STAËL-HOLSTEIN, ANNE LOUISE GERMAINE NECKER, BARONNE DE
(1766–1817)

Anne Louise Germaine Necker Baronne de Staël-Holstein, the French novelist and essayist, was born in Paris, the daughter of Suzanne Curchot and Jacques Necker, finance minister to Louis XVI. In 1786 she married Eric Magnus, baron of Stäel-Holstein, the Swedish ambassador to France, from whom she separated in 1797. In the year of her marriage she published her first novel, Sophie, and four years later a tragedy, Jeanne Grey.

Her interest in philosophy began with a study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose fervent admirer she remained throughout her life. She incurred the hostility of Napoleon Bonaparte both by her frank criticism and by her liberalism, and her advocacy of a constitutional monarchy led to her being exiled in 1802. She made her first trip to Germany at this time, a trip that was the occasion of her book De l'Allemagne. This work was sent to the printer in 1810, but it was condemned by the censor and did not appear until 1813. After years of traveling, Mme. de Staël returned to Paris, where she remained until her death.

The philosophical ideas of Mme. de Staël are to be found mainly in two books, De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales (1800) and De l'Allemagne. In the former she attempted to show the influence of religion, morals, and laws on literature and that of literature upon religion, morals, and laws. This book presupposed the perfectibility of man, as Mme. de Staël admitted, but human progress was not automatic; to come into being it required the constant and deliberate aid of education (les lumières ), which could be provided only through literature. A second premise was that of national characters, the Greek being given to art, emulation, and amusement; the Roman, to dignity, gravity of speech, and rational deliberation. Later she contrasted the Northerner and the Southerner, in De l'Allemagne exemplified respectively by the German and the Frenchman. Nevertheless, there is nowhere in Mme. de Staël's writings the notion of national souls or collective spirits (Geister ). People to her were individuals, and whatever community of interests and talents they showed was to be attributed to the influence of other individuals.

Mme. de Staël never questioned the absolute value of personal liberty. This belief she attributed to Protestantism, her family religion. To her, Protestantism rested on the principle of personal interpretation, and the source of one's convictions was to be looked for in the heart, just as it was in the teachings of Rousseau's Savoyard vicar. She held that individual differences in temperament were irreconcilable, and believed that only statistics could help a statesman solve his people's ethical problems. It may have been this firmly rooted idea that made her fear the natural scientist as the tool of despots. The scientist, who rejects everything that cannot be reduced to mathematics, is always willing to pursue his own ends, regardless of the vital interests of his fellow men.

The chief contribution of De l'Allemagne to philosophy was that it acquainted Mme. de Staël's countrymen with the works of Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich von Schelling, and Friedrich Schlegel. She presented their ideas simply and sketchily but on the whole correctly. In this way she helped break the hold that the sensationalism of the school of Étienne Bonnot de Condillac had had upon the French. Mme. de Staël wrote no book that can be considered as technical philosophy, but she represents the mind that has absorbed a philosophy as a technique of thinking and as a corrective to authoritarianism.

Bibliography

works by mme. de staËl

Lettres sur les ouvrages et le charactère de J.-J. Rousseau. Paris, 1788.

De l'influence des passions sur le bonheur. 2 vols. Lausanne, 1796. A defense of reason as a critical agent.

De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales. Paris, 1800.

De l'Allemagne. 3 vols. London, 1813.

Oeuvres complètes, 17 vols. Paris, 1820–1821.

works on mme. de staËl

Blennerhasset, Charlotte. Frau von Staël, ihre Freunde und ihre Bedeutung in Politik und Literatur. 3 vols. Berlin: Gebrüder Paetel, 1887–1889. Translated by J. E. Gordon Cumming as Mme. de Staël, Her Friends and Her Influence on Politics and Literature. London: Chapman and Hall, 1889.

Gautier, Paul. Mme. de Staël et Napoléon. Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1903.

Herold, J. Christopher. Mme. de Staël, Mistress to an Age. Indianapolis, 1958. A popular but well-documented biography.

Ollion, E. Les idées philosophiques morales et pedagogiques de Mme. de Staël. Mâcon, 1910. Thesis.

George Boas (1967)