Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France (54 page)

When Republican lawgivers shall have established public institutions where woman may receive the blessings of a liberal education, when they shall have allotted for her whose mind is enlightened by study, and refined by nature, some dignified employments, which, if she is destitute of fortune, may shield her from the cruel alternative of penury…or of uniting herself to a man whom her heart despises or rejects, then will she kneel, with that glowing enthusiasm, that instinctive impulse of admiration for what is great and generous which the female heart wants no lesson to feel, and bless the tutelary sway of the Republic!

With Napoléon’s ascent to power, despotism, as so many observed, had merely changed hands. Women who had scrambled to unofficial positions of influence during the chaos after Robespierre’s fall were systematically excluded from social life–especially those who had personally rejected Napoléon, like Thérésia, dared to disagree with him, like Germaine, or both, like Juliette.

But even Napoléon could not ensure that their voices were silenced completely. In the short term his political objectives may have been achieved by their removal from the public stage, but in the long term it would ensure that he would be remembered for injustice and tyranny.

Her ten years of exile only gave Germaine de Staël more reason to develop her ideas on the urgent necessity for liberty–especially for women. She declared that a society’s treatment of its female citizens was the measure of its civilization. The old regime may have ridiculed feminine emotions but it had granted women influence, she argued, while the new order despised, belittled and excluded them. It was a measure of how much attitudes had changed since 1789 that she and
others were no longer prepared to accept this state of affairs. Although the revolution had been more concerned with the rights of men than with the rights of humanity, it had shown women that their opinions were important and their contribution to society vital.

Germaine spent the early 1810s writing and travelling in continental Europe, Russia, Sweden and England, retreating as Napoléon’s empire expanded towards her. Perhaps her greatest work,
On Germany
, was suppressed by Napoléon in 1810 but published in London three years later. In 1811, in secret, she married a dashing but not very intellectual army officer twenty-one years her junior; with him she finally achieved the personal contentment she had sought for so long. Their son, born when Germaine was forty-six, would marry Louis de Narbonne’s granddaughter.

Napoléon was defeated by an alliance of British, Russian, Austrian and Prussian troops in 1814 and Germaine returned to Paris in triumph after a decade-long exile. Once again, her salon was the most important in Paris; once again, the circle she dominated drew up France’s constitution, this time restoring Louis XVIII, Louis XVI’s brother, the former comte de Provence, to the French throne. Although she fled when Napoléon escaped from Elba the following year, she need not have bothered. To regain power in France Napoléon needed a constitution–and the endorsement of Madame de Staël, the ‘empress of thought’. His brother Joseph was sent to persuade her to return to support his new liberal rule, promising the return of Necker’s money (still unpaid), a peerage for her son-in-law and the establishment of the liberal principles of government for which she had fought and suffered so long.

But while Germaine feared for France’s independence if Napoléon’s final bid for power failed, she could not conceive of supporting the man she saw as the enemy of liberty. ‘The Emperor has done without a constitution and without me for twelve years,’ she said to her cousin. ‘He does not love one any more than the other.’ She returned to Paris in the autumn of 1816, when Louis XVIII was restored to the throne for a second time. Her influence and advice were eagerly sought by France’s new ruling caste. Some of these, like the Duke of Wellington, were new friends; many others, like Lafayette and Mathieu de Mont
morency, had been close to her since those heady, idealistic days of their youth in the rue du Bac.

Germaine de Staël died in Paris on 14 July 1817–twenty-eight years to the day after the Bastille had fallen and the revolution she had so longed for had begun.

NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS

For full information on the publications cited in the Notes, see the Bibliography.

INTRODUCTION

I know of no woman
: Herriot I, 33

manifesting my love for
: Document reproduced in full in
WRP
158

women, amidst their petty household
: Tocqueville 31

had the deepest craving for
: Schama 545

Chapter 1 · SALONNIÈRE

Go hence to Mme de Staël’s
: Morris II, 102

furnace of politics…some great revolution
: The next quotations, Adams 266, 265

the noblest pleasure…and without foresight
: The next quotations, Staël
Considèrations
I, 386, 378–9 [French version, 1818]

