For two years she thought over it, and prayed over it, and when all seemed hopeless, she would walk the floor, and say over and over again, "Commit thy way unto the Lord. He will keep thee. Womenmustbe educated; theymustbe." Finally a meeting was called in Boston at the same time as one of the religious anniversaries. She wrote to a friend, "Very few were present. The meeting was adjourned; and the adjourned meeting utterly failed. There were not enough present to organize, and there the business, in my view, has come to an end."Still she carried the burden on her heart. She writes, in 1834, "During the past year my heart has so yearned over the adult female youth in the common walks of life, that it has sometimes seemed as though a fire were shut up in my bones." She conceived the idea of having the young women do the work of the house, partly to lessen expenses, partly to teach them useful things, and also because she says, "Might not this single feature do away much of the prejudice against female education among common people?"At last the purpose in her heart became so strong that she resigned her position as a teacher, and went from house to house in Ipswich collecting funds. She wrote to her mother, "I hope and trust that this is of the Lord, and that He will prosper it. In this movement I have thought much more constantly, and have felt much more deeply, about doing that which shall be for the honor of Christ, and for the good of souls, than I ever did in any step in my life." She determined to raise her first thousand dollars from women. She talked in her good-natured way with the father or the mother. She asked if they wanted a new shawl or card-table or carpet, if they would not find a way to procure it. Usually they gave five or ten dollars; some, only a half-dollar. So interested did two ladies become that they gave one hundred dollars apiece, and later, when their house was burned, and the man who had their money in charge lost it, they worked with their own hands and earned the two hundred, that their portion might not fail in the great work.In less than two months she had raised the thousand; but she wrote Miss Grant, "I do not recollect being so fatigued, even to prostration, as I have been for a few weeks past." She often quoted a remark of Dr. Lyman Beecher's, "The wear and tear of what I cannot do is a great deal more than the wear and tear of what I do." When she became quite worn, her habit was to sleep nearly all the time, for two or three days, till nature repaired the system.She next went to Amherst, where good Dr. Hitchcock felt as deeply interested for girls as for the boys in his college. One January morning, with the thermometer below zero, three or four hours before sunrise, he and Miss Lyon started on the stage for Worcester. Each was wrapped in a buffalo robe, so that the long ride was not unpleasant. A meeting was to be held, and a decision made as to the location of the seminary, which, at last, was actually to be built. After a long conference, South Hadley was chosen, ten miles south of Amherst.One by one, good men became interested in the matter, and one true-hearted minister became an agent for the raising of funds. Miss Lyon was also untiring in her solicitations. She spoke before ladies' meetings, and visited those in high station and low. So troubled were her friends about this public work for a woman, that they reasoned with her that it was in better taste to stay at home, and let gentlemen do the work."What do I that is wrong?" she replied. "I ride in the stage coach or cars without an escort. Other ladies do the same. I visit a family where I have been previously invited, and the minister's wife, or some leading woman, calls the ladies together to see me, and I lay our object before them. Is that wrong? I go with Mr. Hawks [the agent], and call on a gentleman of known liberality, at his own house, and converse with him about our enterprise. What harm is there in that? My heart is sick, my soul is pained, with this empty gentility, this genteel nothingness. I am doing a great work. I cannot come down." Pitiful, that so noble a woman should have been hampered by public opinion. How all this has changed! Now, the world and the church gladly welcome the voice, the hand, and the heart of woman in their philanthropic work.At last, enough money was raised to begin the enterprise, and the corner-stone of Mount Holyoke Seminary was laid, Oct. 3, 1836. "It was a day of deep interest," writes Mary Lyon. "The stones and brick and mortar speak a language which vibrates through my very soul.""With thankful heart and busy hands she watched the progress of the work. Every detail was under her careful eye. She said: "Had I a thousand lives, I could sacrifice them all in suffering and hardship, for the sake of Mount Holyoke Seminary. Did I possess the greatest fortune, I could readily relinquish it all, and become poor, and more than poor, if its prosperity should demand it."Finally, in the autumn of 1837, the seminary was ready for pupils. The main building, four stories high, had been erected. An admirable course of study had been provided. For the forty weeks of the school year, the charges for board and tuition were sixty dollars,--only one dollar and twenty-five cents per week. Miss Lyon's own salary was but two hundred a year and she never would receive anything higher. The accommodations were only for eighty pupils, but one hundred and sixteen came the first year.While Miss Lyon was heartily loved by her scholars, they yet respected her good discipline. It was against the rules for any one to absent herself from meals without permission to do so. One of the young ladies, not feeling quite as fresh as usual, concluded not to go down stairs at tea time, and to remain silent on the subject. Miss Lyon's quick eye detected her absence. Calling the girl's room-mate to her, she asked, "Is Miss ---- ill?""Oh, no," was the reply, "only a little indisposed, and she commissioned me to carry her a cup of tea and cracker.""Very well, I will see to it."After supper, the young lady ascended to her room, in the fourth story, found her companion enjoying a glorious sunset, and seating herself beside her, they began an animated conversation. Presently there was a knock. "Come in!" both shouted gleefully, when lo! in walked Mary Lyon, with the tea and cracker. She had come up four flights of stairs; but she said every one was tired at night, and she could as well bring up the supper as anybody. She inquired with great kindness about the young lady's health, who, greatly abashed, had nothing to say. She was ever after present at meal time, unless sick in bed.The students never forgot Miss Lyon's plain, earnest words. When they entered, they were told that they were expected to do right without formal commands; if not, they better go to some smaller school, where they could receive the peculiar training needed by little girls. She urged loose clothing and thick shoes. "If you will persist in killing yourselves by reckless exposure," she would say, "we are not willing to take the responsibility of the act. We think, by all means, you better go home and die, in the arms of your dear mothers."Miss Lyon had come to her fiftieth birthday. Her seminary had prospered beyond her fondest hopes. She had raised nearly seventy thousand dollars for her beloved school, and it was out of debt. Nearly two thousand pupils had been at South Hadley, of whom a large number had become missionaries and teachers. Not a single year had passed without a revival, and rarely did a girl leave the institution without professing Christianity.She said to a friend shortly after this fiftieth birthday: "It was the most solemn day of my life. I devoted it to reflection and prayer. Of my active toils I then took leave. I was certain that before another fifty years should have elapsed, I should wake up amid far different scenes, and far other thoughts would fill my mind, and other employments would engage my attention. I felt it. There seemed to be no ladder between me and the world above. The gates were opened, and I seemed to stand on the threshold. I felt that the evening of my days had come, and that I needed repose."And the repose came soon. The last of February, 1849, a young lady in the seminary died. Miss Lyon called the girls together and spoke tenderly to them, urging them not to fear death, but to be ready to meet it. She said, "There is nothing in the universe that I am afraid of, but that I shall not know and do all my duty." Beautiful words! carved shortly after on her monument.A few days later, Mary Lyon lay upon her death-bed. The brain had been congested, and she was often unconscious. In one of her lucid moments, her pastor said, "Christ precious?" Summoning all her energies, she raised both hands, clasped them, and said, "Yes." "Have you trusted Christ too much?" he asked. Seeing that she made an effort to speak, he said, "God can be glorified by silence." An indescribable smile lit up her face, and she was gone.On the seminary grounds the beloved teacher was buried, her pupils singing about her open grave, "Why do we mourn departing friends?" A beautiful monument of Italian marble, square, and resting upon a granite pedestal, marks the spot. On the west side are the words:--MARY LYON,THE FOUNDER OFMOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY,AND FOR TWELVE YEARSITS PRINCIPAL;A TEACHERFOR THIRTY-FIVE YEARS,AND OF MORE THANTHREE THOUSAND PUPILS.BORN, FEBRUARY 28, 1797;DIED, MARCH 5, 1849.What a devoted, heroic life! and its results, who can estimate?Her work has gone steadily on. The seminary grounds now cover twenty-five acres. The main structure has two large wings, while a gymnasium; a library building, with thirteen thousand volumes; the Lyman Williston Hall, with laboratories and art gallery; and the new observatory, with fine telescope, astronomical clock, and other appliances, afford such admirable opportunities for higher education as noble Mary Lyon could hardly have dared to hope for. The property is worth about three hundred thousand dollars. How different from the days when half-dollars were given into Miss Lyon's willing hands! Nearly six thousand students have been educated here, three-fourths of whom have become teachers, and about two hundred foreign missionaries. Many have married ministers, presidents of colleges, and leading men in education and good works.The board and tuition have become one hundred and seventy-five dollars a year, only enough to cover the cost. The range of study has been constantly increased and elevated to keep pace with the growing demand that women shall be as fully educated as men. Even Miss Lyon, in those early days, looked forward to the needs of the future, by placing in her course of study, Sullivan'sPolitical Class-Book, and Wayland'sPolitical Economy. The four years' course is solid and thorough, while the optional course in French, German, and Greek is admirable. Eventually, when our preparatory schools are higher, all our colleges for women will have as difficult entrance examinations as Harvard and Yale.The housework at Mount Holyoke Seminary requires but half an hour each day for each of the two hundred and ninety-seven pupils. Much time is spent wisely in the gymnasium, and in boating on the lake near by. Habits of punctuality, thoroughness, and order are the outcome of life in this institution. An endowment of twenty thousand dollars, called "the Mary Lyon Fund," is now being raised by former students for the Chair of the Principal. Schools like the Lake Erie Seminary at Painesville, Ohio, have grown out of the school at South Hadley. Truly, Mary Lyon was doing a great work, and she could not come down. Between such a life and the ordinary social round there can be no comparison.The English ivy grows thickly over Miss Lyon's grave, covering it like a mantle, and sending out its wealth of green leaves in the spring. So each year her own handiwork flourishes, sending out into the world its strongest forces, the very foundation of the highest civilization,--educated and Christian wives and mothers.Harriet G. Hosmer.(From the "Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women.")Some years ago, in an art store in Boston, a crowd of persons stood gazing intently upon a famous piece of statuary. The red curtains were drawn aside, and the white marble seemed almost to speak. A group of girls stood together, and looked on in rapt admiration. One of them said, "Just to think that a woman did it!""It makes me proud and glad," said another."Who is Harriet Hosmer?" said a third. "I wish I knew about her."And then one of us, who had stolen all the hours she could get from school life to read art books from the Hartford Athenaeum, and kept crude statues, made by herself from chalk and plaster, secreted in her room, told all she had read about the brilliant author of "Zenobia."The statue was seven feet high, queenly in pose and face, yet delicate and beautiful, with the thoughts which genius had wrought in it. The left arm supported the elegant drapery, while the right hung listlessly by her side, both wrists chained; the captive of the Emperor Aurelian. Since that time, I have looked upon other masterpieces in all the great galleries of Europe, but perhaps none have ever made a stronger impression upon me than "Zenobia," in those early years.And who was the artist of whom we girls were so proud? Born in Watertown, Mass., Oct. 9, 1830, Harriet Hosmer came into the welcome home of a leading physician, and a delicate mother, who soon died of consumption. Dr. Hosmer had also buried his only child besides Harriet, with the same disease, and he determined that this girl should live in sunshine and air, that he might save her if possible. He used to say, "There is a whole life-time for the education of the mind, but the body develops in a few years; and during that time nothing should be allowed to interfere with its free and healthy growth."As soon as the child was large enough, she was given a pet dog, which she decked with ribbons and bells. Then, as the Charles River flowed past their house, a boat was provided, and she was allowed to row at will. A Venetian gondola was also built for her, with silver prow and velvet cushions. "Too much spoiling--too much spoiling," said some of the neighbors; but Dr. Hosmer knew that he was keeping his little daughter on the earth instead of heaven.A gun was now purchased, and the girl became an admirable marksman. Her room was a perfect museum. Here were birds, bats, beetles, snakes, and toads; some dissected, some preserved in spirits, and others stuffed, all gathered and prepared by her own hands. Now she made an inkstand from the egg of a sea-gull and the body of a kingfisher; now she climbed to the top of a tree and brought down a crow's nest. She could walk miles upon miles with no fatigue. She grew up like a boy, which is only another way of saying that she grew up healthy and strong physically. Probably polite society was shocked at Dr. Hosmer's methods. Would that there were many such fathers and mothers, that we might have a vigorous race of women, and consequently, a vigorous race of men!When Harriet tired of books,--for she was an eager reader,--she found delight in a clay-pit in the garden, where she molded horses and dogs to her heart's content. Unused to restraint, she did not like the first school at which she was placed, the principal, the brother-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing to her father that he "could do nothing with her."She was then taken to Mrs. Sedgwick, who kept a famous school at Lenox, Berkshire County. She received "happy Hatty," as she was called, with the remark, "I have a reputation for training wild colts, and I will try this one." And the wise woman succeeded. She won Harriet's confidence, not by the ten thousand times repeated "don't," which so many children hear in home and school, till life seems a prison-pen. She let her run wild, guiding her all the time with so much tact, that the girl scarcely knew she was guided at all. Blessed tact! How many thousands of young people are ruined for lack of it!She remained here three years. Mrs. Sedgwick says, "She was the most difficult pupil to manage I ever had, but I think I never had one in whom I took so deep an interest, and whom I learned to love so well." About this time, not being quite as well as usual, Dr. Hosmer engaged