Corinne; or, Italy. Madame de Staël

      Published by Good Press, 2019

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      EAN 4057664634290

Table of Contents

       CORINNE

       OSWALD.

       CORINNE AT THE CAPITOL.

       CORINNE.

       ROME.

       THE TOMBS, CHURCHES, AND PALACES.

       ON ITALIAN CHARACTER AND MANNERS.

       ITALIAN LITERATURE.

       THE STATUES AND PICTURES.

       ON THE CARNIVAL, AND ITALIAN MUSIC.

       PASSION WEEK.

       NAPLES, AND THE HERMITAGE OF ST. SALVADOR.

       HISTORY OF LORD NEVIL.

       VESUVIUS, AND THE CAMPAGNA OF NAPLES.

       HISTORY OF CORINNE.

       THE ADIEU TO ROME, AND JOURNEY TO VENICE.

       PARTING AND ABSENCE.

       CORINNE IN SCOTLAND.

       THE SOJOURN AT FLORENCE.

       OSWALD'S RETURN TO ITALY.

       CONCLUSION.

      Translator's Preface.

      Whatever defects may exist in my attempt at rendering "Corinne" into English, be it remembered, that we have many words for one meaning—in French there are several significations for the same word. Repetition, an elegance in French, is a barbarism in English. Thus I had to contend with a tautology almost unmanageable, and even a reiteration of the same sentiments. Sentences, harmonious in French, lost all agreeable cadence, until entirely reconstructed. Madame de Staël's diffuse manner obliged me also to transpose pretty freely. I found, in so doing, many self-contradictions, some of which I could not efface. Her boldness of condensation, too, and love of vague, mysterious sublimity, often left me in doubt as to what might be hidden beneath the dazzling veil of her eloquence. It may appear profanation to have altered a syllable; but, having been accustomed to consult the taste of my own country, I could not outrage it by being more literal. I have taken the liberty of making British peasants and children speak their native idiom, and have added a few explanatory notes; occasionally availing myself of quotations from more recent authorities than that of the Baroness. Lest I should unconsciously have committed any great mistake, be it known that the printers of her "eighth corrected and revised edition" gave Corinne a military instead of a literary career, and made the Roman mob throw handfuls of bon mots into the carriages during the carnival.

      Miss Landon had kindly undertaken to render the lyric portions of the work; but we feared for awhile, that our own Improvisatrice would be prevented by circumstances from gracing the volume by her name. I, therefore, translated Corinne's compositions into rhyme. Only one of my essays, however, "The Fragment of Corinne's Thoughts," was required. I am conscious of its imperfect regularity; but, having no poetical reputation at stake, I throw myself on the mercy of my judges.

      ISABEL HILL.

      6, CECIL STREET, STRAND.

      MADAME DE STAËL.

      Madame de Staël—Her Infancy and Education—Her Marriage—Her Personal Appearance—The Revolution—Her First Meeting and Conversation with Bonaparte—Interview with Josephine—Her Portrait and Character—Her Repartees—Exile—Delphine—Auguste de Staël and Napoleon—Private Theatricals—Corinne—Police Interference—Travels in Foreign Countries—Her Illness and Death—Effect of Napoleon's Persecution upon the Literary Position of Madame de Staël.

      Jacques Necker, the father of Madame de Staël, a Genevese and a Protestant, was at the birth of his daughter Annie-Louise-Germaine Necker, in 1766, a clerk in a banking-house at Paris. He had married M'lle Curchod, a Swiss like himself, and who had, some years before, been the object of the first and last love of Gibbon the historian. Madame Necker undertook the education of Louise, plied her with books and tasks, and introduced her, even in infancy, to her own circle of brilliant and accomplished men. "At the age of eleven," writes a lady who was at the time her companion, "she spoke with a warmth and facility which were already eloquent. In society she talked but little, but so animated was her face that she appeared to converse with all. Every guest at her mother's house addressed her with some compliment or polite speech; she replied with ease and grace." She was encouraged to write, and her youthful productions were read in public, and some of them were even printed. This process of education, while it rendered the subject of it rather brilliant than profound, and encouraged vanity and a love of display, broke down her health, and the physicians ordered her to retire to the country, and to renounce all mental application. Her mother, disappointed and discouraged, ceased to take the same interest in her talents and progress; this indifference led Louise to attach herself more closely to her father, and developed in her what became through life her ruling passion—filial affection.

      In 1776, Necker, who had in the meantime become the partner of his late employer, and had attracted attention by an essay on the corn laws, was considered by the masses as the only person capable of saving the country from bankruptcy. He was, therefore, appointed to control the finances, being the first Protestant who had held office since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. One of his acts, five years afterward, having excited clamor among the royalists, an anonymous pamphlet appeared, in which his defence was warmly espoused and the propriety of his conduct successfully asserted. Necker detected his daughter's style in this production, and she acknowledged its authorship, being then fifteen years old. Necker resigned office, and retreated with his family to Coppet, on the borders of the Lake of Geneva.

Madame de Genlis saw M'lle Necker for the first time, when the latter was sixteen. She thus speaks of her in her memoirs: "This young lady was not pretty; her manner was very animated, and she talked a great deal, too much indeed, though always with wit and discernment. I remember that I read one of my juvenile plays to Madame Necker, her daughter being present. I cannot describe the enthusiasm and the demonstrations of M'lle Louise, while I was reading. She wept, she uttered exclamations at every page, and constantly kissed my hands. Her mother had done wrong in allowing her to pass three-quarters of her time with the throng of wits who continually surrounded her, and who held dissertations with her upon love and the passions."[1]

      At the age of twenty, Louise married Baron de Staël-Holstein, the Swedish ambassador at the court of France. She sought neither a lover nor a friend in her husband; she treated marriage as a convenience, and became a wife in order to obtain that liberty and independence which were denied her as a young lady. She required that her husband should be noble and a Protestant, and as in addition to these essentials Baron de Staël was an agreeable and an honorable man, and engaged never to compel her to follow him to Sweden, she consented to marry him. In the same year, 1786, a failure of the crops, and the consequent distress of the poorer classes, compelled the king to recall Necker to the administration of the finances.

      Madame de Staël is thus described, at the age of twenty-five, by a writer who, to justify the peculiar and oriental extravagance of his style, assumed the character of a Greek poet: "Zulmé advances; her large dark eyes sparkle with genius; her