Many women of the revolutionary period have no claim for mention other than a last glorious moment on the guillotine--"ennobled and endeared by the self-possession and dignity with which they faced death, their whole life seems to have been lived for that one moment." The society which had brought on and stirred up the Revolution was enervated and febrile. Paris was one large kennel of libellers and pamphleteers and intriguers. The salon frequenters were trained conversationalists and brilliant beauties who danced and drank, discoursed and intrigued. It was a superficial elegance, with virtue only assumed. The art of pleasing had been developed to perfection, but, instead of the actual accomplishments of the old régime, there was merely the outward appearance--luxury, dress, and magnificence; the bearing and language were of the ambitious common people. "The great women are those who, the day before, were taken from the cellar or garret of the salon."
During the Directorate, luxury and libertinism reigned almost as absolutely as during the monarchy. Barras was supreme. He had his mistress, ormaîtresse-en-titre, in the beautiful Mme. Tallien, the queen of beauty of the salon ofla mode. Ease and dissolute enjoyment were the aims of Barras, and in these his mistress was his equal. They gave the most sumptuous dinners, prepared by the famous chefs of the late aristocratic kitchens, while the people were starving or living on black bread. She impudently arrayed herself in the crown diamonds and appeared at the reception given to Napoleon.
The salons under the Empire are said to have preserved French politeness, courtesy, and the usages ofla bonne compagnie, but intolerance and tyranny reigned there; the spirit of intrigue only was obeyed. From the beginning of the Revolution to the Empire, it may be said that the streets of Paris from one end to the other were a wild turmoil of people in fever heat--ready for any crime or cruelty, anxious for anything promising excitement. Where formerly the elegant lovers of the nobility were wont to promenade, the rabid populace held undisputed possession.
These were years, about 1780 to 1800, during which women shared the same fate with men; and, consigned to the same prisons, ever resigned and ready to die for principle, they knew how to die nobly. It was truly an age of the martyrdom of woman--an age in which she lived, through almost superhuman conditions, at the side of man. She was all-powerful, triumphant as never before; not, however, through her intellectual superiority as in the previous age, but through her courage. There was not one powerful woman standing out alone, but groups of them, hosts of them. It was during the Directorate especially that woman controlled almost every phase of activity.
The woman who embodied all the heterogeneous vices of the past nobility and the rising plebs was Mme. Tallien, the goddess of vice and of the vulgar display of wealth. Her caprices were scrupulously followed, while about her jealousy and slanders were thick. Then immorality had no veil, but was low, brutish, and open to everyone. With the accession of Napoleon to absolute power, there was a fusion of the element just described with the remnant of the old régime. Josephine soon formed a select and congenial social circle, excluding Mme. Tallien and the Directorate adherents. Evidences of saddening memories of the past and a general gloom were visible everywhere in this circle. The disappointment of the nobility on returning from their exile was somewhat lessened by the very select bi-weekly reunions in the salon of Talleyrand, and by the brilliant suppers of the old régime, which were revived at the Hôtel d'Anjou.
The salon of Mme. de Staël was a political debating club rather than a purely social reunion. She being an ardent Republican, it was in her salon that the Royalist plot to bring back the Bourbons was overthrown. In a short time there were a number of brilliant salons, each one showing a nature as distinct as those of the eighteenth century. Thus, Joseph Bonaparte received the distinguished governmentals and the intriguing women of society at the Château de Mortfoulaine; at Lucien Bonaparte's hôtel youth and beauty assembled; at Mme. de Permon's salon there were music and conversation, tea, lemonade, and biscuits, twice a week. It remains but to characterize these different ages of French social and political evolution by the great women who, each one of her age, are the representative types.
The woman who, during the Revolution, not only added her name to the long list of martyrs, but who also made history and contributed to the very nature of those days of terror and uncertainty, was Mme. Roland, whom critics both extol and condemn--the fate of all historical characters. It would be difficult to estimate this remarkable person and her work without some details of her life.
When a mere girl she showed signs of a tempestuous future; she was seductive, but impulsive, with an inborn love for the common people--which is not always credited to her--and for democracy. These qualities were quickened during her experience at Versailles, for while there for a few days' visit she saw the pitiless social world in all its orgies, revelries of luxury, and wanton extravagances. There, also, she contracted that deep-seated hatred for the queen and royalty.
There was, indeed, a long list of suitors for the hand of the impulsive maiden; but owing to her views as to a husband and her restless, unsettled state of mind, she could not decide upon any one of them. To her mother, when urged to accept one, she said: "I should not like a husband to order me about, for he would teach me only to resist him; but neither do I wish to rule my husband. Either I am much mistaken, or those creatures, six feet high, with beard on their chins, seldom fail to make us feel that they are stronger; now, if the good man should suddenly bethink himself to remind me of his strength he would provoke me, and if he submitted to me he would make me feel ashamed of my power." For such a woman marriage was certainly a difficult problem. Finally, Roland de la Platières came within her circle; and although somewhat adverse to him at first, after a number of his visits she wrote: "I have been much charmed by the solidity of his judgment and his cultured and interesting conversation." Just such a man appealed to her nature and was in harmony with her views. After months of monotonous life in the convent to which she had retired, she at last consented to become the wife of Roland, not from expectations of any fortune, but purely from a sense of devoting herself to the happiness of an honorable man, to making his life sweeter.
Roland, scrupulously conscientious, painstaking, and observing, had won the position of inspector of manufactures, which took him away on foreign travels part of the time. He had acquired a thorough knowledge of manufacturing and the principles of political economy. The first years of their life were spent in each other's society exclusively, as he was insanely jealous of her; she rarely left his side, and they studied the same works, copied and revised his manuscripts, and corrected his proofs. In this she was indispensable to him. But her activity did not stop with literary work; she managed her husband's household, and for miles around her home the peasants soon learned to know her through her charitable deeds. She was the village doctor, often going for miles to attend the poor in distress. With her own hands she prepared dainty dishes with which to tempt her husband's appetite. Thus, her best years were spent upon things for which much less ability would have sufficed. She watched with breathless interest the installation of Necker and the dismissal of Turgot, the convocation of the notables, the struggles for financial recovery, and, finally, the calling of a States-General, which had not been in session since 1614. During the first stormy years, 1789-1790, she wrote burning missives to her friend Bosc, at Paris, which appeared anonymously in thePatriote Français, edited by Brissot, the future Girondist leader. Soon came the commission of Roland as the first citizen of the city of Lyons, which had a debt of forty million francs, to acquaint the National Assembly with its affairs.
When, in 1791, Mme. Roland arrived at Paris--for she accompanied her husband--she had already become an ardent Republican. She immediately threw herself into the whirlwind of popular enthusiasm. Her house became the centre of an advanced political group, which met there four times a week to discuss state questions. There Danton, Robespierre, Pétion, Condorcet, Buzot, and others were seen. She ably aided her husband in all his work as commissioner to the National Assembly. She was indefatigable in penning stirring letters and petitions to the Jacobin societies in the different departments. A staunch friend of Robespierre, she did much to protect him in his first efforts in public. On returning home, after her husband had completed his mission, she was no longer the same quiet, contented, submissive woman; she longed for activity in the midst of excitement.
