Chapter II (15)

"Don't think any more of it," replied Mr. Stowell. "My temper emanated from gout! My first attack, I assure you."

"A most decided case!" chimed in Dr. Brambleton. "But he bears it like a Job."

"A speedy recovery!" I answered. "You are in good hands, I hope?"

"Excellent," said Mr. Stowell. "I have the fullest confidence."

"He knows where he is, sir," put in the doctor slyly. "But I will stake my reputation on a cure."

And wishing the patient and doctor a final adieu, I departed, rejoicing in my deliverance from both quacks and quacked. I should distinguish myself in Alpine climbing while under the stimulus imparted by freedom regained; but experience will make me wary of a travelling companion until I have tested his congeniality of disposition.

THE CHILD RESTORED.

FROM THE FRENCH OF MARIE JENNA.

So long had wept this mother, so implored,
So pressed against her heart the head adored,
The livid forehead of her dying child,
That to the frozen breast the marble brow,
As by a miracle, returned the glow
Of life and light; and, with a fervent joy,
She thanked the God who gave her back her boy;
But from that hour the infant never smiled!

Three months had passed since then, and still the gloom
That seemed to linger from his unfilled tomb
Remained unbroken; one might almost think
That, when the spirit trembled on the brink
Of death, some pitying angel made a change
To soothe maternal grief. So sad and strange
Was the young, drooping head, the silent mood,
His mother dared not, in her gratitude,
Missing his joyous laugh, his happy voice
And glance, even in embracing him, rejoice.

From open casements song and laughter ring,
From turrets high the chimes their carols fling.
"Listen, my Louis. 'Tis the happy day
When the New Year bids little children play
With their new gifts, all merry for his sake!
What playthings will my little Louis take?
Wilt have this snow-white sheep, with silken string,
That thou canst lead to pasture in the spring?
Not this? Well, then, these paints, these brushes, made
To color paper flowers that will not fade?
Or, see! this gay, rebounding woollen ball,
That falls and springs from earth, again to fall?
Thou dost not love to play? Thou canst not run?
What shall I give thee, then, my cherished son?

"Tell me thy secret in one little word;
Thy mother fails to guess thy baby need.
Say, wilt thou have this pretty, gilded sword
To make thee a great captain? No, indeed!
Then this thatched cottage, with its drooping eaves,
This open book, with all its pictured leaves?
No! still the little, mournful, waving hand.
_Would_ that thy mother had a fairy wand
To bear thee something that would make thee smile!
Might not these singing birds thy thoughts beguile,
These blooming flowers? Whisper me, tell me, love,
While I embrace thee--I who love thee so--
Louis, what wantest thou? My darling, say!"
He murmured--"Only wings to flee away."

MADAME DE STAËL.

Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de Holstein-Staël, the most remarkable female writer of our century, was born at Paris on the 22d April, 1766. At that time her father was very far removed from the high position he was one day to occupy, being simply a clerk in Thelluson's bank. Mme. Necker herself undertook the education of her daughter--a task for which she was singularly unfitted, being cold and stern by nature, and a pedant to boot.

M. Necker was much more loved by his child, and he understood her disposition better. He liked to draw her out and make her talk, and for that purpose he used playfully to tease her: she invariably met him with that mixture of gaiety and tenderness which characterized their intercourse. Deeply grateful for his affection, Anne put the utmost good-will in the execution of his slightest wish. When only ten years old, she was so struck by the admiration he showed for Gibbon the historian, that the idea occurred to her to marry him, and thereby secure to her father the constant presence of one whose conversation he so much appreciated. Undismayed by Gibbon's repulsive ugliness, the child actually made the proposal to him herself. What makes the comical incident more curious is the fact that her mother had been, when little more than a child, Gibbon's first love. It was said of Anne Necker that she had always been young, and yet had never been a child. Her favorite pastime was fashioning doll kings and queens, and making them act tragedies of which she improvised the various parts. This innocent amusement was at last forbidden by her Calvinistic mother, but Anne used to hide herself and carry on her dramatic little games in secret.

In her mother's _salon_, Anne early made the acquaintance of some of the clever men of the day--amongst others, Grimm, Marmontel, and the Abbé Raynal. At the age of nineteen her intellectual faculties had become developed in the highest degree, but so much to the detriment of her health as to cause the greatest alarm to her parents. The famous Dr. Tronchin was called in, and ordered the young invalid to be taken to the country, where the mind should lie fallow, and the time hitherto devoted to study be spent in the open air. No prescription could have been more unwelcome to Mme. Necker, for it involved a relaxation, or rather a complete abandonment, of the severe _régime_ she had adopted for her daughter. As it turned out, this was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of hardening into a learned prodigy, Anne's moral nature was allowed to put forth its full luxuriance. Her father came constantly to St. Ouen, and in the charms of his daughter's society he sought rest from the cares of the ministry. In this pleasant retreat he and Anne learned, if possible, to love each other better. M. Necker was not, however, a foolishly fond parent; his tenderness never obscured his judgment; and Anne declared herself that his eye, so far from being blinded by affection, was quicker to detect her faults than her merits. "He unmasked all affectation in me," she writes; "from living with him, I came to believe that people could see clearly into my heart."

