Part 22 (2/2)
She endured this constant strain until one evening in February, 1817, when, at a ball at the Duke of Decazes's, in the midst of her pleasure, she was stricken with paralysis. At the Rue des Mathurins, she had all her friends come and dine with her. Chateaubriand, who was one of the party, entered her room upon one occasion and found her suffering intensely, but able to raise herself and say: ”Bonjour, my dear Francis! I am suffering, but that does not hinder me from loving you.” She lingered until July, when there ended a life which not only influenced but even modified politics and the inst.i.tutions of nations, which exercised, by writings, an incalculable influence upon French literature, opening paths which previously had not been trod.
The most important of her works is _De l'Allemagne_, in writing which her only desire was to make Germany known to the French, to explain it by comparison with France and to make her people admire it, and to open new paths to poetry. According to her, Germany possessed no cla.s.sic prose, because the Germans attributed less importance to style than did the French. German poetry, however, had a distinct charm, being all sentiment and poetry of the soul, touching and penetrating; whereas French poetry was all _esprit_, eloquence, reason, raillery.
In her treatise on the drama, she was the first in French literature to use the term ”romantic” and to define it; but she had not invented the word, Wieland having used it to designate the country in which the ancient Roman literature flourished. Her definition was: ”The cla.s.sic word is sometimes taken as a synonym of perfection. I use it in another acceptance by considering cla.s.sic poetry that of the ancients and romantic poetry that which holds in some way to the chivalresque traditions. The literature of the ancients is a transplanted literature with us; but romantic or chivalresque literature is indigenous. An imitation of works coming from a political, social, and religious midst different from ours means a literature which is no longer in relation with us, which has never been popular, and which will become less so every day. On the contrary, the romantic literature is the only one which is susceptible of being perfected, because it bears its roots from our soil and is, consequently, the only one which can be revived and increased. It expresses our religion and recalls our history.” This opinion alone was enough to create a revolt among her contemporaries. Almost all other interpretations of _Faust_ were based on her conception.
At the time of its publication, her book was considered to have been written in a political spirit, but her motive was far from that; it was the action of a generous heart, a book as true and loyal to the French as was ever a book written by a Frenchman. In her work _Considerations sur la Revolution Francaise_ she expressed the most advanced ideas on politics and government. The Revolution freed France and made it prosper; ”every absolute monarch enslaves his country, and freedom reigns not in politics nor in the arts and sciences. Local and provincial liberties have formed nations, but royalty has deformed the nation by turning it to profit.” Mme. de Stael found nothing to admire in Louis XIV., and to Richelieu she attributed the destruction of the originality of the French character, of its loyalty, candor, and independence. In that work she advocated education, which she considered a duty of the government to the people. ”Schools must be established for the education of the poor, universities for the study of all languages, literatures, and sciences;” these ideas took root after her death.
Mme. de Stael was a finished writer; because of its force, openness, and seriousness, her style might be termed a masculine one; she wrote to persuade and, as a rule, succeeded. Her grave defect seemed to be in her inspirations, which were always superior to her ideas, and in her sentiments, which she invariably turned to pa.s.sions.
Few French writers have exercised such a great influence in so many directions, and it became specially marked after her death; while living, the gossip against her salon prevented her opinions from being accepted or taking root. Her political influence was great at her time and lasted some twenty years. Directly influenced by her were Narbonne, De Montmorency, Benjamin Constant, and the Duc Victor de Broglie, her son-in-law. By her and her father, the Globe, the orators of the Academy and the tribune, and the politicians of the day, were inspired. The greatest was Guizot, who interpreted and preached in the spirit of Mme. de Stael. In history her influence was equally felt, especially in Guizot's _Essays on the History of France_, and in his _History of Civilization_, wherein civilization was considered as the constant progress in justice, in society, and in the state. To her Guizot owed his idea of _Amour dans le Mariage_. _The Historical Essays on England_, by Remusat, an ardent admirer of hers, was largely influenced by her _Considerations_, while Tocqueville's _Ancien Regime_ contains many of her ideas.
