Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (; Necker; 22 April 176614 July 1817), commonly known as Madame de Staël ( ; ), was a prominent Genevan and French novelist, woman of letters, philosopher, and political theorist in both Parisian and Genevan intellectual circles. She was the daughter of banker and French finance minister Jacques Necker and Suzanne Curchod, a respected salonist and writer. Throughout her life, she held a moderate stance during the tumultuous periods of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, persisting until the time of the French Restoration.Staël, Germaine de, in the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
Her presence at critical events such as the Estates General of 1789 and the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen underscored her engagement in the political discourse of her time.Bordoni, Silvia (2005) Lord Byron and Germaine de Staël, The University of Nottingham However, Madame de Staël faced exile for extended periods: initially during the Reign of Terror and subsequently due to personal persecution by Napoleon. She claimed to have discerned the tyrannical nature and ambitions of his rule ahead of many others.
During her exile, she fostered the Coppet group, a network that spanned across Europe, positioning herself at its heart.
Her literary works, emphasizing individuality and passion, left an enduring imprint on European intellectual thought. De Staël's repeated championing of Romanticism contributed significantly to its widespread recognition. Within her work, de Staël not only advocates for the necessity of public expression but also sounds cautionary notes about its potential hazards.
Childhood
Anne Louise Germaine Necker was the only child of the Swiss governess Suzanne Curchod, who had an aptitude for mathematics and science, and prominent Genevan banker and statesman Jacques Necker. Jacques was the son of Karl Friedrich Necker from Brandenburg (Holy Roman Empire), himself a lawyer and professor. Jacques became the Director-General of Finance under King Louis XVI. Mme Staël would later host one of the most popular salons in Paris in Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin. Mme Necker wanted her daughter educated according to the principles of the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Germaine's father instilled in her intellectual rigor and Calvinist discipline. On Fridays, Mme Necker regularly brought Germaine to sit at her feet in the salon. Even at a young age, Germaine engaged in stimulating conversations with her mother's guests. Celebrities such as the Comte de Buffon, Jean-François Marmontel, Melchior Grimm, Edward Gibbon, the Abbé Raynal, Jean-François de la Harpe, Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Denis Diderot, and Jean d'Alembert were frequent visitors.Gabriel Paul Othenin de Cléron, (Comte d'Haussonville) (1882) The Salon of Madame Necker. Trans. Henry M. Trollope. London: Chapman and Hall. At the age of 13, she read Montesquieu, Shakespeare, Rousseau and Dante. Her parents' social life led to a somewhat neglected and wild Germaine, unwilling to bow to her mother's demands.
Her father "is remembered today for taking the unprecedented step in 1781 of making public the country's budget, a novelty in an absolute monarchy where the state of the national finances had always been kept secret, leading to his dismissal by the King in May of that year." The family eventually took up residence in 1784 at Château de Coppet, an estate on Lake Geneva. The family returned to the Paris region in 1785.
Marriage
Aged 11, Germaine desired to marry Edward Gibbon, a visitor to her mother's salon whom she found most attractive, and suggested this to her mother. Then, she reasoned, he would always be around for her. In 1783, at seventeen, she was courted by William Pitt the Younger and by Comte de Guibert, whose conversation, she thought, was the most far-ranging, spirited and fertile she had ever known.Schama, p. 257 When she did not accept their offers Germaine's parents became impatient. With the help of Marie-Charlotte Hippolyte de Boufflers, a marriage was arranged with Baron Erik Magnus Staël von Holstein, a Protestant and attaché of the Swedish legation to France. The wedding took place on 14 January 1786 in the Swedish embassy at 97, Rue du Bac; Germaine was 19, and her husband 37. On the whole, the marriage seems to have been workable for both parties, although neither seems to have had much affection for the other. Madame de Staël continued to write miscellaneous works, including the three-act romantic drama Sophie (1786) and the five-act tragedy Jeanne Grey (1787). The baron, also a gambler, obtained great benefits from the match as he received 80,000 pounds and was confirmed as lifetime ambassador to Paris.Geraldine Bedell: Napoleon's nemesis, book review, Guardian, Sun 13 February 2005
Revolutionary activities
In 1788, de Staël published Letters on the works and character of J.J. Rousseau. De Staël was at this time enthusiastic about the mixture of Rousseau's ideas about love and Montesquieu's on politics.
