When only ten years of age, she observed that they took great pleasure in the society of Gibbon, and she gravely proposed to marry him, that they might always have this happiness. The full significance of this singular proposition is not apparent until one remembers that the learned historian was not only rather old, but so short and fat as to call out from one of his friends the remark that when he needed a little exercise he had only to take a turn of three times around M. Gibbon. The Baron de Stael had an exalted position, fine manners, a good figure, and a handsome face, but he lacked the one thing that Mme. de Stael most considered, a commanding talent. She did not see him through the prism of a strong affection which transfigures all things, even the most commonplace. What this must have meant to a woman of her genius and temperament whose ideal of happiness was a sympathetic marriage, it is not difficult to divine. It may account, in some degree, for her restlessness, her perpetual need of movement, of excitement, of society. But, whatever her domestic troubles may have been, they were of limited duration.
She was quietly separated from her husband in 1798. Four years later she decided to return to Coppet with him, as he was unhappy and longed to see his children. He died en route.
The period of this marriage was one of the most memorable of France, the period when noble and generous spirits rallied in a spontaneous movement for national regeneration. Mme. De Stael was in the flush of hope and enthusiasm, fresh from the study of Rousseau and her own dreams of human perfectibility; radiant, too, with the reflection of her youthful fame. Among those who surrounded her were the Montmorencys, Lafayette, and Count Louis de Narbonne, whose brilliant intellect and charming manners touched her perhaps too deeply for her peace of mind. There were also Barnave, Chenier, Talleyrand, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, and many others of the active leaders of the Revolution. A few woman mingled in her more intimate circle, which was still of the old society. Of these were the ill-fated Duchesse de Gramont, Mme. de Lauzun, the Princesse de Poix, and the witty, lovable Marechale de Beauvau. As a rule, though devoted to her friends and kind to those who sought her aid, Mme. de Stael did not like the society of women. Perhaps they did not always respond to her elevated and swiftly flowing thoughts; or it may be that she wounded the vanity of those who were cast into the shade by talents so conspicuous and conversation so eloquent, and who felt the lack of sympathetic rapport. Society is au fond republican, and is apt to resent autocracy, even the autocracy of genius, when it takes the form of monologue. It is contrary to the social spirit. The salon of Mme. de Stael not only took its tone from herself, but it was a reflection of herself. She was not beautiful, and she dressed badly; indeed, she seems to have been singularly free from that personal consciousness which leads people to give themselves the advantages of an artistic setting, even if the taste is not inborn. She was too intent upon what she thought and felt, to give heed to minor details. But in her conversation, which was a sort of improvisation, her eloquent face was aglow, her dark eyes flashed with inspiration, her superb form and finely poised head seemed to respond to the rhythmic flow of thoughts that were emphasized by the graceful gestures of an exquisitely molded hand, in which she usually held a sprig of laurel. "If I were queen," said Mme. de Tesse, "I would order Mme. de Stael to talk to me always."
But this center in which the more thoughtful spirits of the old regime met the brilliant and active leaders of the new was broken up by the storm which swept away so many of its leaders, and Mme. de Stael, after lingering in the face of dangers to save her friends, barely escaped with her life on the eve of the September massacres of 1792. "She is an excellent woman," said one of her contemporaries, "who drowns all her friends in order to have the pleasure of angling for them."
Mme. de Stael resumed her place and organized her salon anew in 1795.l But it was her fate to live always in an atmosphere surcharged with storms. She was too republican for the aristocrats, and too aristocratic for the republicans.
Distrusted by both parties and feared by the Directoire, she found it advisable after a few months to retire to Coppet. Less than two years later she was again in Paris. Her friends were then in power, notably Talleyrand. "If I remain here another year I shall die," he had written her from America, and she had generously secured the repeal of the decree that exiled him, a kindness which he promptly forgot. Though her enthusiasm for the republic was much moderated, and though she had been so far dazzled by the genius of Napoleon as to hail him as a restorer of order, her illusions regarding him were very short-lived. She had no sympathy with his aims at personal power. Her drawing room soon became the rallying point for his enemies and the center of a powerful opposition. But she had a natural love for all forms of intellectual distinction, and her genius and fame still attracted a circle more or less cosmopolitan. Ministers of state and editors of leading journals were among her guests.
Joseph and Lucien Bonaparte were her devoted friends. The small remnant of the noblesse that had any inclination to return to a world which had lost its charm for them found there a trace of the old politeness. Mathieu de Montmorency, devout and charitable; his brother Adrien, delicate in spirit and gentle in manners; Narbonne, still devoted and diplomatic, and the Chevalier de Boufflers, gay, witty, and brilliant, were of those who brought into it something of the tone of the past regime.
There were also the men of the new generation, men who were saturated with the principles of the Revolution though regretting its methods. Among these were Chebnier, Regnault, and Benjamin Constant.
