STAEL-HOLSTEIN, stifel hid'stin, Fr. pron.
OrstaN', ANNE LOUISE GERMAINE, Barone de, commonly called AIADAME DE STAtL (1766 1817) . A famous French authoress, born in Paris, April 22, 1766. She was the daughter of the Genovese banker and distinguished French Min ister of Finance. Jacques Necker (q.v.), and of his wife, Suzanne Chnrchod, Gibbon's youthful beloved. She passed her childhood in one of the most brilliant literary salons of Paris, where her naturally active mind was stimulated by associa tion with the keenest wits and critics of the pre Revolutionary decade, chief among them F. M. Grimm, Thomas, Marmontel, and Raynal. In this vortex of disintegrating ideas she assimilated more than any other of her generation the intel lectual spirit of that age. She married in 1786, in obedience to her mother's wish, the Swedish Minister, Baron de Stael-Holstein, by whom she had three children. But she kept the tenor of her independent way, always positive and self assertive, a little boisterous and rather vain, writing much, but publishing nothing until the appearance of her Lettres sur Jean Jacques Rous seau (1788), whose social ideas she warmly ad mired. She had fallen also under the spell of Goethe's Werther, and thus she sympathized with the Revolution till the imprisonment of the King caused a revulsion to an equally indiscreet 'in eivism.' She abused her ambassadorial right of asylum, and, in fear of the consequences, left Paris before the massacres of September, 1792, going to Coppet, near Geneva, where she gathered some political sympathizers. in 1793 she tried to make herself the centre of a more important group in England, not without some personal scandal. For nine years (1794-1803) she played at politics in Paris, with brief visits to Coppet. She was amicably separated from Baron de Stael in 1788, and irritated Napoleon by biting epigrams till the consular police banished her from Paris (1803). She went to Germany, which then 'ruled the kingdom of the air' (Rich ter). and in her unwearying search for noted people to talk to she came in the winter of 1803 04 to Weimar. Goethe, after at first excusing himself on the score of ill health, saw much of her and later on in his Anna/en spoke of "her brilliant way of showing her readiness of thought and repartee." On the whole, in spite of her 'passion ate demands' for ready information on the most important subjects, lie admitted that "one could get on with her easily and pleasantly if she was taken in her own way." Schiller found her "with little ideality or poetry and no feminine re serve." The Romanticists were more attracted, and A. \V. Schlegel (q.v.), an eccentric prophet of the new school, became her devoted companion and counselor. Thus the German ideas that she introduced into France were seen through Schlegel's eyes, far from impartially, as is constantly obvious in her De l'Allcmagnc, written in 1809-10 and printed in England in 1813. Before her exile Madame de Staid had written two essays, De l'influcnee des passions (1796) and Dc la litteraturc consid&s'e dans scs rapports arec Ics institutions soeialcs (1800), the latter curious for its marks of the close association with Benjamin Constant (q.v.),
who gave his impression of their relation in Adolphe. Her literary power was first revealed in the novel Delphine (1802), a half-autobiogra phy of the 'misunderstood woman,' to be ex ploited later by George Sand. Much finer is a second story. Corinne (1807). wherewith she made the novel carry artistic discussion, as Goethe and Richter had done in Germany.
In 1810 she published her De l'Allemagne in Paris, but Napoleon condemned the entire edi tion and expelled her from France. She retired to Coppet, and there, in 1811, she married secret ly a young officer, De Rocca, more than twenty years her junior. Tn the same year she set out on her travels in Russia. Sweden, and England, and after Napoleon's fall returned to France, though she still spent much time abroad, for her health was gradually failing, as her last hook, Considerations sou• la rerolution francaise (1818), witnesses. She died in Paris, July 14, 1817. Of her three children by her first husband, Auguste (1790-1827) became known as the au thor of Lettrcs sur l'Angleterre; Albertine (died 1838) married the Duke Achille de Broglie, and Albert became a Swedish officer and fell in a duel. By her second husband (Rocca ) she had one child.
Tn her person, excepting her fine eyes and well-formed figure, Madame de Stael was not at tractive. Tn conversation she often repelled even those who appreciated her talents. If one con siders only language and style she was not a great writer, but she had great enthusiasms, faith in human progress, and in democracy. Thus she did much to free French literature from the self-im posed fetters of the classical criticism. Studiously cosmopolitan, she compelled France to contrast and compare her ideals of letters and art with those of Germany and England. The French spirit, she said, needed to be regenerated by some more vigorous sap. It was artistic, rationalistic. They were idealistic, individually subjective. To es tablish in France Ossian, Byron, Goethe, Richter, was to complete the work begun by Rousseau. Thus the French romantic movement, one of the greatest literary regenerations in history, is in large measure the work of Madame de Stael.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Madame de Stael's complete Bibliography. Madame de Stael's complete works, edited by her son, Baron Auguste de Stael Holstein, and with a biography by her cousin Madame Necker de Saussure, 17 vols. ( Paris, 1820-21). There are Lives by Norris (London, 1853) ; Stevens (ib., 1880) ; Lady Blennerhasset, trans. (ib.. 1889) ; Sorel (Paris, 1891; trans. London, 1892). Consult also Count d'Hausson ville, Le salon de Madame Necker (Paris, 1882; trans., 1882) ; Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. iv.; Brunetiere, Evolution de la critique (Paris, ]S90) ; Dejob, Madame de Suussure et (ib., 1890) ; Faguet, Politiqucs et moral isles, vol. i. (ib., 189S).