In December 1788 her father persuaded Louis XVI to double the number of deputies at the Third Estate in order to gain enough support to raise taxes to pay for the excessive costs of supporting the revolutionaries in America. This approach had serious repercussions on Necker's reputation; he appeared to consider the Estates-General as a facility designed to help the administration rather than to reform the government.Schama, pp. 345–346. In an argument with the king, whose speech on 23 June he did not attend, Necker was dismissed and exiled on 11 July. Her parents left France on the same day in unpopularity and disgrace. On Sunday, 12 July the news became public, and an angry Camille Desmoulins suggested storming the Bastille.Schama, p. 382 On 16 July Necker was reappointed; he entered Versailles in triumph. His efforts to clean up public finances were unsuccessful and his idea of a National Bank failed. Necker was attacked by Jean-Paul Marat and Count Mirabeau in the Constituante, when he did not agree with using assignats as legal tender.Schama, pp. 499, 536 He resigned on 4 September 1790. Accompanied by their son-in-law, Necker and his wife left for Switzerland, without the two million livres, half of his fortune, that he had loaned as an investment in the public treasury in 1778.Craiutu, Aurelian A Voice of Moderation in the Age of Revolutions: Jacques Necker's Reflections on Executive Power in Modern Society. p. 4d’Haussonville, Othénin (2004) "La liquidation du ‘dépôt’ de Necker: entre concept et idée-force", pp. 156–158 Cahiers staëliens, 55
During this time of her political thoughts, de Staël was focused on the problem of leadership, or the perceived lack of it. In her later works she often returned to the idea that "the French Revolution has been characterized by a surprising absence of eminent personalities".Fontana, p. 29
Following the 1791 French legislative election, and after the French Constitution of 1791 was announced in the National Assembly, she resigned from a political career and decided not to stand for re-election. "Fine arts and letters will occupy my leisure."Fontana, p. 33 She did, however, play an important role in the succession of Comte de Montmorin as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in the appointment of Narbonne as minister of War and continued to be centre stage behind the scenes.Fontana, pp. 37, 41, 44 Marie Antoinette wrote to Hans Axel Fersen: "Count Louis de Narbonne is finally Minister of War, since yesterday; what a glory for Mme de Staël and what a joy for her to have the whole army, all to herself."Correspondance (1770–1793). Published by Évelyne Lever. Paris 2005, pp. 660, 724 In 1792 the French Legislative Assembly saw an unprecedented turnover of ministers, six ministers of the interior, seven ministers of foreign affairs, and nine ministers of war.Fontana, p. 49 On 10 August 1792 Clermont-Tonnere was thrown out of a window of the Louvre Palace and trampled to death. De Staël offered baron Malouet a plan of escape for the royal family to Dieppe."Mémoires de Malouet", p. 221 On 20 August De Narbonne arrived in England on a German passport. As there was no government, militant members of the Insurrectionary Commune were given extensive police powers from the provisional, executive council, "to detain, interrogate and incarcerate suspects without anything resembling due process of law".Schama, pp. 624, 631 She helped De Narbonne, dismissed for plotting, to hide under the altar in the chapel in the Swedish embassy, and lectured the sans-culottes from the section in the hall.Fontana, p. 61Moore, p. 138Herold, p. 272
On Sunday 2 September, the day the Elections for the National Convention and the September massacres began, she fled herself in the garb of an ambassadress. Her carriage was stopped and the crowd forced her into the Paris town hall, where Robespierre presided. That same evening she was conveyed home, escorted by the procurator Louis Pierre Manuel. The next day the commissioner to the Commune of Paris Jean-Lambert Tallien arrived with a new passport and accompanied her to the edge of the barricade.It was Tallien who announced the September Massacres and sent off the famous circular of 3 September to the French provinces, recommending them to take similar action.
Salons at Coppet and Paris
After her flight from Paris, de Staël moved to Rolle in Switzerland, where Albert was born. She was supported by de Montmorency and the Marquis de Jaucourt, whom she had previously supplied with Swedish passports. In January 1793, she made a four-month visit to England to be with her then-lover, the Comte de Narbonne, at Juniper Hall. (Since 1 February, France and Great Britain had been at war.) Within a few weeks, she was pregnant; it was apparently one of the reasons for the scandal she caused in England. According to Fanny Burney, the result was that her father urged Fanny to avoid the company of de Staël and her circle of French Émigrés in Surrey. Suzanne Curchod, De Staël's mother, strongly disapproved of the affair. De Staël met Horace Walpole, James Mackintosh, Lord Sheffield, a friend of Edward Gibbon, and Lord Loughborough, the new Lord Chancellor. She was not impressed with the condition of women in English society, finding that they were not afforded the voice and respect they deserved. Staël viewed freedom as twofold: political freedom from institutions and individual freedom from social norms.Moore, p. 15
In the summer of 1793, de Staël returned to Switzerland, because she recognized De Narbonne was indifferent towards her and desired to end their relationship. De Staël reacted to this with misery and frustration. She published a defence of the character of Marie Antoinette, entitled, Réflexions sur le procès de la Reine, 1793 ("Reflections on the Queen's trial"). In de Staël's view, France should have adapted from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy as was the case in England. Living in Jouxtens-Mézery, farther away from the French border than Coppet, Germaine was visited by Adolph Ribbing. Count Ribbing was living in exile, after his conviction for taking part in a conspiracy to assassinate the Swedish king, Gustav III. In September 1794, the recently divorced Benjamin Constant visited her, wanting to meet her before he committed suicide.
In May 1795, de Staël moved to Paris, now with Constant in tow, as her protégé and lover.The Thermidorians had opened the way back to Paris. De Staël rejected the idea of the right of resistance – which had been introduced into the never implemented French Constitution of 1793, and was removed from the Constitution of 1795.Fontana, p. 125 In 1796, she published Sur l'influence des passions, in which she praised suicide and discussed how passions affect the happiness of individuals and societies, a book which attracted the attention of the German writers Schiller and Goethe.Müller, p. 29.