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 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 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 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 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 ambassador,
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 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 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 ambassador. 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
assembly 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 Constitutionalists, 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 Passions_ 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 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
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 multitude, 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 illustration--it is an adventure of Baron Muenchhausen." The
philosopher assumed a tragic attitude, 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 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 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 banishing 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 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 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
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 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 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 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 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 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 Passions_ 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 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 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 emancipation.
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 repetition. After 1850
she retired to her home, the Chateau 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 naive, exalted
and sincere, passionate 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 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 Lemaitre 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 Stael 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
Stael 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 Stael 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 role. "She is possibly the only French writer
who possessed no _esprit_ (in the sense that it is used in French
society)--that playful, epigrammatic, querulous wit of conversation."
She never enjoyed communion with others for any length of time, or the
companionship of anyone for a long period; the companions of which she
never tired were the fields and woods, birds and dogs; therefore, she
enjoyed those people most who were nearer her ideals, the peasants and
workmen, and these she best describes. Thus, her whole creation is
one of instinct rather than of reason, as it was with Mme. de Stael.
George Sand was a genius, a master-product of Nature, while Mme. de
Stael was a talent, a consummate work of the art of modern culture;
she reflects, while George Sand creates from impulse; the latter was
a true poetess, communing with Nature, while the banker's daughter was
an observing thinker, communicating with society--but both were great
writers.
Intimately associated with George Sand is Rosa Bonheur, in all
of whose canvases we find the same aim, the same spirit, the same
message, that are found in so many of the novels of George Sand.
They were two women who have contributed, through different branches,
masterworks that will be enjoyed and appreciated at all times.
"It would be difficult not to speak of _La Mare au Diable_ and the
_Meunier d'Angibault_ when recalling the fields where Rosa Bonheur
speeds the plow or places the oxen lowering their patient heads under
the yoke."
In the evening, at home, while other members of the family were
at work, one member read aloud to the rest; and George Sand was
a favorite author with the Bonheur group of artists. It was while
reading _La Mare au Diable_ that Rosa conceived the idea of the work
which by some critics is pronounced her masterpiece, _Plowing in
Nivernais_. The artist's deep sympathy was aroused by her love of
Nature, which no contemporary novelist expressed or appreciated as
did George Sand. In all her works, and throughout the long life of the
artist, there is absolutely nothing unhealthy or immoral to be found.
The novelist had theories which were inspired by her passion, and
these became unhealthy at times; she belongs first of all to France,
while Rosa Bonheur belongs first of all to the world, her message
reaching the young and old of every clime and every people. The
novelist is to be associated with the artist by virtue of her
exquisite, simple, and wholesome peasant stories.
The entire Bonheur family were artists, and all were moral and
genuinely sympathetic. As a young girl, Rosa manifested an intense
love for Nature, sunshine, and the woods; always independent in
manners, she used to caricature her teachers; and while walking
out into the country, she would draw, with charcoal or in sand, any
objects that met her eye. Her father was not long in detecting her
talent. She was wedded to her art from the very beginning, showing no
taste for or interest in any other subject. As soon as her father gave
permission to follow art as a profession, she devoted all her energy
to advancing herself in what she felt to be her life's work. For four
years the young girl could be seen every day at the Louvre, copying
the great masters and receiving principally from them her ideas of
coloring and harmony, while from her father she learned her technique.
After she had mastered these two principles, she decided to specialize
in pastoral nature.
From that time her whole life was given up to the study of Nature and
animals. Not able to study those near by, she procured a fine Beauvais
sheep, which served as her model for two years. From the very first
her work showed accuracy, purity, and an intuitive perception of
Nature, and these qualities soon placed her among the foremost artists
of the time. Her struggle for reputation and glory was not a long and
arduous one, for after 1845 her fame was established--she was then but
twenty-three years old; and after 1849, having exhibited some thirty
pictures, her reputation had become European.
In order to be able to study her models with greater ease and freedom
from the annoyance and coarse incivilities of the workmen at the
slaughter houses, farmyards, and markets that she was in the habit of
visiting, she adopted the garb of man.