Anne made her _entrée_ into society at an early age, and immediately assumed there the position her talents merited. As the daughter of a powerful minister, and a future heiress, it was supposed she would marry at once, but it was not so. Mlle. Necker attained the in those days comparatively mature age of twenty before she gave her hand to the Baron de Staël-Holstein, ambassador from the court of Sweden.

Immediately after her marriage, the Baronne de Staël was presented at court. On this occasion she acquired a character for eccentricity by omitting one of the innumerable court courtesies; but what stamped her irrevocably as an oddity was that, going a few days later to visit the Duchesse de Polignac, the young baroness walked into the room without her head-dress--she had dropped it in the carriage. Those who were inclined to laugh at her, however, soon desisted, seeing that she was herself the first to relate her misdemeanors, and to laugh at them.

But a great event was at hand which was to turn the current of Mme. de Staël's thoughts into other channels: the French Revolution broke out. The daughter of the minister who was the immediate cause of that volcanic eruption was not likely to remain a cool spectator of the national upheaving. Misled by her own enthusiasm for the laws and constitution of England, and still more by the ephemeral homage paid to Necker, who had made his cause triumphant in the king's cabinet, Mme. de Staël honestly believed that the dawn of true political liberty was at hand; but this short-lived chimera was changed to horror when she realized the true motives, the aim and object, of the demagogues. The arrest of Louis XVI. and the queen at Varennes filled her with regret, the sincerity of which it is impossible to doubt when we read her account of this event in the _Considérations sur la Révolution Française_.

Her knowledge of the men who were the prime motors of these momentous changes enabled her to foresee the terrible catastrophe of the 10th of August. With great courage and clear-sightedness, Mme. de Staël drew up a plan of escape for the royal captives. M. Bertrand de Moleville, one of the king's ministers, gives the details of this scheme, which its author forwarded with a letter to M. de Montmorin, one of his colleagues in the ministry. Her idea was to convey the royal family to the coast of Normandy, whence they were to sail for England. Whether the plan was practicable or not, was never tested; M. de Montmorin knew too well that it was utterly useless to place it before the king.

The murder of the king and queen filled the heart of Mme. de Staël with indignation and dismay. Such was the effect that this crime had upon her, that for a long time she was quite broken-hearted, all her faculties were absorbed and, as it were, paralyzed by the deeds of blood that were being perpetrated around her. When at last she roused herself to resume her pen, it was on behalf of the unfortunate Marie-Antoinette; she addressed to the monsters who then ruled France an article entitled "Défense de la Reine." We can easily imagine what consummate skill and prudence were necessary at such a moment in dealing with the tigers she was striving to disarm. But not even at this crisis would Mme. de Staël descend to flattery; her talent and her spirit were alike above such arts. While scorning to propitiate them by insulting the queen, or using any of those invectives against royalty then in vogue, she tried to merge the sovereign in the woman, the mother, and the devoted and courageous wife. Strong and deep reverence, joined to a delicate and ingenuous pity, breathe throughout this noble appeal.

If Mme. de Staël had written nothing else, this article alone would have sufficed to ensure her fame.

Shortly after the fall of Robespierre, she published two pamphlets, one entitled _Reflections on Peace at Home_, the other _Reflections on Peace_, _addressed to Pitt and to the French_. This latter work received a tribute of praise from Fox in the House of Commons.

Mme. de Staël took a deep interest in the government formed under the new constitution of 1795, but in her desire to become acquainted with the men who were likely to be chosen members of it, she formed intimacies with some who were unworthy of her; even her literary reputation suffered from these so-called friendships. The public rarely discriminates wisely between the character of an author and that of his or her surroundings.

Just at this time Mme. de Staël became the centre of a circle of politicians, who used to meet at the Hôtel de Salm under the title of the Constitutional Club: this society had been formed to counterbalance the doctrines of the Clichy Club, which were ultra-revolutionary. Benjamin Constant was one of the principal speakers at the "Constitutional."

Thibaudeau, in his memoirs, lately published, declares that Mme. de Staël secretly favored the Directory, and even attributes to her influence the reappearance on the political stage of one who had long forfeited the position he formerly held there. "M. de Talleyrand," says Thibaudeau, "had just returned from the United States without any money, when, through the influence of a woman famous for her wit and her spirit of intrigue, he was introduced into the intimacy of Barras."

