforce

69

. . ...................... 80

Other Figures in London.....................

88

Coppet and Paris . ........................... 116 CHAPTER III.

OPINION ON BOTH SIDESOF

THECHANNEL

Madame de Stael Considers theEnglish.......... 151 De la Litterature......... .. ............. 152 Corinne................................... 164 Les Considerations................. The English Consider Madame

deStael. . . . .

170 182

CONCLUSION......................................... 209 BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................

224

INTRODUCTION

Madame de Sta§l visited I&gland in 1793 end again in 1813. The twenty years that elapsed between these two visits marked a significant change in her. In 1793 she was a rela­ tively young woman of twenty-seven who was scarcely known as a writer in England. She had published, in 1788, Lettres sur les eorits et le caractere de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in which she had been largely influenced by the sensibility character­ istic of the end of the eighteenth century. Sainte-Beuve sees evidence of this in Madame de Staelrs interest in Rousseau.^ Her chief claims to renown then, when she arrived in England for the first time, were as a refugee from the terror in France and as the wife of the Swedish ambassador to France, the Baron de Stae’l. There is evidence that she was working on De l fInfluence des passions (1796) while she was in England. When she arrived in England for the second time, in 1813, she was famous not only as a writer, but as an enemy of Napoleon. She had carried the stories of his infamies across the continent of Europe, jlmong other things she had written a well-known novel, Corinne, published in 1807, and an outstand­ ing piece of criticism in De la Litterature, published in 1800.

■** C.-A. Sainte-Beuve, "Madame de Stael,n Portraite de Femmes (Paris: Garnier Freres, 1845), p. 87.

it She was a social queen of the 1813-14 season in London, At one of her first public appearances people stood on chairs in order to get a glimpse of this famous woman. Both of these works, Corinne and Be la Litterature, deal to a great extent with English people and English literature, it is safe to assume that the first visit of Madame de Stael had something to do with the ideas of England and the English which she expounds in these works. Considerations sur la Revolution frangaise was published, posthumously, in 1818, and in this most mature of her books she pays the greatest tribute to Eng­ land. Here again what she learned during her second visit must have influenced the attitudes and ideas she proposed in this volume. As she was influenced by her contacts with the English in England and on the continent, so she in turn influenced the

Eng­

lish in their attitudes toward continental ideas# Corinne and De 1 *Allemagne undoubtedly had the greatest vogue in England of any of her works, and perhaps Lord Byron of ©11 of her English friends was most influenced by her, George Brandes has summarized her contribution: If I were asked to define in one word the service ren­ dered by Madame de.-Stab 1 to French society, to its culture and literature, and through these to Europe in general, I should express myself thus: By means of her writings, more particularly her great works on Italy and Germany, she on-

iii abled th© French, English, and German peoples to take a comparative view of their own social and literary ideas and theories.2 By tracing the evidence of friendshipr;of Madame de Stael with the English one may find support for Brandes* statement and show to some extent how the French and English took a more compare-* tive view of their social and literary ideas as a result of their contact with her. Statement of the Problem. The problem will be, first, to trace the English friendships of Madame de Stael during her two visits to England, and to indicate the most important English friends she made on the continent; second,, to summarize the atti-* tude of these English toward her and toward her work; and finally, to set forth her opinion of the English and England. A general estimate of nineteenth century critical opinion of her work will provide a conclusion. Importance of the Study. There are three basic areas in the study of Madame de Steelfs relationship to the English to be explored. The first is the biographical. Ho complete study has been made of all the major English friendships. The development of these friendships and in some cases their decline has not been fully traced* In some cases, particularly in the Byron-de Stae’l friendship, certain legends have been perpetuated. For

2 George Brandes, Emigrant Literature (vol. I, Main Currents in nineteenth Century Literature, E vols.; London: William Heinemann, 1901), p. 136.

example, H. M. Jones lias said in a recent study: '•Madame de Steel, 'that plain woman with her mouth full of ink, f whom Byron so disliked,**3

This sqme idea of Byron*s dislike is

to he found in some of the biographies. It might be pointed out that only the first part of the Byron memoirs could have given tise to such an idea. However, it is important to examine this point more closely not only because biographical errors have been made but because the Byron-de Sta§l relationship sets a pattern for her other English friendships* she

fre­

quently did not make a good first impression upon people any more than she did upon Lord Byron. However, as Byron learned to know her more intimately his attitude toward her changed. He saw her good qualities and became increasingly appreciative of her until at her death he considered her to be one of his few true friends, for she had remained loyal to th&ir friend­ ship even after he had been ostracized by English society. Many of the English people whom Madame de Stael knew changed their minds about her. Madame de Sta&L it will be shown, had the type of mind which proceeded from the particular to the general, not only in her philosophical thinking but in her thinking about the people of other nations, because she took the breath of her

3 H. M. Jones, The Theory of teerican Literature (Ithaca Cornell University Press, 1948), p. Si

being from personal contact with other individuals in society* Here was not the type of mind that philosophized abstractly and then found proof for her philosophical system in partic­ ulars; she rather made up her mind about social institutions from the people with whom she came in contact and as she ob­ served actual situations.^

Study of her life and works makes

it evident that her contacts with a rather snobbish English society in 1793 and particularly with Madame d*Arblay did in­ fluence the conclusions she drew about social groups and used as basic material in her novel Corinne* In the Considerations she frequently makes her point by specific references to people whom she met in England and to particular social groups of which she was a part* This seems to have been her method of procedure. Therefore, in her ease, as much as in the ease of any other writer, to study her English friendships in England and on the continent is to discover the source of her conclu­ sions on England. These friendships help to explain her method of writing and to give a starting point for her ideas. Perhaps some of the difficulties that Englishmen and Frenchmen experience in understanding each other can be studied in the works of Madame de

Stael. Were Englishmen interested in

4 Jules Bertaut, in opposition to Sainte-Beuve, takes the point of view that Madame de Stael made up her mind in advance. "Madame de Ste&l et jingleterre," Her cur® de France. CXjCII (1917), 285.

large assemblies, as

she calls them, rather than intimate

social conversational groups? Were women happy in their home life in England while being discounted in political and lit­ erary discussions? Were women ostracized and considered to be freaks if they cultivated their minds and wished for intellect­ ual attainment, as Oorinne found when she visited England? Whether these things were true or not they were obstacles, at least in the opinion of Madame de Sta'e’l, and she found that they hindered her and made it difficult for her to come to a complete understanding with certain Englishmen whom she met* The last area of this study is that of comparative lit­ erature, which deals with the contribution that Madame de Stael made to the literary exchange between France and England* in Be la Literature she acquainted the Frenchman with the English novel, with the English sense of humor as contrasted with the French, and most particularly with the importance of Shakespeare. The great personality that was Voltaire had, until this time, pretty much left his impression of Shakespeare on the French mind* Madame de Stael*© Be la Litterature helped to reawaken French interest in Shakespeare* There is the evidence of Thomas Garlyle for the influence of her ideas on Germany, and the im*portance of this work to the English. It is safe to say that she was responsible for ideas going to the continent about Eng­ land and for continental ideas, both French and German, coming into England.

Vii

Plan of tiie Study.

Chapter I will include the period

from 1793 to 1813, dealing first with the Emigres at Juniper Hall, and then with the English Madame de Stael met on the continent after her first visit. It is neeeswsary to extend the considerations of her English friendships beyond her act­ ual stay in England because some of these carried over into a later period, and because the Englishmen whom she met on the continent were just as influential in forming her ideas of England as those she met in England itself. Chapter II will discuss the period from 1813 to 1817, dealing separately with particular friends of Madame de Sta§l, each of whom represented for her a different phase of English life* A separate section will be devoted to each of three outstanding men, Lord Byrenp Sir James Mackintosh, and William Wilberforce, who represent the widest possible variety pf personalities. A fourth section will deal with the other less significant people whom she met. The outstanding figures in this group are her publisher, John Murray, Henry Crabb Robinson, John Cam Hobhouse, and the Berry sisters. Chapter III will deal with the opinion Madame de Steel had of English society and the English government, and the opinion the English had of her* This chapter will discuss certain outstanding critics who had the advantage of later ob­ jectivity when the partisanships surrounding the revolution and Hapoleonic era had somewhat died down. Previous Studies of Madame de Stael.

A number of biog-

raphies have been written about Madame de Stse!. The earliest, and one that came shortly after her death, namely that of her cousin, Madame Neeker de Saussure, is published with her com­ plete works. The later nineteenth century contributed several: those by Albert Sorel, Maria Norris, Abel Stevens, and the out standing definitive one by Lady Blennerhassett dealing primar­ ily with Madame de Stael’s relationship to Germany, There are three popular biographies, all recent: one by Andrew Haggard, one b.y R. M. Wilson, and one by Margaret Goldsmith* Numerous excellent studies and monographs of Madame de Stael have been published* Of outstanding importance ere two by Pierre Kohler, one in a volume, Madame de Stael et la Suisse,5 and an article, ”Mme. de Stael et Gibbon.”6 JeanMarie Carre has a study, "Madame de Stael, Henry Crabb Robin7 son, et Goethe.” There is a study by D* C. Larg, Mme. de Stael et Henry Crabb Robinson,”8 and one by Pierre de Lacretelle, ”Mme. de Stael et les Hommes.”9

Three scholars have

dealt particularly with her relation to the English: Doris

Pierre Kohler, Madame de Stael et la Suisse (Paris: Librairie Payot et Cie, 1916.) 6 Pierre Kohler, "Mme* de Stael et Gibbon,” Biblioteque Universelle et Revue Suisse, LXVI, (1912), 83-106. ^ Jean-Marie Carre, "Madame de Stael, H.C. Robinson et Goethe,” Modern Language Review, VIIT (1916), 316-320. 8 D.C. Larg, ”Mme. de Stael et Henry Crabb Robinson Fiction and Truth,” Revue de Litterature Comparee, VIII (1928) 654-671• 9 Pierre de Lscretelle, Mme. de Stael et les Hommes, (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1939.)

IX Gunnel in "Madame de Stael en Angleterre,

R.C. Whitford

in two studies, "Madame de Staelfs Literary Reputation in Eng­ land,"11 and "An Essay in Friendship,"12 and Alfred Aldridge in Madame de Stael and Hannah More on Society."13

r

#

l* Haw­

kins has dealt particularly with Madame de Stael's property holdings in the United States in "Madame de Stael and the United States." 14 of outstanding importance is Sainte-Beuve*s study of Madame de Stael in Portraits de Femmes. There are two unpublished dissertations on Madame de Stael, one by I. L. Grant dealing with the German period15 and one by M. C. Trail dealing with the Russian-Swedish period.15 These two disser­ tations were done in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. The present paper is the third and concluding one of the series.

15 Doris Gunnel, "Madame de Stael en Angleterre," Revue d 'histoire de la literature de France, XX (1931), 868-98. 1•] R. C. Whitford, "Madame de Staelrs Literary Reputation in England," University of Illinois Studies in Language and Lit­ erature, IV, No. 1 Urbana, University of Illinois, February,“1^18. 12 R* C. Whitford, "An Essay in Friendship: Madame de Stael's English Triumph," The South Atlantic Quarterly, XV (1916), 45-51. ! 13 Alfred Aldridge, "Madame de Stael and Hannah More on Society," The" Romanic Review, XXXVIII, (December, 1947), 330-39.) R* L. Hawkins, Madame de Stael and the United States, Harvard Studies in Romance Language," vol. VIII, Cambridge, Harvard 15 I. L* Grant, "Madame de stab’l: the significance of her Weimar period," (unpublished Doctor's dissertation, The university of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1940.) 15 M. C. Trail, "Madame de Stael: Her Russian-Swedish Journey," (unpublished Doctor's dissertation, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, (1947.)

' CHAPTER I

THE PERIOD FROM 1793 TO 1813

I, THE BIIGRlfe AT JUNIPER HALL

Since the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, there had been a continuous flow of French rfaigr^s to Germany and England* These refugees were not all Royalists, but often Constitutionalists and Republicans. In England, too, they formed opposing groups. The chief haunt of the Royalists was in London, while the Constitutionalists had a group near Miekleham, in surrey.1 The refugees began to arrive in September, 1792* A letter from Mrs. Phillips, to her sister, Fanny Burney^ gives information about them. At first the neighbors noticed that a small house at Westhumble had been taken by Madame de Broglie, the wife of the French general, Yictor Broglie, who was lafer guillotined. At the same time two or three families joined to take Juniper Hall. It was said to have been originally

1 A. C. Haggard, Madame de Stael (London: Hutchinson and Comp any, C 19323 ), p. 4l. 2 Frances Burney (1752*3.840) was the daughter of Br. Burney, historian of music. Both were friends of Samuel John' son* She originated the simple story of home life in such novels as Evelina and Cecilia.

a roadside alehouse called the Royal Oak and was fitted for a residence by Sir Cecil Bishop. It his death in 1779 it passed to David Jenkinson, *aa affluent lottery houskeeper. Early in February the head of the household, Madame de Btael, arrived at Juniper Hall. Here she found, among others, Louis de Narbonne, former minister of war, Mauriee de Talley­ rand, at this time envoy to England, and Mathieu de .Montmor­ ency, the ardent Catholic who aspired to make a convert of Madame de Stael. Apparently Madame de Stael had more money than her compatriots and paid the rent of the house. The neighbors were anxious to meet the new comer because she had some small fame as a writer, being known at this time both for her Lettres sur Jean*-Jacques Rousseau and the Reflexions sur la paix ext&rieure et interieure, the first part of which had been addressed to ffilliam Pitt. She was also known to be the Baronne, wife of the Swedish ambassador to France under A Louis the XVI, and daughter of Decker, former minister of finance. Pierre Kohler suggests the reason for Madame de St ael *s choosing England as her place of exile, and this story links

3 Charlotte Barrett, The Diary and Letters of Madame D fArbiay (London: Macmillan and Company, 1905), voTT III, p. 116. 4 Haggard, 0£. cit., p. 48.

