STÄEL, MADAME DE, ANNE MARIE LOUISE GERMAINE NECKER

STÄEL, MADAME DE, ANNE MARIE LOUISE GERMAINE NECKER, was born at Paris in 1766; her father settled in that capital since 1749, and gradually by his industry and his integrity, raised himself to a very important position. He was at the head of one of the first banking-houses; his opinion on financial matters always commanded attention; his salon was the favourite resort of the beaux esprits, who inaugurated, during the eighteenth century, the reign of public opinion. Under such circumstances, M. Necker could not fail to be popular; from the same cause he soon began to think that the man whose name had become a household word—that the man whom Marmontel admired and Turgot listened to—that the friend of princes, economists, and academicians—in short, that M. Necker was the wonder of his age. It is quite certain that M. Necker's vanity acted as a drawback upon his otherwise estimable character; but some allowances should be made for the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed. We do not allude now to the species of worship which Madame de Stael cherished—the exaggeration of filial love; but the implicit reliance placed in all quarters upon the financier's ipse dixit was really ridiculous. Mademoiselle Susanne Curchod, before marrying M. Necker, had attracted the attention of Gibbon the historian, who was deterred, it is said, from any proposals by the threats of his father. The contrast between an extra-polished English gentleman and a simple unaffected Swiss country-girl, would have been most striking; Susanne Curchod's exchange of a village school-house for the crowded drawing-rooms of Paris was quite as piguant. She, however, soon gave evidence of a natural tact, which enabled her to do honour to the new position in which her lot was cast; and if it be true that real merit alone is exposed to the attacks of jealousy, no one ever deserved more praise than Madame Necker.

The education of the future Corinne was, if we may so say, begun, continued, and finished in her mother's salon. "We entered the drawing-room," writes Mdlle. Huber. "By the side of Madame Necker's arm-chair was a little wooden stool on which her daughter was expected to sit, and to keep herself very upright. Hardly had she taken her accustomed place, when three or four old people came round her, and spoke to her with the deepest interest. One of them, who wore a little round wig, took her hands in his, where he kept them a long time, talking to her all the while, as if she had been five-and-twenty years old. This was the Abbé Raynal; the others were MM. Thomas, Marmontel, the Marquis De Pesay, and Baron De Grimm. Mademoiselle Necker at that time was only eleven." Fortunately, from her strong feelings and her generous affectionate disposition, she could entertain no permanent sympathy for the heartless sneering and the analytical philosophy of the Vol-

taire school, and the perusal of her works amply evidences that she had nothing in common with that clever but dan-Madame. gerous coterie. Another writer, more powerful, perhaps, than the patriarch of Ferney—a writer whose doctrines, at all events, have contributed in a considerably large proportion to the intellectual and political education of the present generation—Rousseau, was the idol of Mademoiselle Necker's earliest literary worship. The author of La Nouvelle Héloïse was a chef d'école in literature; he counteracted very decidedly the critical tendencies so prevalent towards the close of the eighteenth century, by powerful appeals to what M. Sainte-Beuve aptly calls the instinctive forces of the soul—melancholy, compassion, enthusiasm for genius, for nature, for virtue, for misfortune. Mademoiselle Necker was peculiarly qualified to appreciate Rousseau; full of passion as she was, and acting from impulse rather than principle, she espoused a code of tenets which had the merit of awakening the soul; and with the exception of a few literary trifles, which hardly deserve noticing, her first performance as an author was a work devoted to the apology of Jean Jacques. The Letters on Rousseau were published in the year 1788. Written in the pride of youth, they have the merits and faults peculiar to the production of an ardent imagination, which pours out its treasures without restraint. "An unreasonable admiration of her subject," says a critic, "has betrayed her into some extravagances, which would have been avoided had she treated the theme in after years; but the same cause has given birth to passages glowing with eloquence, and prophetic of the glories she was to achieve."

