Chapter I: Preface

Unpublished correspondence—that delight of the eager biographer—is not to be had in the case of Madame de Staël, for, as is well known, the De Broglie family either destroyed or successfully hid all the papers which might have revealed any facts not already in possession of the world.

The writer of the present brief memoir has, consequently, had to fall back upon the following well-known works:

The _Correspondance_ of the Abbé Galiani, of Mme. Du Deffand, of Rahel Varnhagen, and of Schiller; the _Memoirs_ of Marmontel, of Mme. D’Arblay, of Mme. de Rémusat, of Mme. d’Abrantè, of Bourrienne, and of the Comte de Montlosier; Ticknor’s _Letters_; Châteaubriand’s _Mémoires d’Outre Tombe_; De Goncourt’s _Histoire de la Société Française pendant la Révolution_, and _Histoire de la Société Française pendant le Directoire_; Lacretelle’s _Dix Années d’Épreuve_; Michelet’s _Le Directoire_, _Le Dix-huit Brumaire_, and _Jusqu’à Waterloo_; _Le Salon de Madame Necker_, by Vicomte d’Haussonville; _Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy_, by Vernon Lee; Byron’s _Letters_; Benjamin Constant’s _Letters to Mme. Récamier_; _Coppet and Weimar_; _Les Correspondants de Joubert_, by Paul Raynal; _Les Causeries du Lundi_, and other studies by Ste. Beuve; Droz’ _Histoire du Règne de Louis XVI._; Villemain’s _Cours de Littérature Française_; the fragments from Constant’s _Journals_, recently published in the _Revue Internationale_; Sismondi’s _Journals_ and _letters_; and sundry old articles in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_; besides various other volumes, of which the list would be long and wearisome to detail.

BELLA DUFFY.

CONTENTS.

Chap. Page.

I.—THE MOTHER 1

II.—GERMAINE 9

III.—GIRLHOOD AND MARRIAGE 20

IV.—NECKER’S SHORT-LIVED TRIUMPH 34

V.—MADAME DE STAËL IS COURAGEOUS
FOR HER FRIENDS 51

VI.—RETURNS TO COPPET 69

VII.—THE TRANSFORMED CAPITAL 78

VIII.—MADAME DE STAËL MEETS NAPOLEON 93

IX.—NEW FACES AT COPPET 108

X.—MADAME DE STAËL VISITS GERMANY 127

XI.—MADAME DE STAËL AND AUGUSTE
SCHLEGEL AT ROME 141

XII.—MADAME DE STAËL’S SECOND MARRIAGE 162

XIII.—ENGLAND AGAIN 180

XIV.—CLOSING SCENES 196

XV.—HER WORKS 207

MADAME DE STAËL.