GIRLHOOD AND MARRIAGE.
In the brilliant world in which she awoke, Germaine very soon found her
place. It is a very familiar little picture that which we have of her,
seated on a low stool beside her mother at the receptions, and fixing on
one speaker after another her great, astonished eyes.
Soon, very soon, she began to join in the conversation herself, and by
the time she was ten or eleven years old she had grown into a person
whose opinion was quite seriously consulted. Some of the friends of the
house, Marmontel, Raynal and others, enchanted to have a new shrine in
the same temple at which to worship, talked to her, wrote verses to her,
and laid at her young feet some of the homage up to then exclusively
devoted to Madame Necker.
That lady began by being enchanted at Germaine’s amazing powers, and set
to work to educate her with characteristic thoroughness and pedantry.
Everything that was strongest in her, family pride, the sense of maternal
authority, the love of personal influence, the passion for training,
seemed to find their opportunity in the surprising daughter whom Heaven
had given her. She drove the child to study with unrelenting ardor,
teaching her things beyond her age, and encouraging her at the same time
further to exercise her intelligence by listening to conversations on
all sorts of subjects. The consequence was that at eleven Germaine’s
conversational powers were already stupendous. On being introduced to a
child of her own age, a little Mademoiselle Hüber, who was her cousin,
she amazed her new acquaintance by the questions she put to her. She
asked what were her favorite lessons; if she knew any foreign languages;
if she often went to the theatre. The little cousin confessing to having
profited but rarely by such an amusement, Germaine was horror-stricken,
but promised that henceforward the deficiency should be remedied, adding
that on their return from the theatre they should both proceed to write
down the subject of the pieces performed, with suitable reflections;
that being, she said, her own habit. In the evening of this first day’s
acquaintance, Mademoiselle Hüber, already sufficiently awe-struck, one
must think, was further a witness to the attention paid to Germaine by
her mother’s most distinguished guests.
“Everybody addressed her with a compliment or a pleasantry. She answered
everything with ease and grace.… The cleverest men were those who took
most pleasure in making her talk. They asked what she was reading,
recommended new books to her and … talked to her of what she knew, or of
what she had yet to learn.”
From her tenderest years Germaine wrote _portraits_ and _éloges_. At
fifteen she made extracts from the _Esprit de Lois_, with annotations,
and about the same time the Abbé Raynal was very anxious that she should
contribute to his great work an article on the Revolution of the Edict of
Nantes.
But before this, when she was only twelve, the effects of such premature
training had made themselves visible. Her feelings had been as
unnaturally developed as her mind. Already that rich, abundant nature, so
impetuous, generous, and fervid, which was at once the highest gift and
deepest curse, had begun to reveal itself in an exaggerated sensibility.
Praise of her parents moved her to tears; for the little cousin she had
an affection amounting to passion; and the mere sight of celebrated
people gave her palpitation of the heart. She did not care to be amused.
What pleased her best was what pained her most, and her imagination was
fed upon the “Clarissa Harlowe” school of novels.
By degrees her health began to fail, and at fourteen the collapse was
so complete as to cause the most serious alarm. Tronchin was consulted,
and prescribed absolute rest from study. This was a cruel blow to Madame
Necker. A nature allowed to develop spontaneously, a mind virgin of
the pruning-hook, were objects of as much horror to her as if they had
been forbidden by Heaven. That her daughter, just at the final moment,
when what was doubtless the mere preliminary course of study had been
traversed, should be released from bondage and abandoned to her own
impetuosity, was well-nigh insupportable. She had no alternative but to
resign herself, and therefore, silently and coldly, as was her wont,
she accepted the situation. Nevertheless, she was neither reconciled
to it, nor felt the same interest in Germaine again. Years afterwards,
the bitterness that she had hoarded in her soul betrayed itself in one
little phrase. Madame Necker de Sausanne was congratulating her on her
daughter’s astonishing powers. “She is nothing,” said Madame Necker,
coldly, “nothing to that which I would have made her.”
Despatched from Paris to the pure air of St. Ouen, and ordered to do
nothing but enjoy herself, the young girl quickly recovered her vivacity,
and developed a charming joyousness. This new mood of hers, while
gradually estranging her from her mother, drew her closer to her father.
M. Necker, who detested literary women, had looked with but scanty favor
on his daughter’s passion for writing, and it is probable that, as long
as she was exclusively under Madame Necker’s rule, he did not feel
for her more than the commonplace sort of affection which a busy and
serious-minded father bestows on a little girl.
During her childhood Germaine herself lavished all her warmest affection
on her mother, being apparently drawn to her by the subtle attraction
which a very deep and reserved nature exercises on an excitable one.
