![STAËL-HOLSTEIN, Anne-Louise-Germaine, Baronne de (1776-1817). Autograph manuscript of De l'Allemagne, n.p. [Coppet], n.d. [1808-1809], the first draft of her most important work, inscribed in autograph in the upper margin of the first page, '1ère section Lettres sur l'Allemagne'; the subtitle, 'De l'Allemagne et des allemands Observations générales', and the first 28 lines of text written in the hand of an amanuensis with autograph corrections; the remainder of the manuscript entirely in autograph; including Madame de Staël's original chapter numberings and headings, and corrections, cancellations, revisions and numerous variants of the later manuscripts and the published text; written in ink on recto and verso in 18 gatherings (cahiers), 6 on light blue and 12 on ivory laid and watermarked paper, altogether approximately 1330 pages written on half-sheet 4to (sizes 230 x 180mm - 160 x 200mm), blank leaves (a few leaves cut away).](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/1998/CKS/1998_CKS_06055_0133_000(112213).jpg?w=1)
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STAËL-HOLSTEIN, Anne-Louise-Germaine, Baronne de (1776-1817). Autograph manuscript of De l'Allemagne, n.p. [Coppet], n.d. [1808-1809], the first draft of her most important work, inscribed in autograph in the upper margin of the first page, '1ère section Lettres sur l'Allemagne'; the subtitle, 'De l'Allemagne et des allemands Observations générales', and the first 28 lines of text written in the hand of an amanuensis with autograph corrections; the remainder of the manuscript entirely in autograph; including Madame de Staël's original chapter numberings and headings, and corrections, cancellations, revisions and numerous variants of the later manuscripts and the published text; written in ink on recto and verso in 18 gatherings (cahiers), 6 on light blue and 12 on ivory laid and watermarked paper, altogether approximately 1330 pages written on half-sheet 4to (sizes 230 x 180mm - 160 x 200mm), blank leaves (a few leaves cut away).
THE MANUSCRIPT OF MADAME DE STAËL'S MOST IMPORTANT WORK, IN WHICH SHE INTRODUCED GERMAN ROMANTICISM TO THE FRENCH
There are three manuscripts of De l'Allemagne. A critical edition based upon the manuscripts and including variants was published in 5 volumes in 1958-1960, by Comtesse Jean de Pange, with the assistance of Simone Balayé. The manuscripts are designated by Madame de Pange as A, B and C. Manuscript A, probably the earliest, is entirely in autograph. Manuscript B, also in autograph, is a revised version of A. Manuscript C is a copy of B (in the hand of Madame de Staël's amanuensis, Fanny Randall), including numerous autograph corrections and revisions. Both A and B are in 18 cahiers of unequal length and paper size, and there are numerous variants between the three manuscripts and between C and the published text. Ten of the cahiers in the present manuscript (listed below as 1-6, 8 and 10-12) are from Manuscipt A. The remaining eight (listed as 7, 9 and 13-18) include variant chapter headings and numberings identified by Madame de Pange as Manuscript B. A list of the contents of each cahier is given below.
The manuscript is written in Madame de Staël's often difficult hand, sometimes small and regular, elsewhere dense and sprawling. There is a frequent absence of capitals, accents or punctuation, and on some pages long revisions are inserted between lines of writing. Most of the chapters have headings and her original numberings.
Provenance. By descent to the present owner.
Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël, daughter of the Swiss banker Jacques Necker, who became minister and Director-General of Finance to Louis XVI, was precocious from early childhood. Formidably well read and heiress to one of the greatest fortunes in Europe, she was familiar from her mother's salon with the intellectual and social luminaries of the French capital. She was briefly and unhappily married to the Swedish ambassador to Paris, Baron Eric Magnus Staël von Holstein (d. 1802), by whom she had three children, but she followed Necker to his estate at Coppet outside Geneva on his resignation in 1790. During the early years of the Revolutionary period and the Directorate she was sometimes in France, sometimes in Switzerland, and in 1793 spent five months in England at Juniper Hall, presiding over a distinguished group of emigrés. She became increasingly influential through her writings and the brilliance of her salon in Paris, where Benjamin Constant was among the most frequent guests, and soon became her lover. As her early expectations that Napoleon would show himself a liberal were disappointed, and her disenchantment became increasingly ill-concealed, the First Consul began to perceive her as a dangerous intriguer, and in 1803 she was banished from within forty leagues of Paris.