To arms, to arms
: Schama 382

The Revolution must be attributed
: Staël
Considerations
I, 89 [English version, 1818]

touched the extreme limits
: Herold 86

mille et mille…I do today
: Staël
CG
I, 315, 21 July 1789

the governing principle, the directing
: Goncourt 243

the social developments of the times
…: For modern discussions of salons and their importance, see Gutwirth,
The Twilight of the Goddesses
, and Landes,
Women and the Public Sphere in…the French Revolution

a short petticoat
: Herold 124

impersonal and abstract convention
: Sennett
Flesh and Stone
73

A man who placed his
: Boigne 32

the duchess, and her femme
: Byrne 207

Do not people talk in
: Sennett
Flesh and Stone
110

Ah, Madame, you must be
: Gronow 50; Ducrest I, 151, the other woman referred to was not Talleyrand’s current mistress but his future wife, Catherine Grand.

intellectual melody
: Staël
Corinne
26

a certain way in which
: Herold 71

If I was queen
: Gay III, 23, quoting Mme Tessé

the arbiters of all things
: Tocqueville 403

is to denature…the robust one
: The next quotations, Gutwirth 138, 117

bid defiance to laws
: Adams 234

The influence of women
: Staël
Considerations
II, 148

were involved in…and natural intelligence
: Melzer and Rabine 125

all its vigour
: Gutwirth 86

the paradise of…scorned and mistreated
: Melzer and Rabine 200

injustice of men…most perfect integrity
: The next quotations, from ‘On Literature’ in Berger 186, 184

The feelings to…changed into spectators
: Herold 104

in admiration…pleased with oneself
: Boigne 189

to dazzle rather than to
: Ducrest I, 85

of all the men I
: Bruce 19

If it had depended
: Faderman 101

the most courtly refinement
: Burney 235

the inexhaustible treasures of grace
: Herriot I, 76, quoting Sainte-Beuve

He is a…let alone gunpowder
: Staël
Lettres à Narbonne
48

stop your famous…be your fault
: The next quotations, Staël
CG
I, 403, 256, both undated

her intellectual endowments…more obviously undesigning
: Burney 236

the friend of Mme de Staël
: Morris, I, 144

le comte Louis…changed his destiny
: Staël
CG
I, 355, to Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre

of no duty…the strongest side
: Morris I, 144

the great business…of all that
: The next quotations, Rousseau
La Nouvelle Héloïse
90, 61

maternal love became as much
: Berry 404

There are no…seeking among men
: Landes 72, and Gutwirth 126; both quoting Rousseau’s
Letter to M. d’Alembert on Spectacle

A taller stature, a stronger
: Rousseau
La Nouvelle Héloïse
108

Rousseau has endeavoured…over their happiness
: Staël
Letters on…Rousseau
15

always been half in love
: Wollstonecraft 263

sought a man
: Rousseau
Émile
439

a passion of virtue
: Staël
Letters on…Rousseau
iv

can only be read with
: Brooks 33

It laughs at…hope of youth
: Herold 196

too civilised in…of uniting them
: From ‘On Literature’ in Berger 179

preferred the generous principles
: Staël
Considérations
I, 353

not the provincial gentry
: Hampson 53

It was the…classes of society
: La Tour du Pin 75

a kind of school for
: Mercier
New Picture
I, 30

decided every action
: Staël
Considerations
I, 269

All Frenchmen shall wear
: Herriot I, 67

We have some little compliments
: Morris II, 246

of the first…for that company
: Morris I, 6

Everyone tells us…will be happy
: Adams 5

Either no individual…to Rousseauist views
: The next quotations, Gutwirth 224, 204

Men whom the…maintain in silence
: Moore
Roots
65

mad about the English
: HMW 1790 69

Everything had to be copied
: La Tour du Pin 98

of privilege and liberty
: May 128

attained the perfection of
: Staël
Considerations
I, 14

seemed as criminal as if
: Hampson, 48, quoting Chastenay

young, brilliant…thought they held
: Chastenay 81

a demagogue by calculation
: Staël
Considerations
I, 256

drunk with hope and joy
: Talleyrand I, 47

You are wrong…air of conviction
: The next quotations, Staël
Considerations
1, 188, and II, 140

La patrie est…to its aid
: Shulim 268

my speaker…on the veto
: Staël
CG
I, 33

As political affairs were still
: Staël
Considerations
I, 379

Men of the…equality, but liberty
: The next quotations, Staël
Considérations
I, 383, 386, 350