The very disposition which drew Mdlle. Necker's sympathies towards Rousseau, rendered her perfectly competent to judge and to censure some of the more prominent faults of that eloquent writer. She has noticed the sophisms contained in the Nouvelle Héloïse, and the masterly critique she has given of that work will ever keep its place as a monument of skill and of discrimination. When the Letters were first published, the charge of affectation was brought against the authoress. She might have been accused, perhaps, of rashness, but certainly no person in the world was ever less affected. The reverse is in reality her case. She yields too much to what the French call entraînement; it is her soul that guides her pen.

But ere this, in 1786, Mdlle. Necker had married Baron De Stael, the King of Sweden's ambassador to the French court. It was a mariage de convenance in every sense of the word, and was attended with the usual unpleasant consequences which render unions of the kind so fatal to both parties concerned in them. Baron De Stael's principal fault seems to have been an utter disregard for the value of money—a curious failing for so near a connection of the greatest financier then living. The immense dowry which M. Necker gave with his daughter, speedily felt the influence of the baron's thoughtless liberality; and had not Madame De Stael subsequently placed herself and her children under the protection of M. Necker, it is likely that the improvident diplomatist would have seriously diminished, if not completely destroyed the fortunes of his young family.

The low ideas of morality which unhappily prevailed during the last century rendered matrimonial catastrophes such as Madame De Stael's matters of everyday occurrence; and if they did not always lead to an open rupture, it was because the husband and wife could quietly make up their minds to accept on both sides what society considered as an event of course. Madame De Stael never gave the slightest occasion for calumny, but she saw at once that marriage ought not to be made a question of marketable profit. Putting things in the most favourable position, the husband of a femme célèbre is speedily metamorphosed into a non-entity.¹ One day an habitus of Madame Geoffrin's dinner

Stäil, parties asked her what had become of that nice quiet old
Madame de. gentleman whom he used to meet every Wednesday even-
ing at her house, and whose absence he had noticed for the
last month. "That gentleman, sir," answered Madame,
"was my husband; he is dead." Madame De Stäil felt to
its full extent the evil resulting from the immoral con-
ventionalism adopted by the fashionable world, and she stig-
matized it most energetically in Delphine, a novel which was
published for the first time in 1802. This work produced
the greatest sensation when it first came out; it was a re-
volution in the style of romance-writing. "Delphine," says
Madame Necker de Saussure, "is Madame De Stäil in her
youth." Those fond of studying an author's character
through the creations of his fancy, must have felt interested
whilst perusing Delphine; but besides this, Madame De
Stäil there endeavoured to defend an idea, which is nothing
else but a dangerous paradox. "Men ought to know how
to set public opinion at defiance; woman must submit to it."
Such is the text selected—a text so attractive, and at the
same time so unsound, that it has, since 1802, been the
favourite motto of a school in metaphysical literature. If
Madame De Stäil invented the femme incomprise, George
Sand may be said to have vulgarised her. The principle
which serves as a fundamental axiom to Delphine is essen-
tially false. To quote Chénier, "Man ought not to defy
public opinion; woman ought not blindly to bend before it.
They should both sift it; accept it when it is legitimate; and
reject it when it is erroneous. Right and wrong are in-
variable: the rules of propriety differ, it is true, according
to the sexes; but nature does not condemn man to a life of
scandal, and woman to a course of hypocrisy. Virtue and
reason exist equally for both, and before those eternal limits
all conventionalisms must stop. Delphine, as a novel, is
more interesting from the sketches of character it contains
than from the plot itself: M. de Talleyrand is painted to
the life under the name of Madame de Vernon.