Paradoxically, her exile from the capital was to inspire her most influential work, by prompting her journeys in 1803-1804 to Frankfurt, Weimar and Berlin, and in 1807-1808 to Munich and Vienna. In 1797 Madame de Staël knew no German, and only one chapter of De la littérature, her study of the relationship of literature to social institutions, published in 1800, is concerned with German writers. Her exploration of German literature and philosophy and the writing of De l'Allemagne had its origin in part in this earlier work. Her knowledge of the language progressed so that by the end of 1800 Wilhelm von Humboldt (whom she had met in Paris) could refer to it as passable. In 1803-1804 she met Goethe, Wieland and Schiller, also Fichte, Kotzbue, and Ludwig and Christian Friedrich Tieck, and notably August Wilhelm Schlegel, whom she persuaded to return with her to Coppet in April 1804 as tutor to her son. He was to remain part of her immediate circle until her death. With Schlegel's arrival her studies became more intense, culminating in her immersion in German literary and dramatic works during the winter of 1808-1809, while she worked on the first draft of De l'Allemagne.
From 1803-1808 Madame de Staël studied and made notes, and recorded her impressions when she travelled. At the same time she wrote plays for the entertainment of her circle at Coppet, and completed the novel, Corinne. It was after a brilliant five-month season in Vienna that on her return to Coppet she gave instructions for the stitching of the cahiers in which she would write the first draft of her new work. She announced in a letter of 8 July 1808 to the Prince de Ligne, 'J'ai déjà fait coudre un cahier pour mes lettres sur l'Allemagne et j'ai écrit dix lignes que je rélis avec une sorte de peur'.
Her original title, 'Lettres sur l'Allemagne', is inscribed on the first page of the present manuscript. The first 42 lines of her 'Observations générales', which introduce the work, although present in all three manuscripts, were abandoned for the publication, probably as being too likely to cause offence. In this passage she anticipates the enrichment of French writers from a study of German literature, with which she compares the uniformity of artistic creation and the stifling control of opinion in France, 'quand on est seulement entouré de voix qui vous repétent ce qui'il faut juger et sentir on a peur de tout ce qui diffère des autres en soi-même et l'on se hâte de se conformer à la discipline morale qui fait marcher des pensées comme des soldats bien alignés [...] Le but de cet écrit est de faire connoitre impartialement un pays de 30 millions d'hommes et le faire connoitre surtout dans ses rapports littéraires et philosophiques'.
The first part of the manuscript describes Germany and its people, and also Vienna; in the second, German literature is introduced in all its manifestations and contrasted with the rigidity of the French tradition; in the third, Madame de Staël discusses philosophy and morals, and the final chapters are devoted to religion and enthusiasm. The manuscript includes the earliest versions of all the chapters of the published work, originally planned in three parts. All the chapters were corrected and some later rewritten and reordered, or altered almost beyond recognition as the author's knowledge of her subject increased, and her arguments were developed. But the main themes of the final text are already present in this first draft.
In the key chapter entitled 'La poësie' (cahier 5) she sets out the theories dear to the New School of German Romanticism and central to her own view of individual freedom of expression. Her concept of poetry is mystical, 'La poësie est à la religion ce que le talent de peindre est à la nature. C'est la forme artiste que l'homme peut donner à ce culte interieure de l'âme qui existe dans tous les êtres restés enfants de Dieu mais qui tous n'ont pas le don de révéler par la parole'. She reveals for the first time in French the doctrines of Wilhelm Schlegel, as developed in his lectures in Vienna on dramatic art and literature (in 'De la poësie classique et de la poësie romantique', cahier 6), and quotes from Goethe, never before translated into French. The chapter entitled 'De l'art dramatique' (cahier 6) includes a long and later much reduced disquisition on tragedy and the three unities of the classical tradition, containing further criticism of French writers. 'Je crois pouvoir affirmer que les franais ne feront plus de nouveaux progrés dans l'art dramatique que s'ils ne donnent pas une direction nouvelle à leur rare sagacité [...] Il faut qu'ils deviennent conquérants dans la domaine de l'imagination. On dirait que ce conseil ne doit pas les coûter à suivre'.
