Women Of Modern France Part 22

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 the _coup d'etat_.

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, Fouche, Moreau, Talleyrand, Sieyes, 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 the _emigres_. At that time she was probably the most important figure in France. The _emigres_ would call at her salon in the morning so as to avoid meeting her husband, with whom they refused to a.s.sociate. 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 friends.h.i.+p with Fouche, 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 cla.s.ses of society, she deserves a prominent place among great French women.

CHAPTER XIV

WOMEN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

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 Stael, George Sand, Rosa Bonheur, Sarah Bernhardt, Mme. Lebrun, and Rachel. This circ.u.mstance 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 pa.s.sing of this inst.i.tution 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 regime, 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 Stael, but her influence and work are so intimately a.s.sociated 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 the _chef d'oeuvre_ of 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 amba.s.sador, Stael-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 elite and of all literary and political discussions; but as the majority of its frequenters were partisans of the English const.i.tution 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 inst.i.tutions. Upon her return to Coppet she wrote _Reflexions sur le Proces 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 treatise _Reflexions sur la Paix adressees a M. Pitt et aux Anglais_, which facilitated her return in 1795 to Paris, where she found her husband reinstalled as amba.s.sador. Her hotel in the Rue de Bac was reopened, and she proceeded to form a salon from the debris of society floating about in Paris. It was an a.s.sembly of queer characters--elements of the old and new regime, but not at all reconciled, converts of the Jacobin party returning for the first time into society, surrounded by the women of the old regime, using all imaginable efforts and flattery to obtain the _rentree_ of a brother, a son, or a lover; it was composed of the most moderate Revolutionists, of former Const.i.tutionalists, of exiles of the Monarchy, whom she endeavored to bring over to the Republican cause.

Through the influence of Mme. de Stael, the decree of banishment was repealed by the convention, thus opening Paris to Talleyrand. In 1795 appeared her _Reflexions sur la Paix Interieure_; 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 Comite 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 book _Les Pa.s.sions_ she 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 work _De la Litterature Consideree sous ses Rapports avec les Inst.i.tutions 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 inst.i.tutions and literature. Thus, she was the first to bring the message of a general cosmopolitan relations.h.i.+p 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 work _Dernieres Vues de Politique et de Finance_, expressing a desire to write against the tyranny of one, after having fought so long that of the mult.i.tude, the emperor immediately accused Mme. de Stael 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 novel _Delphine_ to give vent to her feelings. The two famous lines found in almost every work on Mme. de Stael 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, an _apercu_ of 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 ill.u.s.tration--it is an adventure of Baron Munchhausen." The philosopher a.s.sumed a tragic att.i.tude, and a spell of silence fell upon the audience.

The result of her visit to Italy was her novel _Corinne_, 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 going _incognito_ to 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 circ.u.mstances, and that the submission of one people to another is contrary to nature. She wished to make "poor and n.o.ble 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 ma.n.u.script 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 in _Delphine_, 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 fetes; Mme. de Stael 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 banis.h.i.+ng Schlegel and exiling Mme. Recamier and De Montmorency, who continued to visit Mme. de Stael. 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 inst.i.tutions 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 is _De 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 cla.s.sic 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 all _esprit_, 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 cla.s.sic word is sometimes taken as a synonym of perfection. I use it in another acceptance by considering cla.s.sic 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 of _Faust_ were 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 work _Considerations sur la Revolution Francaise_ she 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 Stael 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 Stael 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 pa.s.sions.

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 Stael. In history her influence was equally felt, especially in Guizot's _Essays on the History of France_, and in his _History of Civilization_, wherein civilization was considered as the constant progress in justice, in society, and in the state. To her Guizot owed his idea of _Amour dans le Mariage_. _The Historical Essays on England_, by Remusat, an ardent admirer of hers, was largely influenced by her _Considerations_, while Tocqueville's _Ancien Regime_ contains 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 her _De l'Allemagne_ and her _Des Pa.s.sions_ freely. The heroine of _Jocelyn_ is called but a daughter of _Delphine_, and the same author's terrible invective against Napoleon was inspired by her.

Mme. de Stael 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 pa.s.sionate tenderness, that confidence in the inherent goodness of man. Believing in an intimate communion of man with G.o.d, her religion was spirit and sentiment which had no need of pomp or symbols, of an intermediary between G.o.d and man." She was not so much a great writer as she was a great thinker, or rather a discoverer of new thoughts. By inst.i.tuting a new criticism and by opening new literatures to the French, she succeeded in emanc.i.p.ating 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 Stael'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 emanc.i.p.ation.

France has never had a more forceful, energetic, influential, cosmopolitan, and at the same time moral, writer than Mme. de Stael.

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 wrote _Indiana_, 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 repet.i.tion. After 1850 she retired to her home, the Chateau de Nohant, where she enjoyed the companions.h.i.+p 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 nave, exalted and sincere, pa.s.sionate and chaste: such is pictured in _Indiana_. In _Valentine_ she 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 lively _allure_, an exquisite style, a freshness and brilliancy, _finesse_ and 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 in _Consuelo_ and in _Comtesse de Rudolstadt_. These theory-novels were soon followed by novels dealing with social problems, now and then relieved by delightful idyllics such as _La Mare au Diable_ and _Francois 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 pa.s.sionate 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 a.n.a.lyzed through her sentiments under a threefold inspiration,--love, pa.s.sion 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 coa.r.s.e and women are too cowardly to ask for a law more n.o.ble than the iron law which binds them--beings without conscience--and virtue must be burdened with heavy chains."