With the meeting of the Legislative Assembly, in 1791, the group of men sent up from the Gironde immediately became the leaders, and when Mme. Roland returned to Paris she became the centre of this circle, exhorting and stimulating, advising and ordering. Through her friend Brissot, who was all-powerful in the Assembly, about February, 1792, as leader of the Girondists, who were looking for men not yet practically involved in politics, but qualified by experience for political life, her husband was made minister of the interior, and in March, 1792, he and his wife entered upon their duties. She was a keen reader of human nature, at first glance giving her husband a penetrating and generally truthful judgment of men. Being able to comprehend the temperaments of the ministers, she managed them with inimitable tact. Although all the Girondist ministers were supposed friends, she readily saw how difficult it would be for a small group of men with the same principles to act in concert. Seeing the political machine in motion at close range, she lost some of her enthusiasm for revolutionary leaders; above all, she recognized the need of a great leader. As wife of the minister, installed in the ministerial residence with no other woman present, she gave two dinners weekly to her husband's colleagues, to the members of the Assembly, and to political friends.
Her husband, the French Quaker of the Revolution, in all his simplicity of dress and honesty, was being constantly duped by the apparent good nature and sincerity of the king, against whom his wife was constantly warning him. It was she who, convinced of the king's duplicity and the need of a safeguard for the country, originated the plan of a federate camp of twenty thousand men to protect Paris when war had been declared against Austria. It was she who wrote a letter to the king in the name of the council, but sent in Roland's own name, imploring him not to arouse the mistrust of the nation by constantly betraying his suspicion of it, but to show his love by adopting measures for the welfare and safety of the country. The effect of this letter, which became historical, was the fall of the ministers. After their recall, her husband became more and more powerful. The political circulars which were published by his paper,The Sentinel, were composed by her. Then came the horrible massacres and executions by the hundreds, which inspired Mme. Roland with hatred for Danton, a feeling she communicated to the whole Girondist party. She desired above everything to see punished the perpetrators of the September massacres. In this plan the Girondists failed. Robespierre, Danton, and Marat were victorious, and Mme. Roland and her party fell.
When all parties and the whole populace vied with each other in welcoming back the victorious General Dumouriez, there seemed to be a possibility of a reconciliation between Danton and Mme. Roland, for when the general went to dine with her he presented her with a bouquet of magnificent oleanders. This dinner, on October 14th, auguring good fortune to all, was the last success of Mme. Roland. She had been pushed to the very front of the Revolution. She coöperated in composing and promulgating the numerous writings of her husband by which public opinion was to be instructed. But she retained her implacable hatred for Danton, who, when her husband, ready to resign, was pressed to remain in office, cried out in the convention: "Why not invite Mme. Roland to the ministry, too! everyone knows that Roland is not alone in the office!" At this period her husband made the fatal mistake of appropriating a chest of important state papers and examining them himself instead of calling together a commission. As is known, the papers turned out to be fatal to Louis XVI. Libels and denunciations were pronounced against Roland, but his wife, called before the convention, not only succeeded in turning aside all accusations, but was voted the honors of the sitting.
At the time of the trial of the king, the power and influence of the Girondists were waning; then the Rolands became the butt of many violent and unreasonable outbursts. With the resignation of Roland on January 22, 1792, the day of the execution of the king, the fate of the Girondists was sealed. This time the minister was not asked to reconsider; in fact, his exposure of the pilfering then going on among the officials made him one of the most unpopular men in Paris. Upon their return to private life, Mme. Roland was accused of forming the plot to destroy the republic. When an armed force arrived one morning at half-past five o'clock to arrest her husband, she resisted them, herself going to the convention to expose the iniquity of such a proceeding. Failing in this, she returned to her husband, to find him safe with a friend. Being again arrested, she met the ordeal with her accustomed courage; and when the officers offered to pull down the blinds of the carriage, to shield her from the gaze of the unfriendly public, she said: "No, gentlemen! innocence, however oppressed, should not assume the attitude of guilt. I fear the eyes of no one, and do not wish to escape even those of my enemies." "You have much more character than many men," they replied; "you can calmly await justice," "Justice!" she cried; "if it existed, I should not be in your power! I would go to the scaffold as calmly as if sent by iniquitous men. I fear only guilt, and despise injustice and death!"
She has been deeply criticised for her letters written to her friend Buzot while she was in prison; yet it should be remembered that there was not the slightest chance of their meeting again, and, besides, the letters reveal the terrible struggle through which she had passed. While in prison, her beauty, grace, and fearlessness won and humanized nearly all who came under her spell. She was once unexpectedly set at liberty, but only to be sentenced to the lowest of prisons--Sainte-Pélagie. There, in the space of about one month, her memoirs, now among the French classics, were written. At the Conciergerie, where the lowest criminals and the filthiest paupers were crowded into cells with the highest of the nobility, and where the cowardly Mme. du Barry spent her last hours, Mme. Roland, by her quiet dignity and patient serenity, commanded silence and respect, and calmness and peace replaced angry and pitiful wrangling. The prisoners clung to her, crying and kissing her hand, while she spoke words of advice and consolation to the doomed women, who "looked upon her as a beneficent divinity." Her conduct under these circumstances alone is sufficient to keep alive her memory. In the last days, she clung to and upheld most passionately her principles of liberty and moderation, and in her conversation with Beugnot it was evident that she had been the real inspiration in the Girondist party for all that was best and most uplifting.
The charge against her when before the bar of judgment of Fouquier-Tinville, the terrible prosecutor, consisted in her relation to the Girondists who had been condemned to death as traitors to the republic. She met her death heroically, as became a woman who had lived bravely. At the very last moment of her life, she offered consolation to fellow victims. Her death was that of the greatest heroine of the Revolution, the climax of a life the one ambition of which had been to save her country and to shed her blood for it. As she rode through the city in her pure white raiment, serenely radiant in her own innocence, she was the embodiment of all that was highest and purest in the Revolution--one of the best and greatest women known to French history. She stands out as a representative of the French Republic.
There are a number of traits of Mme. Roland which should be considered before giving a final estimate of her character, of her rôle in French history, and of her right to be ranked among the most illustrious women of France. Critics in general seem to show her a marked hostility; such men as Caro assert that she had no modesty, that she lacked sentiment, delicacy, and reserve. M. Saint-Amand said that she reflected the vices and virtues of her age, summing up the passions and illusions, being intellectually and morally the disciple of Rousseau, but socially personifying the third estate, which in the beginning asked for nothing, but later demanded all. Politics made her cruel at times, although by nature she was good and sensible. He declared that with her acquaintance with Buzot began her career of love and ambition. In love, she believed herself a patriot, but all the various phases of her public career were simply the results of her emotions. Thus, for example, in order to see Buzot, she persuaded her husband to return to Paris to seek his fortune and make the realization of her dreams possible. She desired to play a rôle for which her origin had not destined her, which made her actions appear theatrical and affected. It is evident that she hated both the king and the queen, and at the council for the Girondist ministry demanded the death of the royal couple. And yet, Saint-Amand cites her as the most beautiful of that group of martyrs who lost their lives in the first heat of the Revolution--as the genius among them by her force, purity, and grace--the brilliant and austere muse in all the saintliness of martyrdom.
The two maxims which Mme. Roland followed throughout her career had much to do with her fall: security is the tomb of liberty; indulgence toward men in authority is the means of pushing them to despotism. These maxims as her motto or impulse, united with the spirit of push, energy, and at times rashness and impropriety, naturally led her to her ruin in those days of revolutionary ideas. She was a woman of powerful passion controlled by reason, and with frankness, devotion, courage, and fidelity as forces impelling her to activity. But there was one great defect which was at the bottom of her misfortunes,--a too great ambition, which often led her into perilous paths, even to the scaffold, which, in its turn, covered her errors.