Her honors in life were many, though always unsought. The Empress
Eugenie, while regent during the absence of Napoleon III., went
in person to her chateau and put around her neck the ribbon of the
decoration of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, then for the
first time bestowed upon woman for merit other than bravery and
charity. The Emperor Maximilian of Mexico conferred upon her the
decoration of San Carlos; the King of Belgium created her a chevalier
of his order, the first honor won by a woman; the King of Spain made
her a Commander of the Royal Order of Isabella the Catholic; and
President Carnot created her an Officer of the Legion of Honor.
With qualities such as she possessed, Rosa Bonheur could not fail
to attain immortality. Her success was due in no small degree to the
scientific instruction which she received when a mere child; having
been taught, from the very first, how to paint directly from a model,
she supplemented this training by a period of four years of copying
great masters. In the latter period she studied Paul Potter's work
rather slavishly, but was individual enough to combine only the best
in him with the best in herself; this gave her an originality such as
possibly no other animal painter ever possessed---not even Landseer,
who is said to be "stronger in telling the story than in the manner of
telling it."
Rosa Bonheur was too independent and original to follow any particular
school or master, for her only inspiration and guide were her models,
always living near by and upon intimate terms with her. Thus, in all
her paintings, we instinctively feel that she painted from conviction,
from her own observation, nothing being added for mere artistic
effect. To some extent her pictures impress one as a perfect French
poem in which there is no superfluous word, in which no word could
be changed without destroying the effect of the whole; thus, in her
paintings there is not a superfluous brush stroke; everything is
necessary to the telling of the story; but she excels the perfect
poem, for, in French literature, it seldom has a message distinct
from its technique, while her pictures breathe the very essence
of sympathy, love, and life. We feel that she thoroughly knew her
subjects as a connoisseur; but her animals do not impress one as the
production of an artist who knew them as do horse traders and cattle
dealers, who know their stock from the purely physical standpoint; the
animals of this artist are from the brush of one who was familiar with
their habits, who loved them, had lived with and studied them--who
knew and appreciated their higher qualities. Rosa Bonheur most
harmoniously united two essential elements in art--a scientific as
well as sympathetic conception of her subject. Possibly this is the
reason that her pictures appeal to animal lovers throughout the world.
As was stated, she was independent, hence kept aloof from the
corruptions of contemporary French art and its technique lovers,
always pursuing an even tenor in her art and never permitting one of
her pictures to leave her studio in a crude or unfinished state. In
all her long career she kept her original sketches, never parting with
one, in spite of the most tempting offers; and this explains the fact
that the work of her later years exhibits the freshness and other
qualities of that of her youth. Thus, her art has gained by her
experience, even though her best work was done between about 1848 and
1860, and is especially marked by its excellence in composition,
the anatomy, the breadth of touch, the harmony of coloring, and the
action, although it is said to lack the spontaneity, the originality,
and the highly imaginative quality which are at their best in _The
Horse Fair_; the same qualities seem to have been possessed by many of
her contemporaries, such as Troyon.
Notwithstanding these apparent defects, Rosa Bonheur stands for
something higher in art than do most of her contemporaries. She was
not influenced by the skilled and often corrupt technicians; she
perfected her technique by study of the old masters and learned her
art from Nature; wisely keeping free from the ornamental, gorgeous,
and highly imaginative and exaggerated historical Romantic school, in
French art she stands out almost alone with Millet. Whatever may
be said of the more virile and masculine art of other great animal
painters, Rosa Bonheur, by her truthfulness, her science, her close
association and intimate communion with her animal world, by the glad
and healthy vigor which her paintings breathe, has taught the world
the great lesson that there are intelligence, will, love, and even
soul, in animals.
Her art and life inspired respect and admiration; we have nothing to
regret, nothing to conceal; we desire to love her for her animals, and
we must esteem her for her grand devotion to her art and family, for
her purity and charity, for her kindness to and love for those in the
lower walks of life, for her goodness and honesty. An illustration of
the last quality may be taken from her dealings with art collectors.
After having offered her _Horse Fair_, which she desired should remain
in France, to her own town for twelve thousand francs, she sold it for
forty thousand francs to Mr. Gambert, but with the condition which she
thus expressed: "I am grateful for your giving me such a noble
price, but I do not like to feel that I have taken advantage of your
liberality. Let us see how we can combine matters. You will not be
able to have an engraving made from so large a canvas; suppose I
paint you a small one of the same subject, of which I will make you a
present." Naturally, the gift was accepted, and the smaller canvas now
hangs in the National Gallery of London.
