A Literary Pilgrimage Among the Haunts of Famous British Authors Part 9

As we wander through the rooms, waking the echoes and viewing the souvenirs of the ill.u.s.trious dead, as we ponder their lives, their aims, their works, it seems, amid the vivid a.s.sociations of the place, to require no supernal effort of the fancy to repeople it with the brilliant company who were wont to a.s.semble here. Of these apartments, the salon, from whose wall looks down the portrait of Corinna, will longest hold the pilgrim. It was the throne-room of this court: here resorted a throng of the best and n.o.blest minds, _litterateurs_, scientists, men of largest thought, of highest rank. Here Recamier was a frequent guest: yonder mirror, with its multipanes framed in gilt metal, often reflected her lovely face. In this room she danced for the delight of de Stael her famous gavotte, which had transported the _beau monde_ of Paris, and was rewarded by its celebration in "Corinne." Some who came to this court remained as residential guests: for fifteen years Sismondi worked here upon his "Literature of Southern Europe," etc.; here the sage Bonstetten wrote many of his twenty-five volumes; here Schlegel, the great critic of his age, who is commemorated in "Corinne"

as Castel-Forte, was installed for twelve years and prepared his works on dramatic literature; here Werner, author of "Luther," "Wanda," etc., wrote much of his mystic poetry; here the Danish national poet composed his n.o.blest tragedies, "Correggio" being a souvenir of Coppet; here Constant penned many dramas. Among the frequenters of this salon were Madame de Saussure, famous for her books on education; Frederica Brun, with her daughter Ida who is imaged in "Allemagne;" Sir Humphry and Lady Davy, the latter being the realization of "Corinne;" Madame de Krudener, author of "Valerie," from whom Delphine was mainly drawn; Barante the critic; Dumont, editor of Jeremy Bentham. Of those who came less often were Cuvier, Gibbon, Ritter, Lacretelle, Mirabeau, Houghton, Brougham, Ampere, Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, Montmorency, Wynona, Tieck, Muller, Candolle, de Sergey, Prince Augustus, and scores of others.

[Sidenote: Literary Court and Courtiers]

This room, where that galaxy a.s.sembled, has witnessed the most wonderful intellectual _seances_ of the century. We may imagine something of the brilliancy of an a.s.sembly of such minds presided over by de Stael,--what gayety, what coruscations of wit, what displays of wisdom, what keenness of discussion were not possible to such a circle! For some time religious tenets were frequently under consideration. Every shade of belief, doubt, and agnosticism had its defenders in the company.

Sismondi was corresponding with Channing of Boston, whose views he espoused, and the arrival of each letter caused the renewal of the argument in which de Stael was the princ.i.p.al advocate of the spiritual motive of Christianity as against a system of mere well-doing. All questions of literature, art, ethics, philosophy, politics, were considered here by the most capable minds of the age, the discussions being oft prolonged into the night. But that there may be too much even of a good thing is navely confessed by Bonstetten, one of the lights of these _seances_, in his letters: "I feel tired by surfeit of intellect: there is more mind expended at Coppet in a day than in many countries in a year, but I am half dead." Scintillant converse was interspersed with music from the old harpsichord in yonder corner,--touched by fingers that now are dust,--with recitations and reading of MSS. It was the habit of de Stael to read to the circle, for their criticism, what she had written during the morning, and to discuss the subsequent chapters. Guests who were writing at the chateau then read their compositions--Bonstetten's "Latium" often put the company to sleep--and eagerly sought de Stael's suggestions; "the lesser lights were glad to borrow warmth and l.u.s.tre from the central sun."

Chateauvieux declares, "She formed my mental character; for twenty years my sentiments were founded upon hers." Sismondi says, "She determined my literary career; her good sense guided my pen." Bonstetten, Schlegel, Werner, and others bear similar testimony to the value of her counsel.

[Sidenote: Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, etc.]

The place was never more animated than in the last summer of her life, when Byron and Sh.e.l.ley used to cross the lake to join the circle in this room. De Stael had met Byron in London during the ephemeral "Byron-madness," and now, in his social exile, her doors were freely open to him: his letters testify "she made Coppet as agreeable as society and talent can make any place on earth." Here he first saw "Glenarvon," a venomous attack upon him which seems to have served no purpose save to ill.u.s.trate the aphorism about "a woman scorned," its auth.o.r.ess having been notoriously importunate for Byron's favor, even attempting, it was said, to enter his apartments in male attire. In this salon Mrs. Hervey, the novelist, feigned to faint at Byron's approach: from the balcony outside these windows, where de Stael and her father stood and saw Napoleon's army cross the Swiss frontier, Byron looked upon the scene which inspired some of his divinest stanzas. The chateau was a busy place in those years: a guest writes from here, "In every corner one is at a literary task; de Stael is writing 'Exile,' Auguste and Constant a tragedy, Sabran an opera, Sismondi his 'Republics,'

Bonstetten a philosophy, and Rocca his 'Spanish War.'"

One n.o.ble chamber hung with dim tapestries is that erst occupied by Recamier: it had before been the sick-room of Madame Necker and the scene of her husband's loving care of her, which de Stael so touchingly records. The chamber of de Stael is near by, its windows overlooking her sepulchre: here she wrote the books which made her fame; here she instructed her children, their Sabbath lessons being from the devout treatises of her father and a Kempis's "Imitation of Christ," the book she read in her own dying hours. A smaller room, looking out upon the park, the terraces of Jura, and the white walls of Lausanne, was shared by Constant and Bonstetten. In the tower above have been found letters written by Gibbon to his _fiancee_, who became the mother of de Stael: they have been published by the grandson of de Stael, and show that the conduct of the great "Decliner and Faller" toward the then poor girl was thoroughly selfish and unscrupulous.

[Sidenote: Tomb of Necker and de Stael]

The rooms are renovated and the place is offered for rent, but nothing is destroyed. The formal park at the side of the chateau is little changed: along yonder wooded aisle and upon this _allee_ between prim patches of sward the de Stael walked with her guests in the summers of long ago; upon the seat beneath this coppice, beside this placid pool, or on the margin of yonder brooklet from the top of Jura, they lingered in brilliant converse till the stars came out one by one above the darkening mountains. These--the mute, soulless inanimates--remain, while the ill.u.s.trious company that quickened and glorified them all has vanished from human ken. Some rods distant from the chateau, shaded by a sombre grove and bounded by a h.o.a.ry wall, is the picturesque chapel in which Necker is laid with his wife, to whose tomb he, for many years, daily came to pray. In the same crypt the mortal part of de Stael rests at his feet; the portal was walled up at her burial and eye hath not since seen her sepulchre. A stone which marks the grave of her son Auguste, and lies on the threshold of that sealed portal, is fittingly inscribed, "Why seek ye the living among the dead?"

Beyond the closed gate we pause for a parting view of the scene, now flooded with suns.h.i.+ne, and as we leave the place we carry thence that resplendent vision embalmed in a memory that will abide with us forever.

As I write these closing lines I see again that summer sky, cloudless save for the fleece floating above Jura like that which the bereaved Necker fancied was bearing the soul of his wife to paradise. I see again the glimmering water; the mountains with their tiaras of snow, sending back the sunbeams from their s.h.i.+ning peaks like reflections from the pearly gates that enclose the Celestial City; and, amid this sublime beauty, the gleaming sycamores that sway above the tomb of "the incomparable Corinna."