Ten Years' Exile by Baronne de Stael-Holstein and Anne Louise Germaine Necker


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(* Les Oeuvres completes de Madame la Baronne de Stael, publiees par
son Fils. Precedees d'une notice sur le caractere et les ecrits de
Madame de Stael, par Madame Necker de Saussure. Paris, 17 vols. 8vo.
and 17 vols. in 12mo.)

The title of TEN YEARS' EXILE, is that of which the authoress
herself made choice; I have deemed it proper to retain it, although
the work, being unfinished, comprises only a period of seven years.
The narrative begins in 1800, two years previous to my mother's
first exile, and stops at 1804, after the death of M. Necker. It
recommences in 1810, and breaks off abruptly at her arrival in
Sweden, in the autumn of 1812. Between the first and second part of
these Memoirs there is therefore an interval of nearly six years. An
explanation of this will be found in a faithful statement of the
manner in which they were composed.

I will not anticipate my mother's narrative of the persecution to
which she was subjected during the imperial government: that
persecution, equally mean and cruel, forms the subject of the
present publication, the interest of which I should only weaken. It
will be sufficient for me to remind the reader, that after having
exiled her from Paris, and subsequently sent her out of France,
after having suppressed her work on Germany with the most arbitrary
caprice, and made it impossible for her to publish anything, even on
subjects wholly unconnected with politics; that government went so
far as to make her almost a prisoner in her own residence, to forbid
her all kind of travelling, and to deprive her of the pleasures of
society and the consolations of friendship. It was while she was in
this situation that my mother began her Memoirs, and one may readily
conceive what must have been at that time the disposition of her
mind.

During the composition of the work, the hope of one day giving it to
the world scarcely presented itself in the most distant futurity.
Europe was still bent to that degree under the yoke of Napoleon,
that no independent voice could make itself be heard: on the
Continent the press was completely chained, and the most rigorous
measures excluded every work printed in England. My mother
thought less, therefore, of composing a book, than of preserving the
traces of her recollections and ideas. Along with the narrative of
circumstances personal to herself, she incorporated with it various
reflections which were suggested to her, from the beginning of
Bonaparte's power, by the state of France, and the progress of
events. But if the printing such a work would at that time have
been an act of unheard of temerity, the mere act of writing it
required a great deal of both courage and prudence, particularly in
the position in which she was placed. My mother had every reason to
believe that all her movements were narrowly watched by the police:
the prefect who had replaced M. de Barante at Geneva, pretended to
be acquainted with every thing that passed in her house, and the
least pretence would have been sufficient to induce them to possess
themselves of her papers. She was obliged therefore, to take the
greatest precautions. Scarcely had she written a few pages, when she
made one of her most intimate friends transcribe them, taking care
to substitute for the proper names those of persons taken from the
history of the English Revolution. Under this disguise she carried
off her manuscript, when in 1812 she determined to withdraw herself
by flight from the rigors of a constantly increasing persecution.

On her arrival in Sweden, after having travelled through Russia, and
narrowly escaped the French armies advancing on Moscow, my mother
employed herself in copying out fairly the first part of her
Memoirs, which, as I have already mentioned, goes no farther than
1804. But prior to continuing them in the order of time, she wished
to take advantage of the moment, during which her recollections were
still strong, to give a narrative of the remarkable circumstances of
her flight, and of the persecution which had rendered that step in a
manner a duty. She resumed, therefore, the history of her life at
the year 1810, the epoch of the suppression of her work on Germany,
and continued it up to her arrival at Stockholm in 1812: from that
was suggested the title of Ten Years' Exile. This explains also,
why, in speaking of the imperial government, my mother expresses
herself sometimes as living under its power, and at other times, as
having escaped from it.

Finally, after she had conceived the plan of her Considerations
on the French Revolution, she extracted from the first part of Ten
Years Exile, the historical passages and general reflections which
entered into her new design, reserving the individual details for
the period when she calculated on finishing the memoirs of her life,
and when she flattered herself with being able to name all the
persons of whom she had received generous proofs of friendship,
without being afraid of compromising them by the expressions of her
gratitude.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Thu 28th Mar 2024, 14:34