Madame Necker, pale, subdued in manner, restrained in gesture, surrounded
with respectful adorers, revered by her husband, and flattered by her
friends, seems to have filled her observant, imaginative little daughter
with a feeling bordering on awe. Very sensitive, yet very submissive, and
quite incapable of resentment, Germaine threw herself with characteristic
passionate ardor into the task of winning her mother’s praise. How
complacently Madame Necker must have accepted the homage implied in
these efforts, it is easy to imagine. A little contempt for the child’s
impetuosity helped to give her the firmness necessary for moulding,
according to her own notions, the nature so plastic, yet so vital, thus
placed within her grasp. A good, nay, a noble woman, yet essentially a
self-righteous one, she could comprehend perfection in nothing that
did not, to a certain degree, resemble herself. _Her_ ideas, _her_
principles, _her_ will, were, she conceived, to shape and fashion,
restrain and re-create, this thing of fire and intellect, this creature
all spirit, instinct and insight, that she named her child. Germaine,
predestined all her life to struggle, to consume herself to ashes—like
the Arabian princess who fought with the _djinn_—succumbed for the
time to her mother’s will, by the annihilation of everything that was
inalienably _herself_. The spell lasted as long as the tyranny which had
created it; but once freed from the thraldom, wandering with her young
cousin through the avenues of St. Ouen, drinking in the freshness of the
shadowy glades, and acting innocent little dramas, Germaine became more
natural and, in her mother’s eyes, more commonplace. Madame Necker lost
interest in her, drew frigidly away from her, and even began to feel some
jealousy of the new-born affection between the father and child.
When Germaine was fifteen, M. Necker fell from power. A few months
previously he had published his _Compte Rendu_, and roused the enthusiasm
of France. He had been the idol of the hour, and his name was in
everybody’s mouth. From all sides, from nobles and bourgeois alike,
letters of praise and congratulation poured in upon him. Among these was
an anonymous epistle, written by Germaine, and immediately recognized by
her father, who knew the author’s style.
She was transported with joy and triumph, and probably understood her
father’s achievements better than two-thirds of the people who applauded
them. For she was endowed with a marvellous quickness and completeness
of comprehension, and, where she loved, her sympathy was flawless. She
was always willing to welcome and adopt the thought of another, and
never seemed to guess how much of force and brilliancy it owed to the
illuminating power of her own vivid intellect.
On M. Necker’s retirement from the Ministry of Finance he came to St.
Ouen, followed in his retreat by the pity and praise of the best and
brightest minds of France. His daughter, seeing more of him than ever,
now, in the greater leisure which he enjoyed, and regarding him as the
heroic victim of an infamous political cabal, soon conceived for him an
affection that amounted to idolatry. On his side he was enchanted with
her humorous gayety, and lent himself to her playfulness in the not rare
moments when Germaine’s small sum of years got the better of her large
amount of intelligence.
One day Madame Necker had been called from the dining-room, during meal
time, on some domestic or other business. Returning unexpectedly, she
heard a good deal of noise, and, opening the door, stood transfixed with
amazement on seeing her husband and daughter capering about, with their
table-napkins twisted round their heads like turbans. Both culprits
looked rather ashamed of themselves when detected, and their spirits fell
to zero beneath the lady’s frozen glance.
The Neckers, in spite of the ex-minister’s so-called “disgrace,”
continued surrounded with friends, so that from fifteen to twenty, at
which latter age she married, Germaine’s days were one long intellectual
triumph.
Her _portraits_ read aloud to the guests, were eagerly received and
enthusiastically applauded. She wrote one of her father, in competition
with her mother; but when Monsieur Necker was appealed to on the
respective merits of the two compositions, he wisely declined to
pronounce any opinion. His daughter, however, divined his thoughts: “He
admires Mamma’s portrait,” she said, “but mine flatters him more.”
Her own merits inspired the wits surrounding her in their turn. A
_portrait_ by Guibert described her as a priestess of Apollo, with dark
eyes illumined by genius, black, floating curls, and marked features,
expressive of a destiny superior to that of most women. This was an
ornamental way of saying that Germaine was not beautiful. She was, in
fact, very plain, strangely so, considering that she had magnificent
eyes, fine shoulders and arms, and abundant hair. What spoilt her was the
total want of grace. When talking, she was much too prodigal of grimace
and gesture, and, if eloquent and convincing, was also overpowering.
She felt too much on every subject, and carried other people’s small
stream of platitudes along in the rushing tide of her own emotions,
till her hearers were left exhausted and admiring, but also a little
resentful. She disconcerted the very persons whom she most revered by
only pausing long enough in her talk to grasp their meaning, and feed her
own thought with it till that glowed more consumingly than ever, while
all the time what _she_ felt, what _they_ felt, and what _she_ imagined
that _they_ meant to say was proclaimed in loud, harsh accents, most
trying to sensitive nerves.
All this time she was busily writing, and her father, who nicknamed her
Mademoiselle de Ste. Ecritoire, could not correct the tendency, even by
his unceasing raillery. In a comedy entitled _Sophie, ou les Sentiments
Secrets_, she scandalized Madame Necker, by selecting for a subject the
struggles of a young orphan against the passion inspired in her by her
guardian, a married man. To this period belong also _Jane Grey_ and
_Montmorency_, both tragedies, and various novelettes.