But enthusiastic as this famous woman was for glory and talent, she was far too shrewd to be deceived by the fine talk of the young conqueror, who came with the spoils of Egypt in his knapsack to dictate to France, promising to replace the "ignoble Directory by a splendid and solid government." Her knowledge of human nature enabled her to foresee with certainty what the result would be when the despot was raised to power; it would be war to the knife against liberty in every shape and form, and against all its supporters. One of Bonaparte's panegyrists has attempted by a base and monstrous calumny to exonerate his petty persecution of a woman by attributing to her a woman's vindictive spite as the motive of her resistance to him and his policy. This worthy servant of his master declares, on the word of the latter, that Mme. de Staël was in love with Bonaparte, and that his coldness to the _femme savante_ was the real motive of her opposition. The story is as worthy of the husband of the loving and divorced Josephine as it is unworthy of Mme. de Staël. Her real crime in his eyes was her unyielding integrity of principle, and the preternatural insight of her genius, which made it impossible for him to dupe her. He verified all her previsions to the full. No sooner had he seized the reins of power than he used it to paralyze liberty in every form; most, above all, when it was handled by talent. Mme. de Staël was imprudent enough to boast of her prophetic instinct on this score to Joseph Bonaparte, who was her friend, but who was also the brother of the First Consul. He entreated her to be more guarded in her words, and soon after warned her that the conversations of her _salon_ found their echo in the Tuileries. When she laughed at his friendly information, he tried to convince her by a more powerful argument. Necker had deposited two millions in the royal treasury, and this sum should be restored to his daughter if she would so far condescend to recognize the First Consul as to ask him for it. Mme. de Staël replied that she would never sue where she had a right to exact, and instead of conciliating the great man, she urged Benjamin Constant to pronounce immediately his famous speech denouncing the covert tyranny of the First Consul, which so roused the wrath of the latter against him and her that from this time forth Mme. de Staël was to know no peace. The daring act sealed her doom. Friends, terrified at her boldness and its consequences, deserted her _salon_. Fouché, the minister of police, summoned her to his presence, and informed her in his master's name what she already knew, that no one might brave his anger with impunity.

A few days after this official interview she went to a _fête_ given by Gen. Berthier, having accepted the invitation in hopes that some violent outburst from Bonaparte would give her the opportunity of taking a woman's vengeance, and sharpening her wit on him. She actually tells us that she rehearsed an imaginary scene between them, and wrote down her own answers, polishing them off till they were sharp as steel. It was time and wit wasted, however; Bonaparte only accosted her with some vulgar platitude that afforded no opening for pert reprisals. Not long after this disappointment she met the enemy again, this time by chance, and fortune served her better. Mme. de Staël was discussing some political question with great animation when the First Consul came up to the group of admiring listeners, and said brusquely:

"Madame, I hate women who talk politics."

"So do I, General," replied his adversary, looking him coolly in the face; "but in a country where men persecute them and cut their heads off, it is well to know why." On another occasion, when he accosted her in a gracious mood, she made bold to ask him what woman in France he was proudest of. "The woman who has most children," was the coarse rejoinder.

Mme. de Staël made frequent journeys to Coppet, her father's residence. This was another crime in the eyes of the First Consul, as Necker was supposed to have been helped by his talented daughter in his work, _Politics and Finance_--a book which Bonaparte resented furiously as an attack on his own policy and system of finance.

On Mme. de Staël's return to Paris after the appearance of the work, she was warned that her personal liberty was in danger. Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angély, who was her friend though in Napoleon's service, got her safe out of Paris, and secured her the hospitality of a relative of his in the country, where, she tells us, she used often to sit at her window of a night watching for the arrival of the _gendarmes_ to seize her. She soon left this kindly shelter for the home of her friend Mme. Récamier, at Saint Brice. In the security of this quiet retreat the fugitive fancied herself forgotten by Napoleon, and decided to settle down at a small country-house about ten leagues from Paris. Scarcely had she done so when the happy illusion was dispelled. A commandant of _gendarmerie_ presented himself at her door with an order signed by the First Consul, bidding her withdraw forty leagues from the capital within twenty-four hours.

Joseph Bonaparte and General Tunat had interceded for her, but in vain. Mme. de Staël, exasperated, refused the privilege of remaining in France on such conditions, and decided to seek refuge in Germany, where she could "confront the courtesy of the ancient dynasty with the impertinence of the new one that was striving to crush France."

Her first resting-place was Weimar, the German Athens of that day. Here she learned German under such professors as Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland. In 1804, she visited Berlin, where she met with the kindest reception from the king and queen; but her stay there was short; she was summoned hence to her father's death-bed, and arrived too late to embrace him. This was a fearful blow; she strove to assuage her grief by collecting his MSS., with a view to publishing them, but her health, shaken by so many vicissitudes, gave way, and she was obliged to seek change and rest in Italy. The sight of Rome and of Naples awoke a new life within her, and restored to her the power of writing, which for a time she had lost.

But nothing could long console her for her absence from her own beloved country. The longing to see France at last so far subdued her proud spirit that she determined to avail herself of the privilege of approaching within forty leagues of Paris; she returned accordingly, and settled at Rouen. This was indeed a violation of the permitted limits, but Fouché shut his eyes to it, and the exile remained undisturbed at the residence of her friend M. de Castellane, where she finished _Corinne_, and corrected the proof-sheets. The work appeared in 1807, and awoke a very trumpet-blast of applause all over Europe. But fame was a crime in one who had incurred the tyrant's displeasure, and the author received a peremptory order to quit France. Broken-hearted and despairing, she returned to Coppet, where she was accompanied by a few faithful friends, who braved all to share her solitude. Here she continued to occupy herself with her great work, _Germany_. Feeling, however, that a more perfect knowledge of the country was necessary before completing it, she resolved to spend the winter of 1807 at Vienna. She met with a flattering reception there from the Prince de Ligne, the Princesse Lubomirska, and most of the distinguished personages of the court, and returned in the spring to Coppet.