She is said to have married M. Roland more as a theory than as a husband, for her ideas of marriage were such as to make pure, disinterested love impossible. Her husband was in many respects her intellectual superior, but she excelled him in versatility. Being her senior by twenty years, when he grew old and infirm he depended upon her for a great deal, all of which contributed to her restlessness and unhappiness. Then there developed in her that terrible struggle between loyalty to her husband and passion for Buzot, in which reason conquered. This devotion to duty was indeed rare in those days, when passion was supreme and pure love was almost unknown. Mr. Dobson says that this one trait by which she gave real expression of virtue is profoundly a product of her mental self. Her instinct would have led her to self-abandonment, so common in that day, but her "man by the head" self was stronger than her "woman by the heart" self. These two sides of her character, fostered by incessant reading, incited her fearful and unrelenting hatreds as well as her passion, "masculine enough to be mistrusted and feminine enough to be admired." These two qualities made her a power and an attraction. Her better side will continue to shine clearer as the horror of those days is revealed. Whatever may be the effects of her ambitious nature and of her unfortunate passion for Buzot, by the very virtue of her intellect and reasoning she will remain the one great woman of the Revolution who willingly and conscientiously sacrificed her life for her country.
A type perhaps more universally known in her relation to the Revolution than is Mme. Roland, though no better understood, was Charlotte Corday. Possessed of a most intense patriotism and an unusual emotional nature, she represented better than any other woman of her age the peculiar French trait--namely, the emotional perfectly combined with the mathematical. She was unique; her compatriots practised the art of studying themselves, in order to be attractive, and thus accomplished their ends, while her ambition was not to please merely, but to be of some real, practical value to her troubled country. She stands out, however, as the product of the end of the eighteenth century, a natural result of the reading of philosophy and political pamphlets. Quite naturally, she entertained such philosophical sentiments as this: "No one will lose in losing me, and the country may be better off for the sacrifice. Death comes only once, and let us use it to the good of the country or the greatest number of people." Thus, her philosophy led her to a complete detachment from her individual self, and fostered the idea of dying for her country.
Her decision to rid France of Marat was arrived at by degrees of silent brooding over the evils which beset her native land; at last she felt herself called to some great act which would necessitate the loss of her life. "The time brought forth desperation, intense warmth of feeling, concentrated upon some purpose or object;" the reasoning self seemed to be stifled by the intensity of the emotion. Yet, reason was to conquer in her. When the Girondists returned to Caen and described Robespierre and Marat in the darkest colors, she at once felt moved to put forth all her efforts to rid France of that evil blot--Marat. She was beautiful, strong, and graceful, presenting a most striking appearance. Loved by all, she felt love and devotion only for her country. Desperate and determined, she set out to fulfil her mission. She was a mere expression of the conservative element which acts only when driven by sheer necessity. Her reason impressed her with her duty and circumstances; the time acted upon her mind. "Easy, calm, resigned, she looked upon the angry masses of people who cursed her," confident that she had done her country a service, and proud that she had been the fortunate one to render it. This was her glory, and for this she will be remembered in history.
Possibly the rarest phenomenon in the history of the illustrious women of France is Mme. Récamier, who, by force of her beauty and social fascination, and without intellectual gifts or even wit, won for herself the position of queen of French society, which she held for nearly half a century. The very name of Récamier has come to evoke a vision of beauty, a beauty so well known to every lover of art who has visited the Luxembourg and gazed upon the figure "so flexible and elegant, with head well poised, brilliant complexion, little rosy mouth with pearly teeth, black curling hair, soft expressive eyes, and a bearing indicative of indolence and pride, yet with a face beaming with good nature and sympathy." Her beauty has been considered perfect, but a recent writer has proved this to be an error. M.J. Turquan, in a new volume on Mme. Récamier, is everything but sympathetic to the woman at whom criticism has rarely been pointed. "Quite a contrast to her extraordinary beauty of face," he declares, "were her hands, with big fingers square at the end and having flat nails. The same may be said of her feet, which were not only big, but were without the slightest trace offinessein their lines." But though Turquan has raised numerous points in her disfavor, they are not at all likely to detract from her unrivalled reputation for beauty.
Critics have made of her a sort of enigmatic figure, supernatural and having only the form of the human. Thus, in Lamartine we find the following description: "The young girl was, they say, asous-entenduof nature: she could be a wife, she could not be a mother. These are the two mysteries we must respect, but which we must know to have been the secret of the entire life of Mme. Récamier--a mournful and eternal enigma which will never have its words divined,... All her looks produced an intoxication, but brought hope to no heart. The divine statue had not descended from its pedestal for anyone, as though such a performance would have been too divine for a mortal." Her beauty was so marked, so singular, that wherever she appeared--at the ball, the theatre--it caused a sensation; all turned to look at her and admire in subdued astonishment. Her form was said to be marvellously elegant and supple, her neck of an exquisite perfection, her mouth "deliciously small and pink, her teeth veritable pearls set in coral, her arms splendidly moulded, her eyes full of sweetness and admiration, her nose most attractive in its regularity, her physiognomy candid and spiritual, her air indolent and haughty, and her attitude reserved. Before this ensemble, you remained in ecstasy." All this beauty was particularly well set off by an exquisite white dress adorned with pearls--a style she affected the year around.
But her beauty alone could hardly have contributed to the marvellous success of Mme. Récamier, as some critics assert. Guizot, for instance, suspects her nature to have been less superficial than other writers might lead one to suppose. He said: "This passionate admiration, this constant affection, this insatiable taste for society and conversation, won her a wide friendship. All who approached and knew her--foreigners and Frenchmen, princes and the middle classes, saints and worldlings, philosophers and artists, adversaries as well as partisans--all she inspired with the ideas and causes she espoused." Her qualities outside of her beauty were tact, generosity, and elevation of soul, combined with an amiable grace which was unlimited, however superficial it may have been. Knowing how to maintain, in her salon, harmony and even cordial relations between men of the most varied temperaments and political ideas, it was possible for her to remain all her life an intelligent and warm-hearted bond between the élite minds and their diverse sentiments, which she tactfully tempered. Though ever faithful to one cause, she admitted men and women of all parties to her salon. She was moderate and just in the midst of the most arduous struggles, tolerant toward her adversaries, generous toward the conquered, sympathetic to all, and remarkably successful in conciliating all political, literary, and philosophical opinions as well as the passions which she aroused in her worshippers. To these qualities, as much as to her beauty, were due the harmony of her life, the unity of her character--which were never troubled by the turmoils of politics or the emotions of love. She was not wife, mother, or lover; "she never belonged to anyone in soul or sense." Always mistress of her imagination as well as of her heart, she permitted herself to be charmed but never carried away--receiving from all, but giving nothing in return. Her life was brilliant, but there was lurking in the background the demon of sadness and lassitude and the terrible disease of the eighteenth century,--ennui.