3 i.

her name with that of Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

in 1770 her mother had been en­

gaged to Gibbon when he was a student, and Madame de Stae*l as a child had seen and talked with him* There is an amusing story to the effect that at that time she told Gibbon she would like to marry him in order to keep him as a companion 5 in conversation for her father* When she later came to her parents at Coppet during the terror she saw the historian again a number of times. When the French marched on Geneva, the Neckers went to Rolle, where again Gibbon saw Germaine. It was at Rolle that her son, Albert was born. On November 25, 1792, Gibbon wrote to Lord Sheffield that Madame de Stael had had a second son and that she talked of going to England, ntC test une dr8le de petite femme.™ Madame de Stael wrote to Gibbon from Rolle, November 28, 1792, informing him that she was preparing her voyage to London, as as she says "a Paris, route de Londres.^ At this time she was busily engaged in sheltering emigres. Among this number were Mathieu de Montmorency and Louis de Narbonne,wK& ^esdeped

5 G. Stenger, rrLes Salons de Mme. de Stael sous le Consulate" La Nouvelle'Revue, JX (January-February, 1903), p* 550. 6 Pierre Kohler, tfMme• de Sta'el et Gibbon, “ Biblloteque Universelle et Revue Suisse, LXVI (1912), pp. 83-87,

England. She wanted very much to join them, especially Narbonne, former minister of war, whom Paris had known for three years to be the elect of her heart. If she had had her way she would have brought him back to Switzerland, but conservative Switzerland, and ©specially the city of Berne, did not want to harbor those with advanced ideas#^ Seeing that Narbonners admission to Switzerland for the moment was impossible, Madame de Stsb'l went to England# She wrote to Gibbon on February 26, 1793 from Juniper Hall: Je n rai pas encore vu Londres, et ne connais d ,Jnglais que d^aimables voisins et Miss Burney qui s fest prise de belle passion pour moi narce que nous sommes toutes deux des blue stockings. Perhpps English society was a bit scandalized by the free man­ ners of these emigres, at any rate they did not honor her as they did later in 1813 when she arrived as the reigning social queen# At that time she was the famous author of Corinne and De 1 yAllemagne, but in 1793 she. was little more than a charm­ ing refugee. Under these circumstances it was very fortunate that Gibbon was able to introduce her to the Sheffields,

found­

ers of a hospital for the victims of the Revolution, and through them to a society not readily opened to a daughter of Necker,who as far as the conservative English were concerned had taken a

7 rbi_d«, pp* 89-92. 8 Ibid., pp. 97-98.

5 part in fomenting the French Revolution. Madame de Stael de­ scribes her experiences: in England to the historian in a let­ ter with no date or place* Tous me demanderez comment je me tire d faffaire ©u milieu de tout cela - Assez bien - Je vis a la campagne des voisins, s*il faut vous le dire, en amour pour mol* La plus respectable famille d ,Angleterre: W. et Mme Lock, Mile Burney, M* et Mm© Ben, indiens, immensely rich* A Londres, ou jfai pass-11* p* 295* 11

IM£-» 11> p* 305*

t

60 Byron*s own lines begin: Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? In another place in The Bride of Abydos, Canto I stanza 6, Byron has paid a more conscious tribute to Msdame de stael* He wrote: For an eloquent passage in the latest work of the first female writer of this, perhaps of any age, on the analogy (and the immediate comparison excited by that analogy) between painting and music, see vol. Ill chapter 10 of*De l'Jlllemagne.* The. passage isi as follows: . Sans cesse nous comparons la peinture a la musique, et la musique a la peinture, parce que les emotions que nous eprouvons nous revelent des analogies ou 1 Observation froide ne verroit que des difference. . . 12 By this time Byron had come to appreciate the intellectual attainment of Madame de Stael, as his tribute to her in his poem is undoubted proof. She wrote Byron a note of appreciation: Je ne saurais vous exprimer, my lord, a quel point je me trouve honor^e d ^ t r e dans une note de votre poeme, et de quel poemeI il me semble que pour la premiere fois je me crois certaine d fun nom d ’avenir et que vous avez dis­ pose pour moi de cet empire de reputation qui vous serez tous les jours plus soumis. Je voudrais vous parler de ce poeme que tout le monde admire, mais j ’avouerai que je suis trop suspects en le louant,et je ne cache pas qufune louage de vous m Ta fait dpreuver un sentiment de fiertg" et de reconaissance qui me rendrait incapable de vous juger; mais heureusement vous &tes au dessus de jugement. Donnez moi quelquefois le plaisir de vous voir; il-y-a un proverbe francais qui dit qurun bonheur ne va jamais sans d*autre. De Stael.13

12 Ibia,, II, p. 354. .

Ibid., II, pp. 355.

Byron recorded the fact that he had a nice note from Madame de Stael thanking him for his mention of her and her last works in his notes. She was much pleased with that. Byron said, I spoke as I thought. Her works are my delight, and so is she herself, for - half an hour. I don't like her poli­ tics - at least, her having changed them; had she been qualis ab incepto, it were nothing. But she is a woman by nerself, and has done more than all the rest of them to­ gether, intellectually; - she ought to have been a man* She flatters me very prettily in her notes - but I know it. The reason adulation is not displeasing is, that, though. un­ true, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or another, to induce people to lie, to make us their friend - that is their concern • • • ^ While Byron obviously had reservations in regard to Madame de Sta'e'l, he had progressed in his enthusiasm for her far beyond his first impression* The de Sta&’l magic was at wc?rk: and Byron wqs gradually being enchanted* On October 2, 1813, Byron saw her at a performance of Falsteff at Covent Garden and on that day dined with Mackintosh and withers* Stale - ss John Bull may be pleased to denominate Gorinne**’1-5

At a party at Lord Holland fs on November 17, he

was willing to defend De 1 "Allemagne publicly. In an argument over the work he said, H* laughed, as he does at all rBe l tAllemagne,f - in which I think he goes a little too far* B*, I hear, con­ demns it too* But there are fine passages; - and after all, what is a work - any snd every work - but a desert with

14 Ibid., II, pp. 354-55. 15 Ibid., II, p. 273.

(

62 fountains, and perhaps, a grove or two, every day’s journey? To be sure, in Madame, what we often mistake and ’pant for1 as the ’cooling stream,’ turns out to be the M i ra ge ’ (critic^, verbiage); but we do, at least, get to something like the temple of love Ammon, and then the waste we have passed is only to be re­ membered to gladden the contrast*16 On December 6, 1813, Byron again went to Lord Hol­ land . ’s where there was a numerous party. There he was asked to dine on Wednesday, and meet de Stael, In his opinion it was out of mischief to see the first interview after the note in The Bride of Abydos, with which Corinne professed herself to be so much taken. He wrote, n I don’t much like it; - she always talks of myself or fierself, and I am not (except in soliliquy as now) much enamoured of either subject - especially one’s Works, What the devil shall I say about fDe 1 ’Allemagne?’ I like it prodigiously; but unless I can twist my admi­ ration into some fantastical expression, she won’t be­ lieve me, and I know, by experience, Ishall .be over­ whelmed with fine things about rhyme, etc., etc* The lover, Mr. xx, Rocca, was there to-night, and Cxx-*-7 said ’it was the only proof he had seen of her good taste. ’ Monsieur 1 ’Amant is remarkably handsome; but I don’t think more so than her book, G. - looks well,- . . . . he abused Corinne’s book, v.;.* ois which I regret; because, firstly, he understands German, and is consequently a fair judge; and, secondly, he is first rate and, consequently, the best of judges; I rev­ erence and admire him; but I won’t give up my opinion - why should I? I read her again and again, and there can be no affectation in this. I cannot be mistaken (except in taste) in a book I read and lay down and take up again; and no book can.be totally bad when I find one, even one reader, who can say as much sincerely.18

16 Ibia,m II, p. 326. 17 This was probably John Philpot Curran, a noted Irish orator and lawyer. He defended the leaders of the Irish Insurection of 1798, 18 Prothero, up. cit., II, pp. 363-64.

63 On December 7, Byron again had what he called "a very pretty billet” from Madame de Sta'e'l. He believed she had prob­ ably written twenty that morning to different people each with an equally flattering tone* He continued "that's very well for her and those who believe all she wishes them or they wish to 19 believe." He again referred to the note in The Bride of Abydos. He accounted for her being so flattered by this note in a number of ways* In the first place, he said, ell women like all or any praise; in the second place, it was unexpected because he had never courted her; thirdly, those who have been all their lives regularly praised by regular critics, like a little variety, and are glad when anyone goes out of his way to say a civil thing; and fourthly, "she is a 'very goodnatured creature,' which is the best reason, after all, and, 20 perhaps the only one."^w

Here Byron has entered a new phase

in his relationship with Madame de Steel. The quotation is an indication not only of intellectual admiration but of a very personal feeling for its object.

And here it was alto­

gether on the friendship basis; there

was not the slightest

indication of any love affair.

19 20

» II> PP« 369-70. 1

Ibid., II, p. 370.

On Firday, December 10, 1813, at Lord Holland *s was gathered a company of the famous and noble., and there JByron was Introduced to the Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford, This was

an unexpected event. Is usual, Madame de Stael was

there at

the other endof the table, and Byron indicated she

was not as talkative as she had been. They were still spar­ ring verbally, but by this time they were good friends* He wrote: We are now very good friends; though she asked Lady Melbourne whether I had really any bonhomie, She might as well have asked that question before she told 0* L* TC *est un demon!1 True enough, but rather premature, for she could not have found it out, and so - wants me to - dine there next Sunday, However, on Sunday Byron sent the excuse that he did not feel sociable enough for dinner that day. There was to be too much

ofsociety present, and Byron was in a mood to

cape all

of it,22

es­

Harly in January Byron had a conversation with "Monk* Lewis23

in which the question of Clarissa Harlow, one of

Madame de Stael*s favorites was taken up, Lewis had Just re­ turned from Oatlands where he had been squabbling with her rN

21 Ibid., II, p. 372. 22 Ibid., II, p. 374. Mathew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818) was the author of the gothic novel, The Monk,

65 about himself, Clarissa Harlow, Mackintosh, and Byron, Byron said his homage had never been paid inthat

quarter

or they would have agreed still worse I I don’t talk - I canTt flatter, and won’t listen, ex­ cept to a pretty or foolish woman* She bored Lewis with praises of himself ’till he sickened - found out that Clarissa was perfection, and Mackintosh the first man in England, There I agree, at least one of the first but Lewis did not. As to Clarrisa, I leave it to those who can read it to judge and to dispute. I could not do the one, and am, consequently, not qualified for the other• She told Lewis wisely, he being my friend, that I was affected, in the first place, and that, in the next place, I committed the heinous offense of sitting at dinner with my eyes shut, or half shut* . . , I won­ der if I really havethis trick. I must cure myself of it if true. One insensibly acquires awkward habits, which should be broken in time. If this is one, I wish I had been told of it before, It would not so much sig­ nify if one was always to be checkmated by a plain woman but one may as well see some of ones neighbors, as well as the plate upon the table. ^ Byron goes on to say that he would likeabove

all things to

have heard the conversation between Madame de Steel and Lewis, Both obstinate, both clever, odd, garrulous, and shrill. In fact, one could have heard nothing else. But they fell out, alasj - and now they will never quarrel again. Could not one reconcile them for the ’nonce?’ poor Corinne - she will find that some of her fine sayings won’t suit our fine ladies and gentlemen. By February 18, 1814 he had had too much of Madame de Stael»s social manners and indicated that he had received

34 25

Prothero, op. cit., II, p. 380. Loc* cit.

more notes from her which he had not answered and would not# "I admire her abilities, but really her society is overwhelming - an avalanche that buries one in glitter26 ing nonsense - all show and sophistry* on Sunday, March 6, Byron was a member of a social group numbering famous names in literature, Madame de Stafe*!, Mackintosh, and Rich­ ard Sheridan, the playwright, among others* Madame de Stael had indicated by this time that she was going to write a book about England* Byron said he believed she would do it* "The party went off very well, and the fish was much to my gusto* But we got up too soon after the women; and Mrs* CJorinn© always lingers so long after her dinner that we wish her in p the drawing room*^7 But in spite of all Byronfs waverings about certain social graces of Madame de Stael, he never hesitated in his praise of her work* He wrote to the publisher Murray: "L do not love Madame de Stael, but depend upon it* she beats all your natives hollow as an authoress, in my ©pinion; no and I would not say this if I could help it*"*0 It is not

26 Ibid.,11, p. 384. 27 Ibid., II, p. 391. 28 Ibid., Ill, p. 11.

clear whether Byron is referring here to other English writers or other women writers in England, mm

Byron described in his humorous fashion another

literary dinner party at which Sheridan was prominent: Sheridan was yesterday, at first, too sober to remember your invitation, but in the dregs of the third bottle he fished up his memory. The Stael out talked Whitbread,29 was ironed by Sheridan, con­ founded Sir HumphreyQDavy], and utterly perplexed your slave. The rest (great names in the red book, never nevertheless) were mere segments of the circle.30 This was as far as the friendship went in England. At this time Madame de Stael returned to the continent and Byron was not to record another meeting with her un­ til July 29, 1816 near Geneva. He was in a far different position then than when he knew her in London during the 1813-14 social season, when they were both sought as out­ standing writers to grace the luncheon and dinner parties. The next year in 1815, Byron married the heiress, Ann Isobelle Milbgnke. This marriage lasted approximately a year. He was separated in 1816, and the attendant circumstances

Samuel Whitbread was a social reformer who advo­ cated a minimum wage and a reform of the poor law coupled with free education. 30

Prothero, op. cit., II, p. 392.