a physician of, large practice to visit his daughter. The busy man could not be regular, which sadly interfered with Harriet's boating and driving. Complaining one day that it spoiled her pleasure, he said, "If I am alive, I will be here," naming the day and hour."Then if you are not here, I am to conclude that you are dead," was the reply.As he did not come, Harriet drove to the newspaper offices in Boston that afternoon, and the next morning the community was startled to read of Dr. ----'s sudden death. Friends hastened to the house, and messages of condolence came pouring in. It is probable that he was more punctual after this.On Harriet's return from Lenox, she began to take lessons in drawing, modeling, and anatomical studies, in Boston, frequently walking from home and back, a distance of fourteen miles. Feeling the need of a thorough course in anatomy, she applied to the Boston Medical School for admittance, and was refused because of her sex. The Medical College of St. Louis proved itself broader, glad to encourage talent wherever found, and received her.Professor McDowell, under whom the artists Powers and Clevenger studied anatomy, spared no pains to give her every advantage, while the students were uniformly courteous. "I remember him," says Miss Hosmer, "with great affection and gratitude as being a most thorough and patient teacher, as well as at all times a good, kind friend." In testimony of her appreciation, she cut, from a bust of Professor McDowell by Clevenger, a life-size medallion in marble, now treasured in the college museum.While in St. Louis she made her home with the family of Wayman Crow, Esq., whose daughter had been her companion at Lenox. This gentleman proved himself a constant and encouraging friend, ordering her first statue from Rome, and helping in a thousand ways a girl who had chosen for herself an unusual work in life.After completing her studies she made a trip to New Orleans, and then North to the Falls of St. Anthony, smoking the pipe of peace with the chief of the Dakota Indians, exploring lead mines in Dubuque, and scaling a high mountain that was soon after named for her. Did the wealthy girl go alone on these journeys? Yes. As a rule, no harm comes to a young woman who conducts herself with becoming reserve with men. Flirts usually are paid in their own coin.On her return home, Dr. Hosmer fitted up a studio for his daughter, and her first work was to copy from the antique. Then she cut Canova's "Napoleon" in marble for her father, doing all the work, that he might especially value the gift. Her next statue was an ideal bust of Hesper, "with," said Lydia Maria Child, "the face of a lovely maiden gently falling asleep with the sound of distant music. Her hair is gracefully arranged, and intertwined with capsules of the poppy. A star shines on her forehead, and under her breast lies the crescent moon. The swell of the cheeks and the bust is like pure, young, healthy flesh, and the muscles of the beautiful mouth so delicately cut, it seems like a thing that breathes. She did every stroke of the work with her own small hands, except knocking off the corners of the block of marble. She employed a man to do that; but as he was unused to work for sculptors, she did not venture to have him approach within several inches of the surface she intended to cut. Slight girl as she was, she wielded for eight or ten hours a day a leaden mallet weighing four pounds and a half. Had it not been for the strength and flexibility of muscle acquired by rowing and other athletic exercises, such arduous labor would have been impossible."After "Hesper" was completed, she said to her father, "I am ready to go to Rome.""You shall go, my child, this very autumn," was the response.He would, of course, miss the genial companionship of his only child, but her welfare was to be consulted rather than his own. When autumn came, she rode on horseback to Wayland to say good-bye to Mrs. Child. "Shall you never be homesick for your museum-parlor in Watertown? Can you be contented in a foreign land?""I can be happy anywhere," said Miss Hosmer, "with good health and a bit of marble."Late in the fall Dr. Hosmer and his daughter started for Europe, reaching Rome Nov. 12, 1852. She had greatly desired to study under John Gibson, the leading English sculptor, but he had taken young women into his studio who in a short time became discouraged or showed themselves afraid of hard work, and he feared Miss Hosmer might be of the same useless type.When the photographs of "Hesper" were placed before him by an artist friend of the Hosmers, he looked at them carefully, and said, "Send the young lady to me, and whatever I know, and can teach her, she shall learn." He gave Miss Hosmer an upstairs room in his studio, and here for seven years she worked with delight, honored and encouraged by her noble teacher. She wrote to her friends: "The dearest wish of my heart is gratified in that I am acknowledged by Gibson as a pupil. He has been resident in Rome thirty-four years, and leads the van. I am greatly in luck. He has just finished the model of the statue of the queen; and as his room is vacant, he permits me to use it, and I am now in his own studio. I have also a little room for work which was formerly occupied by Canova, and perhaps inspiration may be drawn from the walls."The first work which she copied, to show Gibson whether she had correctness of eye and proper knowledge, was the Venus of Milo. When nearly finished, the iron which supported the clay snapped, and the figure lay spoiled upon the floor. She did not shrink nor cry, but immediately went to work cheerfully to shape it over again. This conduct Mr. Gibson greatly admired, and made up his mind to assist her all he could.After this she copied the "Cupid" of Praxitiles and Tasso from the British Museum. Her first original work was Daphne, the beautiful girl whom Apollo loved, and who, rather than accept his addresses, was changed into laurel by the gods. Apollo crowned his head with laurel, and made the flower sacred to himself forever.Next, Miss Hosmer produced "Medusa," famed for her beautiful hair, which Minerva turned into serpents because Neptune loved her. According to Grecian mythology, Perseus made himself immortal by conquering Medusa, whose head he cut off, and the blood dripping from it filled Africa with snakes. Miss Hosmer represents the beautiful maiden, when she finds, with horror, that her hair is turning into serpents.Needing a real snake for her work, Miss Hosmer sent a man into the suburbs to bring her one alive. When it was obtained, she chloroformed it till she had made a cast, keeping it in plaster for three hours and a half. Then, instead of killing it, like a true-hearted woman, as she is, she sent it back into the country, glad to regain its liberty."Daphne" and "Medusa" were both exhibited in Boston the following year, 1853, and were much praised. Mr. Gibson said: "The power of imitating the roundness and softness of flesh, he had never seen surpassed." Rauch, the great Prussian, whose mausoleum at Charlottenburg of the beautiful queen Louise can never be forgotten, gave Miss Hosmer high praise.Two years later she completed "Oenone," made for Mr. Crow of St. Louis. It is the full-length figure of the beautiful nymph of Mount Ida. The story is a familiar one. Before the birth of Paris, the son of Priam, it was foretold that he by his imprudence should cause the destruction of Troy. His father gave orders for him to be put to death, but possibly through the fondness of his mother, he was spared, and carried to Mount Ida, where he was brought up by the shepherds, and finally married Oenone. In time he became known to his family, who forgot the prophecy and cordially received him. For a decision in favor of Venus he was promised the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. Forgetting Oenone, he fell in love with the beautiful Helen, already the wife of Menelaus, and persuaded her to fly with him to Troy, to his father's court. War resulted. When he found himself dying of his wounds, he fled to Oenone for help, but died just as he came into her presence. She bathed the body with her tears, and stabbed herself to the heart, a very foolish act for so faithless a man. Miss Hosmer represents her as a beautiful shepherdess, bowed with grief from her desertion.This work was so much liked in America, that the St. Louis Mercantile Library made a liberal offer for some other statue. Accordingly, two years after, "Beatrice Cenci" was sent. The noble girl lies asleep, the night before her execution, after the terrible torture. "It was," says Mrs. Child, "the sleep of a body worn out with the wretchedness of the soul. On that innocent face suffering had left its traces. The arm that had been tossing in the grief tempest, had fallen heavily, too weary to change itself into a more easy position. Those large eyes, now so closely veiled by their swollen lids, had evidently wept till the fountain of tears was dry. That lovely mouth was still the open portal of a sigh, which the mastery of sleep had left no time to close."To make this natural, the sculptor caused several models to go to sleep in her studio, that she might study them. Gibson is said to have remarked upon seeing this, "I can teach her nothing." This was also exhibited in London and in several American cities.For three years she had worked continuously, not leaving Rome even in the hot, unhealthy summers. She had said, "I will not be an amateur; I will work as if I had to earn my daily bread." However, as her health seemed somewhat impaired, at her father's earnest wish, she had decided to go to England for the season. Her trunks were packed, and she was ready to start, when lo! a message came that Dr. Hosmer had lost his property, that he could send her no more money, and suggested that she return home at once.At first she seemed overwhelmed; then she said firmly, "I cannot go back, and give up my art." Her trunks were at once unpacked and a cheap room rented. Her handsome horse and saddle were sold, and she was now to work indeed "as if she earned her daily bread."By a strange freak of human nature, by which we sometimes do our most humorous work when we are saddest, Miss Hosmer produced now in her sorrow her fun-loving "Puck." It represents a child about four years old seated on a toadstool which breaks beneath him. The left hand confines a lizard, while the right holds a beetle. The legs are crossed, and the great toe of the right foot turns up. The whole is full of merriment. The Crown Princess of Germany, on seeing it, exclaimed, "Oh, Miss Hosmer, you have such a talent for toes!" Very true, for this statue, with the several copies made from it, brought her thirty thousand dollars! The Prince of Wales has a copy, the Duke of Hamilton also, and it has gone even to Australia and the West Indies. A companion piece is the "Will-o'-the-wisp."About this time the lovely sixteen-year-old daughter of Madam Falconnet died at Rome, and for her monument in the Catholic church of San Andrea del Fratte, Miss Hosmer produced an exquisite figure resting upon a sarcophagus. Layard, the explorer of Babylon and Nineveh, wrote to Madam Falconnet: "I scarcely remember to have seen a monument which more completely commanded my sympathy and more deeply interested me. I really know of none, of modern days, which I would rather have placed over the remains of one who had been dear to me."Miss Hosmer also modeled a fountain from the story of Hylas. The lower basin contains dolphins spouting jets, while in the upper basin, supported by swans, the youth Hylas stands, surrounded by the nymphs who admire his beauty, and who eventually draw him into the water, where he is drowned.Miss Hosmer returned to America in 1857, five years after her departure. She was still young, twenty-seven, vivacious, hopeful, not wearied from her hard work, and famous. While here she determined upon a statue of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, and read much concerning her and her times. She had touched fiction and poetry; now she would attempt history. She could scarcely have chosen a more heroic or pathetic subject. The brave leader of a brave people, a skilful warrior, marching at the head of her troops, now on foot, and now on horseback, beautiful in face, and cultured in mind, acquainted with Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Egyptian, finally captured by Aurelian, and borne through the streets of Rome, adorning his triumphal procession.After Miss Hosmer's return to Rome, she worked on "Zenobia" with energy and enthusiasm, as she molded the clay, and then the plaster. When brought to this country, it awakened the greatest interest; crowds gathered to see it. In Chicago it was exhibited at the Sanitary Fair in behalf of the soldiers. Whittier said: "It very fully expresses my conception of what historical sculpture should be. It tells its whole proud and melancholy story. In looking at it, I felt that the artist had been as truly serving her country while working out her magnificent design abroad, as our soldiers in the field, and our public officers in their departments." From its exhibition Miss Hosmer received five thousand dollars. It was purchased by Mr. A.W. Griswold, of New York. So great a work was the statue considered in London, that some of the papers declared Gibson to be its author. Miss Hosmer at once began suits for libel, and retractions were speedily made.In 1860 Miss Hosmer again visited America, to see her father, who was seriously ill. How proud Dr. Hosmer must have been of his gifted daughter now that her fame was in two hemispheres! Surely he had not "spoiled" her. She could now spend for him as he had spent for her in her childhood. While here, she received a commission from St. Louis for a bronze portrait-statue of Missouri's famous statesman, Thomas Hart Benton. The world wondered if she could bring out of the marble a man with all his strength and dignity, as she had a woman with all her grace and nobility.She visited St. Louis, to examine portraits and mementos of Colonel Benton, and then hastened across the ocean to her work. The next year a photograph of the model was sent to the friends, and the likeness pronounced good. The statue was cast at the great royal foundry at Munich, and in due time shipped to this country. May 27, 1868, it was unveiled in Lafayette Park, in the presence of an immense concourse of people, the daughter, Mrs. John C. Fremont, removing the covering. The statue is ten feet high, and weighs three and one-half tons. It rests on a granite pedestal, ten feet square, the whole being twenty-two feet square. On the west side of the pedestal are the words from Colonel Benton's famous speech on the Pacific Railroad, "There is the East--there is India." Both press and people were heartily pleased with this statue, for which Miss Hosmer received ten thousand dollars, the whole costing thirty thousand.She was now in the midst of busy and successful work. Orders crowded upon her. Her "Sleeping Faun," which was exhibited at the Dublin Exhibition in 1865, was sold on the day of opening for five thousand dollars, to Sir Benjamin Guinness. Some discussion having arisen about the sale, he offered ten thousand, saying, that if money could buy it, he would possess it. Miss Hosmer, however, would receive only the five thousand. The faun is represented reclining against the trunk of a tree, partly draped in the spoils of a tiger. A little faun, with mischievous look, is binding the faun to the tree with the tiger-skin. The newspapers were enthusiastic about the work.TheLondon Timessaid: "In the groups of statues are many works of exquisite beauty, but there is one which at once arrests attention and extorts admiration. It is a curious fact that amid all the statues in this court, contributed by the natives of lands in which the fine arts were naturalized thousands of years ago, one of the finest should be the production of an American artist." The FrenchGalignanisaid, "The gem of the classical school, in its nobler style of composition, is due to an American lady, Miss Hosmer." TheLondon Art Journalsaid, "The works of Miss Hosmer, Hiram Powers, and others we might name, have placed American on a level with the best modern sculptors of Europe." This work was repeated for the Prince of Wales and for Lady Ashburton, of England.Not long ago I visited the studio of Miss