The chapter to which Madame de Staël gave first the title 'Un héros allemand', later cancelling and amending it to 'Un héros de roman', exists only in the present manuscript (cahier 1). Her description of the perfect hero who must also embody the qualities necessary to save Germany was based on the young Austrian count, Maurice O'Donnell, with whom she enjoyed a romantic liaison in Vienna during the winter of 1807-1808. The resemblance was considered to be compromising. As she wrote to the Count on 27 July 1808, 'Schlegel prétend que l'idéal d'un allemand que j'ai écrit en parlant du plus parfait héros de roman vous ressemble à me faire du tort. Vous en jugerez'. The chapter was removed, and published for the first time only in the edition of 1958.
There are many passages in the text of De l'Allemagne which reflect Germaine de Staël's own experience, and perhaps none more than her famous and bitter lines on the relationship between men and women and the consequence of 'la gloire', or fame, in the chapter here entitled 'De la destinée des femmes' (cahier 16), and published as De l'amour dans le mariage. It opens, 'Le cristianisme a tiré les femmes d'un état qui ressemblait à l'esclavage. L'égalité devant Dieu étant la base de cette sublime religion elle tend à établir l'égalité des droits sur la terre [...] Cependant il a resté de l'esclavage des femmes des prejugés qui se combinant avec la grande liberté que la societé leur donne ont amené beaucoup de maux. Rien de plus naturel que d'exclure les femmes des affaires politiques et civiles; elles ne savent pas braver la mort, c'en est assez pour ne pas diriger la vie, et d'ailleurs rien n'est plus opposé a leur destination, que tout ce qui leur donnerait des rapports de rivalité avec les hommes, et la gloire elle même ne saurait être pour une femme que le deuil de bonheur, porté comme les rois avec les couleurs éclatantes. Mais si le sort d'une femme doit être d'aimer, de vivre pour ce qu'elle aime [...] il faut que cet amour de leur destinée ne soit point flétri par l'injuste opinion qui semble affranchir les hommes d'une fidelité scrupuleuse'.
The same cahier includes (in chapter 22) a passage defining her vision of an intellectual world that transcends national boundaries, 'Il reste encore une chose vraiment belle et dont l'ignorance ne peut jouir. C'est l'association de tous les hommes qui pensent d'un but de l'Europe à l'autre. Souvent ils ne se connaissent pas. Ils sont dispersés souvent à de grandes distances l'un de l'autre. Mais quand ils se rencontrent un mot suffit pour les lier ensemble'.
In De l'Allemagne Madame de Staël avoids direct criticism of Napoleon, but uses allegory, notably in her sketch of Attila, while apparently discussing Werner's play of that name ('Il a comme une sort de superstition de lui même. Il est un culte. Il croit en lui. Il se regarde comme l'instrument des décrets du ciel et cette conviction mêle un certain système d'equité à ses crimes').
Madame de Staël began to write the second manuscript of De l'Allemagne (now in the archives at Coppet) on 13 May 1809 (Isbell, page 222). The third, the copy in Fanny Randall's hand with autograph corrections, was sent to her publisher, Nicolle, in January 1810. On February 5 an Imperial decree established control of printing and publishing under the Minister of the Interior. Nicolle resolved to submit not the manuscript but the proofs to the censors, and Madame de Staël moved to Chaumont in order to examine them, and carried out the many changes exacted by the censorship. Meanwhile, as Simone Balayé has shown (in Le Dossier de la suppression de De l'Allemagne), the police provided the Emperor with daily bulletins on her activities and visitors, and proofs of the work sometimes reached Rovigo, the Minister of Police, even before the author had seen them. The work appeared to contain a dual message, the first addressed to the French, urging them to seek freedom, the second to the Germans, encouraging them to independence. It was impossible for Napoleon to ignore it.