As soon as her book on Germany was ready for the press, Mme. de Staël set out for France, and placed herself at the distance prescribed--forty leagues. She took up her abode at the old castle of Chaumont, formerly the residence of the Cardinal d'Amboise, Diana of Poitiers, and Catherine de' Medicis.

While passing a few days with her dear and valiant friend, M. de Montmorency, the persecuted author received the terrible tidings that 10,000 copies of her new work just issued had been seized by the minister, although she had taken the precaution of submitting the proofs for approval to the censorship. This tyrannical measure was followed by an order to leave France within three days. She begged for a short delay, hoping, by means of a German passport, to land in England; but to this request the Duc de Rovigo sent a positive refusal. Mme. de Staël revenged herself later by placing the duke's letter in her second edition of _Germany_.

From Fossé she fled to Coppet. Here she found that the prefect of Geneva had received orders to destroy any proofs or copies of her work that he could discover. At the same time, he hinted to Mme. de Staël that she might soften the tyrant by seizing the opportunity to write an ode on the new-born "King of Rome." "My best wish for his infant majesty," she replied, "is, that he may have a good nurse." This impertinence came to Napoleon's ears, and Mme. de Staël expiated it by a prohibition to move two leagues from Coppet. Her friends were finally included in her disgrace. M. Schlegel, her son's tutor, was ordered to resign his position in her family, and M. de Montmorency was exiled for daring to give her the protection of his presence in return for the courageous hospitality he had received from her during the Terror. Mme. Récamier was similarly punished for her boldness in befriending the woman who defied Bonaparte. Hunted to earth while she remained on French soil, Mme. de Staël felt that nothing remained to her but to seek peace and security in flight. But whither should she fly? Bonaparte's spies were spread like a network over the Continent. They would vie with each other in setting traps for her. Russia alone offered some chance of rest; so, one bright spring morning, Mme. de Staël went out for a drive, and, instead of returning home, posted on through Switzerland and the Tyrol to Vienna. She quickly discovered that it was not possible for her to tarry here; the tyrant's tools were on her track. "March! march!" was still the cry of fate; and, like the Wandering Jew, she sallied forth once more on her wanderings. Moscow seemed like a promised land where she might rest awhile; but, scarcely had she drawn breath amidst the unmelted snows of the northern city, when the hunter was down upon her. The _Grande Armée_ was advancing rapidly on the Russian capital. "March! march!" And again the fugitive was on the road, flying to St. Petersburg. Here at last came a respite. The emperor and empress received her like a dethroned sovereign; the nobility followed suit, partly out of admiration for the gifted exile, partly in hatred to her foe, who was theirs also. She was entertained at public banquets, and became the lion of the hour. At one of these magnificent _fêtes_ given in her honor, the toast, "Success to the Russian arms against France!" was proposed. Mme. de Staël seized her glass, and, with a sudden inspiration of patriotism, cried out: "No, not against France! against her oppressor!" The amendment was adopted with applause. But St. Petersburg was no safe retreat for the baroness while the French legions were at Moscow. She was advised by friends to fly, and, once more folding her tent, she carried it to Stockholm. Here she was allowed to recruit her wearied limbs and more wearied spirit for some months. She employed the interval of quiet in writing the recollections called _Ten Years in Exile_. On leaving Sweden she set sail for England, with a view to publishing her famous _Allemagne_--the work which had been the immediate cause of her recent persecutions, having exasperated Bonaparte beyond all powers of endurance. It was not until the fall of her enemy that Mme. de Staël ventured to return to France. Her joy, however, at this twofold event was of short duration. The despot who knew no mercy to the weak was not to be bound by the chains of honor. He broke his plighted word, fled from Elba, and landed one morning on the shores of France. It was the signal for Mme. de Staël to fly from them. Filled with patriotic grief and personal dismay, she started immediately for Coppet. She had barely arrived there when a letter followed her with the unexpected order to return to Paris, "where the emperor considered her presence would be useful in establishing constitutional ideas." But she, whom threats and exile had not daunted, was not to be beguiled by flattery. "Tell your master," she replied to the writer of the singular invitation,--"tell your master that since he has got on for twelve years without me or the constitution, he can do without us a little longer, and that at this moment he hates one about as much as the other."

What wonder if the health of this intrepid woman gave way, in spite of her indomitable spirit, under this long spell of mental and physical fatigue, and ceaseless vexation and disappointment. Her declining years were consumed in intense suffering, borne with the utmost courage and resignation. She returned finally to France after the Restoration, and was treated with every mark of esteem by Louis XVIII. He delighted in her conversation, and gave her a more substantial proof of good-will by restoring to her the two millions that her father had deposited in the treasury before his fall. This act of justice bound her by ties of enduring gratitude to the king and his dynasty.

But she was not spared long to enjoy the honors that now surrounded her. Sorrow, and the despondency consequent on great bodily exhaustion, had tempted Mme. de Staël into the deadly habit of using opium, and when once contracted she had not strength to relinquish it, even after the cause that made the stimulant a necessity of existence to her had disappeared. Her friends used every argument and every stratagem to cure her, but in vain. She fell into a state of lethargy, or rather into a succession of lethargic slumbers, broken by sudden gleams of her old brightness. Her patience was very touching, and many evidences are preserved to show that she drew it from her unshaken faith in Christianity, however imperfect the form in which she had been reared, and to which she was outwardly attached. Once, on awaking from her slumbrous state, she exclaimed to those who surrounded her bed: "It seems to me that I know now what the passage from life to death is; and I feel how God in his mercy softens it to us." She expired on the 14th of July, 1817, the anniversary of the very day on which her father's false theories and blind self-confidence had put the match to the powder and kindled that terrific conflagration which enveloped France in flames. Her remains were deposited at Coppet, in the tomb she had raised to the memory of the great financier.