Two splendid portraits of Mme. Récamier are left to us: one by her passionate but unsuccessful lover, Benjamin Constant, picturing her as the personification of attractiveness; the other by M. Lenormant, showing that she desired constant admiration: "She lacked the affections which bring veritable happiness and the true dignity of woman. Her barren heart, desirous of tenderness and devotion, sought recompense for this need of living, in the homage of passionate admiration, the language of which pleases the ears." Mme. Récamier, while still a child, seemed to realize the power of her beauty, and even before her marriage in 1793 she would often say, when demanded in marriage: "Mon Dieu! how beautiful I must be already!" A mere girl when married, being only sixteen years of age, she felt no love for her husband, who was her senior by twenty-five years. Soon after the terrible times of "the Reign of Terror" she found herself one of the most beautiful women in Paris, and her husband one of the wealthiest of bankers. The three rival women of the times were Mme. Récamier, Mme. Tallien, and Josephine. The terrible days of the guillotine were succeeded by an uninterrupted reign of pleasure, "when a fever of amusement possessed everyone, and the desire for distraction of all kinds seemed to have been pushed to its limits." M. Turquan states that in the reign of dissolute extravagance, immorality, and gorgeous splendor, Mme. Récamier formed a striking contrast by her simplicity. Her first triumph was at the church Saint-Roche, the most fashionable of Paris, where she was selected to raise a purse for charity. On one occasion the collection amounted to twenty thousand francs, all due to the beauty of the woman passing the plate. She was soon invited by her friend Barras to all the balls and fêtes under the Directorate.
In 1798 M. Récamier bought the house formerly tenanted by Necker, and later established himself in a château at Clichy, where he received his friends, among whom was Lucien Bonaparte, who attempted the ruin of the beautiful hostess, but without success. Napoleon himself attempted in vain to win her to his court as maid of honor and as an ornament, her refusal incurring his anger, especially as she was the height of fashion and courted by all the great men of the age. Through her preference for the Royalists--persisting in her line of conduct in spite of her friend Fouché--she finally incurred the enmity of the emperor. Even the Princess Caroline endeavored to obtain Mme. Récamier's friendship for Napoleon, "but, although the princess gave herlogetwice to the favorite, and upon each occasion the emperor went to the theatre expressly to gaze upon her, she remained firm in her refusal, which was one of the causes of the downfall of her banker husband, whom Napoleon might have saved had his wife been the emperor's friend." Napoleon certainly resented her refusal, for when requested to save Récamier's bank he replied: "I am not in love with Mme. Récamier!" Thus, because his wife preferred the aristocracy to the favors of Napoleon, the banker lost his fortune.
She, however, bore her misfortunes with great reserve, immediately selling her jewels and her hôtel; after which they both retired to small apartments, where they were even more honored and had greater social prestige than ever. She at once made her salon the centre of hostility against the emperor, who, according to Turquan, did not banish her, but her friend Mme. de Staël, with whom she passed over into Switzerland. Here began her romance with Prince August of Prussia, who became so enamored of her that he asked her hand in marriage. Encouraged by Mme. de Staël, she even went so far as to ask her husband for a divorce, that she might wed the royal aspirant. Her husband generously consented to this, but at the same time set forth to her the peculiar position which she would occupy, an argument that opened her eyes to her ingratitude, and she refused the prince.
Upon the fall of Napoleon, Mme. Récamier returned to Paris and, her husband's fortune being restored, gathered about her all the great nobles of the ancient régime. But fortune was unkind to her husband for the second time, and she withdrew to the Abbaye-au-Bois, where she occupied a small apartment on the third floor. Here her distinguished friends followed her--such as Chateaubriand and the Duc de Montmorency. Between her and the famous author ofLe Génie du Christianismethere sprang up a friendship which lasted thirty years. During this time it is said that he visited her at a certain hour each day, the people in the neighborhood setting their clocks by his appearance. When he was absent on missions, he wrote her of every act of his life. Both, weary of the dissipations of society and its flatteries, sought a pure and lofty friendship, spiritual and affectionate, with no improper intimacy. There was mutual admiration and mutual respect. Even Chateaubriand's wife, who was an invalid and with whom he spent every evening, encouraged his friendship with Mme. Récamier. When, through the fall of Charles X., Chateaubriand lost his power, the friendship did not cease. M. Turquan insists that he did not really care seriously for Mme. Récamier, that his visits were the outgrowth of mere habit. But it is to be seen that throughout his book Turquan has little sympathy for his subject, whom he pictures as a beautiful, heartless, intriguing woman with immense hands, flat, square fingers, and large feet.
The influence possessed by Mme. Récamier was most remarkable; for with the new statesmen, Thiers, Guizot, Mignet, De Tocqueville, Sainte-Beuve, as well as the nobles and princes, she was on most cordial terms, and was received in any salon which she chose to visit. Her unbounded sympathy, tact, and common sense made her friendship and counsel much in demand by great men. One trait, however, her exclusiveness, caused much discomfort in her life, such as bringing upon her the ill will of Napoleon.
In her later years her physical beauty gradually developed into a moral beauty. She was never a passionate woman, but rather passively affectionate; purely unselfish, her one desire always was to make people love her and to be happy. Her friendship with Chateaubriand in the later days was possibly the most ideal and noble in the history of French women. He never failed to make his appearance in the afternoon at theabbaye, driven in a carriage to her threshold, where he was placed in an armchair and wheeled to a corner by her fireplace. On one of those visits, he asked her to marry him--he being seventy-nine, she seventy-one--and bear his illustrious name. "Why should we marry at our age?" Mme. Récamier replied. "There is no impropriety in my taking care of you. If solitude is painful to you, I am ready to live in the same house with you. The world will do justice to the purity of our friendship. Years and blindness give me this right. Let us change nothing in so perfect an affection." Her charm never deserted her, and she continued to the very last to receive the greatest men and women of the day. Still the reigning beauty and the queen of French society, she died at the age of seventy-two, of cholera.
There is a wide difference between Mme. Récamier and Josephine, the two women of the Napoleonic era who exerted so powerful an influence upon the social and political fortunes of France. At the time of Napoleon's first success, the former was only twenty-one, with Madonna-like charms and attractiveness; the latter, thirty-five, but with exquisite taste in dress and skill in beautifying. Possessed of unstudied natural grace and elegance, and always attired in perfect harmony with her beauty of face and form, she could easily stand a comparison with the other beauties of the day, all of whom studied her air and manner and marked the aristocratic ease and poise of her realnoblesseof the old régime.
MME. RECAMIER'S SALONAfter the painting by Adrien Moreau.
Thus, in Lamartine we find: "The young girl was, they say, asous-entenduof nature: she could be a wife, she could not be a mother." These are the two mysteries we must respect, but which we must know to have been the secret of the entire life of Mme. Recamier. Knowing how to maintain, in her salon, harmony between men of the most varied temperaments and political ideas, it was possible for her to remain all her life an intelligent and warm-hearted bond. She admitted men and women of both parties to her salon.... was moderate and just in the midst of the most arduous struggles, tolerant toward her adversaries, generous toward the conquered, sympathetic to all, and remarkably successful in conciliating all political, literary, and philosophical opinions as well as the passions which she aroused in her worshippers.
"Josephine had a faded and brown complexion, which she remedied with rouge and powder; her small mouth concealed her bad teeth; her elegant figure and graceful movements, refined expression, gentle voice and dignity, all dexterously expressed with an air of coquetry, made her delightful." The happiest part of the life of Napoleon and Josephine was during their stay in Italy, when he was absolutely faithful to her. As soon as Napoleon left for Egypt, Talleyrand secured the erasure of many noble names from the list of the proscribed exiles and soon gathered about him a large number of Royalists, who immediately began to pay court to Josephine. Napoleon had enjoined her to keep her salon according to the means he provided and to entertain all influential people. To this she was equal; and all men of elevated rank, the most distinguished artists, men of letters, orators, and musicians, found her salon an enjoyable retreat. No greater galaxy of talent and genius ever assembled under the old régime than was found there,--David, Lebrun, Lesueur, Grétry, Cherubini, Méhul, J. Chénier, Hoffman, Ducis, Désaugiers, Legouvé, and others.