In all her dealings she showed this kindness and uprightness, sympathy
and honesty. Although numberless orders were constantly coming to
her, she never let them hurry her in her work. She was, possibly, the
highest and noblest type--certainly among great French women--of that
strong and solid virtue which constitutes the backbone and the very
essence of French national strength. The reputation of Rosa Bonheur
has never been blemished by the least touch of petty jealousy, hatred,
envy, vanity, or pride--and, among all great French women, she is one
of the few of whom this may be said. She won for herself and her noble
art the genuine and lasting sympathy of the world at large.
The only woman artist in France deserving a place beside Rosa Bonheur
belongs properly under the reign of Louis XVI., although she lived
almost to the middle of the nineteenth century. At the age of twenty,
Mme. Lebrun was already famous as the leading portrait painter; this
was during the most popular period of Marie Antoinette--1775 to 1785.
In 1775, but a young girl, admitted to all the sessions of the Academy
as recognition of her portraits of La Bruyere and Cardinal Fleury, she
made her life unhappy and gave her art a serious blow by consenting
to marry the then great art critic and collector of art, Lebrun. His
passion for gambling and women ruined her fortune and almost ended her
career as an artist. Her own conduct was not irreproachable.
Mme. Lebrun will be remembered principally as the great painter of
Marie Antoinette, who posed for her more than twenty times. The most
prominent people of Europe eagerly sought her work, while socially she
was welcomed everywhere. Her famous suppers and entertainments in
her modestly furnished hotel, at which Garat sang, Gretry played
the piano, and Viotti and Prince Henry of Prussia assisted, were the
events of the day. Her reputation as a painter of the great ladies and
gentlemen of nobility, and her entertainments, naturally associated
her with the nobility; hence, she shared their unpopularity at the
outbreak of the Revolution and left France.
It is doubtful whether any artist--certainly no French artist--ever
received more attention and honors, or was made a member of so many
art academies, than Mme. Lebrun. It would be difficult to make any
comparison between her and Rosa Bonheur, their respective spheres of
art being so different. Only the future will speak as to the relative
positions of each in French art.
In the domain of the dramatic art of the nineteenth century, two
women have made their names well known throughout Europe and
America,--Rachel, and Sarah Bernhardt, both tragediennes and both
daughters of Israel. While Rachel was, without question, the greatest
tragedienne that France ever produced, excelling Bernhardt in deep
tragic force, she yet lacked many qualities which our contemporary
possesses in a high degree. She had constantly to contend with a cruel
fate and a wicked, grasping nature, which brought her to an early
grave. The wretched slave of her greedy and rapacious father and
managers, who cared for her only in so far as she enriched them by her
genius and popularity, hers was a miserable existence, which detracted
from her acting, checked her development, and finally undermined her
health.
After her critical period of apprenticeship was successfully passed
and she was free to govern herself, she rose to be queen of the French
stage--a position which she held for eighteen years, during which she
was worshipped and petted by the whole world. As a social leader,
she was received and made much of by the great ladies of the Faubourg
Saint-Germain. Her taste in dress was exquisite in its simplicity,
being in perfect harmony with the reserved, retiring, and amiable
actress herself.
Possibly no actress, singer, or other public woman ever received such
homage and general recognition. With all her great qualities as an
actress, vigor, grandeur, wild, savage energy, superb articulation,
irreproachable diction, and a marvellous sense of situations, she
lacked the one quality which we miss in Sarah Bernhardt also--a true
tenderness and compassion. As a tragedienne she can be compared to
Talma only. Her greed for money soon ended her brilliant career;
unlike her sister in art, she amassed a fortune, leaving over one
million five hundred thousand francs.
Compared with Bernhardt, Rachel is said to have been the greater in
pure tragedy, but she did not possess as many arts of fascination.
There are many points of similarity between the two actresses: Rachel
was at times artificial, wanting in tenderness and depth, while at
times she was superhuman in her passion and emotion, and often
put more into her role than was intended; and the acting of Sarah
Bernhardt has the same characteristics. Rachel, however, was much more
subject to moods and fits of inspiration than is Bernhardt--especially
was she incapable of acting at her best on evenings of her first
appearance in a new role. Her critical power was very weak in
comparison with her intellectual power, the reverse being true of her
modern rival. Rachel's greatest inspiration was _Phedre_, and in
this role Bernhardt "is weak, unequal. We see all the viciousness
in _Phedre_ and none of her grandeur. She breaks herself to pieces
against the huge difficulties of the conception and does not succeed
in moving us.... Rachel was the mouthpiece of the gods; no longer a
free agent, she poured forth every epithet of adoration that Aphrodite
could suggest, clambering up higher and higher in the intensity of her
emotions, whilst her audience hung breathless, riveted on every word,
and dared to burst forth in thunders of applause only after she had
vanished from their sight."
