THE SALON OF MADAME DE STA?L, THE SWEDISH AMBASSADRESS  
About two-thirds of the way along the Rue du Bac, between the Rue de Grenelle and the Rue de la Plance, stands a massive dwelling which can be recognized to-day by the four Ionic columns which support, two by two, a heavy stone balcony. This was the Swedish embassy, and the celebrated Madame de Sta?l,[Pg 294] daughter of Monsieur de Necker, and wife of the Swedish ambassador, Baron de Sta?l-Holstein, resided there.
Madame de Sta?l is so well known that it would perhaps be superfluous to draw her portrait, physical, moral, and intellectual. We will, however, say a few words concerning her. Born in 1766, Madame de Sta?l was then in the zenith of her genius—we will not say beauty, since she was never beautiful. A passionate admirer of her father, who was only a mediocre man, whatever else may be said for him, she had followed his fortunes, and emigrated with him, although the position of her husband as Swedish ambassador insured her safety.
But she soon returned to Paris, when she drew up a plan for the escape of King Louis XVI., and in 1793 addressed the revolutionary government in the queen's defence, when the latter was brought to trial. Gustavus IV.'s declaration of war with Russia recalled the ambassador to Stockholm, and he was absent from Paris from the day of the queen's death to that of Robespierre's. After the 9th Thermidor, M. de Sta?l returned to Paris, still as Swedish ambassador, and Madame de Sta?l, who could not live out of sight of "that gutter of a Rue du Bac," returned with him.
She had but just returned when she opened her salon, where she naturally received all men of distinction, whether they were Frenchmen or foreigners. But, although she had been among the first to espouse the principles of 1789, whether because the voice of reason dictated the course, or the march of events had modified her ideas, she advocated the return of the émigré's with all her might, and so frequently did she ask that their names be erased from the list of the proscribed, particularly that of M. de Narbonne, that the famous butcher Legendre denounced her to the tribune.
Her salon and that of Madame Tallien divided Paris, only Madame de Sta?l was in favor of a constitutional monarchy, that is to say, something between the Cordeliers and the Girondins.
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On this particular evening of the night of the 12th and the 13th Vendémiaire, when the Convention was in the greatest uproar, Madame de Sta?l's salon was crowded with company. The gathering was very brilliant, and no one, looking at the apparel of the women and the easy carriage of the men would have imagined that people were about to cut each other's throats in the streets of Paris. And yet amid all this gayety and wit, which is never so great in France as in hours of danger, one might have discovered certain clouds, such as summer casts over fields and harvests.
Every new-comer was hailed with bursts of curiosity and eager questioning, which revealed the extent of the interest which the company took in the situation. And then for the moment the two or three ladies who shared the honors with Madame de Sta?l, either by reason of their wit or beauty, were left alone.
Every one ran to the new-comer, gathered from him whatever he knew, and then returned to his own circle, where the reports were eagerly discussed. By tacit agreement, each lady, who, as we have said, was admitted to the salon by reason of her wit or beauty, held a little court of her own in the reception-room of the H?tel de Suède; so on this particular evening there was, besides Madame de Sta?l, Madame de Krüdener and Madame Récamier.
Madame de Krüdener was three years younger than Madame de Sta?l. She was a Courlandaise, born at Riga, the daughter of a rich landowner, Baron de Witinghof. She married Baron de Krüdener at the age of fourteen, and accompanied him to Copenhagen and Venice, where he filled the r?le of Russian ambassador. Separated from her husband in 1791, she had regained the liberty which had been for a time curtailed by her marriage. She was very charming and very witty, speaking and writing French extremely well. The only thing with which she could have been reproached in that exceedingly unsentimental age, was a strong tendency to solitude and revery. Her melan[Pg 296]choly, which was born of the North, and which made her look like a heroine of a Scandinavian saga, lent her a peculiar character in the midst of her surroundings, which tended toward mysticism. Her friends were sometimes angered by a sort of ecstasy which occasionally seized upon her in the midst of a brilliant gathering. But when they drew near her in her inspired moments, and saw her beautiful eyes raised to heaven, they forgot Saint Thérèse in Madame de Krüdener, and the woman of the world in the inspired being. But it was common belief that those beautiful eyes, so often raised to heaven, would deign to regard things earthly the moment that the singer Garat entered the room where she was. A romance which she was then writing, entitled "Valérie, or the Letters of Gustave de Linard to Ernest de G.," was nothing more than the history of their love.
She was a woman of twenty-five or six, with that light hair peculiar to northern latitudes. In her moments of ecstasy her face assumed a marble-like rigidity of expression, and her skin, as white as satin, gave an appearance of truth to the illusion. Her friends, and she had many, although she had as yet no disciples, said that in her moments of lofty abstraction, and communion with supernatural beings, disconnected words escaped her, which nevertheless, like the Pythonesses of ancient times, had a meaning of their own. In short, Madame de Krüdener was a forerunner of modern spiritualism. In our day she would have been called a "medium." The word not being invented at that time, the world contented itself with calling her inspired.