But her life was not without its difficulties. She was always annoyed by the Bonaparte family, who were jealous of her influence over Bonaparte. Exceedingly extravagant, in fact a spendthrift, she was always in need of money. Her virtues, however, easily offset these defects. Josephine never offended anyone, never argued politics; she made friends in all classes, thus conciliating Republicans and aristocrats; therefore, her greatest influence was as a mediator between two classes of society, by which she, more than any other woman, unconsciously contributed to the forming of a new social France. Napoleon was wise enough to recognize such diplomacy, and encouraged her to intrigue like an experienced diplomat. She was the most efficient aid and means to his future plans, and M. Saint-Amand says that without her he would possibly never have become emperor. When he returned from Egypt and found her away,--she had gone to meet him, but missed him,--his suspicions were aroused as to her fidelity, as she had been accused of many misdeeds. When the reconciliation finally took place, after a day of sobbing and pleading, she put to work all her tact and knowledge of Parisian society to help her husband to thecoup d'état.
She was always of great service to Napoleon in his relations with the men of whom he wished to make use; fascinating them and drawing them over to him, she charmed such persons as Barras, Gohier, Fouché, Moreau, Talleyrand, Sièyes, and others. By her skill she kept hidden Napoleon's plans until all was ripe for them. She was in the secret of the 18th Brumaire; "nothing was concealed from her. In every conference at which she was present, her discretion, gentleness, grace, and the ready ingenuity of her delicate and cool intelligence were of great service." During the Directorate she allayed jealousies and appeased the differences between Republicans and Royalists. As wife of the First Consul, she conciliated theémigrés. At that time she was probably the most important figure in France. Theémigréswould call at her salon in the morning so as to avoid meeting her husband, with whom they refused to associate. Her task was not easy, but she knew so well how to say a kind word to all, and her tact was so great that when she became empress the duties and requirements of that office were natural to her. She won the Republicans by her friendship with Fouché, the representative of the revolutionary element--the aristocracy, by her dignity and refinement. Her whole appearance had a peculiar charm.
In 1803 the conditions began to be reversed. In 1796 Josephine had worried Napoleon on account of her inconstancy; she was then young and beautiful, while he was penniless and ailing. In 1803 he was thirty-four and she forty--he in his prime, wealthy and popular, she faded and powerless, no longer able to give cause for suspicion. However, nothing could make Napoleon reject her, because she was useful to him. "Her kindness was a weapon against her enemies, a charm for her friends, and the source of her power over her husband." "I gained battles, Josephine gained me hearts," are the well-known words of Napoleon. As empress she had every wish gratified, but she realized that a woman of her age could not continue indefinitely her fascination over a man as capricious as Napoleon. In the brilliant court of Fontainebleau she held the highest place, and no one could suspect the anxieties that tormented her, so cool and happy did she appear.
Josephine did many things that later on gradually helped reconcile Napoleon to a divorce: her pride, her aristocratic tendencies, extravagance and lavishness; her objection to the marriage of Hortense to General Duroc on the grounds of humble birth; her religious tendencies; her difficulty in keeping secrets, which led to highly tragic scenes between her and Bonaparte; the encouragement she gave to the jealousies and hatred of her brothers and sisters-in-law, who maliciously slandered her at every opportunity; and finally, her barrenness.
Her career after her divorce was honorable, and to-day Josephine is still held in the highest esteem in France and in the world at large. Her greatness is not in having been the wife of a great emperor, but in knowing how to adapt herself to the conditions in France into which she was suddenly thrust. As a conciliator and a mediator between two almost hopelessly irreconcilable classes of society, she deserves a prominent place among great French women.
Among the unusually large number of prominent French women which the nineteenth century produced, possibly not more than a half-dozen names will survive,--Mme. de Staël, George Sand, Rosa Bonheur, Sarah Bernhardt, Mme. Lebrun, and Rachel. This circumstance is, possibly, largely due to the character of the century: its activity, its varied accomplishments, its wide progress along so many lines, its social development, its absolute freedom and tolerance--all of which tended to open a field for women more extensive than in any preceding century.
The salon, in its old-time glory, became a thing of the past; and the passing of this institution lessened, to a large extent, the possibility of great influence on the part of women. In short, the mode of life became, in the nineteenth century, unfavorable to the absolute power exercised by woman in former times. She was now on a level with man, enjoying more privileges and being looked upon more as the equal and possible rival of man. It became necessary for woman to make and establish her own position, whereas, under the old régime, her power and position were established by custom, which regarded her vocation as entirely distinct from that of man. The result was a host of prominent and active women, but few really great ones. Undoubtedly by far the most important and influential was Madame de Staël, but her influence and work are so intimately associated with her life that any account of her which aims at giving a true estimate of her significance must necessarily involve much biography.
Her mother, the Mme. Necker of salon fame, endeavored to bring up her daughter as thechef d'oeuvreof natural art,--pious, modest in her conversation, dignified in her behavior, without pride or frivolity, but with wide knowledge. In this ambition she partly succeeded. At the age of eleven the young girl was present at receptions, where she listened to discussions by such men as Grimm, Buffon, Suard, and others. Her parents took her to the theatre, and she would subsequently compose short stories on what she had heard and seen. Rousseau became her ideal, but she enjoyed all literature, showing an insatiable desire for knowledge. From her early youth to her death, her conversation was ever the result of her own impulse; consequently, it was uncontrolled and lacked the seriousness imparted by deep reflection.
Interested in all things except Nature, which seemed mournful to her, while solitude horrified her, society was her delight. At the age of twenty she wrote: "A woman must have nothing to herself and must find all power in that which she loves." Her masculine ideal was a man of society, of success, a hero of the Academy, a superior genius, animated more by the desire to please than to be useful. During these early years she wrote a great deal, her work being mostly in the form of sentimental utterances, but very little has survived her.
When she reached marriageable age, many ambitions of her parents were frustrated by her independent will. Pitt, Mirabeau, Bonaparte, were considered, but destiny had in store for her a Swedish ambassador, Staël-Holstein, a man of good family, but with little money and plenty of debts, who had been looking out for a comfortable dowry. In 1786, at the time when Marie Antoinette was at the height of her popularity, this girl of twenty years was married to a man seventeen years her senior, who had no affection for her and whom she could not love.
At Paris she immediately opened a salon, which soon eclipsed, both in beauty and wit, that of her mother; there her eloquence, enthusiasm, and conversational gifts captivated all, but her imprudent language, the recklessness of her conduct, her scorn of all etiquette, her outspoken preferences, frightened away women and stunned men. Her sympathy for her friends, Talleyrand, Narbonne, De Montmorency, together with the approaching Revolution, drew her into politics. When her father was called by the nation to the control of its finances, his daughter shared his glories.
Her salon was the centre of the élite and of all literary and political discussions; but as the majority of its frequenters were partisans of the English constitution and expressed their views openly and freely, her enemies became numerous. When Narbonne was made minister of war, a great triumph for her and her party, the eloquence of his reports was attributed to her, and when he fell into disgrace she rescued him. However, the atmosphere of Paris was too unfriendly, so she left in 1792 for her home at Coppet, which became an asylum for all the proscribed. When she visited England, she began a thorough study of its mode of life, its customs, and its parliamentary institutions. Upon her return to Coppet she wroteRéflexions sur le Procès de la Reine, to excite the commiseration of the judges. After the death of her mother in 1794, she devoted her energies to the education of her two boys.