Literature owes even more to her works, which encouraged the study of foreign literatures; almost all translations were due to her works.
Michelet, Quinet, Nodier, Victor Hugo, so much influenced by German literature, owe their knowledge of it mainly to her. Too much credit may be given her when it is stated that all Mignons, Marguerites, Mephistopheles, etc., proceeded indirectly from her work, as well as nearly all descriptions of travels. Lamartine undoubtedly used her _De l'Allemagne_ and her _Des Pa.s.sions_ freely. The heroine of _Jocelyn_ is called but a daughter of _Delphine_, and the same author's terrible invective against Napoleon was inspired by her.
Mme. de Stael had an indestructible faith in human reason, liberty, and justice; she believed in human perfection and in the hope of progress. ”From Rousseau, she received that pa.s.sionate tenderness, that confidence in the inherent goodness of man. Believing in an intimate communion of man with G.o.d, her religion was spirit and sentiment which had no need of pomp or symbols, of an intermediary between G.o.d and man.” She was not so much a great writer as she was a great thinker, or rather a discoverer of new thoughts. By inst.i.tuting a new criticism and by opening new literatures to the French, she succeeded in emanc.i.p.ating art from fixed rules and in facilitating the sudden growth of romanticism in France.
In her life, her great desire was to spread happiness and to obtain it, to love and to be loved in return. In politics it was always the sentiment of justice which appealed to her, in literature it was the ideal. Sincerity was manifested in everything she said and did. Pity for the misery of her fellow beings, the sentiment of the dignity of man and his right to independence, of his future grandeur founded on his moral elevation, the cult of justice, and the love of liberty--such were the prevailing thoughts of her life and works.
Mme. de Stael's chief influence will always remain in the domain of literature; she was the first French writer to introduce and exercise a European or cosmopolitan influence by uniting the literatures of the north and the south and clearly defining the distinction between them.
By the expression of her idea that French literature had decayed on account of the exclusive social spirit, and that its only means of regeneration lay in the study and absorption of new models, she cut French taste loose from traditions and freed literature from superannuated conventionalities. Also, by her idea that a common civilization must be fostered, a union of the eastern and western ideals, and that literature must be the common expression thereof, whose object must be the amelioration of humanity, morally and religiously, she gave to the world at large ideas which are only now being fully appreciated and nearing realization. In her novels she vigorously protested against the lot of woman in modern society, against her obligation to submit everything to opinion, against the innumerable obstacles in the way of her development--thus heralding George Sand and the general movement toward woman's emanc.i.p.ation.
France has never had a more forceful, energetic, influential, cosmopolitan, and at the same time moral, writer than Mme. de Stael.
The events in the life of George Sand had comparatively little influence upon her works, which were mainly the expression of her nature. As a young girl, she was strongly influenced by her mother, an amiable but rather frivolous woman, and by her grandmother, a serious, cold, ceremonious old lady. Calm and well balanced, and possessing an ardent imagination, she followed her own inclinations when, as a girl of sixteen, she was married to a man for whom she had no love. After living an indifferent sort of life with her husband for ten years, they separated; and she, with her children, went to Paris to find work.
After a number of unsuccessful efforts of a literary nature, she wrote _Indiana_, which immediately made her success. Her articles were sought by the journals, and from about 1830 her life was that of the average artist and writer of the time. Her relations with Chopin and Alfred de Musset are too well known to require repet.i.tion. After 1850 she retired to her home, the Chateau de Nohant, where she enjoyed the companions.h.i.+p of her son, her daughter-in-law, and her grandchildren; she died there in 1876.
To appreciate her works, it is more important to study her nature than her career. This has been admirably done by the Comte d'Haussonville.
