that she opposed Napoléon and his glory throughout Europe!
In discussing literature, Mme de Staël meant also to talk about politics. But with De l’Allemagne, she offered to publicize new ideas that came from Germany. She undertook a first trip there in 1803-1804 through Weimar, Leipzig, Berlin, encountering great writers and intellectuals like
Goethe and Schiller, hiring Wilhelm Schlegel—who remained a friend until his death—as governor to her children. A few years later in 1808, another trip led her to Vienna, to better grasp German society. Seven years in the making, this work, De l’Allemagne, is of remarkable intellectual strength. Finally published in 1813, it became the source material for a whole generation to discover the new ideas of the German philosophers, allowing access to exclusive texts in French, taking hold of new themes, thus breaking with classicism; following new pathways opened by De l’Allemagne, those ideas impose a new movement in France: ROMANTICISM. — —
This famous "pursuit of happiness" advocated by
Madame de Staël, that she hoped to obtain by law, along with a "more just" society, now was being claimed and carried on by the next generation.
I did not really mention the private life of Madame de Staël, the mother with children so close, whose education she oversaw personally, this lover as much in the head as in the heart (five children with four different men, and a second husband 22 years younger), a valuable and faithful friend, but it will be, perhaps, for an upcoming issue of Ceres Magazine…
(*1) Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) was a great French Economist, politician and diplomat between France and
the United States where he invested. He was naturalized American. His son, Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, founded E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, the American conglomerate gunpowder mill, in July 1802.
(*2) James-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont (1760-1840) was an advisor who served as
an intermediary for wealthy French people, such as Necker and Mme de Staël, to invest
in land in the US. He speculated heavily on
ROMANTICISM
Title page of Madame de Staël’s De l'Allemagne, 1813. Phot credit: Unknown.
De L'Allemagne, 3 volumes, period marbled boards, paper labels on spines lettered by hand. Third French Edition. First published in 1810 in an edition of 10,000 copies, all but apparently 5 of which where destroyed by order of Napoleon. Published by J.J. Paschoudin in Paris in 1814. Photo credit: PBA Galleries.
55 | Ceres Magazine | Spring 2016