68 »

"brought down the criticism of society upon his head. He left England at that time and never returned. He regarded the criticisms of society as distinctly hypocritical and found in Madame de Stael one of his few friends in the later period.

Ill*

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH

Sir James Mackintosh ranks next in importance to Lord Byron among the English friends of Madame de Stae’l, He made his mark as a jurist but like other well known gentlemen of his time, he frequented the company of literary people. He was of particular service to the French writer because he served her, in a fashion, as an interpreter of English society* She insisted upon his being with her a great deal of the time and would hardly dine without his presence* Madame de Stael knew of Mackintosh long before she met him* In February 1803, Monsieur Peltier, an emi~ grant royalist, was tried in England for a libel on the First Council of France. She was very interested in this trial and translated Mackintosh’s address on that occa­ sion into French.^* On June 11, 1808, Mackintosh noted the reading of Corinne. He said he had not yet received the original but could no longer refrain from reading even a translation* He summed it up ss a tour of Italy put together with a novel.

2* R. J. Mackintosh, editor, Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honorable Sir James Mackintosh (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1853), vol. I, p. 183.

7Q The tour is full of pictures and feeling, and of observations on national character, so refined, that scarcely anyone else could have- ;made them, and not very many will comprehend or feel tftem. that an admirable French character is D^ErfeuilJ so free from exaggeration, that the French critics say the author, notwithstanding hbrrprejudices, has made him better than her favorite Oswald. Nothing could more strongly prove the fidelity of her picture, and the lowness of their moral standards. She paints incona, snd, above all, Home, in the live­ liest colours. She alone seems to feel that she inhabited the eternal city. It must be owned that there is some repetition, or at least monotony, in her reflections on the monuments of antiquity. The sentiment inspired by one is so like that produced by another, that she ought to have contented herself with fewer strokes, and to have given specimens rather than an enumeration. The attempts to vary them must display more ingenuity than genius, it leads to a littleness of manner destructive of gravity and tenderness.2 In the character of Corinne, Madame de Stael draws an imaginary self - what she is, what she had the power of being, and what she can easily imagine she might have become. Purity, which her sentiments and principles teach her to love; talents and accomplishments, which her en­ ergetic genius might easily have acquired; uncommon scenes and incidents fitted for her extraordinary mind; and even beauty, which her fancy contemplates so con­ stantly, that she can scarcely suppose it to be foreign to herself, and which, in the enthusiasm of invention, she bestows on this adored as well as improved self these seem to be the material out of which she has formed Corinne, and the mode in which she has reeoneiled it to her knowledge of her own character.3 This is a good summary of the way Madame de Sta'^1 was able to project the inner conflicts of her personality into her writ­ ings. Mackintosh saw that her own life or at least her own

2 Ibid., I, p. 405. 3 Ibia., I, p* 406»

71 emotions were very close to her work and he, as other critics, felt she based her work almost directly upon personal exper­ ience* In his entry of June 13, 1808, Mackintosh was still reading Corinne* This time he commented on the second and third volumes* I swallow tCorinnet slowly that I might taste every drop* I prolong my enjoyment, and really dread the termination* Other travelers had told us of the ab­ sence of public amusements at Borne, and of the want of conversation among an indolent nobility; but, before Madame de Stael, no one had considered this as the pro­ found tranquility and death-like silence which the feel­ ings require in a place, where we go to meditate on the great events of which it was once the scene, in a magni­ ficent museum of the monuments of ancient times. How she enobles the most common sceneI - a sermon on the quarter-deck of a ship of war! She admires the English, among whom she could not endure to live; and sighs for the society of Paris, which she despises!4 Here Mackintosh was referring to the first sojourn in England, and apparently felt that the comments on the English must have been based on her experiences during that visit* By June 15 he had read the fourth and fifth volumes*

Loc* cit.

72 Farewell CorinneX powerful and extraordinary book; full of faults so obvious, as not to be worth the enumerating; but of which a single sentence has ex­ cited more feeling, and exercised more reason than the most faultless models of elegence.5 Mackintosh felt that it was lost labor to write at length about the draw**becks in the novel, but he nevertheless went on to give a few* The first of these was that in idea and sentiment, the book was a slight vehicle. Madame de Stael used the telling of a whole incident to serve as a pretext for giving a philosophical reflection or an impassioned word. Yet even in these places the power of her writing was shown in what she might have done if she had taken a little more time with the thought. She would have been able to in­ duce greater interest in the reader, if she had not reflected and had too uniform an ardor of feeling. The understanding of the reader became tired and the heart could no longer feel. Mackintosh himself enjoyed philosophies of passion and char­ acter, so that he found the philosophy his greatest interest in the novel. But here, he believed that while her observa­ tions on these things were true in some particular instances, her generalizations were not. She was in constant danger of over-generalizing and of being wrong in her generalization.

5 IW4»> I>

406-407

"It may be safe to assert, that a subtle ramification of feeling is natural; but it is always unsafe to deny that an equally subtle ramification of the same feeling, in an 6 opposite direction may not be equally natural*" There are, Mackintosh went on to say, truth and ex­ actness in Madame de Stael's descriptions* Her pictures of stagnation, mediocrity, and dullness, of torpor, of mental superiority which is dreaded and hated without even being understood, and of intellect gradually overcome by an at­ mosphere of stupidity were very true* The evaluation of England was not just, but she made up for this unjustness by the characterization of Oswald and of Corinne during: their second journeys* in the same way the last journey to Italy reduced the over-exaggerated praise which Madame de Stael bestowed in her first enthusiasm on the Italians*^ Mackintosh saw an example of the nineteenth century tendency toward religious sentiment in Corinne* It is inter­ esting that Sainte-Beuve saw this same gradual groweth of religious sentiment in the works of Madame de Stsb*l. Mac­ kintosh said Madame de Stae*l might not, perhaps, ever be

m 6 Ibid., I, p. 407. 7 Ibid.. I,

pp.407-408,

able to accept the dogman of a particular sect. She seemed more prepared from time to time to adopt the feelings of all sects. Twenty years before 1807 the state of opinion over the continent seemed to indicate an almost total de­ struction of religion. Ten years later political events seemed to show that the ;progress toward destruction had reached an advanced stage, but at the time of the appear­ ance of lOorinne a reaction had set in everywhere. There was a mystical philosophy prevailing in Germany, and a poetical religion was being adopted by the men of genius in France. Madame de Stael herself partook: in some measure of these attitudes. She found religious feeling in the nature of man if she could not so fully see it in the nature of things, Mackintosh wrote. However, in England, he saw no traces of these tendencies to be discovered among the j£en of letters. The explanation was that they never went so near to the opposite extreme, and perhaps, also, they had not suffered the same misfortunes. However, if there was not this definite religious feeling among the men of letters, he did see a greet diffusion of religious spirit among the people, and among men of status in society and of considerable wealth.

p

8 Ibid., I, p. 408-409

75 From July 8 through 17, 1810 the entries indicate that Mackintosh was reading more de Stael material, the preface to the Lettres et P^nsees de Marechal Prince de Ligne. Mackintosh indicated this gentleman deserved all the praise bestowed on him by Efadame de Steel, that he rated very high in the little world of wits and courtiers, that he was brave and kind; but Mackintosh wondered that Madame de Sta el with her genius and philosophy should ad9 mire mere wit:: and politeness. In 1813 Madame de Stael met Mackintosh whom Byron called, nso mighty and so gentle tool* The editor of his memoirs writing, in 1853, about this friendship with Mad­ ame de Stsel said that his society was appreciated: by one of a different sex snd nation; he was the very person fitted to be a connecting link between the system of social intercourse as they exist in France and England* The vigour, the variety, and the freedom of his conversation, was sure to restore to her mind the spring and elasticity of which it was sometimes de­ prived by the chilling influence of the torpid reserve that pervades our moral etmosphere.lO The brilliant French woman readily saw that the power of her mind was adequately felt by Mackintosh and that he did not

9 m a . , ii? p. 33 10 Ibid.,

II, p. 274.

76 hesitate to say so with characteristic frankness, while she in turn openly proclaimed his intellectual superiority. She counted on his conversational powers wherever she went and had almost convinced herself that without his presence at English social affairs she could not completely enjoy that society. Je ne puis trSp vous dire a quel point J r ai besoin de vous partout, et plus encore dans eette belle isle, o& Je sens so fort le manque des souvenirs. Pour vous il me semble que, si Je vous retrouvois, tant J fai la fiertd' de penser que nos;p,ens,aes et nos sentiments sont d*accord.ll On September 4/ 1813, Mackintosh wrote a letter to his three daughters in India* He told them he had Just re­ turned from a vacation trip to Cheltenham while his election was going on in Scotland. When he arrived the whole fashion­ able and literary world was occupied with Madame de Stae’l, whom the girls knew to be the author of Corinne and the most famous woman of that or perhaps any time. He then went on to tell how she had been persecuted by Napoleon who had no respect for her or her freedom of ideas, how she left Switzerland and went through Vienna, Moscow, Petersberg, and Stockholm to England. She came to England full of enthusiasm

Ibid.,

II, p. 274

for the new alliance against France of which Bernadotte was the hope, and she was wonderfully well received in England by the prinee and the ministers with whom she agreed in her continental politics more than with the Whigs, although with the general principles of the Whigs she would 13 naturally have been in more accord* This last statement of Mackintosh undoubtedly helps to explain why Madame de Stael seemed to be serving both English parties, while in reality she was being consistent in her own philosophy and found her sentiments divided

between two opposing groups

in England. However, she was criticised for this seeming time-serving by some of the English. Mackintosh then went on to explain the great esteem in which Madame de Sta£l held him. She treats me as a person whom she most delights to honor; I am generally ordered with her to dinner, as one orders beans and bacon; I have, in consequence, dined with her at the houses of all the Cabinet Minis­ ters. She is one of the few persons who surpass ex­ pectations; she has every sort of talent, and would be universally popular, if, in society, she were to eon-

Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte was a French Gen­ eral from 1794-1809. He was elected crown prinee of Sweden in 1810 and commanded the ”army of the North” against Na­ poleon in 1813. He was king of Sweden snd Norway from 1818 to 1844. Madame de Stael wished to see him King of France. Mackintosh, op. Pit., II, p. 269*

78, fine herself to her inferior talents - pleasantry, anecdotes, and literature, - which are so much more - * suited to conversation than her eloquence and genius. Mackintosh went on to tell his daughters that Madame de Stall’s hook, On Germany, suppressed three years ago by Bonaparte at Paris was to appear in about four weeks. He would send it at once by the China ship. He described Mad­ ame de Stael’s debate with Richard Wellesley over the Swedish treaty. °

on this occasion Mackintosh

felt that

Wellesley had the advantage of Madame de Stael by the po­ liteness, vivacity, and grace with which he parried her eloquent declamations and unseasonable discussions. Al­ ready the anecdotes about Madame de Stael were circulat­ ing in London. Mackintosh would send them on to his daugh16 ters at another time. As part of the social round of the London season, Mackintosh was spending some part of every week at Madame de StaelTs place at Richmond.

These Richmond excursions

were taking place during the month of September.

By October

the social group had moved the scene of its activities to

14 rbia., II, p. 269>

15 Lord Mornington Wellesley was made Governor of India in 1798 by Pitt. 16 Mackintosh, op. oit.» II, p. 270*

to Bowood where Madame de Sta%#l was again to be found* At this time Mackintosh wrote that the extraordinary political news was that Bonaparte had consented to the bases of peace laid down by the allies. Madame de Stael gave him her fa­ mous description of the Napoleonic war: it was a contest between a man who was the enemy of liberty and a system which was equally its enemy*^7 In the case of Sir James Mackintosh the London visit of Madame de Stael was not the extent of the friendship. He, too went to the continent and visited her at Coppet. The story of their later meeting will be given in another chapter.

17

PP* 270-72

IY.

WILLIAM WILBERFORCE

On March 25, 1814, Madame de Stael first saw William Wilberforce, one of the most unusual Englishmen of his time* She attended a meeting: in the Free Mason Hall called for the purpose of raising funds gor the relelf of distressed Ger1 mans* One of the leading lights was MTi. Wilberforce, fa** mo us as a reforming M.P. from Yorkshire who had devoted him** self to the cause of abolition, first the abolition of the slave trade and then slavery* His interest in slavery had undoubtedly attracted Madame de Stael for she herself had put considerable time into this project. Of William Wilberforce at this meeting for German re­ lief, Madame de Stael said, ffL ,homme le plus airne, et le plus consider^ de toute 1 ’ingleterre, M. Wilberforce, put & peine se faire entendre, tant les applaudissements 2 couvraient sa voix." But however favorable this first im­ pression, he obviously did not feel the same way about her.

