"ugly, and not of an intellectual ugliness. Her features were coa.r.s.e, and the ordinary expression rather vulgar, she had an ugly mouth, and one or two irregularly prominent teeth, which perhaps gave her countenance an habitual gaiety. Her eye was full, dark, and expressive; and when she declaimed, which was almost whenever she spoke, she looked eloquent, and one forgot that she was plain."
Madame de Stael
"did not affect to conceal her preference for the society of men to that of her own s.e.x,"
and was entirely above, or below, studying the feminine arts of pleasing. In 1802 Miss Berry called on her in Paris.
"Found her in an excessively dirty "cabinet"--sofa singularly so; her own dress, a loose spencer with a bare neck"
("Journal", vol. ii. p. 145). A similar experience is mentioned by Crabb Robinson ("Diary", 1804).
"On the 28th of January," he writes, "I first waited on Madame de Stael. I was shown into her bedroom, for which, not knowing Parisian customs, I was unprepared. She was sitting, most decorously, "in"
her bed, and writing. She had her night-cap on, and her face was not made up for the day. It was by no means a captivating spectacle; but I had a very cordial reception, and two bright black eyes smiled benignantly on me."
Of her political opinions Sir John Bowring ("Autobiographical Recollections", pp. 375, 376) has left a sketch.
"Madame de Stael was a perfect aristocrat, and her sympathies were wholly with the great and prosperous. She saw nothing in England but the luxury, stupidity, and pride of the Tory aristocracy, and the intelligence and magnificence of the Whig aristocracy. These latter talked about truth, and liberty and herself, and she supposed it was all as it should be. As to the millions, the people, she never inquired into their situation. She had a horror of the "canaille", but anything of "sangre asul" had a charm for her. When she was dying she said, "Let me die in peace; let my last moments be undisturbed." Yet she ordered the cards of every visitor to be brought to her. Among them was one from the Duc de Richelieu.
"What!" exclaimed she indignantly, "What! have you sent away the "Duke"? Hurry! Fly after him. Bring him back. Tell him that, though I die for all the world, I live for "him".""
Napoleon"s hatred of her was intense. "Do not allow that jade, Madame de Stael," he writes to Fouche, December 31, 1806 ("New Letters of Napoleon I.", p. 35), "to come near Paris." Again, March 15, 1807 ("ibid.", p.
39), "You are not to allow Madame de Stael to come within forty leagues of Paris. That wicked schemer ought to make up her mind to behave herself at last." In a third letter, April 19, 1807 ("ibid.", p. 40), he speaks of her as "paying court, one day to the great--a patriot, a democrat, the next!... a fright, ... a worthless woman" (Leon Lecestre"s "Lettres inedites de Napoleon I"er", 2nd ed. vol. i. pp. 84, 88, 93).]
[Footnote 2:
"Old Gardner the bookseller employed Rolt and Smart to write a monthly miscellany called the "Universal Visitor". There was a formal written contract, which Allen the printer saw.... They were bound to write nothing else; they were to have, I think, a third of the profits of his sixpenny pamphlet; and the contract was for ninety-nine years"
(Boswell"s "Life of Dr. Johnson", ed. Birrell, vol. iii. p. 192).]
[Footnote 3:
"But first the Monarch, so polite, Ask"d Mister Whitbread if he"d be a "Knight".
Unwilling in the list to be enroll"d, Whitbread contemplated the Knights of "Peg", Then to his generous Sov"reign made a leg, And said, "He was afraid he was "too old","" etc.
Peter Pindar"s "Instructions to a Laureat".]
306.--To the Hon. Augusta Leigh.
4, Bennet Street, June 26th, 1813.
MY DEAREST AUGUSTA,--Let me know when you arrive, and when, and where, and how, you would like to see me,--any where in short but at _dinner_.
I have put off going into ye country on purpose to _waylay_ you.
Ever yours, Byron
307.--To the Hon. Augusta Leigh.
[June, 1813.]
MY DEAREST AUGUSTA,--And if you knew _whom_ I had put off besides my journey--you would think me grown strangely fraternal. However I won"t overwhelm you with my _own praises_.
Between one and two be it--I shall, in course, prefer seeing you all to myself without the inc.u.mbrance of third persons, even of _your_ (for I won"t own the relationship) fair cousin of _eleven page_ memory [1], who, by the bye, makes one of the finest busts I have seen in the Exhibition, or out of it. Good night!
Ever yours, BYRON.
P.S.--Your writing is grown like my Attorney"s, and gave me a qualm, till I found the remedy in your signature.
[Footnote 1: "Letters", vol. i. p. 54 [end of Footnote 3 of Letter 13.], Lady Gertrude Howard married, in 1806, William Sloane Stanley, and died in 1870.]
308.--To the Hon. Augusta Leigh.