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The Mores, the Hemanses, the De Staels, and others among the immortal dead and the living, who compose that bright galaxy of female wit shining ever refulgent have they added nothing to human life, and given no quick, upward impulse of the world?
Madame de Staëls "Corinne, or Italy," is accounted one of her two masterpieces, the other one being "On Germany." "Corinne" not only revealed for the first time to the Frenchmen of her day the grandeur and mystery and charm of Italy, but also showed the national characteristics of French and Englishmen for the first time in their respective, and in a European light.
French prisoners Oldenburg bonnets "Fugio ut Fulgor" Soldiers of the Empire Paris A French hotel A walk through Paris Portrait of Madame de Staël An English ambassador The Louvre French tragedy The heights of Montmartre Cossacks in the Champs Elysées £900 for substitute Napoleon's legacies to his successor A dinner at the English Embassy Botany and mineralogy Party at Madame de Staëls A debate in the Corps Législatif Malmaison Elbowing the marshals St Cloud and Trianon The Catacombs.
Madame de Staëls party formed a fine contrast to the gloom and ponderosity of Sir Charles Stuart's dinner the day before. We went a quarter before nine, thinking, as it was the nominal hour, it would be ill-bred to go too early, but the French are more punctual in these matters, for we found the good people all assembled and Marmont walked out not five minutes before we walked in.
Here in the old château the De Staëls lived for some time, the authoress working in peace and quietness upon her great work. When M. Le Ray and his family returned to Chaumont, although hospitably invited to remain at the château, Madame de Staël insisted upon removing with her family to a villa in the neighborhood, which was placed at her disposal by M. de Salaberry.
M. Paul would have quarrelled with twenty learned women, would have unblushingly carried on a system of petty bickering and recrimination with a whole capital of coteries, never troubling himself about loss or lack of dignity. He would have exiled fifty Madame de Staels, if, they had annoyed, offended, outrivalled, or opposed him.
Sometimes, after you have listened to a proud, high-spirited woman trying to prove that women would equal men in material accomplishment, if only they had a chance, you get so sad that you find yourself helping her out digging up De Sevignes, De Staels, and other "great" women who have made up in brains for what they perhaps lacked in femininity.
Of Geneva he wrote: "I thought I should not like it, fancying it a kind of continental Boston, and that the shadow of John Calvin and the old reformers, or still worse the sentimental idiocy of Rousseau and the De Staels, still lingered." But he did like it, and wrote brilliantly of Lake Leman and Mont Blanc.
The great novelist vibrated between two decanters with the regularity of a pendulum; the famous divine flirted openly with one of the Madame de Staels of the age, who looked daggers at another Corinne, who was amiably satirizing her, after outmaneuvering her in efforts to absorb the profound philosopher, who imbibed tea Johnsonianly and appeared to slumber, the loquacity of the lady rendering speech impossible.
We take in, not Germany alone, but France and Italy; not the Schlegels and Schellings, but the Manzonis and De Staels.
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