^ R* I* Wilberforce and 3* Wilberforce, The Life of William Wilberforce (London: John Murray, 1838), voXT IY, p. 157. 2 Ibidy, IY, p. 158

81 He was a very prominent layman in the Clapham Sect, a nickname for the Evangelicals, and this religious in­ terest he took very seriously. With the Evangelical tenants as the basis of his standard of judgment, Wilber­ force was not too sure of Madame de Stael and whether it was quite right to l?now such a woman too intimately. How­ ever, with all his reservations he did not reckon with her persuasive powers. Entries in his memoirs indicate that he at last, as many another, succumbed to the per­ sonality of the visitor from France. On February 8, 1814, Wilberforce described another meeting: When attending a meeting of the African Institution, Sir S. Romilly3 told me aloud that Madame de Stael as­ sured him she wished more to be acquainted with me than with any other person. The Duke of Gloucester made me by her express desire fix a day for meeting her at din­ ner, ehez lui Saturday sennight. This is more vanity . . . oh how full we are of this degrading passion* . . Madame de Stab‘1 out of sincere admiration for Wilberforcefs anti-slavery activities, perhaps, knew the way to win his

3 sir Samuel Romilly was a reformer, along with Jeremy Bentham and Sir James Mackintosh, who worked to change the criminal law. ^ Wilberforce, op. cit., IY, p. 159.

confidence. He wrote that Madame de Stael had told

the

Duke of Gloucester that he, Wilberforce, did not know how really religious she was. Her claim to religion de­ termined Wilberforce to read Madame de Stael fs De l»Allemagne, but he expressly stated that he was doing this only because he did not want to excite her prejudices. It was also going to fortify Wilberforce1s own determination. By reading De l T&llemagne he would be able to distinguish between her religion and the true religion. He could then 5 use this material in conversing with others. He did not intend to be convinced by Madame de Stael but to convince himself that he was right* But, alas, for Wilberforce, on February 19, 1814, he went to dinner at the Duke of Gloucester’s to meet Madame de Stael. As soon as she had an opportunity to talk to him, he was lost. He may not have seen the end, but undoubtedly those present did. Dined Duke of Gloucester’s to meet Madame de Stael at her desire - Madame, her son and daughter, Duke, two aides-du*camp, , . . Lord Hrskine,6 the poet Rogers,

5 rbia., xv, p. 160, 6 Lord Erskine was a famous Liberal lawyer.

and others, Madame de Stael quite like her hook, though less hopeful - complimenting me highly on Aboli­ tion * . . . but I must not spend time in writing this* She asked me, and I could not well refuse, to dine with her on Friday to meet Lord Harrowby? and Mackintosh, and poet Rogers on Tuesday sennight* This would lead to an endless round of dinners, but it neither suits my mind or body; when I dine late, the previous hours are worth little, and the rest of the evening goes to society* I greatly doubt about the doing any good by dinings-out* By going out now and then in the evening, When I have dined early, and am fresher and brisker, I should be better fitted to adorn religion, and see the occasions of doing good: now I am often sleepy* * . ♦ The next entry indicated that Wilbeforce could not withstand the de Stael charm* He bemoaned the fact that twenty years of Christian life were going by the boards* Oh how sad, that after trying to lead a Christian life for twenty eight years, I should be at all staggard by wordly company - Madame de Stael, etc. I will not however, please God, enter and be drawn into that magic circle into which they would tempt me* See my Diary for a new plan*9 By February 22, Wilberforce was exchanging notes with Madame de Stse! himself:

**Wrote to Madamtde Stael with my books,

for which she almost asked*"*^

On February 23 he wrote again:

"Breakfast, Hr* Barnett about the poor. Letters. Wrote to Mad­ ame de Stael and poet Rogers, to excuse myself from dining with them. It does not seem the line in which I can now glorify

? Lord Harrowby, statesman and diplomat, was a close friend of Pitt under whom he served a short term as foreign secretary in 1804. 8 Wilberforce, op* cit., IY, p* 161* 9 Ibid., IV, p. 162. Loe. cit.

84 God.**^*

Wilberforce. was still making futile attempts

to stick by his convictions.

On February 25 he wrote:

Was to go to Madame de Staelf s to meet Harrowby and Mackintosh. Ifd refused to dine, meaning to go in the evening, but on reflection no good to be done, and it would lead to precedents; so though the carriage was ordered I staid home - considered it with prayer. Will call tomorrow. . ♦ I am clear it is right for me to withdraw from the gay and irreligious, though bril­ liant society of Madame de Stael and others. . . . Let me cultivate the spiritual mind, and if any be really in earnest I may then approximate and show then that I can feel; and oh may G-od touch their hearts also. 13 Apparently Wilberforce had not only saved his own soul, as he thought at this moment, by withdrawing from society, but he seemed to have had ambitions to convert the group to his way of thinking. But Madame de Stael was persistent.

At about this

time she remarked to Sir James Mackintosh that Wilberforce was the best conversationalist she had met in England. She had understood that he was very religious, but she now 14 found that he was witty as well. Her judgment in this regard must have been based upon his conversational powers

11 I M 3 ,t IV, p. 163. 12 Loc.cit. 13 Ibid., IV, p. 166. 14 Ibid., IV, p. 167.

85 for it is hard to see the evidence of any conscious wit in his: memoirs* The entry for March 4 indicated that the social group of which Madame de Stael was a part may even have been hav­ ing a lij-jrle fun at Wilberforce *s expense, althoughnther® is no evidence that Madame de Stael herself was helping to make him the object of ridicule* Much unpleasant doubting what I ought to do about Madame de Stael* Lady S* tells me that there has been much discussion whether I should go, and wagers laid; but Madame de Stael said she was sure I should come, be­ cause I had said I would* What care this shows we should take, because we shall be more closely watched, more strictly judged! I must do away the affect of this in her mind, that she may not think I conceive I may speak conventional falsehoods, the very doctrine and crime of the world, which so resents what it ealls lies and the imputation of them* ^5 Now Wilberforce was in a position of having to show how sincere his convictions were by meeting Madame de Stael rather than by staying away from her as he had formerly de­ termined to do.

By March 10 his former resolutions had all

been swept away*

"T have consented to dine with Madame de

Stael; I could not well do otherwise* • • ♦ Let me try to speak plainly though tenderly to her*t*’ ^6

15 I M S ., IV, p. 164. Loo. cit.

By the time he had arrived at the place where he could put the word "tenderly™ ±.n his memoirs, he was a lost man. On March 18 he again dined with Madame her son,

de Stael,

and daughter" and a goodly company, Sir James

Mackintosh being one of them. She was wise enough to suit the subject of the eonvergation to the liking of her chief guest. He wrote the following day: She asked me to name the party. A cheerful, pleas­ ant,. dinner. - She talking of the final cause of ereay tion - not utility but beauty - did not like ;Faley- ±T wrote about Rousseau at fifteen, and thought differently at fifty. . . . The whole scene was intoxicating to me.18 Madame de Stae*l then returned to the continent but she continued to be associated with Wilberforce in the anti-slav­ ery work. The story of their joint venture in that project will be taken up later. Wilberforce was not the kind of man who usually in­ terested Madame de Staeft. But she rated him very highly among the English whom she knew. She certainly saw in Wilberforce a different side of English life from the side she saw in Byron

17 paXey defended theological utilitarianism, the theory that the existence of God is proved by the design in nature, and that the happiness of the individual is the motive of his conduct. 18

Wilberforce, op. cit♦, IY, p. 165.

J 87 .

and Mackintosh* The thing which attracted her to Wilber* force was undoubtedly his anti-slavery work, but even in this work William-Hazlitt has not rated Ifilberforce as highly as did Madame de Sta&l. He said in his essay, nThe Spirit of the Age"2 His patriotism may be accused of being serve!; his humanity ostentatious; his lpyalty conditional; his religion a mixture of fashion and fanaticism* TOut up­ on such half-faced fellowship!f Mr* Wilberforce has the pride of being familiar with the great; the vanity of being popular; the conceit of an approving conscience. He is coy in his approaches to power: his public spirit is: in such a manner, under the rose* He thus reaps the credit of independence, without the obloquy; and secures the advantages of civility, without incurring any obligations* He has two strings to his bow: - he by no means neglects his worldly interests, while he expects a bright reversion in the skies* Mr. Wilber­ force is far from being a hypocrite: but he is, we think, as fine a specimen of moral equlvocation as can be conceived* A hypocfite is one who is the very re­ verse of, or who despises the character he pretends to be: Mr. Wilberforce would be all that he pretends to be, and he is it in fact as far as words, plausible theories, good inclinations, and easy services go, but not in heart and soul, or so as to give up the appear­ ances of any one of his pretentions to preserve the reality of any other. * . * Something of this fluctu­ ating, time-serving principle was visible even in the great question of the Abolition of the Slave Trade* He was, at one time, half inclined to surrender it into Mr. Pittfs dilatory hands, and seemed to think the gloss of novelty was gone from it, and the gaudfr coloring of popularity sunk into the sable ground from which it rose! It was, however, persisted in and carried to a triumphant conclusion.^

^ William Hazlitt, Lectures on English Poets and the Spirit of the Age (London: J. M. Dent anor Sons, 1910), pp. 311-315.

V*

OTHER FIGURES IN LONDON

There were many other figures of the social and literary great gathered around Madame de Steel in London in 1813-14* During her second visit to England, she renewed an acquaintance she had made on the continent with Henry Crabh Robinson* His first meeting with her in London seems to have taken place on June 24, 1813* It will be noted in connection with the criticism previously given of Robinson and his at­ tempt to play Boswell to the leading literary figures of his day, that he took the initiative and called upon Madame do Steel; she did not first invite him to her home* He said: She received me very civilly, and I promise myself much pleasure from her society during the years she intends remaining in England• I intimated to her that I was become a man of business, and she will be satis­ fied with my attending her evening parties after nine o *clock.l Robinsonrs description of Madame de Staelfs son is inter­ est ing# He described Auguste as a genteel man who might al­ most be said to be handsome, but he found something of a sleepy air in his eye, and in the tone of his conversation a whisper of which might have been eourtly but rather gave

n

1 Sadler, op. cit., I, p. 267*

89 an impression of apathy. He did not get too good a look at the daughter but hi.s general impression was that she was quite plain.2

On July 11, 1813, Robinson called again on

Madame de Stael at 3 George Street, Hanover Square.

John

Murray, the publisher, was also there and Robinson served in a legal capacity to help draw up the contracts for De rz 1 yAllemagne. On October 18 he dined at the home of Madame de Stael in a party of political liberals. Among those present were the publisher Murray, John P. Curran,- the Irish lawyer, and William Godwin, the famous liberal and father-in-law of Shel­ ley. Madame de Stael remarked that Bonaparte said women ought not to write books. She also said that every political topic could be exhausted in one- hour’s speech. Robinson commented on this: "But when pressed, it was evident that by exhausting a subject she understood uttering all the possible generali4 ties and commonplaces it i n v o l v e s . C u r r a n started.a dis­ cussion about the after-life and the other world. Madame de Stael retorted that after she had seen those she loved (and Robinson remarked that this was accompanied by a sentimental sigh) she said she should enquire for Adam and Eve, and ask

2 Sadler, loc. cit. r*

Loc. cit. 4 Ibia., I, p. 269.

90

how they were born. Godwin took it upon himself to defend John Milton and Oliver Cromwell. In his opinion Cromwell, though a usurper, was not a tyrant and was not cruel. He made this remark by way of opposing Madame de Stael, who Robinson thought was not very well pleased with Godwin. She later said to Lady Mackintosh, "I am glad I have seen this man, - I was curious to see how naturally Jacobins become the advocates of tyrants; so

it is

In November Robinsonwasapparently

in France now."

5

considering him­

self still in the role of tutor. He called upon Madame de Stael to make certain remarks about her book. She in turn seemed to receive them with less than her usual self as­ surance. "But she manifested no readiness to correct some palpable..omissions and the mistakes I began pointing out to her."6

This discussion sounds like those Madame de Stael

and Robinson were having ten years earlier. He pointed out to her that she had mistaken the plot in Goethefs Tfriumph Per Empfindsamkeit. She retorted fPerhaps I though it better as I stated i t . s h e told him that she intended to write a book on the

5 Ibid., I,

p. 270.

6 Ibid., I,

p. 271.

7 Loc. cit.

91 French Revolution and the state of mind in England in which all the calamities the French had experienced came from not following the English constitution* Robinson went on to say that Madame de Stael was • ... *a bigoted admirer of our government, which she con­ siders to be perfect.t8 With the end of the English visit Robinsonrs attention to Madame de Stael did not end. He, too, was one of those who accepted her hospitality^at her home in Switzerland. Immediately after the departure of Madame de Sta*el a legend arose in regard to De^ l^Allemagne.

