MADAME DR STAEL.* Ix is impossible even now—and her latest

biographer has certainly found it so—to study the life and character of Madame de Stall without being moved to a sort of interest which lies deeper than admiration. Her writings are the writings of her time, with its limited vision and all its weaknesses; she was not a genius, and they are not classics; as the years go on. they will be chiefly read as curiosities, as a mirror of the life and ideas of people who were so much less artificial than their works. At the end of this little book, Miss Daffy gives a short critical account of Madame de Stall's writings,—De l'Influenee des Passions, De la Litterature, Delphine, Corinne, De l'Alle- magrie, Dix Annees d'Exil, Considerations sur /a Resolution Franpaise, and the rest. The remarks strike us as ex- tremely fair and good, but sometimes a little unnecessary and commonplace. The ethic now and then seems to want imagination. We cannot help a feeling of eela va sans dire, when Madame de Stall is found fault with for pre- ferring Ossian to Homer, for failing to understand Dante, for missing "the true significance of the Renaissance," for setting the English and French drama above the Greek, for overlooking, "in her admiration for Christianity, the intellectual benefits which man owes to the Arabs," for not rhapsodising on the beauties of Lake Leman—on the contrary, she is barbarous enough to write, "The whole of Switzerland inspires me with magnificent horror "—for having only a cold admiration for Italian art, and a conventional idea of Italian character. What is all this bat saying in a great many words what everybody knows, that Madame de Stall was not a poet or a genius, not, therefore, above her age ; a very clever woman of the end of the eighteenth, not of the nineteenth century ? If she lived now, her ideas on the Renaissance would probably be more enlightened, and she might write an appreciative essay on Dante, or even on Homer. But let us leave the unprofitable task of finding out why Madame de Stall's tastes and talents were not of an opposite kind to what they were, and turn to the far more interesting study of herself. Here Miss Daffy's book leaves little to be desired, except a rather simpler style of writing and more care- fulness as to dates,—Madame de Stall was married in 1786, not 1776, and her daughter Albertine was married to the Duo de Broglie in 1816, not 1815.

The book opens with an interesting account of Madame Necker, that very tiresome woman, her friends, and her flirta- tions, which, in spite of her stiff correctness, were so many. Why all those clever men adored her, beginning with Gibbon- Bnffon, Thomas, Marmontel, Diderot, Grimm, Galiani—must always be something of a mystery ; also, how she came to be the mother of Germaine, passionate, excitable, and generous. The child, however, inherited from her mother her goodness, con- stancy, and strength of mind ; while her practical brain-power came from M. Necker, and the romantic, chivalrous generosity which made his character so attractive. From her earliest days she was in public, a clever talker at ten or eleven years old, a writer at fifteen, when the Abb6 Raynal wished her to write an article for him on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. At twenty, she married the Baron de Stall-Holstein ; but he was not the only person attracted by Mademoiselle Necker's large fortune. William Pitt also wished to marry her, and Prince George Augustus of Mecklenburg. Germaine's feelings had not much to do with the affair, which was entirely decided by her father and mother. The relations between herself and lam husband seem to have been fairly friendly, though they did not care for each other in the least, and it was not from any particular fault on either side that they were finally separated in 1798. The Baron de Stall died in 1802, and his wife's curious second marriage with M. Rocca did not take place till 1811. To understand this second marriage, it is only necessary to study Madame de Stall's character, human, womanly, and weak, with all its strength and greatness ; the kind of character that runs into extremes, and is so often found with unusual talents in a woman. Besides, as Miss Daffy says • Madame de Stall. By Belle Duffy. "Eminent Women Beriee." London W. H. Allen and Co. 1867.

very fairly, speaking of one or two earlier friendships of Madame de Stall's, whioh the world looked on doubtfully :—

"Grant that there were two Germaine,—one, her father's daughter, lofty-minded, pare, catching the infection of exalted feelings, and incapable of error; the other, her husband's wife, threat into the fiery circle of human passion, thence to emerge a little scorched and harmed. The hidden centre of that dual self cannot be revealed to us; but what we do know is sometimes no grand and always so great, that we can afford to be indulgent when reduced to conjecture."

As every one knows, Madame de Stall's life was anything but happy, and this in spite of her deep and faithful friendships, her brilliant talk, her vivid power of writing. "The one im- perious cry of her soul was for peace," says her biographer ; but from its very nature such a soul could never have had peace, even if life had been spent in very different circumstances. As it was, the restless spirit lived in nothing but restlessness,—from the Revolution, when she ventured her own life over and over again to save the lives of her Royalist friends ; through the Directoire, reigning over a salon, and trying to reconcile irrecon- enables ; facing Napoleon with a bold opposition he never forgave; exiled from France over and over again ; her father's death, the one great sorrow of her life; surrounded at Coppet by friends as eager and restless as herself; wandering over Europe, brilliantly received everywhere, yet miserable, because she was shut out from the only city where she wished to be ; and at last, when the Restoration brought her there again, suffering from the cruel disappointment of all her hopes and aspirations ; for "egotism stalked through the exhausted land,—egotism under

various forms and professing various creeds and mean- while the poison of a deadly indifference crept through the veins

of France Madame de Stall saw all this, and felt it with a passionate regret."