Both of these artists were children of the lower class, and struggled
with a fate which required grit, tenacity, and determination to
win success. The artist of to-day is no social leader--"never the
companion of man, but his slave or his despot." It is entirely her
physical charms and the outward or artificial requisites of her art
that make her what she is. According to Mr. Lynch, her tragedy "is but
one of disorder, fury, and folly--passions not deep, but unbridled and
hysterical in their intensest display. Her _forte_ lies in the ornate
and elaborate exhibition of roles," for which she creates the most
capricious and fantastic garbs. She is a great manager,--omitting the
financial part,--quite a writer, somewhat of a painter and sculptor,
throwing her money away, except to her creditors, adored by some
and execrated by others. Her care of her physical self and her utter
disregard for money have undoubtedly contributed to her long and
brilliant career; rest and idleness are her most cruel punishments.
All nervous energy, never happy, restless, she is a true _fin de
siecle_ product.
Among the large number of women who wielded influence in the
nineteenth century, either through their salons or through their
works, Mme. Guizot was one of the most important as the author of
treatises on education and as a moralist. As an intimate friend of
Suard, she was placed, as a contributor, on the _Publiciste_, and for
ten years wrote articles on morality, society, and literature which
showed a varied talent, much depth, and justness. Fond of polemics,
she never failed to attack men like La Harpe, De Bonald, etc., thus
making herself felt as an influence to be reckoned with in matters
literary and moral.
As Mme. Guizot, she naturally had a powerful influence upon her
husband, shaping his thoughts and theories, for she immediately
espoused his principles and interests. In 1821, at the age of
forty-eight, she began her literary work again, after a period of
rest, writing novels in which the maternal love and the ardent and
pious sentiments of a woman married late in life are reflected. In
her theories of education she showed a highly practical spirit.
Sainte-Beuve said that, next to Mme. de Stael, "she was the woman
endowed with the most sagacity and intelligence; the sentiment that
she inspires is that of respect and esteem--and these terms can only
do her justice."
Mme. de Duras, in her salon, represented the Restoration, "by
a composite of aristocracy and affability, of brilliant wit and
seriousness, semi-liberal and somewhat progressive." Her credit lies
in the fact that, by her keen wit, she kept in harmony a heterogeneous
mixture of social life. She wrote a number of novels, which are,
for the most part, "a mere delicate and discreet expression of her
interior life."
Mme. Ackermann, German in her entire make-up, was, among French female
writers, one of the deepest thinkers of the nineteenth century. A
true mystic, she was, from early youth, filled with ardent, dreamy
vagaries, to which she gave expression in verse--poems which reflect
a pessimism which is rather the expression of her life's experiences,
and of twenty-four years of solitude after two years of happy wedded
state, than an actual depression and a discouraging philosophy of
life. Her poetry shows a vigor, depth, precision of form, and strength
of expression seldom found in poetry of French women.
One of the most conspicuous figures in the latter half of the
nineteenth century is Mme. Adam,--Juliette Lamber,--an unusual woman
in every respect. In 1879 she founded the _Nouvelle Revue_, on the
plan of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, for which she wrote political
and literary articles which showed much talent. In politics she is a
Republican and something of a socialist, a somewhat sensational--but
modestly sensational--figure. She has been called "a necessary
continuator of George Sand." Her salon was the great centre for
all Republicans and one of the most brilliant and important of this
century. In literature her name is connected with the movement called
neo-Hellenism, the aim of which seems to have been to inspire a love
and sympathy for the art, religion, and literature of ancient and
modern Greece. In her works she shows a deep insight into Greek
life and art. Her name will always be connected with the Republican
movement in France; as a salon leader, _femme de lettres_, journalist,
and female politician, no woman is better known in France in the
nineteenth century.