Henry crabb

Robinson had helped Samuel Coleridge with his study of G-erman Literature and would soon be of use to Thomas Car­ lyle; the group in London assumed then that he must have helped the famous Frenchwoman, Madame de Stael, with her 9 book. Crabb wrote an article in the Morning Chronicle for February 17, 1814, on his criticisms of Be 1 tiU.lemagne signed "An English Metaphysician.1*10

Although in a letter

to William Taylor he said that the good parts->of the book were Madame de Staelfs alone, he never bothered to clear up the impression that literary people had to tell the truth about his part in De 1 TAllemagne.-

8 Sadler, Loc. cit. 0 Larg, op. cit., p. 670. Loc. cit.

'92 A letter written in 1814 "by James Lambert, a profes­ sor of Greek at Cambridge University is. indicative of the impression many people had at the time about the authorship of the book* Je me trouve^reeemment dans une societe 0u l fun des invites a declares qu’on supposait communelnent maintenant quells partie metaphysique du edld'bre livre de Mme. de Stael fut eerite en r^alitd' par un nommg' Robinson, lequel avsit sdjourn^ quelque temps a Gottenbutgh fsiel ©t etat bien plus competent en la mat1ere que Madame de 3ta¥l elle - m&ae.-^ In 1813 the friendship between the Berry, sisters and Madame de Stael, which had begun not too auspiciously some twenty-three years before on the continent, was re­ newed. in entry for Tuesday, June 29, 1813, in Miss Mary BerryTs memoirs indicated this: tfTn the evening we had a few people at home; and Madame de StaSl, who came, talked, questioned, and went away again like a flash of lightening 12 or rather like a torrent«M On Wednesday, July 21, they saw Madame de Stael again. In the morning the Berry sisters went to Madame de Stael’s home. She was bu this time engaged in makiirgher comparisons between the English and French so­ ciety, for the sisters admitted to being much amused by her ideas on the subject. They prophesied Hihat she would soon

11 Ibid., p. 671. •*-2 Lewis, op. cit., II, p. 536.

be disgusted with it*-*-3 On July 24, Miss Berry wrote to her friend Sir Wil­ liam Gell; When we shall see you here Heaven knows, for you will be one of the grest lions of London yourself; and you have-just oome in time to save Mde. de Staelfs life* who certainly would have roared herself to death in another week*14 On August 19 there was a gathering of society ladies at the Berry home* And while they were sitting under the beech trees in the yard, the Duchess of Devonshire arrived with Madame de Stael and her daughter* Madame de Stael talked to them for nearly an hour about the works that she intended to write, three to be published during her own life time and one after her death; all this was discussed with a detail and rapidity amazing to the group.

15

on September 11, 1813,

Miss Berry informed a friend that Madame de Stafe'l was still at Richmond where she intended to stay until the end of the month. "When her torrent of words and ideas will no longer flow into the Thames,.but turn its course towards London, and then to Lord L a n s d o m e ’sxu and then into Staffordshire,

13 Ibid*, II, p. 538. 14 Loc. cit. 15 Ibid. , II, p.. 540. Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, third Marquis of Landsdowne, became chancellor of the exchequer at the age of twenty-five in 1806, at the death of Pitt. He worked with Wilberforee on the abolition of the slave trade.

94 and then—

17 * . * the Lord knows where . * . M

In September Madame de Stae'l wrote to Miss Berry* She gave her the war news, discussed the guests at her home, and characteristically asked her to love her: Aimez-moi, je vous prie, avec indulgences £ des certain egards . . . . ce qui ajoute £ votre merite c fest que nos caract&res ont plus d ’analogie que nos actions* Adieu. Tachez done de guerir ces maux de t£te* Yoyez Farquhar; il me traite. Adieu. In the first part of October the Rdrrys were guests at social gatherings that included Madame de Stael. There is an amusing entry for Monday, October 11* Miss Berry went to visit Madame de Stsel and discovered that Madame de StaelTs daughter had the measles. She had a pleasant conversation for a half hour in spite of the disarrange19 ment of the household* On Novermber 25, 1813, Miss Berry wrote to Lady Georgians Morpeth. This letter indicated the turning point toward a mpre familiar relationship between Miss Berry and Madame de staVl* She wss now for the first time rather pleading the de Stael cause and explaining Madame de Stael to other people so that they would understand Just how amiable and good she was. Miss Berry told Lady Morpeth

^ 18

Lewis, op* cit. , II, p* 541. 11 > p * 542*

X9 Ibid., II, pp. 543-544.

that Madame de Stael had a way of gathering society about her: She is always entertaining and I, who know her so much and so well, will add always good natured, and never mdchante. W a r d 20 8n& g k e will amuse you. She thinks him so handsome, and d *un joli tourneur. I tell her she is undertaking two miracles,, to make him poli envers les femmes, et pieux envers Dieu. And there is no saying, if they go on, what her success may be* * * On December 7, 11,and 26 the Berrys were again at parties that Madame de St ael attended. At this time she received news

of the death of Warbonne, and Mary Berry wrote. **l was

of the opinion that she was not too much disturbed and that she lost an old love rather gayly.**22 A letter from Sir uvedate Prise to Miss Berry in­ dicated the reputation that Madame de Stael had in English society* He spoke of De 1 yAllemagnB to Miss Berry and said that Madame de Sta'e'l is "certainly a very extraordinary woman, even when one considers the stock she comes from, and how highly bred she is, for thinking and writing***23 On May 3 Madame de Stael had gone to an exhibition of pictures at Pall Mall*24

a

letter dated London, May 1814,

20 ward was later made Earl of Dudley in 1827 when he became foreign minister under his friend, Canning* 21 Lewi si, op. cit*, II, p. 546. 22 Loc* cit. 23 Ibid., II, P, 549. 9A

Ibid**

P* 3-3.

96

from Miss Berry to Mrs# Daner gave a final meeting between Miss Berry and Madame de Stqbl as she left England* * * * I parted with Madame de Stael, non sans attendrissement de my part, late on Saturday evening* She set out for Paris early on Sunday morning* I owe I much regret her absence* She had a frankness with me, and a power of exciting my mind* Now she is gone, while I am regretting her, she will never think more of me till we meet again# I know her well, but with all~TTer faults, ridicules, and littlenesses, and yet she is a very superior creature*25 Mary Berry walked home with Madame de StaHl that evening to have a few minutes alone with her. **She spends herself upon paper, and runs through the world to see all, and to say all - to excite herself, and to give it all back to the 26 world, and to the society from whence she has drawn it.tr Another of Madame de Stahl.*s famous English friends was John Murray, the publisher of her De l rAllemagne*

She

knew him in a social as well as a business way for Henry Crabb Robinson mentioned the fact that she was an occasional frequenter of Murray's drawing-room.

p 7

Murray, Crabb Rob­

inson, and Madame de Stae'l drew up the agreement for De 1 'Allemagne one morning at her home*', She received 1500 guineas

25 Ibid., III, p. 13. Loo, oit 27

Sadler, op* cit#, I, p* 416*

97 for the book2%hich was published in November 1813* The Eng­ lish version was translated by Frances Hodgson arid edited 29

by Willi to Lamb*'

When the question of publishing and

translating was under consideration Gifford wrote to Murray about Madame de Sta'el, on July 12, 1813: As to Madame de Stael, I can say nothing, and per­ haps your bargain is off. At any rate I can venture to assure you that the hope of keeping her from the press is quite vain* The family of Oedipus were not more haunted and goaded by the Fury than the Neckers, father, mother, and daughter, have always been by the demon of publication. Madame de Stael will therefore write in print without intermission. The volumes you were in treaty for promise to have something of nov­ elty, and are besides welj„timed. Her suicidal work30 I have not yet looked at.31 If Murray shared the reservations indicated by Gifford in this letter, he did not say so*

28 sequel Smiles, A Publisher and His Friends (London: John Murray, 1891), vol. I, p. 266. 29 Ibid#, I, p. 313. 30 Byron mentioned this work in a letter dated Novem­ ber, 1813: *It is lucky that Mad. de Stael has published her anti-suicide at so killing a time - November tooJ I have not read it for fear the love of contradiction might lead me to a practical confutation. Do you know her? I don't ask if you I d have heard her? - her tongue is in perpetual motion.« prothero, op. eit#, III, p. 408. To Ehomas Moore Byron wrote: *% * . Mad­ ame de Stael, who hath published an essay against suicide which, I presume, will make somebody shoot himself; . . .w Ibid., II, p. 229. 31 Smiles, op. cit., I, p* 314*

98 On September 15, 1813 Madame de Sta^l wrote John Murray a very brief note, but one in which the names of two great Englishmen, one literary and one political, were coupled: Je serai chez vous vendredi a cinq heures, my dear Sir. J fai charm^e de Mr. Southey; son §me et son esprit m font paru de la m^me force et dans le mdme sens. II a bien long temps que je n ’ai ete chez vous, c ’est d dire in the headquarters of Mr. Canning. 32 Murray sent Madame de Stael copies of the works which he was publishing, according to a note which she wrote him. She thanked him a thousand times for Byron’s Corsaire, which she said had a good deal of spirit and interest* She also thanked him for the novel written by Fanny Burney which one she did not say. Then she asked him to let her know soon what he thought of her propositions with regard to

Monsieur'Constant, the letters on Rousseau, Delphine, 33 etc. What proposition she had made to Murray in regard to these works is not indicated Madame de Staefl was in the habit of writing short notes to most of her friends, and she wrote a number to Murray. On November 30, 1813 she told him how the Paris

32 Ibid., I, pp. 315-316. 3® Loo, elt.

publication of 10,000 copies in 1810 had been suppressed by the police and those already printed destroyed* The \ following interesting statement is found in this note;' ^ **Un seul a echappe^ par hazard, et c fest sur eelui-la que Mr* John Murray a re-imprime l'ouvrage."

That would

seem to indicate that sinde the work was destroyed ex­ cept for one printed copy en d her manuscripts, Madame de Stael came very close to losing the book altogether.From Bowood October 26, 1813 Madame de Stael had written Murray in regard to Be 1 'Allemagne. This time when she had sent him the preface, with corrections made by Sir James Mac­ kintosh, she said. n’Je souhait presqulsutant pour vous que pour moi le succes de mon ouvrage."3^

Murray continued to

negotiate with Auguste de Stael after the death of Madame de Stael, but these negotiations came to nothing. They will be discussed when the Oonsid^rations are taken up. In the last few months of Madame de StaelVs visit in England, she met another very famous Englishman. John Gam Hobhouse, Lord Broughton, to whom Byron dedicated his Ghilde Harold. On February 9, 1814 he went to see Madame de Sta¥l with a friend. He wrote bold and graphic descriptions of his

54 Ibid., I, pp. 314-315. 35 Ibj.fi., I, p. 315.

100 contacts with her* On this occasion he said: I found that extraordinary woman in a little room* I thought her unpleasantly mannered* I believe that I disgusted her* Her daughter came in: pretty eyes:, but a dirty complexion* she sworeshll I said about Napo­ leon fs discourse was true. fIt was like him,* she said, rI know the man** She enquired eagerly after the Crown Prince. &s the guests left she asked some of them to come to her Friday evening party, but of Hobhouse she took no notice except to thank him. On February 16, 1814, he went to a party at Lord Lansdowne*s where he saw Msdame de Stael* She was flirting with a sprig of myrtle, as she is in the Gerard portrait. This is an interesting point for Hobhouse to notice because Sainte-Beuve made a good deal of it in his interpretation ** 37 Her daughter also was there looking of’Madame de Stab*l.

36

Lady Dorchester, editor, Recollections of £ Long

Life (London: Fo|m Murray, 1909), vol. I, pp* 83-84. 37 He quotes the Danish poet 0 el en schi age r: ft. * • elle a v£cu dans son chateau enchsntd' comma une reine comme une fde; et sa baguette magique dtait peut-£tre cette petite branche d Tarbre qu?un domestique devait d^poser chaque Jour sur Is table, & de son couvert et qurelle agitait pen­ dant la conversation.1* Sainte-Beuve, op* cit*, p. 149.

t

101 very pretty but being rather loud.

38

In February 1814,

Hobhouse was again at a party where Madame de Stael was present. This time it was a gathering after the play at Lady Harrowbyfs. This Lady, he recorded, was known as the 39 "exclusive exquisite" in London. Of Madame de Stael’s final month in London, May 1814, Hobhouse had some interesting things to say. A friend described to him the eve of Madame de StaelTs de parture: She appeared affected with the kindness of the English. She has left behind, however, several things which will leave her in no goododour here. She said of Middleton, Lord Jersey’s, where she had been mag­ nificently entertained: ’II n ’y manque du vin, il manque de 1 ’esprit’; of the English, there are only three men of genius: Mackintosh, Wellesley, Canning, and, yes, there is a fourth: Celui qui a fait mon eloge.’ This ttory wss told by Steven Wesson, an old tottering clergyman, who has written an ode in her praise, and said, ’I will leave you to judge who her fourth hero is.’ Of the women she said, ’Elies sont nulles.’ The only men in England who have any heart are, according to her, ’Ward, and the speaker of the House of Commons.’40 she must have said this in jest.41 Another incident of her last

month in England is

38 Dorchester, op. cit«, I, p. 85. 39 Ebia., I, p. 8?. Charles Abbott, the Speaker of the House of Commons, was created Lord Colchester and retired in 1816. 41 Dorchester, op. cit., I, p. 119. University of Southern California Library

/

102 Interesting, Hobhouse heard that she neglected the Bour­ bons altogether, but was the first to compliment Louis

' XVIII. She had an interview with Madame d£AftgQal£tae, to whom she said, rI hope that your highness has written ©bout your torments and sufferings, or at least that you have a good memory, so that you can give the de­ tails to some one about that which happened to you in the Temple* It is necessary that some pen preserve/ the memory of those cruel moments which are, however, so interesting to the history of France* f The Dutchess was so affected that she left the room, and it is said that Madame de Stael was left out at the grand fete given to the French king and Princess the other day at Carlton House purposely, because the Princess made the request. Madame is gone out of the kingdom in an unconquerable fury thereat. * . *^2 and, one might add, very depressed by the fall of Paris. Louis XVIII, the object of the above incident was the broth­ er of Louis XVI* Louis XVIII, then nearly 60, entered Paris on May 2, 1814, and made concessions to the reactionary and clerical parties of Emigres headed by the Comte d TArtoia and the Dutchess d tJLngoul&me. Madame de Stael had a brief but interesting encounter with another career woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Inchbald^ who was an English novelist, dramatist, and actress,

on August 26,

1813, Mrs. Inchbald, living in a sort of semi-retirement, wrote a letter to Mrs. Phillips, the sister of Fanny Burney. She said:

42 Ibid.,

I, pp. 122-123.