It is not our intention to give here a detailed account of
Madame de Stäil's numerous voyages during the revolution
and the empire. We find her in 1793 at Coppet in Swit-
zerland, where was her father's estate; she also visited Eng-
land, and established herself at a house called Juniper Hall
at Mickleham, near Richmond. There a colony of French
refugees was speedily formed; the pressure of the times
drove to foreign countries the most illustrious families of
France, and several distinguished personages were the con-
stant companions of Madame de Stäil at Richmond. Count
de Narbonne, Madame de la Châtre, M. de Talleyrand,
General d'Arblay—such are a few names taken at random.
Under the most distressing circumstances, the colony man-
aged to keep up their spirits and to weather the storm.
Occasionally they were reduced to very ludicrous shifts;
we are told that this little party could afford to purchase
only one small carriage, which took two persons, and that
M. de Narbonne and De Talleyrand alternately assumed
the post of footman as they rode about to see the country,
removing the glass from the back of the coach in order to
join the conversation of those inside.

It was not without the greatest difficulty that Madame
de Stäil contrived to escape from Paris during the Reign of
Terror. She had given dire offence by the independent way
in which she acted, and by the sympathy she openly mani-
fested for persons whom the "sovereign people" had visited
with a sentence of proscription. Her letters on Jean Jac-
ques Rousseau contain the following remarkable passage:—
"N'effacez point le sceau de raison et de paix que le destin veut
apposer sur votre constitution; et quand l'accord unanime vous
permet de compter sur le but que vous voulez atteindre, pré-
tendez à la gloire de l'obtenir sans l'avoir passé." The gifted
writer had thus strikingly prophesied, six months before the

convocation of the States General, the excesses into which
the spirit of demagoguism was speedily to lead the revol-
ution. The national convention, or rather the members of
the famous comité de salut public, did go beyond the limits
of legitimate reform; and they were not likely to deal merci-
fully with those, above all, who maintained the rights of
liberty and protested against the tyranny of the mob. How
to preserve her friends, how to harbour them, how to facili-
tate their escape, was the task Madame de Stäil firmly and
exclusively undertook, at a time when every attempt of the
kind rendered her amenable to the guillotine. She thus
saved the life of M. de Talleyrand, M. de Jaucourt, and
M. de Lally-Tollendal. M. de Narbonne, ex-minister of
war, was one of the persons on whose behalf she devoted
herself most energetically. She watched the streets anx-
iously during one night when the police were hunting for
him. His fate, if he were seized, would be instant death,
and she knew that the search of her house must discover
him. In this critical circumstance, the government agents
called at the house of the Swedish embassy to make their
dread domiciliary visit; one would think that only nerves
of iron could maintain a calm appearance at such a moment.
But she assures us that with her the case was otherwise.
"We can always," she adds, "master our emotion, however
violent it may be, when we feel that its indulgence would
expose the life of another." Was there ever a nobler sen-
tence penned?

Prior to the appearance of Delphine, Madame de Stäil
had published a work, which, together with the volumes on
Germany to be presently noticed, contains the programme
of her aesthetic system. It appeared in 1800, exactly one
year previous to the literary coup d'état of M. de Château-
briand. The title is, On Literature considered in its re-
lation to Social Institutions.¹ Thus, nearly at the same
time, from two opposite points of the horizon, rose two
standards more intimately allied with one another than was
thought at first; and round them were soon gathered those
who had long felt the necessity of a literary revival. M.
de Châteaubriand's fame has cast into the shade Madame
de Stäil's treatise, but the impression produced by the work
we are now mentioning was strong and lasting. It was, in
truth, a bold undertaking, both from the novelty of the
opinions stated, and the frequent allusions to passing events;
and Madame de Stäil expected to meet with much bitter
opposition.

Literature holds the closest and the most essential con-
nection with the virtue, the glory, the liberty, and the hap-
piness of a state; humanity is ruled by a law of perfecti-
bility; and it is this law which, from time to time, has ele-
vated the standard of public morality, together with the
criteria of taste. The law of perfectibility is indefinite;
guaranteed to the future as it was enjoyed by the past, it
must follow the development of the social institutions; and
its distinctive character in the present day will be the pre-
dominance of the serious principles over wit, the triumph of
the spirit of the north over the literary aspirations of the
south. Such is, in a few words, the argument chosen by
Madame de Stäil for the subject-matter of her two volumes.
They are composed of two parts quite distinct, and ought to
be judged each by itself. The historical explanations are
not generally very correct, nor the quotations apposite; this,
of course, impairs more than once the strength of the best
arguments. Madame de Stäil may be said to have often
guessed uncommonly well; but everything is not a matter
of guess, and she has repeatedly adduced errors in support
of truths. Imperfectly acquainted as she was with ancient
literature, she might have been expected to stumble at the
name of a Greek philosopher or a Roman poet, but the
Paris Aristarchi could not forgive her a few gross mistakes in

