A word, in conclusion, about Coppet!

Necker bought the property from his old banking partner, Thelusson, for 500,000 livres in French money, and retired to live there when the French Revolution drove him out of politics. His daughter, Madame de StaËl, inherited it from him, and made it famous.

Not that she loved Switzerland; it would be more true to say that she detested Switzerland. Swiss scenery meant nothing to her. When she was taken for an excursion to the glaciers, she asked what the crime was that she had to expiate by such a punishment; and she could look out on the blue waters of Lake Leman, and sigh for ‘the gutter of the Rue du Bac.’ Even to this day, the Swiss have hardly forgiven her for that, or for speaking of the Canton of Vaud as the country in which she had been ‘so intensely bored for such a number of years.’

What she wanted was to live in Paris, to be a leader—or, rather, to be the leader—of Parisian society, to sit in a salon, the admired of all admirers, and to pull the wires of politics to the advantage of her friends. For a while she succeeded in doing this. It was she who persuaded Barras to give Talleyrand his political start in life. But whereas Barras was willing to act on her advice, Napoleon was by no means equally amenable to her influence. Almost from the first he regarded her as a mischief-maker; and when a spy brought him an intercepted letter in which Madame de StaËl expressed her hope that none of the old aristocracy of France would condescend to accept appointments in the household of ‘the bourgeois of Corsica,’ he became her personal enemy, and, refusing her permission to live either in the capital or near it, practically compelled her to take refuge in her country seat. Her pleasaunce in that way became her gilded cage.

Perhaps she was not quite so unhappy there as she sometimes represented. If she could not go to Paris, many distinguished and brilliant Parisians came to Coppet, and met there many brilliant and distinguished Germans, Genevans, Italians, and Danes. The Parisian salon, reconstituted, flourished on Swiss soil. There visited there, at one time or another, Madame RÉcamier and Madame KrÜdner; Benjamin Constant, who was so long Madame de StaËl’s lover; Bonstetten, the Voltairean philosopher; Frederika Brun, the Danish artist; Sismondi, the historian; Werner, the German poet; Karl Ritter, the German geographer; Baron de Voght; Monti, the Italian poet; Madame VigÉe Le Brun; Cuvier; and Oelenschlaeger. From almost every one of them we have some pen-and-ink sketch of the life there.

This, for instance, is the scene as it appeared to Madame Le Brun, who came to paint the hostess’s portrait:

‘I paint her in antique costume. She is not beautiful, but the animation of her visage takes the place of beauty. To aid the expression I wished to give her, I entreated her to recite tragic verses while I painted. She declaimed passages from Corneille and Racine.... I find many persons established at Coppet: the beautiful Madame RÉcamier, the Comte de Sabran, a young English woman, Benjamin Constant, etc. Its society is continually renewed. They come to visit the illustrious exile who is pursued by the rancour of the Emperor. Her two sons are now with her, under the instruction of the German scholar Schlegel; her daughter is very beautiful, and has a passionate love of study; she leaves her company free all the morning, but they unite in the evening. It is only after dinner that they can converse with her. She then walks in her salon, holding in her hand a little green branch; and her words have an ardour quite peculiar to her: it is impossible to interrupt her. At these times she produces on one the effect of an improvisatrice.’

And here is a still more graphic description, taken from a letter written to Madame RÉcamier by Baron de Voght:

‘It is to you that I owe my most amiable reception at Coppet. It is no doubt to the favourable expectations aroused by your friendship that I owe my intimate acquaintance with this remarkable woman. I might have met her without your assistance—some casual acquaintance would no doubt have introduced me—but I should never have penetrated to the intimacy of this sublime and beautiful soul, and should never have known how much better she is than her reputation. She is an angel sent from heaven to reveal the divine goodness upon earth. To make her irresistible, a pure ray of celestial light embellishes her spirit and makes her amiable from every point of view.