1

103 I will mention the calamity of a neighbor, by many degrees the first writer in the world, as she is called by the Edinburgh Reviewers. Madame de Stael asked a lady of my acquaintance to introduce her to me. The lady was our mutual acquaintance of course, and so far my friend as to conceal my place of abode; yet she menaced me with a visit from the Baroness Holstein, if I would not consent to meet her at a third house, After much persuasion, I did so. I admired Madame de Stael much; she talked to me the whole time: so did Mrs. Edgeworth whenever I met her in company. These author­ esses suppose me dead, and seem to pay a tribute to my memory; but with Madame de Stael it seemed no pass-.; • ing compliment; she was inquisitive as well as atten­ tive, and entreated me to explain the motive why I should shun society? ’Because,’ I replied, ’I dread the loneliness to follow.’ ’Whati will you feel your solitude more when you return from this company, than you did before you came hither?’ ’Yes.’ ’I should think it would elevate your spirits: why will you feel your loneliness more?’ ’Because I have no one to tell that I have seen YOU; no one to describe your person to; no one to whom I can repeat the many encomiums you have passed on my ’’Simple Story; ’ no one to enjoy any of your praises but myself’ rAh, Ah.’ you have no children: ’ and she turned to an elegant young woman, her daughter, with pathetic tenderness. She then so forceably de­ picted a mother’s joy, that she sent me home more mel­ ancholy at the comparison of our situations in life than could hsve arisen from the consequences of riches or poverty. I called by appointment at her house two days after. I was told she was ill. The next morning my paper explained her illness. You have seen the death of her son^o j_n the papers; he was one of Bernadette’s aide-de-camps; the most beautiful young man that ever was seen - only nineteen: a duel with sabres and the first stroke literaly cut off his head.’ Necker’s g r a n d s o n . ’44

43 Byron wrote to Moore on August 22, 1813: ”. . . Made, de Stael Holstein hast lost one of her young barons, who has been carbonadoed by a vile Teutonic adjutant, - kilt end killed in a coffee-house at Scrawsenhawsen, Gorinne is of course what all mothers must be, - but will, I venture to prophesy, do what few mothers could - write an Essay upon it. She cannot exist without a grievance - and somebody to see, or read, how much grief becomes her. I- have not seen her since the event; but merely judge (not very charitably) from prior observation.” prothero, op. cit., II, pp. 245-246. 44 James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald (London: Richard Bentley, 1833), vol. II, p. 191.

104 The other side of the picture, the attitude of Eng­ lish society toward Madame de Stael, is completely repre­ sented by Henry, Lord Brougham, who was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review and was said to be the author of the article, "Hours of Idleness,” which provoked Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. This gentleman, taking a completely critical point of view toward Madame de Stael, never understood her nor seemed to make any attempt to do so. He wrote a letter to Earl Grey on December 16, 1813. The topic of the letter was a review of a new book, The Depreciation of the Paper Currency of Great Britain Proved, by Lauderdale. The book had been reviewed and Brougham was discussing the review. He said: • • . But, of course, he Lauderdale won’t care for that when he reflects that he suffers because such an over-praise has been bestowed on a plain gentlewoman, of some size, rather advanced in life. I am sure his known gallantry toward such characters will reconcile him to this vicarious punishment. This brings me to the said gentlewoman, Madame de Stael, whom I really think you all over-rate. Her book seems terribly vague and general and inaccurate. She certainly follows old Lord Lansdowne’s advice in avoiding details ’as the more dignified line.’ Besides, her presumption is intolerable, on all subjects, on many of which she can know nothing - as, for instance, the German metaphysics, except so far as she may have robbed some of them from Schlegel. I never have seen her, and shun her as I would an evil of some kind, having heard her talked of as a

105 grand bore, and being sickened by the concurring ac­ counts of her ffulsome flattery of the Prince, minis­ ters, etc*, etc., and her profligate changes 6f prin­ ciple. In women such things signify littlfe; but she must (as Talleyrand said) be considered as a man. ^ Lord Brougham had made up his mind about Madame de Sta’ dl and was giving decided opinions of a woman he had never taken the trouble to meet. To another woman, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, he

goes

on in much the same fashion. Talking of horrors reminds me of the lioness, von Stael. I think I shall be obliged to say that, being a person who fears God and honors the King, I am afraid to come near her. To say the truth, if anything could keep me more out of society than I am this season, it would be her prowling about. I was about t Tother day to go where she was, and had thoughts of returning the same answer with a man in Aesopfs Fables, that Jhe could not come, there being a lion in. the way.f46 The rest of Madame de Staelrs English contacts were numerous but brief. Samuel Rogers, for example, was sn ac­ quaintance. Rogers is famous now for his anecdotes of the great of his timej then he was considered a poet of some consequence. He was offered the Laureatship in 1850 on the

APs

Henry Lord Brougham, The Life and Times of Henry

Lord Brougham (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1871), vol. II, p. 98-99. 46

Ibid., II, p. 176.

106 basis of his poem Treasures of Memory and a fragmentary epic on Columbus* He told of his encounters with Madame de Stael as he remembered them a number of years later. She and Rog­ ers discussed another contemporary poet, Thomas Campbell, whose 'Pleasures of Hope' she considered one of the great English poems* Madame de Stael said to me, 'How sorry I am for Camp­ bell I his poverty so unsettles his mind, that he cannot write*' I replied, 'Why does he not take the situation of a clerk? he could then compose verses during his leisure hours* ' This answer was reckoned very cruel both by Madame de Stael and Mackintosh: but there was reslly kindness as well as £ruth in it*47 This same Thomas Campbell was said by his editor, Cyrus Redding, not to have been too pleased with Madame de Stael. She was too smart a talker for him. He met her sev­ eral times in London, and because he disliked people who "showed off," he was prejudiced against her* However, he 48 did admit the merit of her work. it was difficult to re­ move from his mind a prejudice once it had taken root. Camp­ bell asked Cyrus Redding if he liked the manners and con­ versation of Madame de Sta^l; he replied that he did not expect

47

1 A* Dyce, Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers (London: Edward Moxon, 1856), p* 255* 48 Cyrus Redding, Literary Reminiscences and Memoirs of Thomas Campbell (London, Charles J. Kent, 1866) ,J vol. II, p. 28*

to find her possessing much personal attraction as she had been so often judged to be ugly, but that she was most gentle, amiable, and agreeable# Campbell replied that it was common talk that Madame de Stae'l’s daughter had caught Redding’s fancy and not the mother# Redding said no one could listen to Madame de Stael*s conversation and not be delighted with it, even though she was making an effort to exhibit herself to the best advantage# 49 Redding and Campbell also talked about Schlegel’S opinion of the greatness of Corinne# Campbell said: I only mean that Schlegel pushes his esteem to a point of weakness# He is a great man, and she is an extraordinary woman, and would have been one of the first in any age, but I should never like her quoad woman; change her to the other sex# I do not like women too clever, fthey are so fond of exhibiting themselves If Madame d© StaSl arrived in a non^conversational country it did not remain that way long# She is said to have made the English talk, even the Duke of Marlborough, who when Madame de Stael arrived at a certain reception said, trJe me sauvej” It is true that she did not study the lower middle classes and the people, but stayed in society* However, in

49 Ibidi], II, p. 29. 5100Ibid., II, p. 31

108 this regard Byron had an interesting comment to make. He said Madame de Stael was struck by the factitious tone of the best London society and very much wished to judge the second class. However, she did not get the opportunity. This Byron regretted because it would have justified her expectations. 51 She is supposed not to have visited the country people when she herself stayed in the country52 and did not like Jane Austin because her pictures of simple life were vulgar. Among the literary people whom she did not see when she was in London, were Jane Austin, Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Moore. 53

51 Countess of Blessington, Conversations of Lord Byron (London: Henry Colburn, 1850), p. 53 52 "Madame de Stael was a perfect aristocrat, and her sympathies were wholly with the great and prosperous. She saw nothing in England but the luxury, stupidity, and pride of the Tory aristocracy, and the intelligence and magnificance of the Whig aristocracy. These latter talked about truth, and liberty and herself, and she supposed it was all as it should be. As to the millions, the people, she never inquired, into their situation. She had a horror of the canaille, but any­ thing of sangre azul had a charm for her. When she was dying she said, TLet me die in peace; let my last moments be undis­ turbed. T Yet she ordered the cards of every visitor to be brought to her. Among them was one from the Due de Richelieu. "What.rr exclaimed she indignantly, rWhat: have you sent away the Duke? ’Hurry; Fly after him. Bring him back. Tell him that, though I die for all the world, I live for him. trr prothero, ep. cit., II, p. 224, citing Sir John Browning, Auto­ biographical Recollections, pp. 375-376. 55 Doris Gunnel, "Madame de Stael en Angleterre,,f Revue d Thistoire de la litterature de la France, XX (1913), 868-872.

109 Thomas Moore Ts "escape” from Madame de Sta'el is de­ tailed to some extent in his memoirs*

He was interested,

however, in her writings, and, of course, was told much about her by Byron.

On August 30, 1807, long before her

arrival in England, Moore was reading about her in the let­ ter of a friend, Miss Godfrey. Have you read Madame de Staelfs new novel Corinne? Read it if you have not; it will amuse you in your cottage. You will hate the heroine, for you like to chain women down to their firesides; and provided that they are beautiful and foolish, you ask nothing more. Now I donrt quarrel with you about the fireside and the beauty, but I think it is a pity you should protect and preach up such folly. And note, I don*t love Corinne myself,' but I was interested in the book, for I like a fine, exaggerated, extravagant passion,/that breaks oners heart, suchras one never sees in the natural course of human affairs.0^ When the French woman did arrive, Thomas Moore sent a letter to his mother in 1813; "I find I am a great favorite with this celebrated Madame de StaVl, that has lately arrived, and is making such a noise in London: she says she has .a passion for 55 •' my poetry.” Samuel Rogers passed this information on to Moore

54-

Lord John Russell, editor, Memoirs, Journals and Correspondence of Thomas Moore (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1856), vol. I, p. 235. 55 Ibid., I, p. 363.

in a letter dated August 1, 1815.

56

Maria Edgeworth came very close to meeting Madame de Stael.

It is too had the meeting did not come about for

both these ladies seemed to have appreciated one another. Madame de Stae'l was acquainted with the writings of Miss Edgeworth, at least Tales of Fashionable Life, in 1809 be­ cause she said of them, »Vraiment Miss Edgeworth est digne de 1 'enthousiasme, mais elle se perd dans votre triste /

KI7

utilite.n

In this statement she was undoubtedly referring

to the extensive moralizing in the stories, in May 1815 Maria Edgeworth wrote to a friend:

"I fear Madame de StaelTs

arrival may batputfoff till after we leave town. The Edin­ burgh Review of her book has well prepared all the world for 58 her.** she wrote later that they did in reality have to leave London on June 16 before the arrival of Madame de StaSl.

56 Ibid.,

I, p. 154.

Augustus Hare, The Life and Letters of Marla Edgeworth (Bostons Houghton, Mifflin and Company, ), vol. i, p. 173.

T595

58 Ibid., I, p. SIS. 59 Ibid., I, p. 236.

Ill On August 9, 1815, Mari© Edgeworth wrote that Lady Davy was in high glory at that moment introducing Madame de Stae*l to e v e r y o n e * O n November 19, 1813, she asked a friend whether she had seen Madame de Stall's Essai sur la Fiction*

Maria Edgeworth daid she thought the essay

was excellent, and then told her ffiend that, she had just received De 1 ^Allemagne* A letter from Lady Romilly to Maria Edgeworth informed her English society agreed that Madame de Stael was frankness itself, and had an excellent 61 heart* Although Maria Edgeworth did not meet Madame de Stael. she was &o impressed with her work that she visited the continent after Madame de Stall's death* She made a ro­ mantic pilgrimage to Coppet where she talked with Auguste de Stael and other friends of Madame de Staefl in Switzerland* Her journal of this trip will be described later* At the home of the Berry sisters Madame de Staifl met briefly a number

of other celebrities* The Berry sisters

had very little money, not much social position, nor suppos­ edly great intelligence, but the famous of London gathered at their literary groups for over fifty years* Their gifts were as hostesses, and they had much goodness of spirit* 62

60 Ibid., I, p. 331. 61

Ibid.

pp. 233-233.

Gunnel, op. cit., pp. 872-873.

