Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael Holstein - Ten Years\' Exile

A >> Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael Holstein >> Ten Years\' Exile

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Or

Memoirs of That Interesting Period
of the Life of the Baroness De Stael-Holstein,

Written by Herself, during the Years 1810, 1811, 1812, and 1813,
and Now First Published from the Original Manuscript,
by Her Son.

Translated from the French

London:
Printed for
Treuttel and Wurtz, Treuttel Jun. and Richter,
Foreign Booksellers to his Royal Highness Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coberg,
30, Soho Square.

1821

Howlett & Brimmer, Printers,
10, Filth Street, Soho Square.

PREFACE BY THE EDITOR (Augustus, Baron de Stael-Holstein.)

The production which is now submitted to the reader, is not a
complete work, and ought not to be criticized as such. It consists
of Fragments of her Memoirs, which my mother had intended to
complete at her leisure, and which would have probably undergone
alterations, of the nature of which I am ignorant, if a longer life
had been allowed her to revise and finish them.

This reflection was sufficient to make me examine most scrupulously
if I was authorized to give them publicity. The fear of any sort of
responsibility cannot be present to the mind, when our dearest
affections are in question; but the heart is agitated by a painful
anxiety when we are left to guess at those wishes, the declaration
of which would have been a sacred and invariable rule. Nevertheless,
after having seriously reflected on what duty required of me, I am
satisfied that I have fulfilled my mother's intentions, in engaging
to leave out in this edition of her works*, no production
susceptible of being printed. My fidelity in adhering to this
engagement gives me the right of disavowing beforehand, all which at
any future period, persons might pretend to add to this collection,
which, I repeat, contains every thing, of which my mother had not
formally forbid the publication.

(* Les Oeuvres completes de Madame la Baronne de Stael, publiees par
son Fils. Precedees d'une notice sur le caractere et les ecrits de
Madame de Stael, par Madame Necker de Saussure. Paris, 17 vols. 8vo.
and 17 vols. in 12mo.)

The title of TEN YEARS' EXILE, is that of which the authoress
herself made choice; I have deemed it proper to retain it, although
the work, being unfinished, comprises only a period of seven years.
The narrative begins in 1800, two years previous to my mother's
first exile, and stops at 1804, after the death of M. Necker. It
recommences in 1810, and breaks off abruptly at her arrival in
Sweden, in the autumn of 1812. Between the first and second part of
these Memoirs there is therefore an interval of nearly six years. An
explanation of this will be found in a faithful statement of the
manner in which they were composed.

I will not anticipate my mother's narrative of the persecution to
which she was subjected during the imperial government: that
persecution, equally mean and cruel, forms the subject of the
present publication, the interest of which I should only weaken. It
will be sufficient for me to remind the reader, that after having
exiled her from Paris, and subsequently sent her out of France,
after having suppressed her work on Germany with the most arbitrary
caprice, and made it impossible for her to publish anything, even on
subjects wholly unconnected with politics; that government went so
far as to make her almost a prisoner in her own residence, to forbid
her all kind of travelling, and to deprive her of the pleasures of
society and the consolations of friendship. It was while she was in
this situation that my mother began her Memoirs, and one may readily
conceive what must have been at that time the disposition of her
mind.

During the composition of the work, the hope of one day giving it to
the world scarcely presented itself in the most distant futurity.
Europe was still bent to that degree under the yoke of Napoleon,
that no independent voice could make itself be heard: on the
Continent the press was completely chained, and the most rigorous
measures excluded every work printed in England. My mother
thought less, therefore, of composing a book, than of preserving the
traces of her recollections and ideas. Along with the narrative of
circumstances personal to herself, she incorporated with it various
reflections which were suggested to her, from the beginning of
Bonaparte's power, by the state of France, and the progress of
events. But if the printing such a work would at that time have
been an act of unheard of temerity, the mere act of writing it
required a great deal of both courage and prudence, particularly in
the position in which she was placed. My mother had every reason to
believe that all her movements were narrowly watched by the police:
the prefect who had replaced M. de Barante at Geneva, pretended to
be acquainted with every thing that passed in her house, and the
least pretence would have been sufficient to induce them to possess
themselves of her papers. She was obliged therefore, to take the
greatest precautions. Scarcely had she written a few pages, when she
made one of her most intimate friends transcribe them, taking care
to substitute for the proper names those of persons taken from the
history of the English Revolution. Under this disguise she carried
off her manuscript, when in 1812 she determined to withdraw herself
by flight from the rigors of a constantly increasing persecution.