Hosmer in the Via Margutta, at Rome, and saw her numerous works, many of them still unfinished. Here an arm seemed just reaching out from the rough block of marble; here a sweet face seemed like Pygmalion's statue, coming into life. In the centre of the studio was the "Siren Fountain," executed for Lady Marion Alford. A siren sits in the upper basin and sings to the music of her lute. Three little cupids sit on dolphins, and listen to her music.For some years Miss Hosmer has been preparing a golden gateway for an art gallery at Ashridge Hall, England, ordered by Earl Brownlow. These gates, seventeen feet high, are covered with bas-reliefs representing the Air, Earth, and Sea. The twelve hours of the night show "Aeolus subduing the Winds," the "Descent of the Zephyrs," "Iris descending with the Dew," "Night rising with the Stars," "The Rising Moon," "The Hour's Sleep," "The Dreams Descend," "The Falling Star," "Phosphor and Hesper," "The Hours Wake," "Aurora Veils the Stars," and "Morning." More than eighty figures are in the nineteen bas-reliefs. Miss Hosmer has done other important works, among them a statue of the beautiful Queen of Naples, who was a frequent visitor to the artist's studio, and several well-known monuments. With her girlish fondness for machinery, she has given much thought to mechanics in these later years, striving to find, like many another, the secret of producing perpetual motion. She spends much of her time now in England. She is still passionately fond of riding, the Empress of Austria, who owns more horses than any woman in the world, declaring "that there was nothing she looked forward to with more interest in Rome, than to see Miss Hosmer ride."Many of the closing years of the sculptor's long life were spent in Rome, where she had a wide circle of eminent American and English friends, among whom were Hawthorne, Thackeray, George Eliot, and the Brownings. She made several discoveries in her work, one of which was a process of hardening limestone so that it resembled marble. She also wrote both prose and poetry, and would have been successful as an author, if she had not given the bulk of her time to her beloved sculpture.After her long sojourn in Rome she spent several years in England, executing important commissions, and then turned her face toward America. In Watertown, where she was born, she again made her home; and here she breathed her last, February 21, 1908, after an illness of three weeks. She was in her seventy-eighth year. By her long life of earnest work and self-reliant purpose, coupled with her high gift, she has made for herself an abiding place in the history of art.Madame de Staël.MADAME DE STAËL. From the painting by Mlle. Godefroy.It was the twentieth of September, 1881. The sun shone out mild and beautiful upon Lake Geneva, as we sailed up to Coppet. The banks were dotted with lovely homes, half hidden by the foliage, while brilliant flower-beds came close to the water's edge. Snow-covered Mont Blanc looked down upon the restful scene, which seemed as charming as anything in Europe.We alighted from the boat, and walked up from the landing, between great rows of oaks, horsechestnuts, and sycamores, to the famous home we had come to look upon,--that of Madame de Staël. It is a French chateau, two stories high, drab, with green blinds, surrounding an open square; vines clamber over the gate and the high walls, and lovely flowers blossom everywhere. As you enter, you stand in a long hall, with green curtains, with many busts, the finest of which is that of Monsieur Necker. The next room is the large library, with furniture of blue and white; and the next, hung with old Gobelin tapestry, is the room where Madame Recamier used to sit with Madame de Staël, and look out upon the exquisite scenery, restful even in their troubled lives. Here is the work-table of her whom Macaulay called "the greatest woman of her times," and of whom Byron said, "She is a woman by herself, and has done more than all the rest of them together, intellectually; she ought to have been a man."Next we enter the drawing-room, with carpet woven in a single piece; the furniture red and white. We stop to look upon the picture of Monsieur Necker, the father, a strong, noble-looking man; of the mother, in white silk dress, with powdered hair, and very beautiful; and De Staël herself, in a brownish yellow dress, with low neck and short sleeves, holding in her hand the branch of flowers, which she always carried, or a leaf, that thus her hands might be employed while she engaged in the conversation that astonished Europe. Here also are the pictures of the Baron, her husband, in white wig and military dress; here her idolized son and daughter, the latter beautiful, with mild, sad face, and dark hair and eyes.What brings thousands to this quiet retreat every year? Because here lived and wrote and suffered the only person whom the great Napoleon feared, whom Galiffe, of Geneva, declared "the most remarkable woman that Europe has produced"; learned, rich, the author ofCorinneandAllemagne, whose "talents in conversation," says George Ticknor, "were perhaps the most remarkable of any person that ever lived."April 27, 1766, was the daughter of James Necker, Minister of Finance under Louis XVI., a man of fine intellect, the author of fifteen volumes; and Susanna, daughter of a Swiss pastor, beautiful, educated, and devotedly Christian. Necker had become rich in early life through banking, and had been made, by the republic of Geneva, her resident minister at the Court of Versailles.When the throne of Louis seemed crumbling, because the people were tired of extravagance and heavy taxation, Necker was called to his aid, with the hope that economy and retrenchment would save the nation. He also loaned the government two million dollars. The home of the Neckers, in Paris, naturally became a social centre, which the mother of the family was well fitted to grace. Gibbon had been deeply in love with her.He says: "I found her learned without pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant in manners; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by the habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance.... At Crassier and Lausanne I indulged my dream of felicity; but on my return to England I soon discovered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that, without his consent, I was myself destitute and helpless. After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate; I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son." Gibbon never married, but retained his life-long friendship and admiration for Madame Necker.It was not strange, therefore, that Gibbon liked to be present in hersalon, where Buffon, Hume, Diderot, and D'Alembert were wont to gather. The child of such parents could scarcely be other than intellectual, surrounded by such gifted minds. Her mother, too, was a most systematic teacher, and each day the girl was obliged to sit by her side, erect, on a wooden stool, and learn difficult lessons."She stood in great awe of her mother," wrote Simond, the traveller, "but was exceedingly familiar with and extravagantly fond of her father. Madame Necker had no sooner left the room one day, after dinner, than the young girl, till then timidly decorous, suddenly seized her napkin, and threw it across the table at the head of her father, and then flying round to him, hung upon his neck, suffocating all his reproofs by her kisses." Whenever her mother returned to the room, she at once became silent and restrained.The child early began to show literary talent, writing dramas, and making paper kings and queens to act her tragedies. This the mother thought to be wrong, and it was discontinued. But when she was twelve, the mother having somewhat relented, she wrote a play, which she and her companions acted in the drawing-room. Grimm was so pleased with her attempts, that he sent extracts to his correspondents throughout Europe. At fifteen she wrote an essay on theRevocation of the Edict of Nantes, and another upon Montesquieu'sSpirit of Laws.Overtaxing the brain with her continuous study, she became ill, and the physician, greatly to her delight, prescribed fresh air and sunshine. Here often she roamed from morning till night on their estate at St. Ouen. Madame Necker felt deeply the thwarting of her educational plans, and years after, when her daughter had acquired distinction, said, "It is absolutely nothing compared to what I would have made it."Monsieur Necker's restriction of pensions and taxing of luxuries soon aroused the opposition of the aristocracy, and the weak but good-hearted King asked his minister to resign. Both wife and daughter felt the blow keenly, for both idolized him, so much so that the mother feared lest she be supplanted by her daughter. Madame de Staël says of her father, "From the moment of their marriage to her death, the thought of my mother dominated his life. He was not like other men in power, attentive to her by occasional tokens of regard, but by continual expressions of most tender and most delicate sentiment." Of herself she wrote, "Our destinies would have united us forever, if fate had only made us contemporaries." At his death she said, "If he could be restored to me, I would give all my remaining years for six months." To the last he was her idol.For the next few years the family travelled most of the time, Necker bringing out a book on theFinances, which had a sale at once of a hundred thousand copies. A previous book, theCompte Rendu au Roi, showing how for years the moneys of France had been wasted, had also a large sale. For these books, and especially for other correspondence, he was banished forty leagues from Paris. The daughter's heart seemed well-nigh broken at this intelligence. Loving Paris, saying she would rather live there on "one hundred francs a year, and lodge in the fourth story," than anywhere else in the world, how could she bear for years the isolation of the country? Joseph II., King of Poland, and the King of Naples, offered Necker fine positions, but he declined.Mademoiselle Necker had come to womanhood, not beautiful, but with wonderful fascination and tact. She could compliment persons without flattery, was cordial and generous, and while the most brilliant talker, could draw to herself the thoughts and confidences of others. She had also written a book onRousseau, which was much talked about. Pitt, of England, Count Fersen, of Sweden, and others, sought her in marriage, but she loved no person as well as her father. Her consent to marriage could be obtained only by the promise that she should never be obliged to leave him.Baron de Staël, a man of learning and fine social position, ambassador from Sweden, and the warm friend of Gustavus, was ready to make any promises for the rich daughter of the Minister Necker. He was thirty-seven, she only a little more than half his age, twenty, but she accepted him because her parents were pleased. Going to Paris, she was, of course, received at Court, Marie Antoinette paying her much attention. Necker was soon recalled from exile to his old position.The funds rose thirty per cent, and he became the idol of the people. Soon representative government was demanded, and then, though the King granted it, the breach was widened. Necker, unpopular with the bad advisers of the King, was again asked to leave Paris, and make no noise about it; but the people, hearing of it, soon demanded his recall, and he was hastily brought back from Brussels, riding through the streets like "the sovereign of a nation," said his daughter. The people were wild with delight.But matters had gone too far to prevent a bloody Revolution. Soon a mob was marching toward Versailles; thousands of men, women, and even children armed with pikes. They reached the palace, killed the guards, and penetrated to the queen's apartments, while some filled the court-yard and demanded bread. The brave Marie Antoinette appeared on the balcony leading her two children, while Lafayette knelt by her side and kissed her hand. But the people could not be appeased.Necker finding himself unable to serve his king longer, fled to his Swiss retreat at Coppet, and there remained till his death. Madame de Staël, as the wife of the Swedish ambassador, continued in the turmoil, writing her father daily, and taking an active interest in politics. "In England," she said, "women are accustomed to be silent before men when political questions are discussed. In France, they direct all conversation, and their minds readily acquire the facility and talent which this privilege requires." Lafayette, Narbonne, and Talleyrand consulted with her. She wrote the principal part of Talleyrand's report on Public Instruction in 1790. She procured the appointment of Narbonne to the ministry; and later, when Talleyrand was in exile, obtained his appointment to the Department of Foreign Affairs.Matters had gone from bad to worse. In 1792 the Swedish government suspended its embassy, and Madame de Staël prepared to fly, but stayed for a time to save her friends. The seven prisons of Paris were all crowded under the fearful reign of Danton and Marat. Great heaps of dead lay before every prison door. During that Reign of Terror it is estimated that eighteen thousand six hundred persons perished by the guillotine. Whole squares were shot down. "When the police visited her house, where some of the ministers were hidden, she met them graciously, urging that they must not violate the privacy of an ambassador's house. When her friends were arrested, she went to the barbarous leaders, and with her eloquence begged for their safety, and thus saved the lives of many.At last she must leave the terror-stricken city. Supposing that her rank as the wife of a foreign ambassador would protect her, she started with a carriage and six horses, her servants in livery. At once a crowd of half-famished and haggard women crowded around, and threw themselves against the horses. The carriage was stopped, and the occupants were taken to the Assembly. She plead her case before the noted Robespierre, and then waited for six hours for the decision of the Commune. Meantime she saw the hired assassins pass beneath the windows, their bare arms covered with the blood of the slain. The mob attempted to pillage her carriage, but a strong man mounted the box and defended it. She learned afterward that it was the notorious Santerre, the person who later superintended the execution of Louis XVI., ordering his drummers to drown the last words of the dying King. Santerre had seen Necker distribute corn to the poor of Paris in a time of famine, and now he was befriending the daughter for this noble act. Finally she was allowed to continue her journey, and reached Coppet with her baby, Auguste, well-nigh exhausted after this terrible ordeal.The Swiss home soon became a place of refuge for those who were flying from the horrors of the Commune. She kept a faithful agent, who knew the mountain passes, busy in this work of mercy.The following year, 1793, longing for a change from these dreadful times, she visited England, and received much attention from prominent persons, among them Fanny Burny, the author ofEvelina, who owned "that she had never heard conversation before. The most animated eloquence, the keenest observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were united to charm her."On Jan. 21 of this year, the unfortunate King had met his death on the scaffold before an immense throng of people. Six men bound him to the plank, and then his head was severed from his body amid the shouts and waving of hats of the blood-thirsty crowd. Necker had begged to go before the Convention and plead for his king, but was refused. Madame de Staël wrote a vigorous appeal to the nation in behalf of the beautiful and tenderhearted Marie Antoinette; but on Sept. 16, 1793, at four o'clock in the morning, in an open cart, in the midst of thirty thousand troops and a noisy rabble, she, too, was borne to the scaffold; and when her pale face was held up bleeding before the crowd, they jeered and shouted themselves hoarse.The next year 1794, Madame Necker died at Coppet, whispering to her husband, "We shall see each other in Heaven." "She looked heavenward," said Necker in a most affecting manner, "listening while I prayed; then, in dying, raised the finger of her left hand, which wore the ring I had given her, to remind me of the pledge engraved upon it, to love her forever." His devotion to her was beautiful. "No language," says his daughter, "can give any adequate idea of it. Exhausted by wakefulness at night, she slept often in the daytime, resting her head on his arm. I have seen him remain immovable, for hours together, standing in the same position for fear of awakening her by the least movement. Absent from her during a few hours of sleep, he inquired, on his return, of her attendant, if she had asked for him? She could no longer speak, but made an effort to say 'yes, yes.'"When the Revolution was over, and France had become a republic, Sweden sent back her ambassador, Baron de Staël, and his wife returned to him at Paris. Again hersalonbecame the centre for the great men of the time. She loved liberty, and believed in the republican form of government. She had written her book upon theInfluence of the Passions on the Happiness of Individuals and Nations, prompted by the horrors of the Revolution, and it was considered "irresistible in energy and dazzling in thought."She was also devoting much time to her child, Auguste, developing him without punishment, thinking that there had been too much rigor in her own childhood. He well repaid her for her gentleness and trust, and was inseparable from her through life, becoming a noble Christian man, and the helper of all good causes. Meantime Madame de Staël saw with alarm the growing influence of the young Corsican officer, Bonaparte. The chief executive power had been placed in the hands of the Directory, and he had control of the army. He had won brilliant victories in Italy, and had been made commander-in-chief of the expedition against Egypt He now returned to Paris, turned out the Directory, drove out the Council of Five Hundred from the hall of the Assembly at the point of the bayonet, made the government into a consulate with three consuls, of whom he was the first, and lived at the Tuileries in almost royal style.All this time Madame de Staël felt the egotism and heartlessness of Napoleon. Hersalonbecame more crowded than ever with those who had their fears for the future. "The most eloquent of the Republican orators were those who borrowed from her most of their ideas and telling phrases. Most of them went forth from her door with speeches ready for the next day, and with resolution to pronounce them--a courage which was also derived from her." Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte, the brothers of Napoleon, were proud of her friendship, and often were guests at her house, until forbidden by their brother.When Benjamin Constant made a speech against the "rising tyranny," Napoleon suspected that she had prompted it, and denounced her heartily, all the time declaring that he loved the Republic, and would always defend it! He said persons always came away from De Staël's home "less his friends than when they entered." About this time her book,Literature considered in its Relation to Social Institutions, was published, and made a surprising impression from its wealth of knowledge and power of thought. Its analysis of Greek and Latin literature, and the chief works in Italian, English, German, and French, astonished everybody, because written by a woman!Soon after Necker published hisLast Views of Politics and Finance, in which he wrote against the tyranny of a single man. At once Napoleon caused a sharp letter to be written to Necker advising him to leave politics to the First Consul, "who was alone able to govern France," and threatening his daughter with exile for her supposed aid in his book. She saw the wisdom of escaping from France, lest she be imprisoned, and immediately hastened to Coppet. A few months later, in the winter of 1802, she returned to Paris to bring home Baron de Staël, who was ill, and from whom she had separated because he was spending all her fortune and that of her three children. He died on the journey.Virtually banished from France, she now wrote herDelphine, a brilliant novel which was widely read. It received its name from a singular circumstance."Desirous of meeting the First Consul for some urgent reason," says Dr. Stevens in his charming biography of Madame de Staël, "she went to the villa of Madame de Montessan, whither he frequently resorted. She was alone in one of thesalleswhen he arrived, accompanied by the consular court of brilliant young women. The latter knew the growing hostility of their master toward her, and passed, without noticing her, to the other end of thesalle, leaving her entirely alone. Her position was becoming extremely painful, when a young lady, more courageous and more compassionate than her companions, crossed thesalleand took a seat by her side. Madame de Staël was touched by this kindness, and asked for her Christian name. 'Delphine,' she responded. 'Ah, I will try to immortalize it,' exclaimed Madame de Staël; and she kept her word. This sensible young lady was the Comtesse de Custine."Her home at Coppet became the home of many great people. Sismondi, the author of theHistory of the Italian Republics, andLiterature of Southern Europe, encouraged by her, wrote here several of his famous works. Bonstetten made his home here for years. Schlegel, the greatest critic of his age, became the teacher of her children, and a most intimate friend. Benjamin Constant, the author and statesman, was here. All repaired to their rooms for work in the morning, and in the evening enjoyed philosophic, literary, and political discussions.Bonstetten said: "In seeing her, in hearing her, I feel myself electrified.... She daily becomes greater and better; but souls of great talent have great sufferings: they are solitary in the world, like Mont Blanc."In the autumn of 1803, longing for Paris, she ventured to within ten leagues and hired a quiet home. Word was soon borne to Napoleon that the road to her house was thronged with visitors. He at once sent an officer with a letter signed by himself, exiling her to forty leagues from Paris, and commanding her to leave within twenty-four hours.At once she fled to Germany. At Frankfort her little daughter was dangerously ill. "I knew no person in the city," she writes. "I did not know the language; and the physician to whom I confided my child could not speak French. But my father shared my trouble; he consulted physicians at Geneva, and sent me their prescriptions. Oh, what would become of a mother trembling for the life of her child, if it were not for prayer!"Going to Weimar, she met Goethe, Wieland, Schiller, and other noted men. At Berlin, the greatest attention was shown her. The beautiful Louise of Prussia welcomed her heartily. During this exile her father died, with his latest breath saying," She has loved me dearly! She has loved me dearly!" On his death-bed he wrote a letter to Bonaparte telling him that his daughter was in nowise responsible for his book, but it was never answered. It was enough for Napoleon to know that she did not flatter him; therefore he wished her out of the way.Madame de Staël was for a time completely overcome by Necker's death. She wore his picture on her person as long as she lived. Only once did she part with it, and then she imagined it might console her daughter in her illness. Giving it to her, she said, "Gaze upon it, gaze upon it, when you are in pain."She now sought repose in Italy, preparing those beautiful descriptions for herCorinne, and finally returning to Coppet, spent a year in writing her book. It was published in Paris, and, says Sainte-Beuve, "its success was instantaneous and universal. As a work of art, as a poem, the romance ofCorinneis an immortal monument." Jeffrey, in theEdinburgh Review, called the author the greatest writer in France since Voltaire and Rousseau, and the greatest woman writer of any age or country. Napoleon, however, in his official paper, caused a scathing criticism onCorinneto appear; indeed, it was declared to be from his own pen. She was told by the Minister of Police, that she had but to insert some praise of Napoleon inCorinne, and she would be welcomed back to Paris. She could not, however, live a lie, and she feared Napoleon had evil designs upon France.Again she visited Germany with her children, Schlegel, and Sismondi. So eager was everybody to see her and hear her talk, that Bettina von Arnim says in her correspondence with Goethe: "The gentlemen stood around the table and planted themselves behind us, elbowing one another. They leaned quite over me, and I said in French, 'Your adorers quite suffocate me.'"While in Germany, her eldest son, then seventeen, had an interview with Bonaparte about the return of his mother. "Your mother," said Napoleon, "could not be six months in Paris before I should be compelled to send her to Bicêtre or the Temple. I should regret this necessity, for it would make a noise and might injure me a little in public opinion. Say, therefore, to her that as long as I live she cannot re-enter Paris. I see what you wish, but it cannot be; she will commit follies; she will have the world about her."On her return to Coppet, she spent two years in writing herAllemagne, for which she had been making researches for four years. She wished it published in Paris, asCorinnehad been, and submitted it to the censors of the Press. They crossed out whatever sentiments they thought might displease Napoleon, and then ten thousand copies were at once printed, she meantime removing to France, within her proscribed limits, that she might correct the proof-sheets.What was her astonishment to have Napoleon order the whole ten thousand destroyed, and her to leave France in three days! Her two sons attempted to see Bonaparte, who was at Fontainebleau, but were ordered to turn back, or they would be arrested. The only reason given for destroying the work was the fact that she had been silent about the great but egotistical Emperor.Broken in spirit, she returned to Geneva. Amid all this darkness a new light was about to beam upon her life. In the social gatherings made for her, she observed a young army officer, Monsieur Rocca, broken in health from his many wounds, but handsome and noble in face, and, as she learned, of irreproachable life. Though only twenty-three and she forty-five, the young officer was fascinated by her conversation, and refreshed in spirits by her presence. She sympathized with his misfortunes in battle; she admired his courage. He was lofty in sentiments, tender in heart, and gave her what she had always needed, an unselfish and devoted love. When discouraged by his friends, he replied, "I will love her so much that I will finish by making her marry me."They were married in 1811, and the marriage was a singularly happy one. The reason for it is not difficult to perceive. A marriage that has not a pretty face or a passing fancy for its foundation, but appreciation of a gifted mind and noble heart,--such a marriage stands the test of time.The marriage was kept secret from all save a few intimate friends, Madame de Staël fearing that if the news reached Napoleon, Rocca would be ordered back to France. Her fears were only too well founded. Schlegel, Madame Recamier, all who had shown any sympathy for her, began to be exiled. She was forbidden under any pretext whatever from travelling in Switzerland, or entering any region annexed to France. She was advised not to go two leagues from Coppet, lest she be imprisoned, and this with Napoleon usually meant death.The Emperor seemed about to conquer the whole world. Whither could she fly to escape his persecution? She longed to reach England, but there was an edict against any French subject entering that country without special permit. Truly his heel was upon France. The only way to reach that country was through Austria, Russia, and Sweden, two thousand leagues. But she must attempt it. She passed an hour in prayer by her parent's tomb, kissed his armchair and table, and took his cloak to wrap herself in should death come.May 23, 1812, she, with Rocca and two of her children, began their flight by carriage, not telling the servants at the chateau, but that they should return for the next meal.They reached Vienna June 6, and were at once put under surveillance. Everywhere she saw placards admonishing the officers to watch her sharply. Rocca had to make his way alone, because Bonaparte had ordered his arrest. They were permitted to remain only a few hours in any place. Once Madame de Staël was so overcome by this brutal treatment that she lost consciousness, and was obliged to be taken from her carriage to the roadside till she recovered. Every hour she expected arrest and death.Finally, worn in body, she reached Russia, and was cordially received by Alexander and Empress Elizabeth. From here she went to Sweden, and had an equally cordial welcome from Bernadotte, the general who became king. Afterward she spent four months in England, bringing outAllemagne.Here she received a perfect ovation. At Lord Lansdowne's the first ladies in the kingdom mounted on chairs and tables to catch a glimpse of her. Sir James Mackintosh said: "The whole fashionable and literary world is occupied with Madame de Staël, the most celebrated woman of this, or perhaps of any age." Very rare must be the case where a woman of fine mind does not have many admirers among gentlemen.HerAllemagnewas published in 1813, the manuscript having been secretly carried over Germany, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the Baltic Sea. The first part treated of the manners of Germany; the second, its literature and art; the third, its philosophy and morals; the fourth, its religion. The book had a wonderful sale, and was soon translated into all the principal tongues of Europe. Lamartine said: "Her style, without losing any of its youthful vigor and splendor, seemed now to be illuminated with more lofty and eternal lights as she approached the evening of life, and the diviner mysteries of thought. This style no longer paints, no longer chants; it adores.... Her name will live as long as literature, as long as the history of her country."Meantime, great changes had taken place in France. Napoleon had been defeated at Leipsic, leaving a quarter of a million murdered on his battle-fields; he had abdicated, and was on his way to Elba. She immediately returned to Paris, with much the same feeling as Victor Hugo, when he wept as he came from his long exile under "Napoleon the Little." Again to hersaloncame kings and generals, Alexander of Russia, Wellington, and others.But soon Napoleon returned, and she fled to Coppet. He sent her an invitation to come to Paris, declaring he would now live for the peace of Europe, but she could not trust him. She saw her daughter, lovely and beautiful, married to the Duc de Broglie, a leading statesman, and was happy in her happiness. Rocca's health was failing, and they repaired to Italy for a time.In 1816 they returned to Paris, Napoleon having gone from his final defeat to St. Helena. But Madame de Staël was broken with her trials. She seemed to grow more and more frail, till the end came. She said frequently, "My father awaits me on the other shore." To Chateaubriand she said, "I have loved God, my father, and my country." She could not and would not go to sleep the last night, for fear she might never look upon Rocca again. He begged her to sleep and he would awaken her often. "Good night," she said, and it was forever. She never wakened. They buried her beside her father at Coppet, under the grand old trees. Rocca died in seven months, at the age of thirty-one. "I hoped," he said, "to have died in her arms."Her little son, and Rocca's, five years old, was cared for by Auguste and Albertine, her daughter. After Madame de Staël's death, herConsiderations on the French RevolutionandTen Years of Exilewere published. Of the former, Sainte-Beuve says: "Its publication was an event. It was the splendid public obsequies of the authoress. Its politics were destined to long and passionate discussions and a durable influence. She is perfect only from this day; the full influence of her star is only at her tomb."Chateaubriand said, "Her death made one of those breaches which the fall of a superior intellect produces once in an age, and which can never be closed."As kind as she was great, loving deeply and receiving love in return, she has left an imperishable name. No wonder that thousands visit that quiet grave beside Lake Geneva.