George Sand is said to have possessed a dual nature, which seemed to contradict itself, but which explains her works--a dreamy and meditative, and a lively, frolicsome nature; the first might throw light upon her religious crisis, the second, upon her social side.
The combination of these two phases caused the numerous conflicts of opinions and doctrines, extending her knowledge and inciting her curiosity; the not infrequent result was an intellectual and moral bewilderment and the deepest melancholy, from which she with great difficulty freed herself. Because of these peculiarities she was constantly agitated, her strongly reflective nature keeping her awake to all important questions of the day.
Her intellectual development may be traced in her works, which, from 1830 to 1840, were personal, lyrical, spontaneous--a direct flow from inspiration, issuing from a common source of emotions and personal sorrows, being the expressions of her habitual reflections, of her moral agitations, of her real and imaginary sufferings. These first works were a protest against the tyranny of marriage, and expressed her conception of a woman in love--a love profound and nave, exalted and sincere, pa.s.sionate and chaste: such is pictured in _Indiana_. In _Valentine_ she portrays the impious and unfortunate marriage that the sacrilegious conventions of the world have imposed, and the results issuing therefrom. In all of these early works are seen an inventiveness, a lively _allure_, an exquisite style, a freshness and brilliancy, _finesse_ and grace; but they show an undisciplined talent, giving vent to feelings that her unbounded enthusiasm would not allow to be checked--there is emotion, but no system.
In her second period, from about 1840 to 1848, her reflection and emotion combined produced a system and theories. The higher problems took stronger hold on her as she matured; philosophy and religious science in their deeper phases excited her emotive faculties, which threw out a mere echo of what she had heard and studied.
Her inspiration thus came from without, throwing out those endless declamatory outbursts which we meet in _Consuelo_ and in _Comtesse de Rudolstadt_. These theory-novels were soon followed by novels dealing with social problems, now and then relieved by delightful idyllics such as _La Mare au Diable_ and _Francois le Champi_. This third tendency M. d'Haussonville considers the least successful.
After 1850 there appeared from her pen a series of historical novels, especially fine in the portrayal of characters, variety of situations, movement, and intrigues; these are free from all social theories; in these, reverting to her first tendencies, she is at her best in elegance and clearness, in a.n.a.lysis of characters. Thus does the work of George Sand change from a personal lyricism, in which the emotions, held in check during a solitary and dreamy youth, burst forth in brilliant and pa.s.sionate fiction, to a theoretical, systematic novel, finally reverting to the first efforts, but tempered by experience and age.
M. d'Haussonville says that in the strict sense of the word George Sand had no doctrines, but possessed a powerful imagination that manifested itself at various periods of her life. Whatever the principles might have been at first, they were made concrete under a sentiment with her, for her heart was her first inspiration, her teacher in all things. The ideas are thus a.n.a.lyzed through her sentiments under a threefold inspiration,--love, pa.s.sion for humanity, sentiment for Nature.
According to other novels, love is the unique affair of life; without love we do not really live, before love enters life we do not live, and after we cease to love there is no object in life. This love comes directly from G.o.d, of whom George Sand had ideas peculiar to herself.
The majority of her characters have a sort of mystic, exalted love, looking upon it as a sacred right, making of themselves great priests rather than genuine human lovers. This love, issuing from G.o.d, is sacred; therefore, the yielding to it is a pious act; he who resists commits sacrilege, while he who blames others for it is impious; for love legitimizes itself by itself. Such a theory naturally led her to a sensual ideality, and her heroes rose to the highest phase of fatalism and voluptuousness; this impelled her to protest against the social laws. Jacques says:
”I do not doubt at all that marriage will be abolished if humankind makes any progress toward justice and reason; a bond more human and none the less sacred will replace this one and will take care of the children which may issue from a man and woman, without ever interfering with the liberty of either. But men are too coa.r.s.e and women are too cowardly to ask for a law more n.o.ble than the iron law which binds them--beings without conscience--and virtue must be burdened with heavy chains.”
<script>