It is pleasantest to think of her at Coppet, where she must have felt her exile least, surrounded by the friends who ought to have loved her—one is afraid they did not, all of them—aa enthusiastically as she loved them. That unsatisfactory person, Benjamin Constant, did her the justice of saying "that she enjoyed the talents of other people quite as much as her own." Camille Jordan, a most intimate friend, received from her more devotion than he gave. For Schlegel she had an immense admiration, "and she magnanimously overlooked his acerbity, his pedantry, and vanity." Those among her friends one likes best, are perhaps Boustetten—" eternally young "—and Sismondi :—

Discreet, observant, serene, reasonable, he conceived for Madame de Steel a friendship which remained moderate in ex. presaion and sincere in feeling to the last. He was not as much dazzled by her as many, and saw her failings clearly. Occasionally she even wounded his quiet self-love, and once or twice, when very restless and excited, she offended him. But be was invariably drawn

back to her by the spell of her goodness. His steady sense and calm judgment bring out into sharper contrast the unrest of Constant; the flashing splendour of Madame de Steel; the dreamy refinement of Mathieu de Montmorency ; the fantastic charm of Madame de Knidener, and the unfailing grace of the lovely Juliette [Madame Recamieri."

However these friends might change, and change they did, many of them, from political or other reasons, they found Madame de Stall always true to them. Hers was not the kind of feeling " which alters where it alteration finds

Madame de &AA indeed, never seems to have willingly or spontaneously given op any friend whom she bad once admitted to the title. Politics are apt to envenom the most intimate relations, but they left no bitterness in her great and gentle soul."

"Madame de Stall admired everybody who was clever, loved everybody who was good, pitied everybody who was sorrowful." One must also confess that she loved a great many people who were not good; and certainly, the more we study her life and character, the more we are obliged to agree with her biographer that " a more emotional woman than Madame de Stall never trod the earth." There is something very pathetic in a character like this, which harder natures may find a little ridiculous. It is a character that can never be happy, especially when, as in the case of Madame de Stall, it belongs to a very clever woman, many of whose friends are drawn to her by the attraction of the intellect.

A charming little old book lies beside us—Notice cur le Caraetere et lee Serifs de Madame de Stall—by a friend who loved her truly for herself, Madame Necker de Saussnre. Although Miss Duffy does not mention this book among the authorities she has consulted, we think it not impossible that she is acquainted with it, and that it may have suggested some of the very lifelike touches with which she has described Madame de Steel. Of course, it is inspired from beginning to end with the affectionate and rather blind enthusiasm of a friend, no that critically it is not of much value, especially as far as Madame de Stael's writings are concerned ; but after all, as to character, a friend knows best ; and one does not see why Madame Necker de Saassure's picture should be less true because it is painted by love and admiration.

The book is so little known, that a few lines from it may be worth quoting, though perhaps they hardly throw new light on a character that has been studied so fully and so often :—

Madame de Steal avait one oonstanee extreme dans sea attaohements; jamaie elle n'a pn rompre avee personae, jamais elle n'a pa teaser d'aimer. L'affection use foie tongue devenait tine maladie de son coenr, dont lee torts la gadrisaaient bien diffioilement.

Qaant aux indifferente, elle pardonuait leurs offenses sans y songer, at sans qu'il en a:Atilt mama de is magnanimite

Comment se fetcher, disait-elle, contra d'autres que coma qu'on aims ! . . . . . Eno lonait sans flatter : la politesee, salon Madame de s' Jean! qua l'art de choisir dans es qu'oa pence Elle disait an jour d'un homme egoista et chioaneur It no parte que de iui maie cela ne en'ennuie pas, pares qu'au mina jo acre mire qu'il s'interesse a, ea qu'il die."

Here is an instance of her quickness in repartee :—

"Dane :me dispute our Is traits des Degree, avec use grande dame de France, oelle-ci lui dit : Eh quoi ! madame, sous vows interesma done beatecoup an comte de Limonade at an marquis de Marmalade ? —Fourquoi pas autant qu'au due de Bouillon ? repondit.eLle."

One of Miss Daffy's most interesting chapters is that on Madame de Steel's acquaintance with Napoleon, her enemy for life. A few of Madame de Steel's own words about Napoleon are worth remembering. After her exile, she had great difficulty in recovering her property in France :—

" lin ministre de Bonaparte Ini ayant fait dire qua rempereur la payerall, si elle l'aimait Je salmis lien, rdponditelle, qua pour vecevoir sec routes it faltait un certifies! de vie; mais je ne carats pas qu'il fallnt une ddc/aration d'amour.

And with regard to Napoleon's own character, odious to her as it was, she could be nothing but true and just:-

" Ainsi, an homme connu sons plus don regime lni ayant tit, spree In bataille de Waterloo, qua Bonaparte n'avait ni talent, ni courage: Cost aussi par trop rabaisser la nation franeaise at L'Europe, lai riponditelle, que de pretendre qu'elles aient obeli quince ass a use bike at dun poltron."

The story of Madame de Steel's last days and boars has never been better told than by her son-in-law, the late Due de Broglie, in his Souvenirs. Nothing can exceed the respect and tender- ness with which he speaks of her ; and one may venture to say that his affection was a good deal more worth having than that of many of her friends. "Ce qu'etait Madame de Steel pour sec enfants, at pram ceux qui vivaient dans son intimite, ne sera jamais compris que par mix." Madame de Steel is certainly worthy of a high place among " Eminent Women." And we -cannot renew our acquaintance with her, in this abort but very complete memoir, without acknowledging that she was also one of the most interesting of women.