After the violence of her love for Benjamin Constant, who drew her back to politics, was somewhat cooled, she became an ardent Republican, writing her treatiseRéflexions sur la Paix adressées a M. Pitt et aux Anglais, which facilitated her return in 1795 to Paris, where she found her husband reinstalled as ambassador. Her hôtel in the Rue de Bac was reopened, and she proceeded to form a salon from the débris of society floating about in Paris. It was an assembly of queer characters--elements of the old and new régime, but not at all reconciled, converts of the Jacobin party returning for the first time into society, surrounded by the women of the old régime, using all imaginable efforts and flattery to obtain therentréeof a brother, a son, or a lover; it was composed of the most moderate Revolutionists, of former Constitutionalists, of exiles of the Monarchy, whom she endeavored to bring over to the Republican cause.
Through the influence of Mme. de Staël, the decree of banishment was repealed by the convention, thus opening Paris to Talleyrand. In 1795 appeared herRéflexions sur la Paix Intérieure; the aim of that work being to organize the French Republic on the plan of the United States; it strongly opposed the restoration of the Monarchy. The Comité du Salut Publique accused her of double play, of favoring intrigues, and, seeing the plots of the Royalists, she adopted a new plan in her salon; politics being too dangerous, she decided to devote herself more to literature. In her bookLes Passionsshe endeavored to crush her calumniators; she wrote: "Condemned to celebrity, without being able to be known I find need of making myself known by my writings."
It was not safe for her to return to Paris until 1797, when her friend Talleyrand was made minister of foreign affairs. Her efforts to charm Napoleon led only to estrangement, although he appointed her friend Benjamin Constant to the tribunate; but when he publicly announced the advent of the tyrant Napoleon, she was accused of inciting her friends against the government, and was again banished to Coppet, where she wrote the celebrated workDe la Littérature Considérée sous ses Rapports avec les Institutions Sociales, a singular mixture of satirical allusions to Napoleon's government and cabals against his power; in that work she announced, also, her belief in the regeneration of French literature by the influence of foreign literature, and endeavored to show the relations which exist between political institutions and literature. Thus, she was the first to bring the message of a general cosmopolitan relationship of literatures and literary ideas.
In 1802 she returned to Paris and began to show, on every possible occasion, a morbid hatred for Napoleon. When her father published his workDernières Vues de Politique et de Finance, expressing a desire to write against the tyranny of one, after having fought so long that of the multitude, the emperor immediately accused Mme. de Staël of instilling these ideas into her father. Her salon and forty of her friends were put into the interdict.
After the death of her husband in 1802, she was free to marry Benjamin Constant; and after refusing him, she wrote her novelDelphineto give vent to her feelings. The two famous lines found in almost every work on Mme. de Staël may be quoted here, as they well express her ideas on marriage: "A man must know how to brave an opinion, and a woman must submit to it." This qualification Benjamin Constant lacked, and at that time she was unable to give the submission.
Her travels in Germany, Russia, and Italy were one great succession of triumphs; by her brilliancy, her wonderful gift of conversation, and her quickness of comprehension, she everywhere baffled and astounded those with whom she conversed. Schiller declared that when she left he felt as though he were just convalescing after a long spell of illness. One day she abruptly asked the staid old philosopher Fichte: "M. Fichte, can you give me, in a short time, anaperçuof your system of philosophy, and tell me what you mean by your ego? I find it very obscure." He began by translating his thoughts into French, very deliberately. After talking for some ten minutes, in the midst of a deep argument she interrupted him, crying out: "Enough, M. Fichte, quite enough! I understand you perfectly; I have seen your system in illustration--it is an adventure of Baron Münchhausen." The philosopher assumed a tragic attitude, and a spell of silence fell upon the audience.
The result of her visit to Italy was her novelCorinne, in which the problems of the destiny of women of genius--the relative joys of love and glory--are discussed. This work remained for a whole generation the standard of love and ideals, and at the same time revealed Italy to the French, After a second visit to Germany, she began to labor seriously on her work on that country, in 1810 goingincognitoto Paris to have it printed. Ten thousand copies, ready for sale, were destroyed before reaching the public. This work opened the German world to the French; it applied, to a great nation, the doctrine of progress, defending the independence and originality of nations, while endeavoring to show that the future lay in the reciprocal respect of the rights of people, declaring that nations are not at all the arbitrary work of men or the fatal work of circumstances, and that the submission of one people to another is contrary to nature. She wished to make "poor and noble Germany" conscious of its intellectual riches, and to prove that Europe could obtain peace only through the liberation of that country. The censors accused her of lack of patriotism in provoking the Germans to independence, and of questionable taste in praising their literature; consequently, the book was denounced, all the copies obtainable were destroyed, and a vigorous search for the manuscript was undertaken. After this episode, her friends were not permitted to visit her at Coppet.
In 1811 she was secretly married to a young Italian officer, Albert de Rocca, a handsome man of twenty-three--she was then forty-five. In him she realized the conditions which she described inDelphine, namely, a man who braved an opinion and prejudices; and she was ready to submit herself to him, Coppet became the centre for endless pleasures and fêtes; Mme. de Staël began to write comedies and to forget Paris entirely. This blissful happiness was suddenly checked by the emperor, who determined to show his displeasure and also to give evidence of his power by banishing Schlegel and exiling Mme. Récamier and De Montmorency, who continued to visit Mme. de Staël. Fear for the safety of her husband and children influenced her to leave for Russia, where the czar ordered all Russians to honor her as the enemy of Napoleon. Indeed, she was everywhere received like a visiting queen.
In the autumn of 1816 she returned to Paris, and spent a number of months very happily in her old style--in the society of the salon. Though devoured by insomnia, enervated by the use of opium, and besieged by fear of death, she accepted all invitations, and kept open house herself, receiving in the morning, at dinner, and in the evening; and though at night she paced the floor for hours or tossed about on her bed until morning, she was yet fresh for all the pleasures of the next day. But this mode of existence was undermining her health.
She endured this constant strain until one evening in February, 1817, when, at a ball at the Duke of Decazes's, in the midst of her pleasure, she was stricken with paralysis. At the Rue des Mathurins, she had all her friends come and dine with her. Chateaubriand, who was one of the party, entered her room upon one occasion and found her suffering intensely, but able to raise herself and say: "Bonjour, my dear Francis! I am suffering, but that does not hinder me from loving you." She lingered until July, when there ended a life which not only influenced but even modified politics and the institutions of nations, which exercised, by writings, an incalculable influence upon French literature, opening paths which previously had not been trod.
The most important of her works isDe l'Allemagne, in writing which her only desire was to make Germany known to the French, to explain it by comparison with France and to make her people admire it, and to open new paths to poetry. According to her, Germany possessed no classic prose, because the Germans attributed less importance to style than did the French. German poetry, however, had a distinct charm, being all sentiment and poetry of the soul, touching and penetrating; whereas French poetry was allesprit, eloquence, reason, raillery.
In her treatise on the drama, she was the first in French literature to use the term "romantic" and to define it; but she had not invented the word, Wieland having used it to designate the country in which the ancient Roman literature flourished. Her definition was: "The classic word is sometimes taken as a synonym of perfection. I use it in another acceptance by considering classic poetry that of the ancients and romantic poetry that which holds in some way to the chivalresque traditions. The literature of the ancients is a transplanted literature with us; but romantic or chivalresque literature is indigenous. An imitation of works coming from a political, social, and religious midst different from ours means a literature which is no longer in relation with us, which has never been popular, and which will become less so every day. On the contrary, the romantic literature is the only one which is susceptible of being perfected, because it bears its roots from our soil and is, consequently, the only one which can be revived and increased. It expresses our religion and recalls our history." This opinion alone was enough to create a revolt among her contemporaries. Almost all other interpretations ofFaustwere based on her conception.
