Germaine de Staël, daughter of minister Necker, was one of the great intellectual voices of her era. A novelist, essayist, and salon hostess, she stood up to Napoleon, who exiled her, and helped introduce German Romanticism to France with her work *De l'Allemagne*.
Madame de Staël(1766 — 1817)
Germaine de Staël
royaume de France, république de Genève
10 min read
Frequently asked questions
Famous Quotes
« Love is the whole history of a woman's life; it is but an episode in a man's.»
« Glory itself can only be valued by those who are capable of deserving it.»
Key Facts
- 1788: publishes her *Letters on the Works and Character of J.-J. Rousseau*, her first widely noticed essay
- 1800: *On Literature Considered in Its Relationship with Social Institutions*, a landmark work of late Enlightenment thought
- 1802–1810: exiled on several occasions by Napoleon Bonaparte, who regarded her as a political enemy
- 1807: publication of *Corinne, or Italy*, a novel that achieved resounding success across Europe
- 1813: *De l'Allemagne* is published in London, introducing German Romanticism into French culture
Works & Achievements
Madame de Staël's first published essay, written at the age of twenty-two, which pays tribute to Rousseau while asserting her own style. This text immediately reveals her ability to combine literary analysis with moral commitment.
A foundational essay that analyses for the first time the links between a national literature and its historical, political, and social context. This book inaugurates a comparative and sociological approach to literature, anticipating the sociology of culture.
An epistolary novel tracing the life of a free-spirited woman in a society that condemns her. The scandal of its publication directly provoked the first exile imposed by Napoleon, who saw in it an attack on the conservative values of the Empire.
A novelistic masterpiece that swept across Europe and was translated into numerous languages. Through the figure of Corinne, an improvisational poetess, Madame de Staël champions feminine genius, artistic freedom, and the Romantic ideal against social mediocrity.
A major work of European Romanticism that introduces French readers to German philosophy and literature (Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Schlegel). This book laid the theoretical foundations of Romanticism as a break with Classicism, and was censored and destroyed by Napoleon before being published in London.
A major political synthesis published after her death, in which Madame de Staël analyses the French Revolution in light of the British experience. She defends a moderate constitutional liberalism against tyranny and demagoguery.
An autobiographical account of her exile imposed by Napoleon, from 1803 to 1814. Blending personal memoir with historical testimony, this book constitutes a unique document on Napoleonic Europe as seen by a resolute opponent.
Anecdotes
From the age of twelve, Germaine Necker attended her father's dinner parties — finance minister Jacques Necker — and joined in the conversations of the great minds of the era. The philosophers and encyclopedists who frequented her mother's salon noted her for the sharpness of her wit. This exceptional upbringing forged in her an insatiable intellectual curiosity.
Napoleon Bonaparte despised Madame de Staël to the point of having her under constant surveillance. After the publication of her book 'De la littérature' (1800), which magnificently ignored imperial glory, he ordered her to keep at least forty leagues from Paris. She replied with humor that she did not know how to measure distances in political units.
To escape Napoleonic surveillance, Madame de Staël undertook in 1812 a hair-raising flight from her château at Coppet in Switzerland all the way to Russia, then Sweden, before reaching England. This journey of several thousand kilometers, recounted in 'Ten Years of Exile', transformed her into a European symbol of resistance to tyranny.
Her salon at Coppet, on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, became during the Empire the gathering place for all those whom Napoleon persecuted or marginalized — Benjamin Constant, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Lord Byron, Sismondi. This circle of brilliant minds was nicknamed the 'Coppet Group', a true cradle of European Romanticism.
Madame de Staël was one of the first to introduce German literature and philosophy to the French. Her book 'De l'Allemagne', the fruit of several journeys across the Rhine, was entirely seized and destroyed by the imperial police in 1810 before it could even go on sale. It was only published in London in 1813, immediately becoming a major intellectual event.
Primary Sources
The poetry of the ancients is purer as art, that of the moderns draws more tears. [...] We must embrace Romantic literature, not as imitation, but as a national source.
Bonaparte could not bear that there existed in France an independent woman. [...] My only crime in his eyes was having refused to submit.
The perfectibility of the human species is not a vain idea. Political freedom and intellectual freedom share the same source and mutually sustain each other.
I have never dealt in my writings with anything but general questions of literature and morality. [...] If you judge that my presence in France is harmful, I will submit to your authority on this matter.
Glory itself — that glory I have so long desired — what is it, if it can do nothing for happiness? A noise, a commotion, from which the soul grows weary.
Key Places
Madame de Staël's main residence on the shores of Lake Geneva, inherited from her father in 1804. This château became the centre of the 'Coppet Group', a European intellectual and Romantic circle that brought together Benjamin Constant, Sismondi, August Wilhelm Schlegel, and many exiles fleeing Napoleon.
Her famous Parisian salon, frequented during the Directory and the Consulate by the most brilliant figures of French political and intellectual life. It was here that she crossed paths with Napoleon Bonaparte and built her liberal network of influence.
During her travels in Germany (1803–1804), Madame de Staël stayed in Weimar, where she met Goethe and Schiller. These exchanges deeply informed 'De l'Allemagne' and her thinking on Romanticism as an alternative to French classical aesthetics.
Italy forms the backdrop of 'Corinne, or Italy' (1807), a novel that lastingly transformed how Europeans viewed the peninsula. Her Italian stays revealed to Madame de Staël a conception of art and freedom at odds with the rigidity of the Napoleonic Empire.
A stage in her great flight of 1812, Saint Petersburg allowed her to meet Tsar Alexander I, a natural ally against Napoleon. She was received with the honours due to a great European intellectual and found in the Russian court support for her liberal cause.
The refuge of her final exile (1813–1814), London allowed her to publish 'De l'Allemagne', which Napoleon had censored in France. She was welcomed in triumph by British society and was free to openly champion her liberal and Romantic ideas.
Liens externes & ressources
Références
Œuvres
Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caractère de J.-J. Rousseau
1788
De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales
1800
Corinne ou l'Italie
1807
De l'Allemagne
1813 (écrit en 1810)
Considérations sur les principaux événements de la Révolution française
1818 (posthume)
Dix années d'exil
1818 (posthume)