On her arrival in Sweden, after having travelled through Russia, and
narrowly escaped the French armies advancing on Moscow, my mother
employed herself in copying out fairly the first part of her
Memoirs, which, as I have already mentioned, goes no farther than
1804. But prior to continuing them in the order of time, she wished
to take advantage of the moment, during which her recollections were
still strong, to give a narrative of the remarkable circumstances of
her flight, and of the persecution which had rendered that step in a
manner a duty. She resumed, therefore, the history of her life at
the year 1810, the epoch of the suppression of her work on Germany,
and continued it up to her arrival at Stockholm in 1812: from that
was suggested the title of Ten Years' Exile. This explains also,
why, in speaking of the imperial government, my mother expresses
herself sometimes as living under its power, and at other times, as
having escaped from it.

Finally, after she had conceived the plan of her Considerations
on the French Revolution, she extracted from the first part of Ten
Years Exile, the historical passages and general reflections which
entered into her new design, reserving the individual details for
the period when she calculated on finishing the memoirs of her life,
and when she flattered herself with being able to name all the
persons of whom she had received generous proofs of friendship,
without being afraid of compromising them by the expressions of her
gratitude.

The manuscript confided to my charge consisted therefore of two
distinct parts: the first, the perusal of which necessarily offered
less interest, contained several passages already incorporated in
the Considerations on the French Revolution; the other formed a sort
of journal, of which no part was yet known to the public. I have
followed the plan traced by my mother, by striking out of the first
part of the manuscript, all the passages which, with some
modifications, have already found a place in her great political
work. To this my labour as editor has been confined, and I have not
allowed myself to make the slightest addition.

The second part I deliver to the public exactly as I found it,
without the least alteration, and I have scarcely felt myself
entitled to make slight corrections of the style, so important did
it appear to me to preserve in this sketch the entire vividness of
its original character. A perusal of the opinions which she
pronounces upon the political conduct of Russia, will satisfy
every one of my scrupulous respect for my mother's manuscript; but
without taking into account the influence of gratitude on elevated
minds, the reader will not fail to recollect, that at that time
the sovereign of Russia was fighting in the cause of liberty and
independence. Was it possible to foresee that so few years would
elapse before the immense forces of that empire should become the
instruments of the oppression of unhappy Europe?

If we compare the Ten Years' Exile with the Considerations on the
French Revolution, it will perhaps be found that the reign of
Napoleon is criticized in the first of these works with greater
severity than in the other, and that he is there attacked with an
eloquence not always exempt from bitterness. This difference may be
easily explained: one of these works was written after the fall of
the despot, with the calm and impartiality of the historian; the
other was inspired by a courageous feeling of resistance to tyranny;
and at the period of its composition, the imperial power was at its
height.

I have not selected one moment in preference to another for the
publication of Ten Years' Exile; the chronological order has been
followed in this edition, and the posthumous works are naturally
placed at the end of the collection. In other respects, I am not
afraid of the charge of exhibiting a want of generosity, in
publishing, after the fall of Napoleon, attacks directed against his
power. She, whose talents were always devoted to the defence of the
noblest of causes, she, whose house was successively the asylum of
the oppressed of all parties, would have been too far above such a
reproach. It could only be addressed, at all events, to the editor
of the Ten Years' Exile; but I confess it would but very little
affect me. It would certainly be assigning too fine a part to
despotism, if, after having imposed the silence of terror during its
triumph, it could call upon history to spare it after its
destruction.