At the time of its publication, her book was considered to have been written in a political spirit, but her motive was far from that; it was the action of a generous heart, a book as true and loyal to the French as was ever a book written by a Frenchman. In her workConsidérations sur la Révolution Françaiseshe expressed the most advanced ideas on politics and government. The Revolution freed France and made it prosper; "every absolute monarch enslaves his country, and freedom reigns not in politics nor in the arts and sciences. Local and provincial liberties have formed nations, but royalty has deformed the nation by turning it to profit." Mme. de Staël found nothing to admire in Louis XIV., and to Richelieu she attributed the destruction of the originality of the French character, of its loyalty, candor, and independence. In that work she advocated education, which she considered a duty of the government to the people. "Schools must be established for the education of the poor, universities for the study of all languages, literatures, and sciences;" these ideas took root after her death.
Mme. de Staël was a finished writer; because of its force, openness, and seriousness, her style might be termed a masculine one; she wrote to persuade and, as a rule, succeeded. Her grave defect seemed to be in her inspirations, which were always superior to her ideas, and in her sentiments, which she invariably turned to passions.
Few French writers have exercised such a great influence in so many directions, and it became specially marked after her death; while living, the gossip against her salon prevented her opinions from being accepted or taking root. Her political influence was great at her time and lasted some twenty years. Directly influenced by her were Narbonne, De Montmorency, Benjamin Constant, and the Duc Victor de Broglie, her son-in-law. By her and her father, the Globe, the orators of the Academy and the tribune, and the politicians of the day, were inspired. The greatest was Guizot, who interpreted and preached in the spirit of Mme. de Staël. In history her influence was equally felt, especially in Guizot'sEssays on the History of France, and in hisHistory of Civilization, wherein civilization was considered as the constant progress in justice, in society, and in the state. To her Guizot owed his idea ofAmour dans le Mariage.The Historical Essays on England, by Rémusat, an ardent admirer of hers, was largely influenced by herConsidérations, while Tocqueville'sAncien Régimecontains many of her ideas.
Literature owes even more to her works, which encouraged the study of foreign literatures; almost all translations were due to her works. Michelet, Quinet, Nodier, Victor Hugo, so much influenced by German literature, owe their knowledge of it mainly to her. Too much credit may be given her when it is stated that all Mignons, Marguerites, Mephistopheles, etc., proceeded indirectly from her work, as well as nearly all descriptions of travels. Lamartine undoubtedly used herDe l'Allemagneand herDes Passionsfreely. The heroine ofJocelynis called but a daughter ofDelphine, and the same author's terrible invective against Napoleon was inspired by her.
Mme. de Staël had an indestructible faith in human reason, liberty, and justice; she believed in human perfection and in the hope of progress. "From Rousseau, she received that passionate tenderness, that confidence in the inherent goodness of man. Believing in an intimate communion of man with God, her religion was spirit and sentiment which had no need of pomp or symbols, of an intermediary between God and man." She was not so much a great writer as she was a great thinker, or rather a discoverer of new thoughts. By instituting a new criticism and by opening new literatures to the French, she succeeded in emancipating art from fixed rules and in facilitating the sudden growth of romanticism in France.
In her life, her great desire was to spread happiness and to obtain it, to love and to be loved in return. In politics it was always the sentiment of justice which appealed to her, in literature it was the ideal. Sincerity was manifested in everything she said and did. Pity for the misery of her fellow beings, the sentiment of the dignity of man and his right to independence, of his future grandeur founded on his moral elevation, the cult of justice, and the love of liberty--such were the prevailing thoughts of her life and works.
Mme. de Staël's chief influence will always remain in the domain of literature; she was the first French writer to introduce and exercise a European or cosmopolitan influence by uniting the literatures of the north and the south and clearly defining the distinction between them. By the expression of her idea that French literature had decayed on account of the exclusive social spirit, and that its only means of regeneration lay in the study and absorption of new models, she cut French taste loose from traditions and freed literature from superannuated conventionalities. Also, by her idea that a common civilization must be fostered, a union of the eastern and western ideals, and that literature must be the common expression thereof, whose object must be the amelioration of humanity, morally and religiously, she gave to the world at large ideas which are only now being fully appreciated and nearing realization. In her novels she vigorously protested against the lot of woman in modern society, against her obligation to submit everything to opinion, against the innumerable obstacles in the way of her development--thus heralding George Sand and the general movement toward woman's emancipation. France has never had a more forceful, energetic, influential, cosmopolitan, and at the same time moral, writer than Mme. de Staël.
The events in the life of George Sand had comparatively little influence upon her works, which were mainly the expression of her nature. As a young girl, she was strongly influenced by her mother, an amiable but rather frivolous woman, and by her grandmother, a serious, cold, ceremonious old lady. Calm and well balanced, and possessing an ardent imagination, she followed her own inclinations when, as a girl of sixteen, she was married to a man for whom she had no love. After living an indifferent sort of life with her husband for ten years, they separated; and she, with her children, went to Paris to find work.
After a number of unsuccessful efforts of a literary nature, she wroteIndiana, which immediately made her success. Her articles were sought by the journals, and from about 1830 her life was that of the average artist and writer of the time. Her relations with Chopin and Alfred de Musset are too well known to require repetition. After 1850 she retired to her home, the Château de Nohant, where she enjoyed the companionship of her son, her daughter-in-law, and her grandchildren; she died there in 1876.
To appreciate her works, it is more important to study her nature than her career. This has been admirably done by the Comte d'Haussonville. George Sand is said to have possessed a dual nature, which seemed to contradict itself, but which explains her works--a dreamy and meditative, and a lively, frolicsome nature; the first might throw light upon her religious crisis, the second, upon her social side. The combination of these two phases caused the numerous conflicts of opinions and doctrines, extending her knowledge and inciting her curiosity; the not infrequent result was an intellectual and moral bewilderment and the deepest melancholy, from which she with great difficulty freed herself. Because of these peculiarities she was constantly agitated, her strongly reflective nature keeping her awake to all important questions of the day.
Her intellectual development may be traced in her works, which, from 1830 to 1840, were personal, lyrical, spontaneous--a direct flow from inspiration, issuing from a common source of emotions and personal sorrows, being the expressions of her habitual reflections, of her moral agitations, of her real and imaginary sufferings. These first works were a protest against the tyranny of marriage, and expressed her conception of a woman in love--a love profound and naïve, exalted and sincere, passionate and chaste: such is pictured inIndiana. InValentineshe portrays the impious and unfortunate marriage that the sacrilegious conventions of the world have imposed, and the results issuing therefrom. In all of these early works are seen an inventiveness, a livelyallure, an exquisite style, a freshness and brilliancy,finesseand grace; but they show an undisciplined talent, giving vent to feelings that her unbounded enthusiasm would not allow to be checked--there is emotion, but no system.
In her second period, from about 1840 to 1848, her reflection and emotion combined produced a system and theories. The higher problems took stronger hold on her as she matured; philosophy and religious science in their deeper phases excited her emotive faculties, which threw out a mere echo of what she had heard and studied. Her inspiration thus came from without, throwing out those endless declamatory outbursts which we meet inConsueloand inComtesse de Rudolstadt. These theory-novels were soon followed by novels dealing with social problems, now and then relieved by delightful idyllics such asLa Mare au DiableandFrançois le Champi. This third tendency M. d'Haussonville considers the least successful.