In September 1810 the prefect of Blois, Corbigny, was ordered to recover from Madame de Staël the manuscript and proofs, and to have her move to Coppet, or to a port from which to sail to America (which she had contemplated doing). The police seized the plates, and the leaves of the first two volumes, of which 5,000 copies had been printed. No complete copy of the edition of 1810 has survived. At the moment that the orders were given for it to be pulped, the printing of the third volume had hardly begun. There are sets of proofs in the Bibliothèque Nationale, in the University of Vienna (a bequest from Friedrich Schlegel), and at Broglie. The latter, including the author's autograph amendments, was used for the London edition of 1813. It was saved from destruction in 1810 by Fanny Randall, with the connivance of Monsieur Corbigny, the sympathetic prefect of Blois. The destruction of the book filled Madame de Staël with grief - 'Cette nouvelle douleur me prit l'âme avec une grande force'.
When finally De l'Allemagne was published in London by John Murray in October 1813, the 1500 copies sold out in three days. Madame de Staël wrote to Schlegel, 'J'ai publié ce livre où tout vous rappelle à moi; l'edition a été enlevée en trois jours'. The first Paris edition was published on her return to France, in 1814. The end of the Napoleonic era meant that its political impact was ultimately greatly reduced. But from a literary point of view it was of the greatest significance. In Europe at large it was seen as the manifesto of the Romantic movement, whilst inspiring, in the France of the Restoration, a new and liberated world of intellectual and literary activity.
The contents of the manuscripts are as follows:
The 18 cahiers include Madame de Staël's original numberings and headings for many of the chapters. In the following list references to the corresponding chapters, where they exist, in the four parts of the published text are given in brackets in roman numerals. References to variant headings are taken from Madame de Pange's critical edition of the work (Paris 1958-1960, I-V).
1. Inscribed in autograph at the head '1ere section Lettres sur l'Allemagne' and in a different hand, 'De l'Allemagne et les Allemands Observations générales'. The first 42 lines (opening 'Je ne pense pas qu'on ait besoin de se mettre en garde contre d'anciennes plaisanteries quand on veut s'occuper de la nature, la littérature et la philosophie allemande') were suppressed for publication (Pange I, 13).
'2. de l'Allemagne et des allemands Difficultés du sujet' (Part I, 11)
'3. De la nature et des villes' (I, i)
'4. Des allemands' (I, ii)
'5. Les femmes' (I, iii)
'6. [Un héros allemand] Sur un héros de roman' (not repeated in Manuscripts B or C. Pange, I 93-97)
'7. L'Allemagne du midi' (I, v)
'8. L'Autriche' (I, vi)
'9. Vienne' (I, vii)
'10. Le mariage de l'empereur' (I, vii)
'11. La société' (I, viii)
On light blue paper, 96 pages, 228 x 180mm (notes for further themes scribbled on the last page).
2. Inscribed at the head '2d cahier', continuing her description of Viennese society, 'C'est une invention singulière de la mediocrité pour annuler toutes les facultés de l'esprit que cette exhibition ceremonielle de tous les individus les uns les autres ...'
'12. De l'imitation des franais' (I, ix)
'13. Entrée dans le nord de l'Allemagne' (I xiii)
'14. La Saxe' (I, xiv)
'15. Veimar [sic]' (I, xv)
'16. La Prusse' (I, xiv)
'17. Berlin' (I, xvii)
'18. De la langue allemande dans les rapports avec la conversation' (I, xii)
'19. Des universités allemandes'
On light blue paper, 96 pages, 228 x 180mm, (notes for future themes scribbled on the last page).
3. Inscribed at the head '3eme cahier', continuing from No. 2 ('Des universités allemandes')
'L'école de Pestalozzi' (I, xix)
'La fête d'Interlacken' (I, xx)
On light blue paper, 38 pages, 228 x 180mm, blank leaves (small tear in first leaf); and 3 bifolia of draft passages for Part I, loosely inserted.