For two years she thought over it, and prayed over it, and when all seemed hopeless, she would walk the floor, and say over and over again, "Commit thy way unto the Lord. He will keep thee. Womenmustbe educated; theymustbe." Finally a meeting was called in Boston at the same time as one of the religious anniversaries. She wrote to a friend, "Very few were present. The meeting was adjourned; and the adjourned meeting utterly failed. There were not enough present to organize, and there the business, in my view, has come to an end."
Still she carried the burden on her heart. She writes, in 1834, "During the past year my heart has so yearned over the adult female youth in the common walks of life, that it has sometimes seemed as though a fire were shut up in my bones." She conceived the idea of having the young women do the work of the house, partly to lessen expenses, partly to teach them useful things, and also because she says, "Might not this single feature do away much of the prejudice against female education among common people?"
At last the purpose in her heart became so strong that she resigned her position as a teacher, and went from house to house in Ipswich collecting funds. She wrote to her mother, "I hope and trust that this is of the Lord, and that He will prosper it. In this movement I have thought much more constantly, and have felt much more deeply, about doing that which shall be for the honor of Christ, and for the good of souls, than I ever did in any step in my life." She determined to raise her first thousand dollars from women. She talked in her good-natured way with the father or the mother. She asked if they wanted a new shawl or card-table or carpet, if they would not find a way to procure it. Usually they gave five or ten dollars; some, only a half-dollar. So interested did two ladies become that they gave one hundred dollars apiece, and later, when their house was burned, and the man who had their money in charge lost it, they worked with their own hands and earned the two hundred, that their portion might not fail in the great work.
In less than two months she had raised the thousand; but she wrote Miss Grant, "I do not recollect being so fatigued, even to prostration, as I have been for a few weeks past." She often quoted a remark of Dr. Lyman Beecher's, "The wear and tear of what I cannot do is a great deal more than the wear and tear of what I do." When she became quite worn, her habit was to sleep nearly all the time, for two or three days, till nature repaired the system.
She next went to Amherst, where good Dr. Hitchcock felt as deeply interested for girls as for the boys in his college. One January morning, with the thermometer below zero, three or four hours before sunrise, he and Miss Lyon started on the stage for Worcester. Each was wrapped in a buffalo robe, so that the long ride was not unpleasant. A meeting was to be held, and a decision made as to the location of the seminary, which, at last, was actually to be built. After a long conference, South Hadley was chosen, ten miles south of Amherst.
One by one, good men became interested in the matter, and one true-hearted minister became an agent for the raising of funds. Miss Lyon was also untiring in her solicitations. She spoke before ladies' meetings, and visited those in high station and low. So troubled were her friends about this public work for a woman, that they reasoned with her that it was in better taste to stay at home, and let gentlemen do the work.
"What do I that is wrong?" she replied. "I ride in the stage coach or cars without an escort. Other ladies do the same. I visit a family where I have been previously invited, and the minister's wife, or some leading woman, calls the ladies together to see me, and I lay our object before them. Is that wrong? I go with Mr. Hawks [the agent], and call on a gentleman of known liberality, at his own house, and converse with him about our enterprise. What harm is there in that? My heart is sick, my soul is pained, with this empty gentility, this genteel nothingness. I am doing a great work. I cannot come down." Pitiful, that so noble a woman should have been hampered by public opinion. How all this has changed! Now, the world and the church gladly welcome the voice, the hand, and the heart of woman in their philanthropic work.
At last, enough money was raised to begin the enterprise, and the corner-stone of Mount Holyoke Seminary was laid, Oct. 3, 1836. "It was a day of deep interest," writes Mary Lyon. "The stones and brick and mortar speak a language which vibrates through my very soul."
"With thankful heart and busy hands she watched the progress of the work. Every detail was under her careful eye. She said: "Had I a thousand lives, I could sacrifice them all in suffering and hardship, for the sake of Mount Holyoke Seminary. Did I possess the greatest fortune, I could readily relinquish it all, and become poor, and more than poor, if its prosperity should demand it."
Finally, in the autumn of 1837, the seminary was ready for pupils. The main building, four stories high, had been erected. An admirable course of study had been provided. For the forty weeks of the school year, the charges for board and tuition were sixty dollars,--only one dollar and twenty-five cents per week. Miss Lyon's own salary was but two hundred a year and she never would receive anything higher. The accommodations were only for eighty pupils, but one hundred and sixteen came the first year.
While Miss Lyon was heartily loved by her scholars, they yet respected her good discipline. It was against the rules for any one to absent herself from meals without permission to do so. One of the young ladies, not feeling quite as fresh as usual, concluded not to go down stairs at tea time, and to remain silent on the subject. Miss Lyon's quick eye detected her absence. Calling the girl's room-mate to her, she asked, "Is Miss ---- ill?"
"Oh, no," was the reply, "only a little indisposed, and she commissioned me to carry her a cup of tea and cracker."
"Very well, I will see to it."
After supper, the young lady ascended to her room, in the fourth story, found her companion enjoying a glorious sunset, and seating herself beside her, they began an animated conversation. Presently there was a knock. "Come in!" both shouted gleefully, when lo! in walked Mary Lyon, with the tea and cracker. She had come up four flights of stairs; but she said every one was tired at night, and she could as well bring up the supper as anybody. She inquired with great kindness about the young lady's health, who, greatly abashed, had nothing to say. She was ever after present at meal time, unless sick in bed.
The students never forgot Miss Lyon's plain, earnest words. When they entered, they were told that they were expected to do right without formal commands; if not, they better go to some smaller school, where they could receive the peculiar training needed by little girls. She urged loose clothing and thick shoes. "If you will persist in killing yourselves by reckless exposure," she would say, "we are not willing to take the responsibility of the act. We think, by all means, you better go home and die, in the arms of your dear mothers."
Miss Lyon had come to her fiftieth birthday. Her seminary had prospered beyond her fondest hopes. She had raised nearly seventy thousand dollars for her beloved school, and it was out of debt. Nearly two thousand pupils had been at South Hadley, of whom a large number had become missionaries and teachers. Not a single year had passed without a revival, and rarely did a girl leave the institution without professing Christianity.
She said to a friend shortly after this fiftieth birthday: "It was the most solemn day of my life. I devoted it to reflection and prayer. Of my active toils I then took leave. I was certain that before another fifty years should have elapsed, I should wake up amid far different scenes, and far other thoughts would fill my mind, and other employments would engage my attention. I felt it. There seemed to be no ladder between me and the world above. The gates were opened, and I seemed to stand on the threshold. I felt that the evening of my days had come, and that I needed repose."
And the repose came soon. The last of February, 1849, a young lady in the seminary died. Miss Lyon called the girls together and spoke tenderly to them, urging them not to fear death, but to be ready to meet it. She said, "There is nothing in the universe that I am afraid of, but that I shall not know and do all my duty." Beautiful words! carved shortly after on her monument.
A few days later, Mary Lyon lay upon her death-bed. The brain had been congested, and she was often unconscious. In one of her lucid moments, her pastor said, "Christ precious?" Summoning all her energies, she raised both hands, clasped them, and said, "Yes." "Have you trusted Christ too much?" he asked. Seeing that she made an effort to speak, he said, "God can be glorified by silence." An indescribable smile lit up her face, and she was gone.
On the seminary grounds the beloved teacher was buried, her pupils singing about her open grave, "Why do we mourn departing friends?" A beautiful monument of Italian marble, square, and resting upon a granite pedestal, marks the spot. On the west side are the words:--
MARY LYON,THE FOUNDER OFMOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY,AND FOR TWELVE YEARSITS PRINCIPAL;A TEACHERFOR THIRTY-FIVE YEARS,AND OF MORE THANTHREE THOUSAND PUPILS.BORN, FEBRUARY 28, 1797;DIED, MARCH 5, 1849.
What a devoted, heroic life! and its results, who can estimate?
Her work has gone steadily on. The seminary grounds now cover twenty-five acres. The main structure has two large wings, while a gymnasium; a library building, with thirteen thousand volumes; the Lyman Williston Hall, with laboratories and art gallery; and the new observatory, with fine telescope, astronomical clock, and other appliances, afford such admirable opportunities for higher education as noble Mary Lyon could hardly have dared to hope for. The property is worth about three hundred thousand dollars. How different from the days when half-dollars were given into Miss Lyon's willing hands! Nearly six thousand students have been educated here, three-fourths of whom have become teachers, and about two hundred foreign missionaries. Many have married ministers, presidents of colleges, and leading men in education and good works.
The board and tuition have become one hundred and seventy-five dollars a year, only enough to cover the cost. The range of study has been constantly increased and elevated to keep pace with the growing demand that women shall be as fully educated as men. Even Miss Lyon, in those early days, looked forward to the needs of the future, by placing in her course of study, Sullivan'sPolitical Class-Book, and Wayland'sPolitical Economy. The four years' course is solid and thorough, while the optional course in French, German, and Greek is admirable. Eventually, when our preparatory schools are higher, all our colleges for women will have as difficult entrance examinations as Harvard and Yale.
The housework at Mount Holyoke Seminary requires but half an hour each day for each of the two hundred and ninety-seven pupils. Much time is spent wisely in the gymnasium, and in boating on the lake near by. Habits of punctuality, thoroughness, and order are the outcome of life in this institution. An endowment of twenty thousand dollars, called "the Mary Lyon Fund," is now being raised by former students for the Chair of the Principal. Schools like the Lake Erie Seminary at Painesville, Ohio, have grown out of the school at South Hadley. Truly, Mary Lyon was doing a great work, and she could not come down. Between such a life and the ordinary social round there can be no comparison.
The English ivy grows thickly over Miss Lyon's grave, covering it like a mantle, and sending out its wealth of green leaves in the spring. So each year her own handiwork flourishes, sending out into the world its strongest forces, the very foundation of the highest civilization,--educated and Christian wives and mothers.
Some years ago, in an art store in Boston, a crowd of persons stood gazing intently upon a famous piece of statuary. The red curtains were drawn aside, and the white marble seemed almost to speak. A group of girls stood together, and looked on in rapt admiration. One of them said, "Just to think that a woman did it!"
"It makes me proud and glad," said another.
"Who is Harriet Hosmer?" said a third. "I wish I knew about her."
And then one of us, who had stolen all the hours she could get from school life to read art books from the Hartford Athenaeum, and kept crude statues, made by herself from chalk and plaster, secreted in her room, told all she had read about the brilliant author of "Zenobia."
The statue was seven feet high, queenly in pose and face, yet delicate and beautiful, with the thoughts which genius had wrought in it. The left arm supported the elegant drapery, while the right hung listlessly by her side, both wrists chained; the captive of the Emperor Aurelian. Since that time, I have looked upon other masterpieces in all the great galleries of Europe, but perhaps none have ever made a stronger impression upon me than "Zenobia," in those early years.
And who was the artist of whom we girls were so proud? Born in Watertown, Mass., Oct. 9, 1830, Harriet Hosmer came into the welcome home of a leading physician, and a delicate mother, who soon died of consumption. Dr. Hosmer had also buried his only child besides Harriet, with the same disease, and he determined that this girl should live in sunshine and air, that he might save her if possible. He used to say, "There is a whole life-time for the education of the mind, but the body develops in a few years; and during that time nothing should be allowed to interfere with its free and healthy growth."
As soon as the child was large enough, she was given a pet dog, which she decked with ribbons and bells. Then, as the Charles River flowed past their house, a boat was provided, and she was allowed to row at will. A Venetian gondola was also built for her, with silver prow and velvet cushions. "Too much spoiling--too much spoiling," said some of the neighbors; but Dr. Hosmer knew that he was keeping his little daughter on the earth instead of heaven.
A gun was now purchased, and the girl became an admirable marksman. Her room was a perfect museum. Here were birds, bats, beetles, snakes, and toads; some dissected, some preserved in spirits, and others stuffed, all gathered and prepared by her own hands. Now she made an inkstand from the egg of a sea-gull and the body of a kingfisher; now she climbed to the top of a tree and brought down a crow's nest. She could walk miles upon miles with no fatigue. She grew up like a boy, which is only another way of saying that she grew up healthy and strong physically. Probably polite society was shocked at Dr. Hosmer's methods. Would that there were many such fathers and mothers, that we might have a vigorous race of women, and consequently, a vigorous race of men!
When Harriet tired of books,--for she was an eager reader,--she found delight in a clay-pit in the garden, where she molded horses and dogs to her heart's content. Unused to restraint, she did not like the first school at which she was placed, the principal, the brother-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing to her father that he "could do nothing with her."
She was then taken to Mrs. Sedgwick, who kept a famous school at Lenox, Berkshire County. She received "happy Hatty," as she was called, with the remark, "I have a reputation for training wild colts, and I will try this one." And the wise woman succeeded. She won Harriet's confidence, not by the ten thousand times repeated "don't," which so many children hear in home and school, till life seems a prison-pen. She let her run wild, guiding her all the time with so much tact, that the girl scarcely knew she was guided at all. Blessed tact! How many thousands of young people are ruined for lack of it!
She remained here three years. Mrs. Sedgwick says, "She was the most difficult pupil to manage I ever had, but I think I never had one in whom I took so deep an interest, and whom I learned to love so well." About this time, not being quite as well as usual, Dr. Hosmer engaged a physician of, large practice to visit his daughter. The busy man could not be regular, which sadly interfered with Harriet's boating and driving. Complaining one day that it spoiled her pleasure, he said, "If I am alive, I will be here," naming the day and hour.