Stael, modern lore: they insinuated that she had blundered pur-
Madame de, posely in order to make good a Utopian system; and when
she gave the name of "father of modern poetry" to Ossian—that is, to the notorious Macpherson—no wonder that a
hue-and-cry was immediately raised by the public press.

If we consider Madame de Stael's work as a development of the idea of perfectibility, it is open to the severest discussion. There is in it much to blame, much that is questionable; at the same time the author's faith and generous impulses are entitled, on our part, to respect and admiration. Nay, if we believe in Divine revelation, we also acknowledge the principle of perfectibility, although modified and corrected by the influence of the Gospel. Madame de Stael is too dogmatical, but we sincerely admire her fervent hope, her thirst for truth, her thorough contempt and hatred for everything that tends to sever us from immortality, and to bind us to the present moment.

In a literary point of view, the work we are now noticing is a complete manifesto of what the French term romanticism. It is not absolutely necessary, says the author, that we should do better than our forefathers, but we must do otherwise; we must not be imitators, we must be ourselves. Let us, as regards literature, yield to the inspirations which, after the downfall of the Roman Empire, came upon society; let us make room for the Christian element and the Germanic principle. Madame de Stael may not have suspected the extent of the literary revolution which she so strongly advocated; but her views were correct, and have only been explained and carried out by the Hugo school of French authors. At the time when she wrote, amidst all the anxieties of a revolutionary government, and the din of European warfare, it must have seemed extraordinary to many thinkers, that northern poetry should be considered as the necessary substratum for a new literary construction. Then, the idea of turning melancholy into an aesthetic axiom, appeared ridiculous beyond description. Critics laughed at that poetry which mingled its strains with the roaring of the waves and the moaning of the winds. The wits of the time of the Directoire shrugged up their shoulders when told that melancholy was the true source of inspiration, that authors ought to be gloomy, and that every genuine poet was, more or less, under the influence of despondency. In fact, Madame de Stael's axioms were so unexpectedly announced that they were rejected altogether as traits of sophistry. Chénier, Delille, Fontanes, and many others who enjoyed a large amount of well-deserved reputation for their poetical talent, were, besides, far from melancholy; and what was worse than all, Madame de Stael advocated her gloomy theory just at the moment when France, escaping from the Reign of Terror, was already half-intoxicated with glory and pleasure.

The asperity of the public press against both Delphine and the work On Literature went beyond the bounds of common politeness. Could the critics have become Dominicans for the nonce, they would assuredly have made an auto-da-fé of Madame de Stael and of her productions. Her exile towards the end of 1803, her travels, her long residence at Coppet, the friendship she formed with the most eminent German thinkers, directed her ideas into a new channel, and diverted her attention from the small talk of the Paris feuilletons. During the Directoire, when French society was endeavouring to reorganise itself, two salons served in Paris as centres where those persons met who had attained some taste for intellectual pleasures and for the amenities of elegant conversation. The celebrated Madame Tallien gathered together in her drawing-room the supporters of the new order of things, the real republicans, the men of Thermidor; around Madame de Stael might be found assembled, in a small but brilliant array, the thinkers, the enthusiasts who aimed at effecting a compromise between monarchy and the principles of 1789.