Those who were present at the reading of her will, heard for the first time of her marriage with M. de Rocca. In that document she bade her children proclaim the fact, as also the birth of a boy by this union. A relative and intimate friend of Mme. de Staël's gives us an account of her first meeting with her second husband:

"A young man of good birth excited much interest at Geneva by the stories current about his bravery, and by the contrast between his age and his fragile appearance and shattered health; the result of wounds received in Spain, where he had served in a French hussar regiment. A few words of sympathy addressed to him by Mme. de Staël produced a most wonderful effect; his head and heart took fire. 'I will love her so well,' he vowed, 'that she will end by marrying me!' and he was right. Their affection for each other was of the deepest and tenderest kind. She lived in perpetual fear of losing him, owing to his delicate health; and yet it was he who survived her, but only a year; he died at Hyères, more from grief than from his infirmities, in his thirty-first year."

We have said nothing of the person of this singularly gifted woman. "She was," to quote the words of a contemporary, "graceful in all her movements; her face, without being handsome, attracted your attention, and then fixed it; a sort of intellectual beauty radiated from her countenance, which seemed the reflex of her soul. Genius was visible in her eyes, which were of a rare splendor; her glance had a fire and strength that resembled the flash of the lightning, and was the forerunner of the thunder-roll of her language; her large and well-proportioned figure gave a kind of energy and weight to her discourse. To this was added a certain dramatic effect. Though free from all exaggeration in her dress, she studied what was picturesque more than what was the fashion. Her arms and hands were beautiful, and singularly white."

This picture is an attractive one, and paints Mme. de Staël in very different colors from those generally used by her portrayers. It is only natural that a woman who had all her life been before the world, should be variously judged by various people. A celebrated writer of her own day, who knew the author of _Corinne_ both as an author and a woman, said that she would not be impartially judged until a century had gone by. Napoleon raised her to a pedestal of martyrdom by his unmanly and cruel persecution, and the _éclat_ of her genius hid her individual faults and errors in a haze of glory. She was hated by the flatterers who fawned on the tyrant because she dared to defy him. Some considered her a cold, masculine woman, who had none of the charm of womanhood about her; while others, dazzled by her talent, idealized her as a sort of demigod. Distance enables us to estimate her more justly. She was a woman of unrivalled energy of character, of incomparably brilliant parts, and endowed with a heart equal in tenderness to the power of her genius. Her written style gives but a faint idea of the lustre of her conversation. She was, perhaps, quite unparalleled in this last sphere. The play of wit, logic, and grace never flagged for an instant, but kept her hearers spellbound as long as her voice was heard. Once, at a _soirée_ at Mme. Récamier's, she got into a discussion with the Archbishop of Sens, as to whether it was an advantage or a misfortune for a nation to be in debt; the archbishop took the latter view of the question, and they kept up the ball for two hours, until the excitement among the guests became so great that they stood upon chairs in the adjoining _salon_ to enjoy the brilliancy of the intellectual combat. She was, as her death attests, a devout believer in Christianity. On one occasion, after listening to some metaphysicians crossing lances over their pet theories, she remarked: "The Lord's prayer says more to me than all that."

From the repetition of this divine prayer during her long nights of sleeplessness she drew patience and resignation. By birth and education a Protestant, she never allowed her lofty mind to be prejudiced against Catholics, and often spoke with enthusiasm of the heroic courage of the martyred priests and bishops of the memorable 2d of September, 1792. _The Imitation of Christ_ was her constant companion and solace during her long illness. This woman of genius was a devoted mother. Her literary pursuits did not interfere with her maternal duties: she superintended the education of her children herself, and often impressed upon them that, "if they fell away from the path of honor and duty it would be not alone an irreparable sorrow, but a remorse" to her, as she would accuse herself of being the cause of it.

She was not happy in her first marriage, which was purely one of "arrangement." There was no sympathy of taste or ideas between her and the Baron de Staël; her separation from him was nevertheless a deep source of pain to her, and she never would have consented to it but for the ruinous state into which his imprudence and extravagance had thrown her financial affairs, and which must have led to the utter ruin of his family if they had been left longer in his hands. When his increasing years and illness demanded the consolation of her companionship, she returned to her husband with affectionate alacrity, and devoted herself to him until his death.