HE It was at the Berry house that Madame de St ae*l gave the famous retort about Napoleon being not a man but a system* James Smith wanted to know what that meant*

Someone told 63 him, **1 don ft know, but I suppose she means something*n Sir Fhillip Frances, whom Madame de Stael also probably met at the home of the Berry sisters, was one of the people who never came to appreciate Madame de Stael, using her @s the object of his satire. He is supposed to have told young women who had pretentions to wit and the display of intel­ ligence, that if they were not careful, they would become like Madame de

Steel.

He said on one occasion that all

flee her as a pestilence, exdept a few who go to look at her as one looks at a boa constrictor or an orang-outang, observing its monkeylike b e h a v i o u r s . U L i s remark and the comment of Henry Lord Brougham are the low points in Hglish manners as Madame de HtaKl encountered them in London. Here, too, she may have met John philpot Curran. Madame de Stael had heard about him before she met him because he had led rather a notorious life. He was the defender of Ireland, had fought a number of duels, and had lost his wife to a clergyman. He visited Madame de Stse! at her invitation.

63

Ibid., p. 873

64 Ibid., p. 877

She immediately read him a list of stories that she had heard circulating in London about him and then stated, "Et maintenent, Monsieur jCurran, je vous avert is que nos relations futures dependent de la reponse que vous ferez a mes questions Her favorite English society woman was said to have AA been Lady Davy, u the wife of sir Humphrey Davy, the famous natural philosopher, professor of chemistry at the Royal In­ stitution, and good friend of Sir Walter Scott. She was said also to be fond of Lady Holland,67 hostess at the famous Holland House. In the nineteenth century this home was a great political, literary, and artistic center, frequentedby such people as Sheridan, Moore, Campbell, Macauley, and Dickens. Knowing the political opinions of Lady Holland and

65 Ibid., p. 879. 66

Ibid., p. 874.

67 Lady Holland said of Madame de Stae*l in 1813: "Her first appearance was at Lady Jersey's, where Lady Hertford also was, and looked most scornfully at her, pre­ tending her determination not to receive her, as she was an atheist! and immoral woman . . . . her personal charms have greatly improved within the last twenty-five years. . . She was flummering Sheridan on his heart and moral principle and he in return on her beauty and grace." Douglas, op. cit, pp. 579-580.

114 Madame de Steel, one questions the depth to which this liking could have gone. Madame de Steel hated Hapoleon, of course, and Lady Holland worshipped him. She sent a book and candy to him in his exile on Saint Helens. Lady Holland also had the reputation of going out of her way to hurt people with her sarcastic tongue. ^ Conversation which took place at Holland House in 1834, long after Madame de Stael's death, bore this out, Lord Holland, Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston and others, were discussing women in literature. It was the opinion of this group that there were only three master works by wo­ men, those of Madame de Stab’l, Madame de Sevigne" and Sappho. But Lady Holland would not hear of admitting Madame de Stael.7^ A story by Hookham Frere, critic, poet, and diplomat, was circulated in Holland House.

Madame de Stael wanted to

be married in English, a language in which the vows were faith­ fully kept. She said she was impressed with the model happiness and the status of women in the home in England. When someone asked Frere what language she was married in, he is supposed to

68 fiQ 70

Gunnel, op. cit., p. 875. Loo, cit.

Lloyd Sanders, The Holland House Circle (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1908}, p. 94.

115 have said, "Broken I&iglish, I suppose***

At Holland House i

Madame de Stael met Lord Dudley, the unfortunate gentleman from the Foreign office who ended his diplomatic career by putting letters for the Russian and French ambassadors in the wrong envelopes* Lord Dudley was praised by Madame de Sta61 as being the only true cultivator of the art of con­ versation in England,72 and this was indeed a high compli­ ment from her. It was at the Holland House that the story of Madame de StaelTs comment on the view at Richmond was told. She said it was "calme et animee* ce qu*il saut §tre, et ce que je ne suis pas*”73 Henry Crabb Robinson in his reminiscences told the story of Madame de Staei*s encounter with Coleridge. When asked what she thought of him, she replied: "He is very great in monologue but he has no idea of dialogue.** eridge, too, later visited Coppet*

Ibid., p. 170. 7?

Ibid., p. 314.

7«2

° Ibid., p. 333. 74

Sadler, op. cit., I, p. 201.

7 4.

Col-*

71♦

COPPET AND PARIS

After Madame de Sta^l returned to the continent, she continued to entertain her English friends, Pierre Kohler says so many English had never before been received at Cop-^ pet.

The most important visitor perhaps was Byron. But

also there were Henry Brougham, Lord Lansdowne, John Cam Hobhouse, Rofeinson, and others.2 By July 29, 1816, Byron was staying at Diodati, near Geneva. He wrote to Samuel Rogers that he was visiting Cop­ pet a good deal and informed him that all were well except Rocca who looked to be in very poor health. Madame de Steel* daughter was taller, “Schlegel is in high force, and Madame 3 as brilliant as ever.“ On one of these visits Madame de Stael told Byron about Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon, but he had seen nothing of it except the motto “which promises

1 Kohler, op. cit., p. 661. 2 The guests at Coppet in 1816 frequently must have discussed pedagogy. The.Lancaster schools using monotorial instruction had been opened at Geneva, and an apostle of the method was an Englishman by the name of CAndrew] Bell living at Lake L^man. Geneva society listened to him, and at Coppet the dialogue went on between Madame de sta&l and Bell. Ibid., p. 661. 3 Prothero, op, cit., III'; p. 341.,

117 4

amiable *for us and for our tragedy,n

in a letter dated

September 8, 1816, he told his sister about Madame de Staelfs defense of him. I go out very little, exeept into the sj.r and on journeys, and on the water, and to Copet, l_.sioJ where Madame de Stael has been particularly kind and friendly toward me, and (I hear) fought battles without number in my very indifferent cause.5 After one of his visits to Coppet % r o n set down in his memoirs the following opinion. Madame de Stael was a good woman at heart and cleverest at bottom but spoilt by a wish to be knew nfct what, in her own house she was amiable; any other persons you wished her gone and in her again.6

the she in own

In Madame Guieeioli's copy of Corinne, he made the following note: I knew Madame de Stael well - better than she knew Italy; but I little thought that one day, I should think with her thoughts in the country where she ha# laid the scene of her most attractive production. She is sometimes right, and often wrong, about Itqly and England; but almost always true in delineating the heart, which is but of one nation, and of no country,or, rather of all.7

1

M

1

*

>

i * 1 '*

p

*

3 3 9 *

5 Ibid.. Ill,-p. 349. 6 Loc. T cit. v7

Loc. cit.

Il8 In September and October 1816 he wrote to John Mur~ ray about numerous visits to Coppet and added: "Madame de Stael wishes to see the mtiguaryjtscottJand I am going to take tt to her tomorrow. She has made Coppet as agreeable as society and talent can any place on earth."'8

in No­

vember after leaving Coppet he wrote from Yerona 1816,to Moore: Madame de Stael I saw frequently at Copet,£sic3which she renders remarkably pleasant. She has been particu­ larly kind to me. I was for some months her neighbor, in a country house called Deodati which I had on the Lake of Geneva To his sister in a letter from Milan October 13, 1816,he again stressed the kindness of his friend. He informed his sister that she was going to Paris or had gone to Paris from Coppet. "I was more there than elsewhere during my stay at Deodati, and she has been particulali^'kind and friendly towards me the whole time." 10 •From Yenice, April 2, 1817, Byron urged the publish­ er Murray to deal with Madame de Stael for the Considerations. You should close with Madame de Stael.- This will be her best work, and permanently historical; it is on her father, the Revolution, 8nd Buonapart etc. Bonstetten told me in Switzerland it was a very great. I have not

0 IMi* > III*

p*

369 •

9 I M S . , III, p. 383. 10 Ibid., IV, p. E

(

119 seen it myself, but the author often, she was very kind to me at Copet sic *11 Mathew Gregory Lewis, the author of the Monk, was also a visitor at Coppet according to a note from Byron to Samuel Rogers, Venice, April 4, 1817. I forgot to tell you, last autumn, I furnished Lewis with both bread and salt for some days at Deodati, in reward for which (besides his conversation*) he trans­ lated Goethers Faust to me by word of mouth, and I set him by the ears with Madame de Stael about the slavetrade. I am indebted for many and kind courtesies to our Lady of Copet sic , and I now love her as much as I always did her works, of which I was and am 8 great admirer.12 This entry marks the complete revolution in Byron?s opinion of her. Their friendship had now reached its culmination.^*3 In a letter to Murray from Venice by August IS, 1817, Byron had been informed of her death. I have been sorry to hear of the death of Madame de Stael, not only because she had been very kind to me

Ibid., IT, p. 95. IP *L* Ibid., IV, p. 97. ** Madame de Stael had become so friendly with Byron that at Coppet she reproved him for his conduct towards his wife. N.W. White, Shelley (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1940), vol. I, p. 459. During her London visit she had told Byron that he did not understand la belle passion at all. Prothero, op. cit., II,pp. S32 and 34X7 13

I

120 at Copet tsicl , but because I now can never requite her. In a general point of view, she will leave a great gap in Society and literature.14 But in regard to the death of Madame de Stael one of the many complications in the multiple character of Byron comes to light. There is no doubt of the sincerity of the feeling evoked by her death* But a few days afterwards, August 21* 1817 he sent Murray a satirical poem which he called a "civil declension" for a tragedy written by Dr. John Polidori. Twenty-four lines deal with Madame de Stael: A party dines with me today, All clever men who make their way: Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey, -All are partakers of my pantry. TheyTre at this moment at discussion On poor De Staelfs late dissolution. Her book, they say was in advqnce Pray HeavenI she tell the truth of France! fTis said she certainly was married To Rocca, and has twice miscarried, No - not miscarried, I opine, But brought to bed at forty-nine. Some say she died a Papist; some Are of opinion that Ts a Hum I don’t know that - the fellow, Schlegel Was very likely to inveigle A dying person in compunction To try the extremity of unction. But peace be with her* for a woman Her talents surely were uncommon. Her publisher (and Public too5 The hour of her demise may rue For never more within his shop he Pray - was not she interned at Coppet?

14 Ibid., IV, p. 156. 15 Ibid., IV, p. 161.

121

Reference to Madame de Sta&l continued to fill his letters and conversation nevertheless* To John Murray from Ravenne on October 17, 1820, he sent the dedication to Goethe of his Marino Faliero* He quoted Goethe's statement that the character of the whole body of present English poetry is disgust and contempt for life and replied; But I rather suspect that by one single word of prose you yourself have excited a greater contempt for life than all the English volumes of poetry that were ever written. Madame de Stael says that rWerther* has occasioned 'more suicides thap the most beautiful woman*. * * In January 1821, Byron was remembering his period of literary triumph when he, Madame de Stael, and Maria Edgeworth shared the season. As for Miss Edgeworth, I forgot - except that I think that she was the youngest of the party. Alto­ gether, they CMaria Edgeworth and her father] were an excellent case of the kind, and succeeded for two months, till the landing of Madame de Stael. In January 1821 Byron was discussing with Thomas Moore the publishing of his memoirs. Moore had apparently urged some censuring of the Byron material. The first part I cannot consent to alter even al­ though Madame de Stael*s opinion of B* C. and my re­ marks upon Lady C's beauty (which is surely grest, and I suppose that I have said so - at least, I ought) should go down to our grandchildren in unsophisticated nakedness.I®

16 Ibid., r, p. 102. 17 Ibid., V, pp. 178-179. 1R

Ibid., V, pp. 212-213.

122 By August 4, 1821, Byron had entered into contro­ versy with August Wilhelm Schlegel. He felt Schlegel was unjustified in attacking him because he, Byron, had been such a champion of Madame de Stael. He wrote to John Mur­ ray: ttThey write from Paris that Schlegel is making a fierce book against ME': what can I have done to the literary ColCaptain of late Madame? I_, who am neither of his country 19 nor his hoard? . . .* a few days later he was on the de­ fensive again in a letter to Murray. The disloyalty of such proceeding towards a foreign­ er, who has uniformly spoken so well of Madame de Stael in his writings, and who, moreover, has nothing to do with continental literature of Schlegelfs country and countrymen, is such that I feel a strong inclination to bring the matter to a personal arbitrament. . .20 There is no more about the outcome of this set-to between the Englishman and the German, but at least Byron in his Detached Thoughts took his last dig at Schlegel by referr^ ing to him as Dousterswivel, the German charlatan, in ScottTs Antiquary. ^Somebody asked Schlegel (the Dousterswivel of Madame de

Stael) whether he

sculpt ore?1 fAhJ

did,notthink Panova *a great

replied the modest Prussian,

fdid you ever

see my bust by Tieeke sic ?»«2^-

19

Ibid., V, p., 33V.

20

Ibid.,. V, p. 340.