Stael, Their ideal was derived from a deep acquaintance with Eng-
land and English institutions; they thought that liberty could
Madame de, exist most harmoniously in connection with loyalty, a her-
itary line of kings, and even a powerful aristocracy. These
discussions, these meetings proved of very short duration;
the eventful 18th of Brumaire occurred, and it became quite
clear that, under the rule of the Consul Buonaparte, no room
would be left for discussions of any kind. Compelled to
quit France, Madame de Stael immediately went to Ger-
many, studied the language of that country, visited Weimar
and Berlin, and became acquainted with Goethe and the
Princes of Prussia. At that time she was already collecting
materials for the work which a second excursion (1807-8)
enabled her to complete. The tidings of M. Necker's illness
reached her in the midst of this new society, so suited to her
taste, so calculated to draw out her brilliant conversational
powers. Easily alarmed on account of one so fondly beloved,
Madame de Stael felt a sad presentiment that she had seen
her father alive for the last time. She instantly set out for
Coppet, with her son and his tutor, August Wilhelm Von
Schlegel. In a state of the greatest anxiety she arrived at
Zurich, where she was met by Madame Necker de Saussure,
who confirmed her worst fears. Her father was already at
rest. Her grief was agonizing to witness, her whole per-
spective of the future seemed suddenly obliterated; life and
death, earth and heaven, were equally at war against her;
the one compelled her to wander desolate in strange coun-
tries, the other snatched from her her father—her first,
most faithful, and dearest friend; her last support seemed
gone, and hopeless of relief, she resigned herself to the
most afflicting despair. Baron de Stael was dead since
1802. Thus severed from those whom she had a right to
regard as her natural guardians, she sought in the delights
of friendship both the protection she needed and a diversion
to the sad thoughts which the state of her country could
not fail to excite. Benjamin Constant, Mathieu de Mont-
morency, Madame Récamier, were then the favourite habitues
of Coppet; and she watched with increased anxiety over
the education of a son and daughter, whose amiable dispo-
sitions more than compensated for the bitter disappoint-
ments she had found in marriage. After a short stay in
Italy, Madame de Stael passed a year in Switzerland. Dur-
ing this interval she was busy in the composition of Corinne,
and needed little other employment. But as her work
drew to a close, she felt an anxious desire of revisiting Paris,
partly that she might correct the proof-sheets of the novel
with greater care, partly to be near her son, who was then
preparing for the polytechnic school under the direction of
Wilhelm Schlegel. A police order prohibiting her from
coming within 40 leagues of the metropolis, by dint of
manoeuvring, and thanks to the kindness of the minister
Fouché, she obtained leave to reside at half that distance—
at Acosta, a country-house belonging to Madame de Cas-
tellane. Poor Corinne! she could find nothing enjoyable far
from the atmosphere of a salon; and that impassioned poetess
whom we love to fancy, as Gerard's picture represents her,
sitting on Cape Misenum, would have exchanged without a
pang the Lake of Geneva for the muddy gutter which runs
along the pavement of the Rue du Bac! Buonaparte was
determined not to allow her the simple gratification she so
ardently longed for. Corinne ou l'Italie appeared for the
first time in 1807. Being quite foreign to political subjects,
it might reasonably have been thought incapable of giving
umbrage to the emperor. But its sudden popularity, and
the vivid interest in awakened for Madame de Stael through-
out Europe, awoke the detestable spirit of jealousy which
characterised a sovereign for whose assaults nothing was
too noble or too hopeless. On the 9th of April 1807, the
very anniversary of her father's death, she received a new
sentence of exile. It was now too evident that nothing but
the giving up of her independence could satisfy her enemy.

Stael, Counting the bitter cost, and sighing to reflect that she
Madame de. disposed, perhaps, of the future of others as well as her
own, she proudly resolved to maintain her consistency, and
once more, at the bidding of her tyrant, said adieu to all
that remained of her once brilliant connections in France.
It was impossible, indeed, that she could please the emperor.
Her last sentence breathed a spirit of generous enthusiasm
which was distasteful to him. He is said to have remarked
peevishly, "It is no matter what she writes, let it be poli-
tics, history, or romance; it comes to the same thing in
the end: after reading her, people do not like me."