The multiplicity of Mme. de Staël's writings earned for her the _sobriquet_ of "the female Voltaire." She began to write when most girls of her age are still in pinafores; her early works are like the flights of a young eagle, betraying the fearless temerity of conscious power, combined with the inexperience of youth--she plunges into depths, and soars to heights of metaphysics and philosophy with all the audacity of untaught genius. _The Influence of the Passions on the Happiness of Nations and Individuals_ is one of the most striking of those juvenile feats, and was quickly followed by others in the same field. Her novels are undoubtedly the first of her claims on enduring fame. _Delphine_ is supposed to be Mme. de Staël as she was, and _Corinne_ as she wished to be. They are both masterpieces of the romantic school prevalent in that day, and they both inaugurated a new reign in fiction. The closing years of the author's agitated life were devoted to the compilation of the volumes entitled _Considerations on the French Revolution_--a work of great magnitude, and which was intended to embrace the full exposition and justification of her father's policy and life, and a philosophical analysis of the theories of all known forms of government, as well as an elaborate history of the causes and effects of the Revolutionary crisis. The plan was colossal in scope, and almost infinite in the variety of subjects it included; but death did not wait for her to finish it. Amongst her earliest literary productions we must not refuse a passing mention to her dramatic efforts. She was not twenty when _Sophie_ and _Jane Grey_ earned for her a place amongst the most mature and brilliant writers of the period. There is no doubt, if she had had leisure to pursue this vein, Mme. de Staël would have enriched the French language with some remarkable comedies and tragedies. Her works were collected after her death by the Baron de Staël, her son, and form a series of eighteen large volumes.

The interest of the subject has led us into a somewhat lengthy sketch of the life of this distinguished lady. French annals furnish a study, almost unique, of women who were models of all womanly virtues, and yet by their brilliancy, wit, and conversance with public affairs were fitted to be the advisers of rulers and statesmen. We are very far from wishing to see the sex drawn out of their proper sphere, but when by natural and acquired talents they evince a vocation for affairs of state, we think that governments may wisely accept their counsel, and that their services are worthy of permanent record.

FATHER SEBASTIAN RALE, S.J.

The rivalries of the French and English for dominion in the northwestern corner of our republic have deeply impressed themselves upon the pages of our history. The element of religious controversy was not the least of the exciting causes which made that frontier the scene of angry strife. The French carried the Catholic faith wherever they erected the arms of their kings, and the natives flocked with ardor and conviction around the standard of the cross. Whatever may have been the merits of the respective parties in the contest for dominion, it is now the settled voice of history that the Catholic missionaries were actuated by motives far above all earthly considerations, and that their cause was that of no earthly king, but was the sacred cause of the King of Heaven.

Sebastian Rale was born of a good family in Franche-Comté, in the year 1658. At an early age he entered the Society of Jesus. After passing through the novitiate, he was engaged in teaching at the College of Nismes. To fine natural abilities he added great industry, and thus became an accomplished scholar. A foreign mission was the object of his holy aspirations; and, after his ordination, he received directions from his superior to embark for Canada. He sailed from Rochelle on the 23d of July, 1689, and, after a voyage without accidents, arrived at Quebec on the 13th of October following. As his destination was the mission among the Abnakis, the Men-of-the-East, he employed his time at Quebec in studying their language.

It was not long, however, before he was sent on the mission to St. Francis, an Abnaki village, containing about two hundred inhabitants, most of whom were Catholics. Among these, the gentlest of the Indian tribes in the North, his first essays at his favorite vocation were made by this illustrious missionary.

He had commenced the study of the Abnaki dialect at Quebec; surrounded, as he now was, by the Abnakis themselves, he prosecuted that study with great industry. While acquiring their language, he was also engaged in writing his Abnaki catechism and dictionary. Every day he spent some time in their wigwams, in order to catch from the lips of the Indians the idioms of their language; and he often subjected himself to their merry laugh by uttering some sentence for the proposed catechism in his broken Abnaki, which, as they rendered in the pure idiom, the patient student copied in his book. After two years' labor at St. Francis, he was selected by the superior to succeed the missionary of the Illinois, who had recently died, because that mission required a father who had already acquired some one of the Algonquin dialects.

Before setting out for his Illinois missions, he spent three months at Quebec, studying the Algonquin language. On the 13th of August, 1691, he launched his little bark canoe, for his long and arduous voyage to the West. Slowly they moved onward; he and his companions landed night after night to build their fire and erect their tent, which consisted of their little canoe turned up, as their only shelter from the storms. After those long days of labor and fasting, their slender meals were made upon a vegetable, called by the French _tripe de roche_.[165] His companions were so exhausted on reaching Michilimackinac that he was obliged to stop and winter there. Well may the historian remark of these expeditions of the Catholic missionaries to the West that "all must feel that their fearless devotedness, their severe labors, their meek but heroic self-sacrifice, have thrown a peculiar charm over the early history of a region in which the restless spirit of American enterprise is going forth to such majestic results."[166]

F. Rale wintered at Michilimackinac with the two missionaries stationed there, one of them having the care of the Hurons, and the other of the Ottawas. Here, with the aid of F. Chaumonot's grammar, he learned sufficient of the Huron tongue--the key to most of those spoken in Canada--to assist the Huron missionary. Scarcely had the spring opened, when F. Rale was urging his canoe along the western coast of Lake Michigan. He passed by the villages of the Mascoutens, Sacs, Outagamis or Winnebagoes, Foxes, and others, till he came to the bottom of the lake. Having reached the Illinois partly by river and partly by portage, he launched his canoe on that river, and glided down its stream one hundred and fifty miles, till he came to the great town of the Illinois Indians. This town contained about two thousand five hundred families, and the rest of the nation were scattered through eleven other villages. F. Rale was welcomed to their country by the greatest of Illinois feasts, "the Feast of the Chiefs," at which the appetite was penanced by feeding on dogs, which were esteemed the greatest of delicacies among the Indians, and of which a large number had been served up on this occasion in honor of their distinguished guest. To every two persons an entire dish was allotted. The father manifests no great relish for the food he received, but he expresses the greatest admiration and astonishment at the powerful eloquence and wild beauty of the oration with which he was regaled on this occasion.