"Then if you are not here, I am to conclude that you are dead," was the reply.
As he did not come, Harriet drove to the newspaper offices in Boston that afternoon, and the next morning the community was startled to read of Dr. ----'s sudden death. Friends hastened to the house, and messages of condolence came pouring in. It is probable that he was more punctual after this.
On Harriet's return from Lenox, she began to take lessons in drawing, modeling, and anatomical studies, in Boston, frequently walking from home and back, a distance of fourteen miles. Feeling the need of a thorough course in anatomy, she applied to the Boston Medical School for admittance, and was refused because of her sex. The Medical College of St. Louis proved itself broader, glad to encourage talent wherever found, and received her.
Professor McDowell, under whom the artists Powers and Clevenger studied anatomy, spared no pains to give her every advantage, while the students were uniformly courteous. "I remember him," says Miss Hosmer, "with great affection and gratitude as being a most thorough and patient teacher, as well as at all times a good, kind friend." In testimony of her appreciation, she cut, from a bust of Professor McDowell by Clevenger, a life-size medallion in marble, now treasured in the college museum.
While in St. Louis she made her home with the family of Wayman Crow, Esq., whose daughter had been her companion at Lenox. This gentleman proved himself a constant and encouraging friend, ordering her first statue from Rome, and helping in a thousand ways a girl who had chosen for herself an unusual work in life.
After completing her studies she made a trip to New Orleans, and then North to the Falls of St. Anthony, smoking the pipe of peace with the chief of the Dakota Indians, exploring lead mines in Dubuque, and scaling a high mountain that was soon after named for her. Did the wealthy girl go alone on these journeys? Yes. As a rule, no harm comes to a young woman who conducts herself with becoming reserve with men. Flirts usually are paid in their own coin.
On her return home, Dr. Hosmer fitted up a studio for his daughter, and her first work was to copy from the antique. Then she cut Canova's "Napoleon" in marble for her father, doing all the work, that he might especially value the gift. Her next statue was an ideal bust of Hesper, "with," said Lydia Maria Child, "the face of a lovely maiden gently falling asleep with the sound of distant music. Her hair is gracefully arranged, and intertwined with capsules of the poppy. A star shines on her forehead, and under her breast lies the crescent moon. The swell of the cheeks and the bust is like pure, young, healthy flesh, and the muscles of the beautiful mouth so delicately cut, it seems like a thing that breathes. She did every stroke of the work with her own small hands, except knocking off the corners of the block of marble. She employed a man to do that; but as he was unused to work for sculptors, she did not venture to have him approach within several inches of the surface she intended to cut. Slight girl as she was, she wielded for eight or ten hours a day a leaden mallet weighing four pounds and a half. Had it not been for the strength and flexibility of muscle acquired by rowing and other athletic exercises, such arduous labor would have been impossible."
After "Hesper" was completed, she said to her father, "I am ready to go to Rome."
"You shall go, my child, this very autumn," was the response.
He would, of course, miss the genial companionship of his only child, but her welfare was to be consulted rather than his own. When autumn came, she rode on horseback to Wayland to say good-bye to Mrs. Child. "Shall you never be homesick for your museum-parlor in Watertown? Can you be contented in a foreign land?"
"I can be happy anywhere," said Miss Hosmer, "with good health and a bit of marble."
Late in the fall Dr. Hosmer and his daughter started for Europe, reaching Rome Nov. 12, 1852. She had greatly desired to study under John Gibson, the leading English sculptor, but he had taken young women into his studio who in a short time became discouraged or showed themselves afraid of hard work, and he feared Miss Hosmer might be of the same useless type.
When the photographs of "Hesper" were placed before him by an artist friend of the Hosmers, he looked at them carefully, and said, "Send the young lady to me, and whatever I know, and can teach her, she shall learn." He gave Miss Hosmer an upstairs room in his studio, and here for seven years she worked with delight, honored and encouraged by her noble teacher. She wrote to her friends: "The dearest wish of my heart is gratified in that I am acknowledged by Gibson as a pupil. He has been resident in Rome thirty-four years, and leads the van. I am greatly in luck. He has just finished the model of the statue of the queen; and as his room is vacant, he permits me to use it, and I am now in his own studio. I have also a little room for work which was formerly occupied by Canova, and perhaps inspiration may be drawn from the walls."
The first work which she copied, to show Gibson whether she had correctness of eye and proper knowledge, was the Venus of Milo. When nearly finished, the iron which supported the clay snapped, and the figure lay spoiled upon the floor. She did not shrink nor cry, but immediately went to work cheerfully to shape it over again. This conduct Mr. Gibson greatly admired, and made up his mind to assist her all he could.
After this she copied the "Cupid" of Praxitiles and Tasso from the British Museum. Her first original work was Daphne, the beautiful girl whom Apollo loved, and who, rather than accept his addresses, was changed into laurel by the gods. Apollo crowned his head with laurel, and made the flower sacred to himself forever.
Next, Miss Hosmer produced "Medusa," famed for her beautiful hair, which Minerva turned into serpents because Neptune loved her. According to Grecian mythology, Perseus made himself immortal by conquering Medusa, whose head he cut off, and the blood dripping from it filled Africa with snakes. Miss Hosmer represents the beautiful maiden, when she finds, with horror, that her hair is turning into serpents.
Needing a real snake for her work, Miss Hosmer sent a man into the suburbs to bring her one alive. When it was obtained, she chloroformed it till she had made a cast, keeping it in plaster for three hours and a half. Then, instead of killing it, like a true-hearted woman, as she is, she sent it back into the country, glad to regain its liberty.
"Daphne" and "Medusa" were both exhibited in Boston the following year, 1853, and were much praised. Mr. Gibson said: "The power of imitating the roundness and softness of flesh, he had never seen surpassed." Rauch, the great Prussian, whose mausoleum at Charlottenburg of the beautiful queen Louise can never be forgotten, gave Miss Hosmer high praise.
Two years later she completed "Oenone," made for Mr. Crow of St. Louis. It is the full-length figure of the beautiful nymph of Mount Ida. The story is a familiar one. Before the birth of Paris, the son of Priam, it was foretold that he by his imprudence should cause the destruction of Troy. His father gave orders for him to be put to death, but possibly through the fondness of his mother, he was spared, and carried to Mount Ida, where he was brought up by the shepherds, and finally married Oenone. In time he became known to his family, who forgot the prophecy and cordially received him. For a decision in favor of Venus he was promised the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. Forgetting Oenone, he fell in love with the beautiful Helen, already the wife of Menelaus, and persuaded her to fly with him to Troy, to his father's court. War resulted. When he found himself dying of his wounds, he fled to Oenone for help, but died just as he came into her presence. She bathed the body with her tears, and stabbed herself to the heart, a very foolish act for so faithless a man. Miss Hosmer represents her as a beautiful shepherdess, bowed with grief from her desertion.
This work was so much liked in America, that the St. Louis Mercantile Library made a liberal offer for some other statue. Accordingly, two years after, "Beatrice Cenci" was sent. The noble girl lies asleep, the night before her execution, after the terrible torture. "It was," says Mrs. Child, "the sleep of a body worn out with the wretchedness of the soul. On that innocent face suffering had left its traces. The arm that had been tossing in the grief tempest, had fallen heavily, too weary to change itself into a more easy position. Those large eyes, now so closely veiled by their swollen lids, had evidently wept till the fountain of tears was dry. That lovely mouth was still the open portal of a sigh, which the mastery of sleep had left no time to close."
To make this natural, the sculptor caused several models to go to sleep in her studio, that she might study them. Gibson is said to have remarked upon seeing this, "I can teach her nothing." This was also exhibited in London and in several American cities.
For three years she had worked continuously, not leaving Rome even in the hot, unhealthy summers. She had said, "I will not be an amateur; I will work as if I had to earn my daily bread." However, as her health seemed somewhat impaired, at her father's earnest wish, she had decided to go to England for the season. Her trunks were packed, and she was ready to start, when lo! a message came that Dr. Hosmer had lost his property, that he could send her no more money, and suggested that she return home at once.
At first she seemed overwhelmed; then she said firmly, "I cannot go back, and give up my art." Her trunks were at once unpacked and a cheap room rented. Her handsome horse and saddle were sold, and she was now to work indeed "as if she earned her daily bread."
By a strange freak of human nature, by which we sometimes do our most humorous work when we are saddest, Miss Hosmer produced now in her sorrow her fun-loving "Puck." It represents a child about four years old seated on a toadstool which breaks beneath him. The left hand confines a lizard, while the right holds a beetle. The legs are crossed, and the great toe of the right foot turns up. The whole is full of merriment. The Crown Princess of Germany, on seeing it, exclaimed, "Oh, Miss Hosmer, you have such a talent for toes!" Very true, for this statue, with the several copies made from it, brought her thirty thousand dollars! The Prince of Wales has a copy, the Duke of Hamilton also, and it has gone even to Australia and the West Indies. A companion piece is the "Will-o'-the-wisp."
About this time the lovely sixteen-year-old daughter of Madam Falconnet died at Rome, and for her monument in the Catholic church of San Andrea del Fratte, Miss Hosmer produced an exquisite figure resting upon a sarcophagus. Layard, the explorer of Babylon and Nineveh, wrote to Madam Falconnet: "I scarcely remember to have seen a monument which more completely commanded my sympathy and more deeply interested me. I really know of none, of modern days, which I would rather have placed over the remains of one who had been dear to me."
Miss Hosmer also modeled a fountain from the story of Hylas. The lower basin contains dolphins spouting jets, while in the upper basin, supported by swans, the youth Hylas stands, surrounded by the nymphs who admire his beauty, and who eventually draw him into the water, where he is drowned.
Miss Hosmer returned to America in 1857, five years after her departure. She was still young, twenty-seven, vivacious, hopeful, not wearied from her hard work, and famous. While here she determined upon a statue of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, and read much concerning her and her times. She had touched fiction and poetry; now she would attempt history. She could scarcely have chosen a more heroic or pathetic subject. The brave leader of a brave people, a skilful warrior, marching at the head of her troops, now on foot, and now on horseback, beautiful in face, and cultured in mind, acquainted with Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Egyptian, finally captured by Aurelian, and borne through the streets of Rome, adorning his triumphal procession.
After Miss Hosmer's return to Rome, she worked on "Zenobia" with energy and enthusiasm, as she molded the clay, and then the plaster. When brought to this country, it awakened the greatest interest; crowds gathered to see it. In Chicago it was exhibited at the Sanitary Fair in behalf of the soldiers. Whittier said: "It very fully expresses my conception of what historical sculpture should be. It tells its whole proud and melancholy story. In looking at it, I felt that the artist had been as truly serving her country while working out her magnificent design abroad, as our soldiers in the field, and our public officers in their departments." From its exhibition Miss Hosmer received five thousand dollars. It was purchased by Mr. A.W. Griswold, of New York. So great a work was the statue considered in London, that some of the papers declared Gibson to be its author. Miss Hosmer at once began suits for libel, and retractions were speedily made.
In 1860 Miss Hosmer again visited America, to see her father, who was seriously ill. How proud Dr. Hosmer must have been of his gifted daughter now that her fame was in two hemispheres! Surely he had not "spoiled" her. She could now spend for him as he had spent for her in her childhood. While here, she received a commission from St. Louis for a bronze portrait-statue of Missouri's famous statesman, Thomas Hart Benton. The world wondered if she could bring out of the marble a man with all his strength and dignity, as she had a woman with all her grace and nobility.
She visited St. Louis, to examine portraits and mementos of Colonel Benton, and then hastened across the ocean to her work. The next year a photograph of the model was sent to the friends, and the likeness pronounced good. The statue was cast at the great royal foundry at Munich, and in due time shipped to this country. May 27, 1868, it was unveiled in Lafayette Park, in the presence of an immense concourse of people, the daughter, Mrs. John C. Fremont, removing the covering. The statue is ten feet high, and weighs three and one-half tons. It rests on a granite pedestal, ten feet square, the whole being twenty-two feet square. On the west side of the pedestal are the words from Colonel Benton's famous speech on the Pacific Railroad, "There is the East--there is India." Both press and people were heartily pleased with this statue, for which Miss Hosmer received ten thousand dollars, the whole costing thirty thousand.
She was now in the midst of busy and successful work. Orders crowded upon her. Her "Sleeping Faun," which was exhibited at the Dublin Exhibition in 1865, was sold on the day of opening for five thousand dollars, to Sir Benjamin Guinness. Some discussion having arisen about the sale, he offered ten thousand, saying, that if money could buy it, he would possess it. Miss Hosmer, however, would receive only the five thousand. The faun is represented reclining against the trunk of a tree, partly draped in the spoils of a tiger. A little faun, with mischievous look, is binding the faun to the tree with the tiger-skin. The newspapers were enthusiastic about the work.
TheLondon Timessaid: "In the groups of statues are many works of exquisite beauty, but there is one which at once arrests attention and extorts admiration. It is a curious fact that amid all the statues in this court, contributed by the natives of lands in which the fine arts were naturalized thousands of years ago, one of the finest should be the production of an American artist." The FrenchGalignanisaid, "The gem of the classical school, in its nobler style of composition, is due to an American lady, Miss Hosmer." TheLondon Art Journalsaid, "The works of Miss Hosmer, Hiram Powers, and others we might name, have placed American on a level with the best modern sculptors of Europe." This work was repeated for the Prince of Wales and for Lady Ashburton, of England.