4. Inscribed at the head 'Ier cahier, 2de section La littérature et les arts'
'1er chap. Pourquoi les franais ne comprennent pas la littérature allemande' (Part II, i)
'2eme chapitre. Motifs de jugement qu'on porte en angleterre sur la littérature allemande' (II, ii)
'3eme chapitre. Quand la littérature allemande a commencé' (II, iii)
'4eme chap. Vieland [sic]' (II, iv)
'5eme chapitre. Klopstock' (II, v)
'6eme chapitre. De la langue allemande' (II, ix)
On light blue paper, 70 pages, 234 x 195mm.
5. Inscribed at the head '2eme cahier de la 2de section'
'7eme chap. Theorie du beau [Winkelmann et Lessing]' (II, vi)
'8eme chapitre. Goethe' (II, vii)
'9eme. Schiller' (II, viii)
'10eme. La poësie', annotated in the margin 'La prose plus poétique en France dans le chap. de la langue' (II, x)
The last four pages include a discussion (without heading or number) of Herder.
On ivory paper, 56 pages, 255 x 190mm.
6. Inscribed at the head '2eme cahier de la 2de section'
'11eme chapitre. De la poésie classique et de la poésie romantique (II, xi)
'12eme chapitre. De la poésie allemande' (II, xii, xiii)
'13eme chapitre. De l'art dramatique' [II, xv)
'14eme chapitre. Des differents genres de pieces dramatiques en Allemagne' (II, xvi)
'15eme chapitre. Les drames Lessing' (II, xvi)
'16eme chapitre. Walstein et le c[om]te Egmont' (II, xviii and xxi)
On ivory paper, 86 pages, 250 x 200mm (one leaf attached by pins).
7. Without heading, continuing from No. 6 ('12eme chapitre - De la poësie allemande'), and including Madame de Staël's translation of a poem by August Wilhelm Schlegel ('La Melodie de la vie') (Pange, II, 212)
'14eme chapitre. Du goût' (this chapter was a later insertion, (Pange, II, 216)) (II, xiv)
On ivory paper, 69 pages, 255 x 200mm, 2 blank leaves.
8. '17eme chapitre. Les voleurs et Don Carlos de Shiller [sic]' continuing on 'Jeanne d'Arc' and other works by Schiller (Manuscript B title and variants in Pange, II, 274-275) (II, xvii-xx)
followed by a chapter (without heading and unnumbered) on Goethe, discussing 'Goetz von Berlichungen', 'Le comte d'Egmont', 'Iphigenie en Tauride', 'Faust', and Werner (II, xxi, xxiii)
On ivory paper, 71 pages, 255 x 205mm, the first four pages cut away, chapter headings and notes on the last four pages, blank leaves.
9. An incomplete chapter (lacking the first four paragraphs of the published text) discussing 'Guillaume Tell' (by Schiller), opening with a reference to the third act, 'Gessler a fair élever un bonnet sur une pique au milieu de la place publique avec ordre que tous les peuples le saluassent' (Pange, III, 9) (II, xx)
On ivory paper, 22 pages, 250 x 200mm, including four leaves written from the end (cancelled passages for other chapters).
10. Inscribed at the head '6eme cahier. 2eme section', including eight unnumbered chapters:
'Luther, Attila, les fils de la vallée, La croix sur la Baltique etc' (B variant title, Pange, III, 130) (II, xxiv)
'Diverses pieces de theatre' (II, xxv)
'De la comédie' (text not present in Manuscript A, Pange, III, 187) (II, xxvi)
'Du bon gout' (B variant title, Pange, II, 216) (II, xiv)
'Des romans' (II, xxviii)
'Clodius et Jean Paul Richter' (II, xxviii)
'Des historiens allemands' (B variant title, Pange, III, 291) (II, xxix)
'Des richesses littéraires, de la critique litteraire [en Allemagne] et de l'introduction des poésies étrangères dans la langue allemande' (B variant title, Pange, III, 320) (II, xxxi)
On light blue paper, 140 pages, 265 x 200mm, a few ivory leaves stitched in (notes written on three pages from end, one leaf loosely inserted).