The recollections of the last government have no doubt afforded a
pretence for a great deal of persecution; no doubt men of integrity
have revolted at the cowardly invectives which are still permitted
against those, who having enjoyed the favors of that government,
have had sufficient dignity not to disavow their past conduct;

Finally, there is no doubt but fallen grandeur captivates the
imagination. But it is not merely the personal character of
Napoleon that is here in question; it is not he who can now be an
object of animadversion to generous minds; no more can it be those
who, under his reign, have usefully served their country in the
different branches of the public administration; but that which we
can never brand with too severe a stigma, is the system of
selfishness and oppression of which Bonaparte is the author. But
is not this deplorable system still in full sway in Europe? and have
not the powerful of the earth carefully gathered up the shameful
inheritance of him whom they have overthrown? And if we turn our
eyes towards our own country, how many of these instruments of
Napoleon do we not see, who, after having fatigued him with their
servile complaisance, have come to offer to a new power the tribute
of their petty machiavelism? Now, as then, is it not upon the basis
of vanity and corruption that the whole edifice of their paltry
science rests, and is it not from the traditions of the imperial
government that the counsels of their wisdom are extracted?

In painting in stronger colours, therefore, this fatal government,
we are not insulting over a fallen enemy, but attacking a still
powerful adversary; and if, as I hope, the Ten Years' Exile are
destined to increase the horror of arbitrary governments, I may
venture to indulge the pleasing idea, that by their publication I
shall be rendering a service to the sacred cause to which my mother
never ceased to be faithful.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface, by the Editor

Part The First

Chapter 1. Causes of Bonaparte's animosity against me

Chapter 2. Commencement of opposition in the Tribunate.--My first
Persecution on that account.--Fouche

Chapter 3. System of Fusion adopted by Bonaparte.--Publication of
my Work on Literature

Chapter 4. Conversation of my Father with Bonaparte.--Campaign of
Marengo

Chapter 5. The Infernal Machine.--Peace of Luneville

Chapter 6. Corps diplomatique during the Consulate.--Death of the
Emperor Paul

Chapter 7. Paris in 1801

Chapter 8. Journey to Coppet.--Preliminaries of Peace with
England

Chapter 9. Paris in 1802.--Bonaparte President of the Italian
Republic.--My return to Coppet

Chapter 10. New symptoms of Bonaparte's ill will to my Father and
Myself.--Affairs of Switzerland

Chapter 11. Rupture with England.--Commencement of my Exile

Chapter 12. Departure for Germany.--Arrival at Weimar

Chapter 13. Berlin.--Prince Louis-Ferdinand

Chapter 14. Conspiracy of Moreau and Pichegru

Chapter 15. Assassination of the Duke d'Enghien

Chapter 16. Illness and Death of M. Necker

Chapter 17. Trial of Moreau

Chapter 18. Commencement of the Empire

Part the Second

Chapter 1. Suppression of my Work on Germany.--Banishment from
France

Chapter 2. Return to Coppet--Different Persecutions.

Chapter 3. Journey in Switzerland with M. de Montmorency

Chapter 4. Exile of M. de Montmorency and Madame Recamier.--New
Persecutions

Chapter 5. Departure from Coppet

Chapter 6. Passage through Austria;--1812

Chapter 7. Residence at Vienna

Chapter 8. Departure from Vienna

Chapter 9. Passage through Poland

Chapter 10. Arrival in Russia

Chapter 11. Kiow

Chapter 12. Road from Kiow to Moscow

Chapter 13. Appearance of the Country--Character of the Russians

Chapter 14. Moscow

Chapter 15. Road from Moscow to Petersburg

Chapter 16. St. Petersburg

Chapter 17. The Imperial Family

Chapter 18. Manners of the great Russian Nobility

Chapter 19. Establishments for Public Education.--Institute of St.
Catherine

Chapter 20. Departure for Sweden.--Passage through Finland

TEN YEARS' EXILE

Part The First

CHAPTER 1.

Causes of Bonaparte's animosity against me.

It is not with the view of occupying the public attention with what
relates to myself, that I have determined to relate the
circumstances of my ten years' exile; the miseries which I have
endured, however bitterly I may have felt them, are so trifling in
the midst of the public calamities of which we are witnesses, that I
should be ashamed to speak of myself if the events which concern me
were not in some degree connected with the great cause of threatened
humanity. The Emperor Napoleon, whose character exhibits itself
entire in every action of his life, has persecuted me with a minute
anxiety, with an ever increasing activity, with an inflexible
rudeness; and my connections with him contributed to make him known
to me, long before Europe had discovered the key of the enigma.