Madame Récamier, the youngest of all the women of fashion of the day, was born at Lyons, in 1777, and was named Jeanne-Fran?oise-Adélaide-Julie Bernard. She married, in 1793, Jacques-Bose Récamier, who was twenty-six years older than she. His fortune was derived from an immense hat factory founded at Lyons by his father. When he was still quite young, he travelled for the house, after[Pg 297] receiving a classical education which enabled him to quote either Virgil or Horace when occasion required. He spoke Spanish, for his business had taken him more particularly into Spain. He was handsome, tall, of light complexion, strongly built, easily moved, generous, and light-hearted; and but slightly attached to his friends, although he never refused to lend them money. One of his best friends, whom he had aided pecuniarily many times, died; he merely said with a sigh: "Another money-drawer closed!"
Married during the Terror, he was present at executions even on his wedding-day, just as he had been on the day previous, and would be on the following day. He saw the king and the queen die, together with Lavoisier and the twenty-seven farmers-general; Laborde, his most intimate friend; and, in short, almost all those with whom he had either business or social relations. When asked why he displayed such assiduity in attending the sad spectacle, he replied: "I wish to familiarize myself with the scaffold."
And in fact he escaped being guillotined almost by a miracle. He did, however, escape; and the sort of supernumerary time he had spent with death was of no value to him.
Was it in consequence of this daily contemplation of nothingness that he forgot his wife's beauty, so that he bore her only a paternal affection; or was it one of those imperfections by means of which capricious nature often renders sterile her most beautiful works? Be that as it may, the fact that she was a wife in name only remains a mystery but no secret.
And yet, at the age of sixteen, when Mademoiselle Bernard became his wife, her biographer tells us that she had passed from childhood into the splendor of youth. A supple, elegant figure, shoulders worthy of the Goddess Hebe, a perfectly shaped and exquisitely formed neck, a small red mouth, teeth like pearls, arms which were charming though a little thin, chestnut hair which curled naturally, a nose both regular and delicate, although thoroughly French, a[Pg 298] complexion of incomparable brilliancy, a face replete with candor (though at times it sparkled with mischief), whose gentle expression lent it an irresistible charm, a manner at once insolent and proud, the best set head in the world—with all these graces it might most truly have been said of her, as Saint-Simon said of the Duchesse de Bourgogne: "Her bearing was that of a goddess enthroned upon clouds."
The little courts appeared as independent of each other as though they had been held in separate houses; but the principal one, through which the others were reached, was ruled by the mistress of the dwelling. This lady, as we have said, was Madame de Sta?l, already known in politics through the interests she had brought to bear in order to obtain the appointment of M. de Narbonne as minister of war, and in literature through her enthusiastic letters concerning Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
She was not beautiful, and yet it would have been impossible to pass her unnoticed, or to come in contact with her without realizing that hers was one of those natures which sow words upon the field of thought as a laborer sows his grain in the furrows. This evening she wore a dress of red velvet, opening at the sides over a petticoat of straw-colored satin; she had on a turban of straw-colored satin with a bird of paradise, and she was nibbling a sprig of flowering heather between her thick lips, which nevertheless disclosed beautiful teeth. Her nose was somewhat too strong, and her cheeks too tanned, but her eyes, eyebrows and forehead were wonderfully beautiful. Matter or divinity, there was power there.
Standing with her back to the mantel, with one hand leaning upon it, while she gesticulated with the other like a man, and still holding the heather from which she now and then bit off a piece with her teeth, she was talking to a young man, her ardent adorer, whose fair, curly hair shaded his face and fell almost to his shoulders.
"No, you are mistaken, my dear Constant. No, I am[Pg 299] not against the Republic. Quite on the contrary, those who know me know with what ardor I adopted the principles of '89. But I have a horror of sans-culottism, and vulgar loves. As soon as it became apparent that Liberty, instead of being the most chaste and beautiful of women, was a mere vulgar courtesan who passed from Marat's arms to those of Danton, and thence to Robespierre's, my respect for her ceased. Let there be no more princes, no more dukes, no more counts, no more marquises; I am perfectly willing. Citizen is a fine title when it is addressed to Cato; citizeness is even more noble when Cornelia is its object. But to be on intimate terms with my laundress, and to talk familiarly with my coachman, is more than I can agree to. Equality is a fine thing, but the word equality needs to be defined. If it signifies that education must be equal for all at the expense of the government, then it is most excellent; that all men shall be equal before the law, still more excellent. But if it means that all French citizens shall be of the same height, cut, and physical appearance, then it becomes the law of Procrustes, and not a proclamation of the rights of man. If I had to choose between the law of Lycurgus and that of Solon, between Sparta and Athens, I should choose Athens, and, furthermore, the Athens of Pericles, and not that of Pisistratus."
"Well!" replied the handsome young man to whom this social sally was addressed, with his witty smile, and who was none other than Benjamin Constant, "you would be wrong, for you would choose Athens in her decline, and not at her rise."
"Her decline? With Pericles? It seems to me that on the contrary I choose her in all her splendor."
"Yes; but, madame, nothing begins with splendor. Splendor is the fruit which is preceded by the buds, the flowers, and the leaves. You will have none of Pisistratus, and you are wrong. It was he who, in placing himself at the head of the poorer classes, prepared the future greatness of Athens. As for h............