‘At once profound and light, whether she is discovering a mysterious secret of the soul or grasping the lightest shadow of a sentiment, her genius shines without dazzling, and when the orb of light has disappeared, it leaves a pleasant twilight to follow it.... No doubt a few faults, a few weaknesses, occasionally veil this celestial apparition; even the initiated must sometimes be troubled by these eclipses, which the Genevan astronomers in vain endeavour to predict.

‘My travels so far have been limited to journeys to Lausanne and Coppet, where I often stay three or four days. The life there suits me perfectly; the company is even more to my taste. I like Constant’s wit, Schlegel’s learning, Sabran’s amiability, Sismondi’s talent and character, the simple truthful disposition and just intellectual perceptions of Auguste,B the wit and sweetness of AlbertineC—I was forgetting Bonstetten, an excellent fellow, full of knowledge of all sorts, ready in wit, adaptable in character—in every way inspiring one’s respect and confidence.

‘Your sublime friend looks and gives life to everything. She imparts intelligence to those around her. In every corner of the house some one is engaged in composing a great work.... Corinne is writing her delightful letters about Germany, which will no doubt prove to be the best thing she has ever done.

‘The “Shunamitish Widow,” an Oriental melodrama which she has just finished, will be played in October; it is charming. Coppet will be flooded with tears. Constant and Auguste are both composing tragedies; Sabran is writing a comic opera, and Sismondi a history; Schlegel is translating something; Bonstetten is busy with philosophy, and I am busy with my letter to Juliette.’

Then, a month later:

‘Since my last letter, Madame de StaËl has read us several chapters of her work. Everywhere it bears the marks of her talent. I wish I could persuade her to cut out everything in it connected with politics, and all the metaphors which interfere with its clarity, simplicity and accuracy. What she needs to demonstrate is not her republicanism, but her wisdom.... Mlle. Jenner played in one of Werner’s tragedies which was given, last Friday, before an audience of twenty. She, Werner, and Schlegel played perfectly....

‘The arrival in Switzerland of M. Cuvier has been a happy distraction for Madame de StaËl; they spent two days together at Geneva, and were well pleased with each other. On her return to Coppet she found Middleton there, and in receiving his confidences forgot her troubles. Yesterday she resumed her work.

‘The poet whose mystical and sombre genius has caused us such profound emotions starts, in a few days’ time, for Italy.

‘I accompanied Corinne to Massot’s. To alleviate the tedium of the sitting, a Mlle. Romilly played pleasantly on the harp, and the studio was a veritable temple of the Muses....

‘Bonstetten gave us two readings of a Memoir on the Northern Alps. It began very well, but afterwards it bored us.... Madame de StaËl resumed her reading, and there was no longer any question of being bored. It is marvellous how much she must have read and thought over to be able to find the opportunity of saying so many good things. One may differ from her, but one cannot help delighting in her talent....

‘And now here we are at Geneva, trying to reproduce Coppet at the HÔtel des Balances. I am delightfully situated with a wide view over the Valley of Savoy, between the Alps and the Jura.... Yesterday evening the illusion of Coppet was complete. I had been with Madame de StaËl to call on Madame Rilliet, who is so charming at her own fireside. On my return I played chess with Sismondi. Madame de StaËl, Mlle. Randall, and Mlle. Jenner sat on the sofa chatting with Bonstetten and young Barante. We were as we had always been—as we were in the days that I shall never cease regretting.’

Other descriptions exist in great abundance, but these suffice to serve our purpose. They show us the Coppet salon as it was—pleasant, brilliant, unconventional; something like Holland House, but more Bohemian; something like Harley Street, but more select; something like Gad’s Hill—which it resembled in the fact that the members of the house-parties were expected to spend their mornings at their desks—but on a higher social plane; a centre at once of high thinking and frivolous behaviour; of hard work and desperate love-making, which sometimes paved the way to trouble.

If only one had space to go into the details of that love-making! But that is a subject which would need a much larger book than this to do it justice.