Not long ago I visited the studio of Miss Hosmer in the Via Margutta, at Rome, and saw her numerous works, many of them still unfinished. Here an arm seemed just reaching out from the rough block of marble; here a sweet face seemed like Pygmalion's statue, coming into life. In the centre of the studio was the "Siren Fountain," executed for Lady Marion Alford. A siren sits in the upper basin and sings to the music of her lute. Three little cupids sit on dolphins, and listen to her music.
For some years Miss Hosmer has been preparing a golden gateway for an art gallery at Ashridge Hall, England, ordered by Earl Brownlow. These gates, seventeen feet high, are covered with bas-reliefs representing the Air, Earth, and Sea. The twelve hours of the night show "Aeolus subduing the Winds," the "Descent of the Zephyrs," "Iris descending with the Dew," "Night rising with the Stars," "The Rising Moon," "The Hour's Sleep," "The Dreams Descend," "The Falling Star," "Phosphor and Hesper," "The Hours Wake," "Aurora Veils the Stars," and "Morning." More than eighty figures are in the nineteen bas-reliefs. Miss Hosmer has done other important works, among them a statue of the beautiful Queen of Naples, who was a frequent visitor to the artist's studio, and several well-known monuments. With her girlish fondness for machinery, she has given much thought to mechanics in these later years, striving to find, like many another, the secret of producing perpetual motion. She spends much of her time now in England. She is still passionately fond of riding, the Empress of Austria, who owns more horses than any woman in the world, declaring "that there was nothing she looked forward to with more interest in Rome, than to see Miss Hosmer ride."
Many of the closing years of the sculptor's long life were spent in Rome, where she had a wide circle of eminent American and English friends, among whom were Hawthorne, Thackeray, George Eliot, and the Brownings. She made several discoveries in her work, one of which was a process of hardening limestone so that it resembled marble. She also wrote both prose and poetry, and would have been successful as an author, if she had not given the bulk of her time to her beloved sculpture.
After her long sojourn in Rome she spent several years in England, executing important commissions, and then turned her face toward America. In Watertown, where she was born, she again made her home; and here she breathed her last, February 21, 1908, after an illness of three weeks. She was in her seventy-eighth year. By her long life of earnest work and self-reliant purpose, coupled with her high gift, she has made for herself an abiding place in the history of art.
It was the twentieth of September, 1881. The sun shone out mild and beautiful upon Lake Geneva, as we sailed up to Coppet. The banks were dotted with lovely homes, half hidden by the foliage, while brilliant flower-beds came close to the water's edge. Snow-covered Mont Blanc looked down upon the restful scene, which seemed as charming as anything in Europe.
We alighted from the boat, and walked up from the landing, between great rows of oaks, horsechestnuts, and sycamores, to the famous home we had come to look upon,--that of Madame de Staël. It is a French chateau, two stories high, drab, with green blinds, surrounding an open square; vines clamber over the gate and the high walls, and lovely flowers blossom everywhere. As you enter, you stand in a long hall, with green curtains, with many busts, the finest of which is that of Monsieur Necker. The next room is the large library, with furniture of blue and white; and the next, hung with old Gobelin tapestry, is the room where Madame Recamier used to sit with Madame de Staël, and look out upon the exquisite scenery, restful even in their troubled lives. Here is the work-table of her whom Macaulay called "the greatest woman of her times," and of whom Byron said, "She is a woman by herself, and has done more than all the rest of them together, intellectually; she ought to have been a man."
Next we enter the drawing-room, with carpet woven in a single piece; the furniture red and white. We stop to look upon the picture of Monsieur Necker, the father, a strong, noble-looking man; of the mother, in white silk dress, with powdered hair, and very beautiful; and De Staël herself, in a brownish yellow dress, with low neck and short sleeves, holding in her hand the branch of flowers, which she always carried, or a leaf, that thus her hands might be employed while she engaged in the conversation that astonished Europe. Here also are the pictures of the Baron, her husband, in white wig and military dress; here her idolized son and daughter, the latter beautiful, with mild, sad face, and dark hair and eyes.
What brings thousands to this quiet retreat every year? Because here lived and wrote and suffered the only person whom the great Napoleon feared, whom Galiffe, of Geneva, declared "the most remarkable woman that Europe has produced"; learned, rich, the author ofCorinneandAllemagne, whose "talents in conversation," says George Ticknor, "were perhaps the most remarkable of any person that ever lived."
April 27, 1766, was the daughter of James Necker, Minister of Finance under Louis XVI., a man of fine intellect, the author of fifteen volumes; and Susanna, daughter of a Swiss pastor, beautiful, educated, and devotedly Christian. Necker had become rich in early life through banking, and had been made, by the republic of Geneva, her resident minister at the Court of Versailles.
When the throne of Louis seemed crumbling, because the people were tired of extravagance and heavy taxation, Necker was called to his aid, with the hope that economy and retrenchment would save the nation. He also loaned the government two million dollars. The home of the Neckers, in Paris, naturally became a social centre, which the mother of the family was well fitted to grace. Gibbon had been deeply in love with her.
He says: "I found her learned without pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant in manners; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by the habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance.... At Crassier and Lausanne I indulged my dream of felicity; but on my return to England I soon discovered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that, without his consent, I was myself destitute and helpless. After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate; I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son." Gibbon never married, but retained his life-long friendship and admiration for Madame Necker.
It was not strange, therefore, that Gibbon liked to be present in hersalon, where Buffon, Hume, Diderot, and D'Alembert were wont to gather. The child of such parents could scarcely be other than intellectual, surrounded by such gifted minds. Her mother, too, was a most systematic teacher, and each day the girl was obliged to sit by her side, erect, on a wooden stool, and learn difficult lessons.
"She stood in great awe of her mother," wrote Simond, the traveller, "but was exceedingly familiar with and extravagantly fond of her father. Madame Necker had no sooner left the room one day, after dinner, than the young girl, till then timidly decorous, suddenly seized her napkin, and threw it across the table at the head of her father, and then flying round to him, hung upon his neck, suffocating all his reproofs by her kisses." Whenever her mother returned to the room, she at once became silent and restrained.
The child early began to show literary talent, writing dramas, and making paper kings and queens to act her tragedies. This the mother thought to be wrong, and it was discontinued. But when she was twelve, the mother having somewhat relented, she wrote a play, which she and her companions acted in the drawing-room. Grimm was so pleased with her attempts, that he sent extracts to his correspondents throughout Europe. At fifteen she wrote an essay on theRevocation of the Edict of Nantes, and another upon Montesquieu'sSpirit of Laws.
Overtaxing the brain with her continuous study, she became ill, and the physician, greatly to her delight, prescribed fresh air and sunshine. Here often she roamed from morning till night on their estate at St. Ouen. Madame Necker felt deeply the thwarting of her educational plans, and years after, when her daughter had acquired distinction, said, "It is absolutely nothing compared to what I would have made it."
Monsieur Necker's restriction of pensions and taxing of luxuries soon aroused the opposition of the aristocracy, and the weak but good-hearted King asked his minister to resign. Both wife and daughter felt the blow keenly, for both idolized him, so much so that the mother feared lest she be supplanted by her daughter. Madame de Staël says of her father, "From the moment of their marriage to her death, the thought of my mother dominated his life. He was not like other men in power, attentive to her by occasional tokens of regard, but by continual expressions of most tender and most delicate sentiment." Of herself she wrote, "Our destinies would have united us forever, if fate had only made us contemporaries." At his death she said, "If he could be restored to me, I would give all my remaining years for six months." To the last he was her idol.
For the next few years the family travelled most of the time, Necker bringing out a book on theFinances, which had a sale at once of a hundred thousand copies. A previous book, theCompte Rendu au Roi, showing how for years the moneys of France had been wasted, had also a large sale. For these books, and especially for other correspondence, he was banished forty leagues from Paris. The daughter's heart seemed well-nigh broken at this intelligence. Loving Paris, saying she would rather live there on "one hundred francs a year, and lodge in the fourth story," than anywhere else in the world, how could she bear for years the isolation of the country? Joseph II., King of Poland, and the King of Naples, offered Necker fine positions, but he declined.
Mademoiselle Necker had come to womanhood, not beautiful, but with wonderful fascination and tact. She could compliment persons without flattery, was cordial and generous, and while the most brilliant talker, could draw to herself the thoughts and confidences of others. She had also written a book onRousseau, which was much talked about. Pitt, of England, Count Fersen, of Sweden, and others, sought her in marriage, but she loved no person as well as her father. Her consent to marriage could be obtained only by the promise that she should never be obliged to leave him.
Baron de Staël, a man of learning and fine social position, ambassador from Sweden, and the warm friend of Gustavus, was ready to make any promises for the rich daughter of the Minister Necker. He was thirty-seven, she only a little more than half his age, twenty, but she accepted him because her parents were pleased. Going to Paris, she was, of course, received at Court, Marie Antoinette paying her much attention. Necker was soon recalled from exile to his old position.
The funds rose thirty per cent, and he became the idol of the people. Soon representative government was demanded, and then, though the King granted it, the breach was widened. Necker, unpopular with the bad advisers of the King, was again asked to leave Paris, and make no noise about it; but the people, hearing of it, soon demanded his recall, and he was hastily brought back from Brussels, riding through the streets like "the sovereign of a nation," said his daughter. The people were wild with delight.
But matters had gone too far to prevent a bloody Revolution. Soon a mob was marching toward Versailles; thousands of men, women, and even children armed with pikes. They reached the palace, killed the guards, and penetrated to the queen's apartments, while some filled the court-yard and demanded bread. The brave Marie Antoinette appeared on the balcony leading her two children, while Lafayette knelt by her side and kissed her hand. But the people could not be appeased.
Necker finding himself unable to serve his king longer, fled to his Swiss retreat at Coppet, and there remained till his death. Madame de Staël, as the wife of the Swedish ambassador, continued in the turmoil, writing her father daily, and taking an active interest in politics. "In England," she said, "women are accustomed to be silent before men when political questions are discussed. In France, they direct all conversation, and their minds readily acquire the facility and talent which this privilege requires." Lafayette, Narbonne, and Talleyrand consulted with her. She wrote the principal part of Talleyrand's report on Public Instruction in 1790. She procured the appointment of Narbonne to the ministry; and later, when Talleyrand was in exile, obtained his appointment to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Matters had gone from bad to worse. In 1792 the Swedish government suspended its embassy, and Madame de Staël prepared to fly, but stayed for a time to save her friends. The seven prisons of Paris were all crowded under the fearful reign of Danton and Marat. Great heaps of dead lay before every prison door. During that Reign of Terror it is estimated that eighteen thousand six hundred persons perished by the guillotine. Whole squares were shot down. "When the police visited her house, where some of the ministers were hidden, she met them graciously, urging that they must not violate the privacy of an ambassador's house. When her friends were arrested, she went to the barbarous leaders, and with her eloquence begged for their safety, and thus saved the lives of many.
At last she must leave the terror-stricken city. Supposing that her rank as the wife of a foreign ambassador would protect her, she started with a carriage and six horses, her servants in livery. At once a crowd of half-famished and haggard women crowded around, and threw themselves against the horses. The carriage was stopped, and the occupants were taken to the Assembly. She plead her case before the noted Robespierre, and then waited for six hours for the decision of the Commune. Meantime she saw the hired assassins pass beneath the windows, their bare arms covered with the blood of the slain. The mob attempted to pillage her carriage, but a strong man mounted the box and defended it. She learned afterward that it was the notorious Santerre, the person who later superintended the execution of Louis XVI., ordering his drummers to drown the last words of the dying King. Santerre had seen Necker distribute corn to the poor of Paris in a time of famine, and now he was befriending the daughter for this noble act. Finally she was allowed to continue her journey, and reached Coppet with her baby, Auguste, well-nigh exhausted after this terrible ordeal.
The Swiss home soon became a place of refuge for those who were flying from the horrors of the Commune. She kept a faithful agent, who knew the mountain passes, busy in this work of mercy.
The following year, 1793, longing for a change from these dreadful times, she visited England, and received much attention from prominent persons, among them Fanny Burny, the author ofEvelina, who owned "that she had never heard conversation before. The most animated eloquence, the keenest observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were united to charm her."
On Jan. 21 of this year, the unfortunate King had met his death on the scaffold before an immense throng of people. Six men bound him to the plank, and then his head was severed from his body amid the shouts and waving of hats of the blood-thirsty crowd. Necker had begged to go before the Convention and plead for his king, but was refused. Madame de Staël wrote a vigorous appeal to the nation in behalf of the beautiful and tenderhearted Marie Antoinette; but on Sept. 16, 1793, at four o'clock in the morning, in an open cart, in the midst of thirty thousand troops and a noisy rabble, she, too, was borne to the scaffold; and when her pale face was held up bleeding before the crowd, they jeered and shouted themselves hoarse.