I shall not here enter into a detail of the events that preceded the
appearance of Bonaparte upon the political stage of Europe; if I
accomplish the design I have of writing the life of my father, I
will there relate what I have witnessed of the early part of the
revolution, whose influence has changed the fate of the whole
world. My object at present is only to retrace what relates to
myself in this vast picture; in casting from that narrow point of
view some general surveys over the whole, I flatter myself with
being frequently overlooked, in relating my own history.

The greatest grievance which the Emperor Napoleon has against me, is
the respect which I have always entertained for real liberty. These
sentiments have been in a manner transmitted to me as an
inheritance, and adopted as my own, ever since I have been able to
reflect on the lofty ideas from which they are derived, and the
noble actions which they inspire. The cruel scenes which have
dishonored the French revolution, proceeding only from tyranny under
popular forms, could not, it appears to me, do any injury to the
cause of liberty: at the most, we could only feel discouraged with
respect to France; but if that country had the misfortune not to
know how to possess that noblest of blessings, it ought not on that
account to be proscribed from the face of the earth. When the sun
disappears from the horizon of the Northern regions, the inhabitants
of those countries do not curse his rays, because they are still
shining upon others more favored by heaven.

Shortly after the 18th Brumaire, Bonaparte had heard that I had been
speaking strongly in my own parties, against that dawning
oppression, whose progress I foresaw as clearly as if the future had
been revealed to me. Joseph Bonaparte, whose understanding and
conversation I liked very much, came to see me, and told me, "My
brother complains of you. Why, said he to me yesterday, why does not
Madame de Stael attach herself to my government? what is it she
wants? the payment of the deposit of her father? I will give orders
for it: a residence in Paris? I will allow it her. In short, what is
it she wishes?" "Good God!" replied I, "it is not what I wish, but
what I think, that is in question." I know not if this answer was
reported to him, but if it was, I am certain that he attached no
meaning to it; for he believes in the sincerity of no one's
opinions; he considers every kind of morality as nothing more than a
form, to which no more meaning is attached than to the conclusion of
a letter; and as the having assured any one that you are his most
humble servant would not entitle him to ask any thing of you, so if
any one says that he is a lover of liberty,--that he believes in
God,--that he prefers his conscience to his interest, Bonaparte
considers such professions only as an adherence to custom, or as
the regular means of forwarding ambitious views or selfish
calculations. The only class of human beings whom he cannot well
comprehend, are those who are sincerely attached to an opinion,
whatever be the consequences of it: such persons Bonaparte looks
upon as boobies, or as traders who outstand their market, that is to
say, who would sell themselves too dear. Thus, as we shall see in
the sequel, has he never been deceived in his calculations but by
integrity, encountered either in individuals or nations.

CHAPTER 2.

Commencement of opposition in the Tribunate--My first persecution
on that account--Fouche.

Some of the tribunes, who attached a real meaning to the
constitution, were desirous of establishing in their assembly an
opposition analogous to that of England; as if the rights, which
that constitution professed to secure, had anything of reality in
them, and the pretended division of the bodies of the state were
anything more than a mere affair of etiquette, a distinction between
the different anti-chambers of the first consul, in which
magistrates under different names could hold together, I confess
that I saw with pleasure the aversion entertained by a small number
of the tribunes, to rival the counsellors of state in servility. I
had especially a strong belief that those who had previously allowed
themselves to be carried too far in their love for the republic
would continue faithful to their opinions, when they became the
weakest, and the most threatened.

One of these tribunes, a friend of liberty, and endowed with one of
the most remarkable understandings ever bestowed upon man, M.
Benjamin Constant, consulted me upon a speech which he purposed to
deliver, for the purpose of signalizing the dawn of tyranny: I
encouraged him in it with all the strength of my conviction.
However, as it was well known that he was one of my intimate
friends, I could not help dreading what might happen to me in
consequence. I was vulnerable in my taste for society. Montaigne
said formerly, I am a Frenchman through Paris: and if he thought so
three centuries ago, what must it be now, when we see so many
persons of extraordinary intellect collected in one city, and so
many accustomed to employ that intellect in adding to the pleasures
of conversation. The demon of ennui has always pursued me; by the
terror with which he inspires me, I could alone have been capable of
bending the knee to tyranny, if the example of my father, and his
blood which flows in my veins, had not enabled me to triumph over
this weakness. Be that as it may, Bonaparte knew this foible of mine
perfectly: he discerns quickly the weak side of any one; for it is
by their weaknesses that he subjugates people to his sway. To the
power with which he threatens, to the treasures with which he
dazzles, he joins the dispensation of ennui, and that is a source
of real terror to the French. A residence at forty leagues from the
capital, contrasted with the advantages collected in the most
agreeable city in the world, fails not in the long run to shake the
greater part of exiles, habituated from their infancy to the charms
of a Parisian life.

