The influence of Mme. de Stael was at its height during this period. Her talent, her liberal opinions, and her persuasive eloquence gave her great power over the constitutional leaders.
The measures of the Government were freely discussed and criticized in her salon, and men went out with positions well defined and speeches well considered. The Duchesse d'Abrantes relates an incident which aptly illustrates this power and its reaction upon herself. Benjamin Constant had prepared a brilliant address. The evening before it was to be delivered, Mme. de Stael was surrounded by a large and distinguished company. After tea was served he said to her:
"Your salon is filled with people who please you; if I speak tomorrow, it will be deserted. Think of it."
"One must follow one's convictions," she replied, after a moment's hesitation.
She admitted afterward that she would never have refused his offer not to compromise her, if she could have foreseen all that would follow.
The next day she invited her friends to celebrate his triumph.
At four o'clock a note of excuse; in an hour, ten. From this time her fortunes waned. Many ceased to visit her salon. Even Talleyrand, who owed her so much, came there no more.
In later years she confessed that the three men she had most loved were Narbonne, Talleyrand, and Mathieu de Montmorency. Her friendship for the first of these reached a passionate exaltation, which had a profound and not altogether wholesome influence upon her life. How completely she was disenchanted is shown in a remark she made long afterward of a loyal and distinguished man: "He has the manners of Narbonne and a heart."
It is a character in a sentence. Mathieu de Montmorency was a man of pure motives, who proved a refuge of consolation in many storms, but her regard for him was evidently a gentler flame that never burned to extinction. Whatever illusions she may have had as to Talleyrand--and they seem to have been little more than an enthusiastic appreciation of his talent--were certainly broken by his treacherous desertion in her hour of need. Not the least among her many sorrows was the bitter taste of ingratitude.
But Napoleon, who, like Louis XIV, sought to draw all influences and merge all power in himself, could not tolerate a woman whom he felt to be in some sense a rival. He thought he detected her hand in the address of Benjamin Constant which lost her so many friends. He feared the wit that flashed in her salon, the satire that wounded the criticism that measured his motives and his actions. He recognized the power of a coterie of brilliant intellects led by a genius so inspiring. His brothers, knowing her vulnerable point and the will with which she had to deal, gave her a word of caution. But the advice and intercession of her friends were alike without avail. The blow which she so much feared fell at last, and she found herself an exile and a wanderer from the scenes she most loved.
We have many pleasant glimpses of her life at Coppet, but a shadow always rests upon it. A few friends still cling to her through the bitter and relentless persecutions that form one of the most singular chapters in history, and offer the most remarkable tribute to her genius and her power. We find here Schlegel, Sismondi, Mathieu de Montmorency, Prince Augustus, Monti, Mme. Recamier, and many other distinguished visitors of various nationalities. The most prominent figure perhaps was Benjamin Constant, brilliant, gifted, eloquent, passionate, vain, and capricious, the torturing consolation and the stormy problem of her saddest years. She revived the old literary diversions.
At eleven o'clock, we are told, the guests assembled at breakfast, and the conversations took a high literary tone. They were resumed at dinner, and continued often until midnight.
Here, as elsewhere, Mme. de Stael was queen, holding her guests entranced by the magic of her words. "Life is for me like a ball after the music has ceased," said Sismondi when her voice was silent. She was a veritable Corinne in her esprit, her sentiment, her gift of improvisation, and her underlying melancholy. But in this choice company hers was not the only voice, though it was heard above all the others. Thought and wit flashed and sparkled. Dramas were played--the "Zaire" and "Tancred" of Voltaire, and tragedies written by herself. Mme.