Corinne is a wonderful work; whether considered as a de-
scription of Italy, or as a work on the fine arts, or as a sort
of autobiography, we are equally delighted and surprised.
Her characters are drawn with the most consummate power,
and the psychological analysis which it evinces is not sur-
passed by any book professing to lay before us the strife of
the passions in the human heart. Corinne is the offspring
of enthusiasm and of grief; it is no fiction. Madame de
Stael was recording her own struggles when she described
the hesitation of a woman who cannot decide in her choice
between the happiness which springs from the affections,
and the emotions to which talent and glory give rise.

We find by glancing at the innumerable memoirs written
during the last century, interesting accounts of the coterie
over which Voltaire presided at Ferney; a few particulars
respecting Madame de Stael's salon at Coppet would be still
more welcome, if we could procure them. As many as thirty
persons were often at a time the guests of the illustrious
exile. Benjamin Constant, Schlegel, Bonstetten, Sismondi,
M. de Barante, Madame Récamier, M. de Sabran, were
among the most assiduous. Zacharias Werner was intro-
duced in 1809; Lord Byron and "Monk" Lewis repre-
sent the genius of England in 1816. The days were spent
in intellectual enjoyments, discussions on literature, and
critical readings; a spirited opposition was maintained
against antiquated formulas and despotism of every descrip-
tion. The book on Germany (de l'Allemagne) may be con-
sidered as the result of this epoch in the life of Madame
de Stael. It was written with the manifest intention of
protesting against a threefold tyranny. Buonaparte had
enslaved France; philosophy withered under the oppression
of the materialist school; and literature knew nothing be-
yond a blind acknowledgment of tradition. Madame de
Stael felt how much her adopted country stood in need of
some stimulant to awaken it to a consciousness of its powers,
and she sent l'Allemagne to the press. It was launched, as
it were, to defy the violence of the tempest, and to rescue
sinking France itself, which, as Madame de Stael believed,
had well-nigh lost all its dearly-bought liberties. Convinced
that nations should guide and support one another, she
sought in the bosom of defeated and humbled Germany
the safety of France. There was more patriotism than
national pride in the book of Madame de Stael. Buona-
parte's police gave it a character which it did not deserve.
Despite a persecution quite in accordance with the traditions
of military despotism, the spirit of the times, and the gen-
eral bent of the public mind, insured success to the obnoxious
work. Two ideas it contained became popular: the men
whom victory had not rendered insensible to freedom, felt
that a powerful voice had embodied, in an eloquent address,
their hopes and their fears; the panegyric of the descen-
dants of the Teutons appeared in its true light—a pro-
clamation of resistance.

Many a battle was fought in the arena of periodical criti-
cism for or against l'Allemagne, and it soon became mani-
fest that Madame de Stael had successfully maintained her
own doctrine on literature and the fine arts. Already a
decided tendency might be traced throughout the reading

public towards something more true to nature than the dull
and fastidious imitations of Racine and Corneille; the veil
was drawn, and from behind it a glorious landscape burst
upon the sight of the astonished gazers; for many a young
and ardent mind, l'Allemagne was replete with the perfumes
and emanations of unknown but fragrant stores. That
literature described by Madame de Stael, strange, wild, as
it appeared, brought to the imagination pleasing fancies and
beautiful ideas. Germany became to France as a long-
forgotten sister, who had treasured in her heart, and was
ever discerning old family traditions, otherwise lost for ever.
Then there came along with her the bewitching prestige of
liberty, a literature free from all restraints, whose resources
were to be increased a hundred-fold; and the young gen-
eration, tired of a classicism which was nothing more than the
echo of an echo, thought that, with independence, they had
recovered all the earnestness of real happiness, whether for
good or for evil. Madame de Stael's new work had an
immediate influence. It brought to a close the coldness,
the enmity which had so long existed between two great
people. Many years after, Goethe wrote thus of the book
we are now alluding to. "It ought to be considered as a
powerful battery which made a wide breach in the sort of
wall raised up between the two nations by superannuated
prejudices. Thus, beyond the Rhine, we were once more
exactly inquired after; and we could not, consequently,
fail to acquire great influence throughout the whole west-
ern part of Europe."