When Germaine was nearing twenty, the question of her marriage came under
discussion; and serious consideration was then, for the first time,
accorded to a suitor whom her large fortune had long attracted.
This was the Baron de Staël Holstein, Secretary to the Swedish Embassy.
He seems to have been one of the elegant and amiable diplomatists whom
the Courts of Europe in those days turned out by the score. He had wit
and good manners, as he had also the golden key of the Court Chamberlain;
otherwise, his personality was insignificant in the extreme.
He was fortunate, however, in serving under a very popular ambassador,
the Count de Creutz; and in representing a king who, both for political
and personal reasons, was anxious to keep on good terms with France.
Gustavus III. of Sweden adored Paris, and was in continual correspondence
with Madame de la Mark, Madame d’Egmont, Madame de Boufflers, and anybody
who would keep him conversant with the gossip of the Tuileries and
Versailles. The Count de Creutz having the intention of shortly retiring,
it was understood that the Baron de Staël Holstein was to be his
successor. That gentleman, who comprehended his own interests, and was
head-over-ears in debt, lost no opportunity of persuading the Swedish
King’s trio of witty correspondents, who in their turn were careful to
impress on Gustavus, as well as on Louis XVI. and his Queen, that the
next Swedish ambassador must be endowed with a splendid fortune.
A grand marriage was, of course, to be the means of achieving this; and
Mademoiselle Germaine Necker, an heiress and a Protestant, was fixed upon
for the bride.
The delicate negotiations lasted for some considerable time, during
which period the prize the Baron sought was disputed by two formidable
rivals—William Pitt and Prince George Augustus of Mecklenburg, brother of
the reigning Duke. Madame Necker warmly supported Pitt’s suit, and showed
great displeasure at being unable to overcome her daughter’s obstinate
aversion to it. Seeing how distinguished the Englishman already was, and
how brilliant his future career promised to be, one wonders a little at
Germaine’s rejection of him. Probably the secret of her determination
lay in the passionate adoration which she had now begun to feel for her
father, on whom—as all his friends and partisans assured her—the eyes of
misery-stricken France were fixed as on a savior.
The idea of quitting France in such a crisis, at the dawn, so to speak,
of her father’s apotheosis, would naturally be intensely repugnant to
her; and possibly for that very reason Madame Necker, always a little
jealous of the sympathy between her husband and her daughter, warmly
advocated Pitt’s claims. A painful coldness ensued between mother and
daughter, and lasted until the former happened to fall dangerously ill.
Then Germaine’s feelings underwent a revulsion of passionate tenderness;
and in the touching reconciliation which ensued between parent and child,
Mr. Pitt and his suit were forgotten.
Prince George Augustus of Mecklenburg was even less fortunate, being
refused by both Monsieur and Madame Necker, with a promptitude which he
fully deserved. For he had nothing to recommend him but his conspicuous
position, and had very impudently avowed that he sought Mademoiselle
Necker’s hand only for the sake of her enormous dower.
The ground being thus cleared for Madame de Bouffler’s protégé, that
energetic lady set to work to obtain from Gustavus a promise not to
remove the Baron, now ambassador, from France for a specified long term
of years.
This assurance that they would not be parted from their daughter having
been given to the Neckers, and formally embodied in a clause of the
marriage settlement, the document was signed by the King and Queen of
France, and several other illustrious personages, and the wedding
celebrated on the 14th January, 1776.
The first few days after her marriage, Madame de Staël, according to the
custom of the time, passed under her father’s roof; and among her letters
is a sweet and affectionate one, which she addressed to her mother on the
last day of her sojourn with her parents.
“Perhaps I have not always acted rightly towards you, Mamma,” she
writes. “At this moment, as in that of death, all my deeds are present
to my mind, and I fear that I may not leave in you the regret that I
desire. But deign to believe that the phantoms of imagination have often
fascinated my eyes, and often come between you and me so as to render
me unrecognizable. But the very depth of my tenderness makes me feel at
this moment that it has always been the same. It is part of my life, and
I am entirely shaken and unhinged in this hour of separation from you.
To-night … I shall not have in my house the angel that guaranteed it from
thunder and fire. I shall not have her who would protect me if I were
dying, and would enfold me, before God, with the rays of her sublime
soul. I shall not have at every moment news of your health. I foresee
regrets at every instant.… I pray that I may be worthy of you. Happiness
may come later, at intervals or never. The end of life terminates
everything, and you are so sure that there is another life as to leave no
doubt in my heart.… Accept, Mamma, my dear Mamma, my profound respect and
boundless tenderness.”
Perhaps when Madame Necker read this letter she felt in part consoled for
the real or fancied pain which her brilliant and unaccountable daughter
had given her.
And in spite of passing dissensions with her mother, Germaine’s twenty
years of girlhood had been essentially happy, for they had been tenderly
and watchfully sheltered from blight or harm.