F. Rale devoted himself with zeal to the care of his new flock. His principal difficulty consisted in overcoming in them the practice of polygamy. "There would have been," he writes, "less difficulty in converting the Illinois did the Prayer permit polygamy among them. They acknowledged that the Prayer was good, and were delighted to have their wives and children instructed; but when we spoke on the subject to the braves, we found how hard it was to fix their natural fickleness, and induce them to take but one wife, and her for life." Again, the father writes: "When the hour arrives for morning and evening prayers, all repair to the chapel. Not one, even the great medicine-men--that is to say, our worst enemies--but sends his children to be instructed, and, if possible, baptized." The good missionary had the consolation of baptizing numbers of sick infants before death carried them off, and there were among the adults many devout Christians, to whom the faith was dearer than their lives.

After two years thus spent among the Illinois, his superior recalled F. Rale for other duties about the year 1695. During the return to Quebec, he instructed fully in the faith, and baptized, a young Indian girl, whose edifying death afterwards this zealous father esteemed an ample consolation and recompense for all the trials and hardships of his life. On arriving at Quebec, he was assigned to the mission in the heart of the Abnaki country, which F. Bigot had re-established.

But this field, which F. Rale now entered as a minister of the gospel of peace, had become, during his absence, the scene of war. While he had been laboring on the distant banks of the Illinois, the Abnakis had sustained injuries from their English neighbors which provoked them to take up the hatchet in defence and retaliation. Maj. Waldron, of Dover, had, in 1675, seized four hundred Indians of their tribe, and sold them into slavery in the West Indies. Though deeply incensed at this revolting crime, the Indians remained quiet till 1688, when, upon a breach of the peace of 1678 on the part of the English, they could no longer restrain their fury. The war-cry was sounded through the land, bands of infuriated and injured braves rushed upon the English frontier, Dover was taken, and Waldron himself fell a captive into their hands, and suffered a death most shocking, it is true, but one which all must admit he had deserved as many times over, if that were possible, as there had been victims of his rapacious inhumanity. Pemaquid was next taken, and destruction was visited upon the entire line of frontier settlements. The colonists now proposed a peace, but the Indians had already suffered too much from the violation of treaties. They exclaimed: "Nor we, nor our children, nor our children's children will ever make a peace or truce with a nation that kills us in their halls."

But the Abnakis, unsupported in the war by the French, were finally constrained to accept the offer of peace--a peace as deceptive as former ones had proved.

The following year the great and brave chief Taxus went to Pemaquid, with some others, to propose an exchange of prisoners: admitted into the fort for this purpose, they were treacherously fired upon, two of them were killed, and Taxus killed two of the garrison in cutting his way through to make his escape.

This being the condition of the country at the time that F. Rale was sent there by his superior as missionary to the Catholic Abnakis, it may be easily judged how far that state of things is justly attributable to what Mather calls "the charms of the French friar." From what has already been related, it is quite certain that there existed sufficient causes for war on the part of the Indians without any influence from F. Rale, had he been there to exert it.

So far from instigating or countenancing acts of cruelty or blood on the part of his flock, his office and his labors were those of peace and charity. His mission was to announce the glad tidings of the Gospel: "Glory to God on high, and peace on earth to men of good-will." And we have authority, not prejudiced in favor of his cause, for the assertion that he was not faithless to his sacred duty. Thus Gov. Lincoln says: "His followers were not only the bravest, but _the most sparing_, of the fierce race to which they belonged; and though spoil and havoc were their element, they could sometimes be generous and forbearing. But when the old man expired by the side of the altar he had reared, the barbarism he had only in a measure controlled, broke loose with a ferocity not softened by the dogmas he had taught."[167]

The village of Narrantsouac, on the Kennebec, still called Indian Old Point, became the residence of F. Rale. Here he found, on his arrival, a little church and a flock of converted Indians remarkable for their devotion and sincerity. They entertained a profound attachment to the Prayer, and great veneration for him who was its minister. Besides this, they soon learned to love and esteem F. Rale as their best friend; he was their arbitrator in all disputes, their physician in sickness, and their consoler in all their distresses. Religion was the reigning sentiment in this truly Christian community, and the little chapel, erected by the hands of the neophytes, became at once the object of their love and the scene of their unalloyed devotion.