After 1850 there appeared from her pen a series of historical novels, especially fine in the portrayal of characters, variety of situations, movement, and intrigues; these are free from all social theories; in these, reverting to her first tendencies, she is at her best in elegance and clearness, in analysis of characters. Thus does the work of George Sand change from a personal lyricism, in which the emotions, held in check during a solitary and dreamy youth, burst forth in brilliant and passionate fiction, to a theoretical, systematic novel, finally reverting to the first efforts, but tempered by experience and age.
M. d'Haussonville says that in the strict sense of the word George Sand had no doctrines, but possessed a powerful imagination that manifested itself at various periods of her life. Whatever the principles might have been at first, they were made concrete under a sentiment with her, for her heart was her first inspiration, her teacher in all things. The ideas are thus analyzed through her sentiments under a threefold inspiration,--love, passion for humanity, sentiment for Nature.
According to other novels, love is the unique affair of life; without love we do not really live, before love enters life we do not live, and after we cease to love there is no object in life. This love comes directly from God, of whom George Sand had ideas peculiar to herself. The majority of her characters have a sort of mystic, exalted love, looking upon it as a sacred right, making of themselves great priests rather than genuine human lovers. This love, issuing from God, is sacred; therefore, the yielding to it is a pious act; he who resists commits sacrilege, while he who blames others for it is impious; for love legitimizes itself by itself. Such a theory naturally led her to a sensual ideality, and her heroes rose to the highest phase of fatalism and voluptuousness; this impelled her to protest against the social laws. Jacques says:
"I do not doubt at all that marriage will be abolished if humankind makes any progress toward justice and reason; a bond more human and none the less sacred will replace this one and will take care of the children which may issue from a man and woman, without ever interfering with the liberty of either. But men are too coarse and women are too cowardly to ask for a law more noble than the iron law which binds them--beings without conscience--and virtue must be burdened with heavy chains."
Yet, in none of her books did George Sand ever submit any theories as to how such children would be cared for; apparently, such a difficulty never troubled her, since almost all of the children of her books die of some disease, while to one--Jacques--she gives the advice to take his own life, so that his wife may be free to love elsewhere.
Her social theories are marked by an exaltation of sentiment, a weakness, an incoherency in conception, caused by her ardent love for theories and ideas, but which, in her passionate sentiment and her loyal enthusiasm, she always confounds and confuses. From early youth she manifested an immense goodness, a profound tenderness, and a deep compassion for human misery. She rarely became angry, even though she suffered cruelly. Her own law of life and her message to the world was--be good. The only strong element within her, she said, was the need of loving, which manifested itself under the form of tenderness and emotion, devotion and religious ecstasy; and when this faith was shaken, doubt and social disturbances overwhelmed her.
Throughout life her consolation was Nature. "It was half of her genius and the surest of her inspirations." No other French novelist has been able to "express in words the lights and shades, harmonies and contrasts, the magic of sounds, the symphonies of color, the depth and distances of the woods, the infinite movement of the sea and the sky--the interior soul of Nature, that vibrates in everything and everybody." With Lamartine and Michelet, she has best reflected and expressed the dreams and hopes and loves of the first half of the nineteenth century.
George Sand saw Nature, lived in her, sympathized with her, and loved her as did few other French writers; therefore, she showed more memory than pure imagination in her work, for she always found Nature more beautiful in actuality than she could picture her mentally, while other great writers, like Lamartine, saw her less beautiful in reality than in their imagination; hence, they were disappointed in Nature, while for George Sand she was the truest friend. The world will always be interested in her descriptions of Nature, because with Nature she always associated something of human life--a thought or a sentiment; her landscapes belonged to her characters--there is always a soul living in them, for, to George Sand, man and Nature were inseparable.
Thus, every novel of this authoress consists of a situation and a landscape, the poetic union of which nothing can mar. "Man associated with Nature and Nature with man is a great law of art; no painter has practised it with instinct more delicate or sure." Because Nature, in her early youth, was her inspiration, guide, even her God, she returned to her later in life. M. Jules Lemaître wrote that her works will remain eternally beautiful, because they teach us how to love Nature as divine and good, and to find in that love peace and solace. There are many parts of her work which show as detailed, accurate, and realistic descriptions as those by Balzac. She constantly employed two elements--the fanciful and the realistic.
George Sand never studied or knew how to compose a work, how to preserve the unity of the subject or the unity in tone in characters; hence, there was nothing calculated or premeditated--everything was spontaneous. No preparation of plan did she ever think of--a mode of procedure which naturally resulted in a negligent style and caused the composition to drag. Her inspiration seemed to go so far, then she resorted to her imagination, to the chimerical, forcing events and characters. "There are many defects in the style--such as the sentimental part, the romanesque in the violent expression of sentiments or invention of situations, the exaggerated improbabilities of events, the excessive declamation; but how many compensating qualities are there to offset these defects!"
Her method of writing was very simple. It was the love of writing that impelled her, almost without premeditation, to put into words her dreams, meditations, and chimeras under concrete and living forms. Yet, by the largeness of her sympathy and the ardor of her passions, by the abundant inventions of stories, and by the harmonious word-flow, she deserves to be ranked among the greatest writers of France. Her career, taken as a whole, is one of prodigious fecundity--a literary life that has "enchanted by its fictions or troubled by its dreams" four or five generations. Never diminishing in quality or inspiration, there are surprises in every new work.
No doubt George Sand has, for a generation or more, been somewhat forgotten, but what great writer has not shared the same fate? When the materialistic age has passed away, many famous writers of the past will be resurrected, and with them George Sand; for her novels, although written to please and entertain, discuss questions of religion, philosophy, morality, problems of the heart, conscience, and education,--and this is done in such a dramatic way that one feels all to be true. More than that, her characters are all capable of carrying out, to the end, a common moral and general theme with eloquence seldom found in novels.
An interesting comparison might be made between Mme. de Staël and George Sand, the two greatest women writers of France. Both wrote from their experience of life, and fought passionately against the prejudices and restrictions of social conventions; both were ideal natures and were severely tried in the school of life, profiting by their experiences; both possessed highly sensitive natures, and suffered much; both were keenly enthusiastic and sympathetic, with pardonable weaknesses; both lived through tragic wars; both evinced a dislike for the commonplace and strove for greater freedom, but for different publics, after unhappy marriages, both rose up as accusers against the prevalent system of marrying young girls. But Mme. de Staël was a virtuoso in conversation, a salon queen, and her happiness was to be found in society alone; while George Sand found her happiness in communion with Nature. This explains the two natures, their sufferings, their joys, their writings.
The greatest punishment ever inflicted upon Mme. de Staël was her exile, for it deprived her of her social life, a fact of which the emperor was well aware. Her entire literary effort was directed to describing her social life and the relation of society to life. "She belongs to the moralists and to the writers who wrote of society and man--social psychologists." Not poetic or artistic by nature, but with an exceptional power of observation, she shows on every side the influence of a pedagogical, literary, and social training; she was the product of an artificial culture.
George Sand, on the contrary, was a product of Nature, reared in free intercourse and unrestrained relation with her genius and Nature. A powerful passion and a mighty fantasy made of her a poetess and an artist. These two qualities were manifested in her intense and deep feeling for the beauty of Nature, in her power of invention, in a harmonious equilibrium between idealism and realism. Her fantasy overbalanced her reason, impeding its development and thus relegating it to a secondary rôle. "She is possibly the only French writer who possessed noesprit(in the sense that it is used in French society)--that playful, epigrammatic, querulous wit of conversation."