21 Ibid., V, p. 429. CiF. Tieok, the sculptor, wss the brother of the novelist, Ludwig Tleek.

123 Til© name of Madame de Stael also entered into Byron's controversy with IJilliam Bowles over Alexander Pope* Byron brought up her name in connection with her influence as © romantic* Byron said g&iakespeare and Milton had had their rise and they would have their decline. Already this had been proved by the fluctuations in their reputations as was the ease with all the.drsmatists and poets writing in a liv­ ing language. This fluctuation did not depend upon their merit but upon the ordinary changes of human opinion* ’'Schlegel and Madame de Stael have endeavored also to re­ duce poetry to two systems, classical and romantic. The 22 effect is only beginning.*' in his argument with Bodies Byron defends the morality of poetry by comparing it with Madame de Stael*s prose. Let us hear no more of this trash about ’licen­ tiousness. ’ . . . there is more real mischief and sapping licentiousness in a single French prose novel, in a Moravian hymn . . . than in all the poetry that was ever penned. . . . The sentimental on anatomy of Rousseau and ECade. de S.. are far more formidable than any quantity of verse. They are so, because they sap the principles by reasoning upon passions; whereas poetry is in itself passion, and does not systematize. It assails, but does not argue. . . Byron in Detached Thoughts also coupled the name of Madame

22

Prothero, ^op. cit., pp. 553-554

23 Ibia., V, pp. 582.

124 de Stae'l and Rousseau* "My mother, before I was twenty, would have it that I was like Rousseau, and Madame de Stael 24 used to say so too, in 1813. . . . " In a letter from Genoa, March 28, 1823, Byron dis­ cussed renouncing society. He said he had lately gone lit­ tle into it for he had seen all that was worth seeing in the former before he left England, and at a time of his life when he was more disposed to like it, and of the lat­ ter he had a great sufficiency in the first few years of his residence in Switzerland, Uchiefly at Madame de Steel’s where I went sometimes, till I grew tired of conversazioni and carnivals, with their appendages. • . ."

p«5

The name of Madame de Stae*l came up with the attack upon Byron’s poem, Gain. I have read the defense of Gain, which is very good; who can the author be? As to myself I shall not be de­ terred by any outcry; your present public hate me but they shall not interrupt the march of my mind . . . It is Madame de Stael who says that ♦All talent has a pro­ pensity to attack the strong.* I have never^flattered whether it be or be not a proof of talent. In 1823 Byron had his conversations with the Gountess of Blessington. in these conversations and in letters which

84 Ibid,, T, p. 408. 25 Ibid,, VI, p. 177. 26 Ibid., VI, 'p. 140.

125 he wrote to the Countess the best summary of his attitude toward Madame de Stae*l is to be found as he remembered her seven years later. On May 6, 1823, he wrote the Count­ ess from Albero. He was sending her a copy of Benjamin Const ant*s Adolph.

He said of the book that it contained

some melancholy truth, but that it was probably too triste a work ever to have been popular. The first time I ever read it (not the edition I send you, for.I got it since,) was at the desire of Madame de Stael, who was supposed to be by the good natured world the heroine; - which she was not, how­ ever, and was furious at the supposition. This occur­ red in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816, and the last season I ever saw that celebrated person.27 The Countess of Blessington wrote that Byron thought Madame de Stael was the cleverest, though not the most agree­ able, woman he had ever known. She was eloquent and imagina­ tive, her imagination being stronger than her reason. He laid this to the fact that she lacked a mathematical educa­ tion as a visible ballast to get her to the port of reason. nSke bought like a man, but alas! she felt like a woman.

27

Ibid., VI, p. 204.

Here Byron told the Countess an amusing story about Madame de Steeles London visit. At a large party her corset busk came out. she pushed with both hands but could not force it back. She then called the valet de chambre who leaned over her shoulder, reached across her chest, and put it back, while the English guests looked on. Countess of Blessington, op. cit., pp. 27-28.-

126 She was, notwithstanding her little defects, a fine creature, with great talents and many noble qualities, and had a simplicity quite extraordinary, which led her to believe everything people told her, and consequently to be continually hoaxed, of which I saw such proofs in London.29 I liked the Dandies. They were always very civil to me, though in general they disliked literary people, and persecuted and mystified Madme. de Stael, Lewis, Horace, Twi'ss, and the like damnably. They persuaded Madme. De Stael that Alvanley had a hundred thousand a year, etc., etc., till she praised him to his face for his beauty! and msde a set at him for Albertine (Libertine, as Brummell baptized her, though the poor gir1 was, and is as correet as maid or wife can be, and very amiable withal), and a hundred other fooleries besides.30

Byron told the Countess of Blessington he teased Madame de Stael by telling her there was more morale in Adolph than in all she ever wrote. It ought to be read as an antidote to Corinne, he said. She came down like an avalanche on Byron. 51

Byron thought she was the only per-

son he knew who was not bored by London society.

- He

said to the Countess.df:.Blessington of Madame de Stael: 0f all that coterie, Madame de stael, after Lady Jersey was the best; at least I thought so, for these two ladies were the only ones, that ventured to protect

29 Ibid., p. 34. •xrv

Prothero, op. cit., II, pp. 235-236. Blessington, ojc. cit.,

32 Ibid., p. 374.

p* 147.

me when all London was crying out against me on the separation, and they behaved courageously and kindly. . With Lord Harrowby, mentioned in the Considerations, Madame de Stael had some connections immediately after leaving England. In July 1815 she wrote him at some length about England*s declaration of war upon France and the dis­ membering of France. Then she sent Lord and Lady Harrowby an interesting account of her daughterTs wedding. "C'est un pr^tre anglais, the archdeacon Meath, qui donnera la vrai benediction et je ne saurais vous dire combien je suis toush^e de marier ma fille en anglais* . ."34

jn Spite of

the light tone taken by the guests in Holland House about Madame de Stael rs fondness for Engli shimar.fi:age ceremonies, she was apparently quite serious. Madame de Stagl wrote to Lord Harrowby to see if he could get an English pension for Professor Pictet, who was a friend of hers and her father*s and hsd guided her first studies. At the same time she was complaining of the ungen­ erous treatment of the French by the English, saying that the English would ruin the French financially and tread on their national pride. ft. . . Le jour de Waterloo est le plus beau et le dernier ou le sentiment des ^mes gen^reuses est s

33

Prothero, op. cit., II, pp. 113-114.

34 D9ris Gunnel, "'Un Liasse de Lettres In^dites de Mme. de Stael,” Mercure de France, XCIII, (1911], p. 487.

/

128 pu se rallier a

y o u s

*w

Canning was too continental a diplo-

mat for Madame de Stael*

Though Msdame de Stael wanted to

see the downfall of Napoleon, she did not want to see France crushed• After Madame de Stael returned to the continent she and William Wilberforce continued their joint anti-slavery activities although they seem never to have met again* on October 8, 1814, she wrote to him confirming the information she received from the Duke of Wellington, of the impractic­ ability of getting any articles favorable to abolition in­ serted in the French journals.36

However, Wilberforce had

written an anti-slavery pamphlet which the Duke of Welling­ ton undertook to disperse for him in Paris* At the same time the Duke circulated the subject matter of Wilberforce*s let­ ter to his Yorkshire constituents. This letter had been trans lated by Madame de Stael at the Duke's suggestion, according th the Wilberforce journal.3,7

in reality this letter had

been translated in part by the Duchess of Broglie, Madame de

55 36

Ibid., pp. 489-491. Wilberforce, op. cit«, IT, p. 212.

37 Ibid., IV, g. 215.

;

129 Staelfs daughter* On this occasion General Macauley gave the Duchess a gold pen as coming from the author, William Wilberforce* When the recovery of St* Domingo was aban­ doned by the French, Madame de Stael wrote Wilberforce the following letter of congratulation* Combien vous devez &tre heureux de votre triomphe, vous l femporterez et c 1est vous et Lord Wellington qui surez gagn£ cette grande batailie pour l'humanite. Soyez sure que votre nom et votre perseverance ont tout fait*DTordinaire les idees triomphent par elles m^mes et par le terns, mais cette fois c rest vous qui avez devance* les siecles. Vous avez inspire^ a votre H^ros Wellington autant d fard.eur pour faire du bien quril en avoit eu pour remporter dis vietoires, et son credit vers la familie royale a servi a vous pauvres noirs* Vous avez ecrit une lettre a Sismondi qui est pour lui comma une couronne civique, ma petite fille tient de vous une plume d for qui sera sa dot dans le ciel* Enfin vous avez donn^"" du mouvement pour la vertu a une geliOration qui sembloit morte pour elle* Jouissez de votre ouvrage, car jamais gloire plus pure- ni^a donnee "a un homme— Je me mets a vos pieds de tout mon coeur, A. de Stael. Paris, ce 4 9bre, 1814*^® Apparently Wilberforce used the connections that he had made through Madame de Stae'l to carry on his work on the slavery question* He had already tried through Cardinal Gonsalvi, to influence the Romish conelave, and he now opened a correspondence with a number of literati, among them Chauteaubriand and Madame de Stael, in the hope that

38

Ibid*, IV, pp.. 216-217.

130 he might act through them upon their countrymen, 39 In 1821, Wilberforce was reading Madame de Stael’s Ten Year1s Exile. He commented on it: I have been lately reading whilst dressing Madame de Staelrs Ten Year *s Exile, and very clever it is; full of deep and yet witty remarks, though one can­ not but be offended at the constant disposition to shine.40 John Murray, too, continued his friendship with Madame de Stael after she left England. On June 28, 1816, Auguste de Stael wrote to Mr. Murray about his mother’s work Des Causes et des Effets de la Revolution Fran^aise. He told Murray that the plan had been extended, that it would cover three volumes, and that the work was calculated to produce a general sensation in Europe. 41 Murray replied on July 19, 1816. He told Auguste that great changes had taken place in the sale of every­ thing in England and these changes were operating to the destruction of financial investments of any kind. He was very sorry that neither he nor Mr. Longman, acting with him, could venture upon the new work for the price which Auguste had asked. But he was desirous, he said, that Mad­ ame de ste&’l should reap every fair advantage in case the

39 40 41

Ibid., IY, p* 202. Ibid., Y, p. 108. Smiles, op. cit., I, p. 316.

131 work should exceed any calculations that they could make at that time, and that they, therefore, proposed to offer the sum of one thousand pounds for one fifteen hundred copy edition of the work in French and one in English* Murray and Longman would pay for the translation* The sum was to be paid two months from the day on which they would publish each edition, and for every future edition of either the original ofi the translation to consist of one thousand copies, they undertook to pay the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds after the sale of one thousand copies* Auguste* wrote Murray, could have no conception of the great alteration since Englishmen had had the oppor­ tunity of emigrating and that h e ; could not have made even this slender offer unless Longman had agreed to take half the risk*42 Madame de Sta'dl was not satisfied with this letter although Murray had explained that even her work De 1 9Allemagne

had not been as satisfactory from the point

of view of sales as she had supposed. She urged, neverthe­ less, through the pen of her son, that the new work was likely to be much more attractive to the public, especially the third volume, which would contain a picture of all your public characters* I

4-P

Ihid., I, pp. 316-317

i

132 don’t question the exactitude of the statement which you give me of the returns of I?’Allemagne: but what-* ever it be, I don’t hesitate tcT say that 'I should think it a good speculation to pay for the grandest work, the double for what you payed for the former; considering, besides, that you have the privilege for the translation as well as the original# In short, the only reduction which I think my mother' would agree to is the sum of& 2500 for her volumes, that Sir I# Mac­ kintosh had been commissioned by you to propose to her two years ago l4,5 Madame de Steel, died in the following year on July 14, 1817. and the work in question was not published until 1818. By April 18, 1815 John Cam Hobhouse, Lord Broughton, was on the continent. On that day he made the following entry in his diary: Called on Lady Kinnard, who amongst other things told me of the follies of the Duke of Wellington’s public addresses to Grassini . . . also of Madame de Stael having a house a little way out of Paris. . . . Also that sixty priests dined every day at the Tuileries, Madame sometimes presiding. This has been confirmed to me by several,44 On September 6, 1816, Broughton was reading a volume of Mad­ ame de Stael’s what prosy# 45

Corinne. He thought it very good although some-

The next day he went to Geneva with Byron, who left him to dine alone while he went on to Madame de Stael’s#46

43

Ibid., I, p# 318.

44 Broughton, op. cit., I, p. 259.

45

I][>

46 Loe. cit.

p

* 12*

on

133 September 12, 1816, there is a record of a visit to coppet: Went in hard rain with Byron and P. to Madame de Stael*s barony at Coppet. Unfortunately, Rocca, of whom Sharp says, she has made an honest man, was ill and created confusion rather, but she, the Baroness, received us very hospitably, and me with particular civility* She had heard of the "Letters" from Playfair and the Edinburgh; she is herself writing on Napoleon. She told me she could not believe that I had no copy with me, which shows the difference of French and English authors. Her daughter, the Duchess of Broglie, very dingy but sensible, and very good natured, and more talky than when a girl. The dining-room was in confusion, and the dining table too, small and con­ fused; but this house is more like an English country house than I had imagined.47 Hobhouse reported that he had a very satisfactory day indeed, that Madame de Stael told him she hoped to see him again, and, in short, that he for the first time be48 lieved that he recorded a successful effort at talk. On October 1, he was dining again at Coppet where the table was cramped. Madame de Stael introduced him to Rocca and told him that Rocca was an admirer of his Memoirs.

Rocca said many handsome things to him of his

Letters from Paris. After dinner, when the large group was

4-7

Ibid., II, pp. 14-15. Samuel Coleridge left a brief description somewhat similar in tone to that of Hob­ house. He said Coppet was always full of company. The fur­ nishings were bad so that to an Englishman it seemed untidy. While the breakfasts were odd, the dinners were good. In her manners Madame de Stael was very agreeable, but not what Eng lishmen would call well bred. Coleridge and Madame de Stael thought 10,000 could read classic authors in England against 600 in France. Douglas, op. cit., II, 571. 40 Broughton, op. cit., p. 16.