As game was scarce, the Abnakis bestowed much care and labor in the cultivation of their fields. After planting the seed in the spring, they sallied forth on fishing parties to the sea-shore, accompanied by F. Rale. In these expeditions, a rustic altar, covered with an ornamental cloth, was carried along, and the chapel-tent was pitched every evening for prayer, and struck in the morning after Mass. On reaching the sea-shore a large bark cabin was erected for the church, and the wigwams of the Indians were arranged around it. Thus arose, as by the magic power of religion, a beautiful village on the distant sea-shore, with its chapel, priest, and flock, and there were heard the pious chant and fervent prayer, there the mysteries of the faith were taught to docile hearers, there devout confessions heard, and there the bread of life distributed. The priest was truly the father of the faithful. He was also their companion and sympathetic friend. Hunger, thirst, and fatigue he bore with them, and their sorrows, as their joys, were common. Yet in this rude and simple mode of life the faithful Jesuit conformed himself to the strictest rules of his order. His hours of rising and retiring, his Office, meditations, and all his spiritual exercises were as regular as those of his brethren in the colleges of Europe. In order to avoid interruptions while saying his Office or performing his other devotions, he would refrain from all conversation, except in cases of necessity, from evening prayers till after Mass. His annual retreat was observed at the beginning of Lent with the same scrupulous exactness. The pension which he was allowed by the French government he distributed among the more needy of his spiritual children.

In 1697, F. Rale heard, with solicitude for his flock, that a strange and unconverted tribe--the Amalingans--were coming to settle near to Narrantsouac. He feared for the faith and morals of his neophytes when exposed to the tricks of the medicine-men and the seductive games and dances of such superstitious neighbors. He was engaged in the confessional all the evening before Corpus Christi and during the morning of the festival till near noon. In the meantime, deputies from the newly arrived Amalingans came, bearing presents, according to the Indian custom, for the relatives of some Abnakis recently destroyed by the English. Towards noon the procession of the blessed sacrament began to move with a degree of magnificence that astonished those natives of the wilderness. Struck as were the Amalingan deputies with the solemnity, the earnestness, and the majesty of the scene, they listened with conviction to the fervent and eloquent words of the father, who seized upon so favorable an occasion to acquaint them with the existence and attributes of the Deity, whose worship they then beheld. How sublime and beautiful must have been the appeal which the zealous missionary made to those astonished warriors! The deputies were convinced, but they could not accept the prayer before laying the words of the Black Gown before the assembled sachems of their tribe, who were expected to arrive in the autumn. During the summer, the father sent them a message, reminding them of his words and their promise. In due time the answer was returned, that they desired to embrace the Prayer, and they invited the Black Gown chief to come among them, and bring the wampum of the faith. It happened that Narrantsouac was then deserted by its inhabitants, who were on one of their excursions; and F. Rale set out in his canoe for the village of the Amalingans, who received him with every honor, and welcomed him with a salute of musketry. Soon a cross was raised in the centre of the village and a bark chapel was erected. The missionary visited the cabins and instructed the catechumens. After Mass every day, three public instructions were given; between these they received private instructions in their cabins. Four chiefs and two matrons were first baptized; then followed two bands of twenty each, and finally the entire tribe publicly received the Prayer and were baptized. A public assembly was then held, and the missionary received the simple but touching tokens of their gratitude and love, and then he returned in his canoe to Narrantsouac, while the Christian Amalingans departed for the sea-shore. F. Rale found no difficulty afterwards in uniting in one nation the two tribes that were now members of the one fold of Christ.

In 1698, F. Rale, by the aid of means and skilful labor sent from Quebec, succeeded in erecting a neat but simple chapel at his village of Narrantsouac, or Norridgewock. In this their new chapel the Abnaki Christians assembled to unite with the universal church in the solemn rites of the Catholic worship. It was there in their own native wilderness that those Men-of-the-East were contented to worship God in security and peace. But, strange as it may appear, the New England settlers, themselves professing Christianity, saw with jealousy and dislike a Christian temple erected by the Abnakis for Christian worship, while all the heathen tribes of New England were left free and uncared for in their horrid superstitions and brutal sacrifices. This feeling on their part appears the more extraordinary, since at that time Acadia had been restored to France by the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697; that the Catholic faith had been professed by the Abnakis for half a century; and the Jesuit missionaries had been their pastors during all that period.

The interval of peace now enjoyed seems not to have resulted in strengthening the friendship nor in conciliating the good-will and confidence of the Indians. Fresh aggressions were from time to time committed upon them by their white neighbors. But a blow was struck at their chosen and beloved pastors which exhibits the true sentiments entertained on the one side and the grievances endured on the other. On the 15th of June, 1700, a law was passed, which recited: "Whereas, divers Jesuit priests and Popish missionaries, by their subtile insinuations, industriously labor to debauch, seduce, and withdraw the Indians from their due obedience unto his majesty, and to excite and stir them up to sedition, rebellion, and open hostility against his majesty's government," and then proceeded to enact, in reference to the same priests and missionaries, that "they shall depart from and out of the same province on or before the 10th day of September, 1700." In case any one of them should be found in the province after that time, it was provided that he "shall be deemed and accounted an incendiary and disturber of the public peace and safety, and an enemy to the Christian religion, and shall be adjudged to suffer perpetual imprisonment. And if any person, being so sentenced and actually imprisoned, shall break prison and actually escape, and be afterwards retaken, he shall be punished with death."[168] Gov. Bellamont, by his influence, secured in New York also the passage of a law "for hanging every Popish priest that came voluntarily into the province, which was occasioned by the great number of French Jesuits who were continually practising upon our Indians."[169]