The next year 1794, Madame Necker died at Coppet, whispering to her husband, "We shall see each other in Heaven." "She looked heavenward," said Necker in a most affecting manner, "listening while I prayed; then, in dying, raised the finger of her left hand, which wore the ring I had given her, to remind me of the pledge engraved upon it, to love her forever." His devotion to her was beautiful. "No language," says his daughter, "can give any adequate idea of it. Exhausted by wakefulness at night, she slept often in the daytime, resting her head on his arm. I have seen him remain immovable, for hours together, standing in the same position for fear of awakening her by the least movement. Absent from her during a few hours of sleep, he inquired, on his return, of her attendant, if she had asked for him? She could no longer speak, but made an effort to say 'yes, yes.'"
When the Revolution was over, and France had become a republic, Sweden sent back her ambassador, Baron de Staël, and his wife returned to him at Paris. Again hersalonbecame the centre for the great men of the time. She loved liberty, and believed in the republican form of government. She had written her book upon theInfluence of the Passions on the Happiness of Individuals and Nations, prompted by the horrors of the Revolution, and it was considered "irresistible in energy and dazzling in thought."
She was also devoting much time to her child, Auguste, developing him without punishment, thinking that there had been too much rigor in her own childhood. He well repaid her for her gentleness and trust, and was inseparable from her through life, becoming a noble Christian man, and the helper of all good causes. Meantime Madame de Staël saw with alarm the growing influence of the young Corsican officer, Bonaparte. The chief executive power had been placed in the hands of the Directory, and he had control of the army. He had won brilliant victories in Italy, and had been made commander-in-chief of the expedition against Egypt He now returned to Paris, turned out the Directory, drove out the Council of Five Hundred from the hall of the Assembly at the point of the bayonet, made the government into a consulate with three consuls, of whom he was the first, and lived at the Tuileries in almost royal style.
All this time Madame de Staël felt the egotism and heartlessness of Napoleon. Hersalonbecame more crowded than ever with those who had their fears for the future. "The most eloquent of the Republican orators were those who borrowed from her most of their ideas and telling phrases. Most of them went forth from her door with speeches ready for the next day, and with resolution to pronounce them--a courage which was also derived from her." Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte, the brothers of Napoleon, were proud of her friendship, and often were guests at her house, until forbidden by their brother.
When Benjamin Constant made a speech against the "rising tyranny," Napoleon suspected that she had prompted it, and denounced her heartily, all the time declaring that he loved the Republic, and would always defend it! He said persons always came away from De Staël's home "less his friends than when they entered." About this time her book,Literature considered in its Relation to Social Institutions, was published, and made a surprising impression from its wealth of knowledge and power of thought. Its analysis of Greek and Latin literature, and the chief works in Italian, English, German, and French, astonished everybody, because written by a woman!
Soon after Necker published hisLast Views of Politics and Finance, in which he wrote against the tyranny of a single man. At once Napoleon caused a sharp letter to be written to Necker advising him to leave politics to the First Consul, "who was alone able to govern France," and threatening his daughter with exile for her supposed aid in his book. She saw the wisdom of escaping from France, lest she be imprisoned, and immediately hastened to Coppet. A few months later, in the winter of 1802, she returned to Paris to bring home Baron de Staël, who was ill, and from whom she had separated because he was spending all her fortune and that of her three children. He died on the journey.
Virtually banished from France, she now wrote herDelphine, a brilliant novel which was widely read. It received its name from a singular circumstance.
"Desirous of meeting the First Consul for some urgent reason," says Dr. Stevens in his charming biography of Madame de Staël, "she went to the villa of Madame de Montessan, whither he frequently resorted. She was alone in one of thesalleswhen he arrived, accompanied by the consular court of brilliant young women. The latter knew the growing hostility of their master toward her, and passed, without noticing her, to the other end of thesalle, leaving her entirely alone. Her position was becoming extremely painful, when a young lady, more courageous and more compassionate than her companions, crossed thesalleand took a seat by her side. Madame de Staël was touched by this kindness, and asked for her Christian name. 'Delphine,' she responded. 'Ah, I will try to immortalize it,' exclaimed Madame de Staël; and she kept her word. This sensible young lady was the Comtesse de Custine."
Her home at Coppet became the home of many great people. Sismondi, the author of theHistory of the Italian Republics, andLiterature of Southern Europe, encouraged by her, wrote here several of his famous works. Bonstetten made his home here for years. Schlegel, the greatest critic of his age, became the teacher of her children, and a most intimate friend. Benjamin Constant, the author and statesman, was here. All repaired to their rooms for work in the morning, and in the evening enjoyed philosophic, literary, and political discussions.
Bonstetten said: "In seeing her, in hearing her, I feel myself electrified.... She daily becomes greater and better; but souls of great talent have great sufferings: they are solitary in the world, like Mont Blanc."
In the autumn of 1803, longing for Paris, she ventured to within ten leagues and hired a quiet home. Word was soon borne to Napoleon that the road to her house was thronged with visitors. He at once sent an officer with a letter signed by himself, exiling her to forty leagues from Paris, and commanding her to leave within twenty-four hours.
At once she fled to Germany. At Frankfort her little daughter was dangerously ill. "I knew no person in the city," she writes. "I did not know the language; and the physician to whom I confided my child could not speak French. But my father shared my trouble; he consulted physicians at Geneva, and sent me their prescriptions. Oh, what would become of a mother trembling for the life of her child, if it were not for prayer!"
Going to Weimar, she met Goethe, Wieland, Schiller, and other noted men. At Berlin, the greatest attention was shown her. The beautiful Louise of Prussia welcomed her heartily. During this exile her father died, with his latest breath saying," She has loved me dearly! She has loved me dearly!" On his death-bed he wrote a letter to Bonaparte telling him that his daughter was in nowise responsible for his book, but it was never answered. It was enough for Napoleon to know that she did not flatter him; therefore he wished her out of the way.
Madame de Staël was for a time completely overcome by Necker's death. She wore his picture on her person as long as she lived. Only once did she part with it, and then she imagined it might console her daughter in her illness. Giving it to her, she said, "Gaze upon it, gaze upon it, when you are in pain."
She now sought repose in Italy, preparing those beautiful descriptions for herCorinne, and finally returning to Coppet, spent a year in writing her book. It was published in Paris, and, says Sainte-Beuve, "its success was instantaneous and universal. As a work of art, as a poem, the romance ofCorinneis an immortal monument." Jeffrey, in theEdinburgh Review, called the author the greatest writer in France since Voltaire and Rousseau, and the greatest woman writer of any age or country. Napoleon, however, in his official paper, caused a scathing criticism onCorinneto appear; indeed, it was declared to be from his own pen. She was told by the Minister of Police, that she had but to insert some praise of Napoleon inCorinne, and she would be welcomed back to Paris. She could not, however, live a lie, and she feared Napoleon had evil designs upon France.
Again she visited Germany with her children, Schlegel, and Sismondi. So eager was everybody to see her and hear her talk, that Bettina von Arnim says in her correspondence with Goethe: "The gentlemen stood around the table and planted themselves behind us, elbowing one another. They leaned quite over me, and I said in French, 'Your adorers quite suffocate me.'"
While in Germany, her eldest son, then seventeen, had an interview with Bonaparte about the return of his mother. "Your mother," said Napoleon, "could not be six months in Paris before I should be compelled to send her to Bicêtre or the Temple. I should regret this necessity, for it would make a noise and might injure me a little in public opinion. Say, therefore, to her that as long as I live she cannot re-enter Paris. I see what you wish, but it cannot be; she will commit follies; she will have the world about her."
On her return to Coppet, she spent two years in writing herAllemagne, for which she had been making researches for four years. She wished it published in Paris, asCorinnehad been, and submitted it to the censors of the Press. They crossed out whatever sentiments they thought might displease Napoleon, and then ten thousand copies were at once printed, she meantime removing to France, within her proscribed limits, that she might correct the proof-sheets.
What was her astonishment to have Napoleon order the whole ten thousand destroyed, and her to leave France in three days! Her two sons attempted to see Bonaparte, who was at Fontainebleau, but were ordered to turn back, or they would be arrested. The only reason given for destroying the work was the fact that she had been silent about the great but egotistical Emperor.
Broken in spirit, she returned to Geneva. Amid all this darkness a new light was about to beam upon her life. In the social gatherings made for her, she observed a young army officer, Monsieur Rocca, broken in health from his many wounds, but handsome and noble in face, and, as she learned, of irreproachable life. Though only twenty-three and she forty-five, the young officer was fascinated by her conversation, and refreshed in spirits by her presence. She sympathized with his misfortunes in battle; she admired his courage. He was lofty in sentiments, tender in heart, and gave her what she had always needed, an unselfish and devoted love. When discouraged by his friends, he replied, "I will love her so much that I will finish by making her marry me."
They were married in 1811, and the marriage was a singularly happy one. The reason for it is not difficult to perceive. A marriage that has not a pretty face or a passing fancy for its foundation, but appreciation of a gifted mind and noble heart,--such a marriage stands the test of time.
The marriage was kept secret from all save a few intimate friends, Madame de Staël fearing that if the news reached Napoleon, Rocca would be ordered back to France. Her fears were only too well founded. Schlegel, Madame Recamier, all who had shown any sympathy for her, began to be exiled. She was forbidden under any pretext whatever from travelling in Switzerland, or entering any region annexed to France. She was advised not to go two leagues from Coppet, lest she be imprisoned, and this with Napoleon usually meant death.
The Emperor seemed about to conquer the whole world. Whither could she fly to escape his persecution? She longed to reach England, but there was an edict against any French subject entering that country without special permit. Truly his heel was upon France. The only way to reach that country was through Austria, Russia, and Sweden, two thousand leagues. But she must attempt it. She passed an hour in prayer by her parent's tomb, kissed his armchair and table, and took his cloak to wrap herself in should death come.
May 23, 1812, she, with Rocca and two of her children, began their flight by carriage, not telling the servants at the chateau, but that they should return for the next meal.
They reached Vienna June 6, and were at once put under surveillance. Everywhere she saw placards admonishing the officers to watch her sharply. Rocca had to make his way alone, because Bonaparte had ordered his arrest. They were permitted to remain only a few hours in any place. Once Madame de Staël was so overcome by this brutal treatment that she lost consciousness, and was obliged to be taken from her carriage to the roadside till she recovered. Every hour she expected arrest and death.
Finally, worn in body, she reached Russia, and was cordially received by Alexander and Empress Elizabeth. From here she went to Sweden, and had an equally cordial welcome from Bernadotte, the general who became king. Afterward she spent four months in England, bringing outAllemagne.Here she received a perfect ovation. At Lord Lansdowne's the first ladies in the kingdom mounted on chairs and tables to catch a glimpse of her. Sir James Mackintosh said: "The whole fashionable and literary world is occupied with Madame de Staël, the most celebrated woman of this, or perhaps of any age." Very rare must be the case where a woman of fine mind does not have many admirers among gentlemen.
HerAllemagnewas published in 1813, the manuscript having been secretly carried over Germany, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the Baltic Sea. The first part treated of the manners of Germany; the second, its literature and art; the third, its philosophy and morals; the fourth, its religion. The book had a wonderful sale, and was soon translated into all the principal tongues of Europe. Lamartine said: "Her style, without losing any of its youthful vigor and splendor, seemed now to be illuminated with more lofty and eternal lights as she approached the evening of life, and the diviner mysteries of thought. This style no longer paints, no longer chants; it adores.... Her name will live as long as literature, as long as the history of her country."
Meantime, great changes had taken place in France. Napoleon had been defeated at Leipsic, leaving a quarter of a million murdered on his battle-fields; he had abdicated, and was on his way to Elba. She immediately returned to Paris, with much the same feeling as Victor Hugo, when he wept as he came from his long exile under "Napoleon the Little." Again to hersaloncame kings and generals, Alexander of Russia, Wellington, and others.
But soon Napoleon returned, and she fled to Coppet. He sent her an invitation to come to Paris, declaring he would now live for the peace of Europe, but she could not trust him. She saw her daughter, lovely and beautiful, married to the Duc de Broglie, a leading statesman, and was happy in her happiness. Rocca's health was failing, and they repaired to Italy for a time.
In 1816 they returned to Paris, Napoleon having gone from his final defeat to St. Helena. But Madame de Staël was broken with her trials. She seemed to grow more and more frail, till the end came. She said frequently, "My father awaits me on the other shore." To Chateaubriand she said, "I have loved God, my father, and my country." She could not and would not go to sleep the last night, for fear she might never look upon Rocca again. He begged her to sleep and he would awaken her often. "Good night," she said, and it was forever. She never wakened. They buried her beside her father at Coppet, under the grand old trees. Rocca died in seven months, at the age of thirty-one. "I hoped," he said, "to have died in her arms."
Her little son, and Rocca's, five years old, was cared for by Auguste and Albertine, her daughter. After Madame de Staël's death, herConsiderations on the French RevolutionandTen Years of Exilewere published. Of the former, Sainte-Beuve says: "Its publication was an event. It was the splendid public obsequies of the authoress. Its politics were destined to long and passionate discussions and a durable influence. She is perfect only from this day; the full influence of her star is only at her tomb."
Chateaubriand said, "Her death made one of those breaches which the fall of a superior intellect produces once in an age, and which can never be closed."
As kind as she was great, loving deeply and receiving love in return, she has left an imperishable name. No wonder that thousands visit that quiet grave beside Lake Geneva.