A woman who might be called the rival of Mme. Adam, but whose
activity occurred much earlier in the century, was Mme. Emile de
Girardin,--Delphine Gay,--who ruled, at least for a short time, the
social and literary world of Paris at her hotel in the Rue Chaillot.
Her very early precocity, combined with her rare beauty, made her
famous. In 1836, after having written a number of poems which showed
a weak sentimentality and a quite mannered emotion, she founded the
_Courrier Francais_, for which she wrote articles on the questions of
the day--effusions which were written upon the spur of the moment and
were very unreliable. Her dramas were hardly successful, although they
were played by the great Rachel. Her present claim to fame is based
upon the brilliancy of her salon.
The future will possibly remember Mme. Alphonse Daudet more as the
wife of the great Daudet than as a writer, although, according to
M. Jules Lemaitre, she possessed the gift of _ecriture artiste_ to
a remarkable degree. According to him, sureness and exactness and a
striking truth of impressions are her characteristics as a writer. She
exercised a most wholesome power over Alphonse Daudet, taking him away
from bad influences, giving him a home, dignity, and happiness, and
saving him from brutality and pessimism; she was his guardian and
censor; she preserved his grace and noble sentiments. The nature of
her relations to him should ensure the preservation of her name to
posterity.
We are accustomed to give Gyp--Sybille Gabrielle Marie Antoinette de
Riquetti de Mirabeau, Comtesse de Martel de Janville--little credit
for seriousness or morality, associating her with the average
brilliant, flippant novelists, who write because they possess the
knack of writing in a brilliant style. Her object is to show that man,
in a civilized state in society, is vain, coarse, and ridiculous. She
paints Parisian society to demonstrate that the apparently fortunate
ones of the world are not to be envied, that they are miserable in
their so-called joys and ridiculous in their pleasures and their
elegance. She has described the most _risque_ situations and the most
delightful women, but she gives us to understand that the latter are
not to be loved. The vanity of the social world might be called her
text.
Mme. Blanc--Therese de Solms--is known to us to-day as the first
woman to reveal English and American authors and habits to her
contemporaries. By advocating American customs she has done much
to ameliorate the condition of French girls, by giving them a freer
intercourse with young men and permitting them to see more of the
world before entering upon married life.
Mme. Greville, who died recently, deserves a place among the prominent
women writers of France. No _femme de lettres_ ever received more
honors, prizes, and decorations than she; a number of her writings
were crowned by the Academy. A member of the Societe des Gens de
Lettres, with all her literary work she was a domestic woman, keeping
aloof from all feminist movements. Her husband, Professor Durand, to
show his esteem and admiration for her, adopted her name--a wise act,
for it may preserve his name with that of his talented wife.
Many other names might be cited, but, as the list of prominent women
is practically without end, owing to the indefiniteness of the term
"prominent," we shall close with these names, which have become
familiar in both continents.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
I. WOMAN IN POLITICS.
II. WOMAN IN FAMILY LIFE. EDUCATION, AND LETTERS.
III. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: WOMAN AT HER BEST.
IV. WOMAN IN SOCIETY AND LITERATURE.
V. MISTRESSES AND WIVES OF LOUIS XIV.
VI. MME. DE SEVIGNE. MME. DE LA FAYETTE, MME. DACIER, MME. DE CAYLUS.
VII. WOMAN IN RELIGION.
VIII. SALON LEADERS MME. DE TENCIN. MME. GEOFFRIN, MME. DU DEFFAND,
MLLE. DE LESPINASSE, MME. DU CHATELET.
IX. SALON LEADERS (CONTINUED)-MME. NECKER. MME. D'EPINAY. MME. DE
GENLIS: MINOR SALONS.
X. SOCIAL CLASSES.
XI. ROYAL MISTRESSES.
XII. MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE REVOLUTION.
XIII. WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION AND THE EMPIRE.
XIV. WOMEN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
List of Illustrations
Marguerite d'Angouleme, Queen of Navarre, reading
the Heptameron to her brother, Francis I, Leon Olivie.
Marguerite of Valois at the coronation of Marie de
Medici, P.P. Rubens.
Mme. du Chatelet protecting Voltaire, Mme. E. Armand Leleux.
Mme. de Pompadour and a clerical lobbyist, A. Casanova.
A garden party under Marie Antoinette at Trianon, Emile Bayard.
Mme. Recamier's salon, Adrien Moreau.