The principle which Madame de Stael sought to inocu-
late on her side of the Rhine was enthusiasm. But she
pursued her plan cleverly, without proclaiming it, without any
flourish of trumpet. Considering her country as an invalid,
to whom change of air is prescribed as the first remedy,
she accompanied the patient on a tour through Germany.
In reading her work, one can fancy a well-informed and
judicious guide pointing out to her friend the most striking
features of a foreign land. There is nothing polemical, no
attack upon particular feelings or tastes; calmness and im-
partiality prevail, on the contrary, throughout all the descrip-
tions. Madame de Stael's purpose is not to preach a crusade
on behalf of Germany. She simply states the facts, and
leaves her readers to judge. Of the Teutonic race she is
a decided champion; yet in spite of her acknowledged pre-
dilection, she did not find favour in the sight of all her Trans-
Rhinenish cities. Many accused her of having disguised
the truth, and of being a very superficial judge. It is true
that she had not within her reach all the information which
should have formed the proper ground-work of her obser-
vations. As for society itself, she knew nothing beyond
the manners of aristocratic circles and the fashionable
world; whereas, amongst the higher orders, cosmopolitanism is
too prevalent, and the national character is worn away by a
constant moral and mental friction with those around.

No one will be astonished at hearing that Madame de
Stael's Memoirs contain a very unfavourable account of
Napoleon Buonaparte. Besides the complete antagonism
which must exist between military despotism and intellectual
powers of the highest description, the French emperor's
behaviour towards the author of Corinne had been marked
by a want of courtesy doubly inexcusable. When a man is
so circumstanced that he can say, sit pro ratione voluntas,
rudeness is the characteristic of petty cowardice. At the
same time the evident unfairness stamped upon most of
the verdicts pronounced in Dix Années d'Exil¹ is much to
be regretted; Madame de Stael would certainly have best
considered the interest of her glory had she not stooped to
the tone of a common pamphlet writer.

Illusions, however, were beginning to vanish around Co-
rinne; her circle of friends lost, one by one, its choicest gems;

sufferings, disappointments, persecutions, the weight of years, all told upon her mental energies. For a short time she believed she saw in M. Rocca's attachment to her, and in her marriage with him, the phantom of that happiness which genius had failed to give her; but gradually the brightest pictures of her fancy lost their hues, and she wisely sought in the solid joys of religion both peace here and hope for hereafter. The restoration of the Bourbon family brought her back to France, so completely altered from what she was when she left it, that to those who knew her at both periods of her life, the difference could not but be painful. And yet it was a change for the better; it was a shaking off of "every weight," a preparation for the last struggle. The friendship of persons such as Madame de Duras, M. du Chateaubriand, and Sir James Mackintosh, made up, in some measure, for old ties which the rude hand of death had broken asunder; but she did not lean too much upon those earthly supports; and when, in July 14, 1817, she breathed her last, it was with those firm hopes that alone can light up the passage through the dark valley.

Madame de Staël left two children, who were both removed from this world in the midst of a career of piety and of usefulness. Baron Auguste de Staël died in 1827, at the early age of thirty-seven; he had already evinced talents, energies, and dispositions which caused him to be regarded as a new Duplessis Mornay, or as the Wilberforce of Protestant France. He took a prominent part in the establishment of the Bible Society, of savings-banks, and in the abolition of the slave trade. His Letters on England, published in 1825, are full of interesting remarks, though necessarily incomplete, from the fact that the author died before he could finish the second volume. Madame de Staël's daughter had married, in 1816, the Duke de Broglie. Her death, in 1838, was felt throughout France as a public calamity. M. Rocca did not long survive his wife. He went into Provence, to be near a brother whom he loved, and there he succumbed under the pressure of sorrow and disease. (G. M.—N.)