On the eve of the day when Benjamin Constant was to deliver his
speech, I had a party, among whom were Lucien Bonaparte, MM. ----
and general others, whose conversation in different degrees
possesses that constant novelty of interest which is produced by the
strength of ideas and the grace of expression. Every one of these
persons, with the exception of Lucien, tired of being proscribed by
the directory, was preparing to serve the new government, requiring
only to be well rewarded for their devotion to its power. Benjamin
Constant came up and whispered to me, "Your drawing room is now
filled with persons with whom you are pleased: if I speak, tomorrow
it will be deserted:--think well of it." "We must follow our
conviction," said I to him. This reply was dictated by enthusiasm;
but, I confess, if I had foreseen what I have suffered since that
day, I should not have had the firmness to refuse M. Constant's
offer of renouncing his project, in order not to compromise me.

At present, so far as opinion is affected, it is nothing to incur
the disgrace of Bonaparte: he may make you perish, but he cannot
deprive you of respect. Then, on the contrary, France was not
enlightened as to his tyrannical views, and as all who had suffered
from the revolution expected to obtain from him the return of a
brother, or a friend, or the restoration of property, any one who
was bold enough to resist him was branded with the name of Jacobin,
and you were deprived of good society along with the countenance of
the government: an intolerable situation, particularly for a woman,
and of which no one can know the misery without having experienced
it.

On the day when the signal of opposition was exhibited in the
tribunate by my friend, I had invited several persons whose society
I was fond of, but all of whom were attached to the new government.
At five o'clock I had received ten notes of apology; the first and
second I bore tolerably well, but as they succeeded each other
rapidly, I began to be alarmed. In vain did I appeal to my
conscience, which advised me to renounce all the pleasures attached
to the favour of Bonaparte: I was blamed by so many honorable
people, that I knew not how to support myself on my own way of
thinking. Bonaparte had as yet done nothing exactly culpable; many
asserted that he preserved France from anarchy: in short, if at that
moment he had signified to me any wish of reconciliation, I should
have been delighted: but a step of that sort he will never take
without exacting a degradation, and, to induce that degradation, he
generally enters into such passions of authority, as terrify into
yielding every thing. I do not wish by that to say that Bonaparte
is not really passionate: what is not calculation in him is hatred,
and hatred generally expresses itself in rage: but calculation is in
him so much the strongest, that he never goes beyond what it is
convenient for him to show, according to circumstances and persons.
One day a friend of mine saw him storming at a commissary of war,
who had not done his duty; scarcely had the poor man retired,
trembling with apprehension, when Bonaparte turned round to one of
his aides-du-camp, and said to him, laughing, I hope I have given
him a fine fright; and yet the moment before, you would have
believed that he was no longer master of himself.

When it suited the first consul to exhibit his ill-humour against
me, he publicly reproached his brother Joseph for continuing to
visit me. Joseph felt it necessary in consequence to absent himself
from my house for several weeks, and his example was followed by
three fourths of my acquaintance. Those who had been proscribed on
the 18th Fructidor, pretended that at that period, I had been guilty
of recommending M. de Talleyrand to Barras, for the ministry of
foreign affairs: and yet, these people were then continually about
that same Talleyrand, whom they accused me of having served. All
those who behaved ill to me, were cautious in concealing that they
did so for fear of incurring the displeasure of the first consul.
Every day, however, they invented some new pretext to injure me,
thus exerting all the energy of their political opinions against a
defenceless and persecuted woman, and prostrating themselves at the
feet of the vilest Jacobins, the moment the first consul had
regenerated them by the baptism of his favor.

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