The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-05-16
MADAM DE STAEL.


pecially after her death but one may
be allowed to express, In a confidential
manner, his belief that Madam de Stael
was one of the most disagreeable of her
sex. She was one of ssthe earliest of
that class called "men in petticoats" "a
pioneer, in fact, of the Amazonian army
of the strong-minded, and, like most of
that class, was the reverse of well-look-
ing Her want of personal attractions
created lifelong agony in her mind.
Sherepeatedly said to Madam Recamier,
one of the loveliest French women in
the close of the last and the early years
of the present century, that she would
willingly part with all her wit, acquire
ments, and literary reputation, provided
that she could have even half of her
beauty. In "Court of Napoleon" a
large volume, by Frank B. Goodrich,
son of "Peter Farley" published In
1857, and frequently reproduced as a
pretty book for the drawing table, are
memoirs, with finely engraved portraits
of the leading French ladies of the First
Empire. No doubt, from her celebrity
as an author, Madam de Stael was en-
titled to place in that gallery. But I
never have been able to understand why
what was presented as her portrait was
the counterfeit resemblance" of a
young and very lovely woman. Look
at it, and the impression must be that
Madam de Stael was a paragon of beau
ty-the fact, as sadly acknowledged by
herself, being that she was not merely
the reverse of well-looking, but what
the French call LGiGe, translated into
our language by the word homely !;
only she was worse than that, for her
figure was bad, her gaze bold, and her
manners brusque.
Lord Byron, who knew De Stael very
we'll, first in England, which she visited
in 1918, and afterward in Switzerland,
in 1916, set down in his memoranda an
amusing record of her meeting with
Curran. ''The riches" he wrote, "of
his Irish imagination were exhaustless.
I have heard that man speak more
poetry than / have ever seen written
though I saw him seldom and but occa-
sionally. I saw him presented to Mad
am de Stael at Macintosh s-it was the
grand confluence between the RhOne
and the Saone, and they were both so
damned ugly that [ could not help Won
dering how the best intellects of France
and ireland could have taken up re-
spectively such residences" She was
an interminable talker, in rapidly-spek-
en- French or very imperfect English.
Byron once refused to travel GO miles to
Lord Jerseys country-seat to meet De
Stael. 81 once travelled three thou
sand miles," he wrote, I" to get among
silent people and this same lady writes
octavos and talks folios. ] have read
her books-like most of them, and de-
light in the last; so I won't hear it as
well as read" Another time he jour
nalized thus More notes from Mad
am de Stael unanswered-and so they
shall remain. I admire her abilities,
but really her society is overwhelming
an avalanche that buries one in gilt
tering nonsense-all show and sophis-
try" When Byron was In Switzerland,
after his wife, that "moral Clytemnes-
ira OF her lord" had abandoned him,
De Stael showed much kindness to him,
and he wrote in his memoranda, In
her own house she was amiable; in any
other persons you wished her gone and
in her own again.
During her residence in London, De
Stael was considered as to be looked
after by Sir James Mackintosh-who,
indeed, was one of her earliest English
acduaintances. His reputation at the
bar was created by a speech which he
made in defense of M. Peltier, an emil
grant-loyalist, editing a French paper
in London. in which he libeled Bona
parte, the First Consul, who complain
ed, being then at peace with England,
that the British government had per.
mitted this to be done. The result was
~ l.
The defense was intrusted to Mackin-
tosh, and though his client was con-
victed, he never was called up for judg
ment, as war was resumed between
France and England. Macintosh de-
hvcred a splendid grafton, which so far
increased his reputation that, soon
after, he was made Recorder of Bonn
bay, with a very large salary, to be fol-
lowed by a considerable retiring pen
sion, after few years service, and was
knighted, Peltier, a poor man, was
able to give him only five guinea fee,
but the case made his fortune-literal-
ly provided for Macintosh for life.
Peltier, however, complained that the
lawyer to show himself off had sacri-
feed the client, and, indeed, the strong
praise of Napoleon, which formed the
backbone of his speech, almost justi-
fed the complaint. Madame de Stael
translated this speech into French, and
thus contributed'to spread in over Eu-
rope. Macintosh returned the favor
by intense admirotion of De Stael. In
the Edinburgh ReUie,O, in 1913, he
wrote two articles, one on Rogers, and
the otEer on Madam de Stael. In his
diary he jotted down. ''They are both,
especially the first, thought too pane
cynical" In fact, he knew not how to
censure, and delt largely in unmitigated
commentator.
Mr.. George Moore, very old friend
Of Macintosh, who made sundry re-
cords of his conversation, and permit
ted them to be used by his biographer,
has the following. under date of No
vember, 1927: "The very witty an
swer of Talleyrand to Madam de Stael
he said he had heard from herself. She
asked him whether he had read her new
novel. 'Delphine.' No. answered he,
but I am told that both of us are in it
disguised as women To understand
the point of this answer, it must be
known that an old countess is intro
duced in the novel, full of cunning,
fnessing and trickery, who was intend
eu TO represent Iaileyranu, ana Del
phine was intended for herself, as she
almost a beauty, which she
had plentifully given her heroine, and
to which she could not herself pretend"
Neither Macintosh nor his friend had
hit the point of Talleyrand's retort
The satirist and wit doubtless remem-
bered that a certain patriot named Qua
tremer de Quincy, who had presumed,
in the Council of Five Hundred, to
arraign Madam de Staels conduct, and
even to hint a doubt of her sex, was
sent in exile to Guiana by the lady's in
fuence. So Canning stated in a note to
the following lines in his poem of "New
Morality :"
g And ali! what verse can grace the stately mien,
Guide of the world, preferments golden Queen,
Necker's fair daughter, Stael the Epicenei
Fain would the nuse-but ali she dares no more
4 mournful voice from lone Guiana's shore.
Sad Quatremer, the bold presumption checks,
Forbid to question thy ambiguous SEX"
There was no ambiguity. IDIOTS |
great Cycloppdia of Biography states |
That MadeT0Qiselle Necker, born in 1866, |
was marrig,. at the. age of twenty, to |
Baron de Stael-HOlstein, by whom she |
had two sons and q daughter. Her |
husband died in 1901, and ten years
lfter, at the tender age of forty-five, |