United States or Brazil ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Our course lay nearer to the northern shore, and all our stopping-places were on that side. The first was Coppet, where Madame de Stael or her father, or both, were either born or resided or died, I know not which, and care very little.
"Coppet needs superintendence, I suspect, for although he is an excellent carpenter and reliable workman, I'm not sure that he understands complicated or large works except, indeed, the building of houses; but then he has been taught that since he was a boy."
Among the French-Canadian half-breeds our blacksmith, Marcelle Dumont and our carpenter, Henri Coppet, were the most noteworthy; the first being a short but herculean man with a jovial temperament, the latter a thin, lanky, lugubrious fellow, with a grave disposition.
Several of her friends left Paris to come to see her, and Prince Augustus of Prussia, to whom peace had restored his liberty, did us the honor to stop several months at Coppet, prior to his return to his native country.
A word, in conclusion, about Coppet! Necker bought the property from his old banking partner, Thelusson, for 500,000 livres in French money, and retired to live there when the French Revolution drove him out of politics. His daughter, Madame de Staël, inherited it from him, and made it famous. Not that she loved Switzerland; it would be more true to say that she detested Switzerland.
I even feel a real pleasure in mentioning that some letters of recommendation sent her by Joseph Bonaparte, contributed to render her residence at Rome more agreeable. She returned from Italy in the summer of 1805, and passed a year at Coppet and Geneva, where several of her friends were collected. During this period she began to write Corinne.
"I daresay you're right, Max; it has often struck me as a curious fact that, when one is cross or grumpy, he is apt to think all the rest of the world is also cross or grumpy. By the way, that reminds me though I don't see why it should remind me, seeing that the two things have no connection that Coppet came to me last night saying he had discovered a slight leak in the dam.
Quite near the portrait of the exile of Coppet, as she was pleased to call herself, is one of Baron de Staël Holstein, in court costume, finished, elegant, handsome perhaps, but quite insignificant. It is surely one of the ironies of fate that the Baron de Staël is only remembered to-day as the husband of a woman whom he seems to have looked upon as his social inferior.
But, disregarding this warning, Madame Récamier persisted in going to Coppet, and though she only remained one night there, she was exiled forty leagues from Paris. She bore her exile with dignity. She would not solicit a recall, and she forbade those of her friends, who, like Junot, were on familiar terms with the Emperor, to mention her name in his presence.
The day we set out from Pregny we breakfasted at Coppet; from some misunderstanding M. de Stael had not expected us and had breakfasted, but as he is remarkably well-bred, easy, and obliging in his manners he was not put out, and while our breakfast was preparing he showed us the house.
Word Of The Day