11. Inscribed at the head '25eme chapitre. [Kotzbue] Diverses pièces' (Pange, III, 187) (II, xxv)
'26eme chapitre. [De la comedie] Tragedie sur la mort de Polyxene' (II, xxv)
'De la critique littéraire' (Pange, III, 181) (II, xxxi)
'Herder' (II, xxx)
'Des historiens' (II, xxix)
On ivory paper, 70 pages, 255 x 210mm (notes for other chapters on the last 4½ pages).
12. Without heading, opening 'L'art de la déclamation ne laissant après lui que des souvenirs' (Manuscript A, Pange, III, 212) (II, xxvii)
'Les beaux arts en l'Allemagne. La peinture, la sculpture, l'architecture, la danse et la musique' (Pange, III, 356) (II, xxxii)
On light blue paper, 78 pages, 240 x 200mm (18 pages of notes for other chapters written at the end), blank leaves.
13. Inscribed at the head '3eme volume 1er cahier de la 3ème partie' (Manuscript B variant headings and text identified in Pange, IV)
'1er chapitre. De la philosophie' (III, i)
'2eme chapitre. De la philosophie anglaise [revoi]' (III, ii)
'3eme chapitre. De la philosophie francaise' (III, iii)
'4eme chapitre. Observations sur la philosophie allemande' (B variant numbering, Pange, IV, 89)
'5eme chapitre. Du persiflage introduit dans la littérature et dans la société par un certain genre de philosophie' (B, lacking A variant subtitle, Pange, IV, 73) (III, iv)
On ivory paper, 73 pages, 260 x 200mm (one page attached by pins to penultimate leaf).
14. Inscribed at the head, 'Kant 6eme chapitre', and opening 'Si l'homme se borne à ne rien connâitre que par les sens' (lacks first seven paragraphs of published text, Pange, IV, 111-114)
'7eme chapitre. Les discussions philosophiques [excitees par les] qui ont eu lieu en Allemagne avant et après écrits de Kant' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 152) (III, vii)
'8eme chapitre. Influence de la nouvelle philosophie allemande sur [l'esprit en Allemagne] [la direction et l'exercise] le développement de l'esprit' (B variant titles, Pange, IV, 214) (III, viii)
'9eme chapitre. Influence de la nouvelle philosophie sur les sciences' (B variant chapter number, Pange, IV, 234) (III, x)
On ivory paper, 73 pages, 260 x 200mm, inscribed on verso of last leaf in a different hand, 'MSS de l'Allemagne' (one blank leaf torn out, stitching weak).
15. Inscribed at the head '3eme cahier'
'10eme chapitre. Influence de la nouvelle philosophie allemande sur la littérature et les beaux-arts' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 214) (III, ix)
'11eme chapitre. De l'influence de la nouvelle philosophie sur l'energie des caractères en allemagne' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 273) (III, xi)
'12eme chapitre. De la morale fondée sur l'intérêt personnel' (III, xii and xiii)
'13eme chapitre. Du principe de la morale dans la nouvelle philosophie allemande' (III, xii and xiv)
On ivory paper, 64 pages, 260 x 200mm (blank leaves cut away).
16. Inscribed at the head '4eme cahier'
'15eme chapitre (revoi). Des écrivains moralistes [pratiques] en Allemagne' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 380) (III, xx)
'Revoi 14eme chapitre. De la morale scientifique' (III, xv)
'16eme chapitre. Woldemar par Jacobi' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 350) (III, xvi and xvii)
'17eme chapitre. De la moralité sentimentale' ('De la morale sentimentale' in A, B and C, Pange, IV, xviii) (III, xviii)
'Chapitre 18eme. Des lacunes de la morale' (B and C variant title, Pange, V, 6) (IV, i)
'19eme chapitre. De l'acceptance des emplois publiques' (a fragment related to Part III, xiii, and described as a variant of A, Pange, IV, 296) (III, xiii)
'20eme chapitre. De la destinée des femmes' (B variant chapter numbering, Pange, IV, 367) (III, xix)
'21eme chapitre. De l'oisivété de bonne compagne [Des loisirs introduits dans la premiere classe de la societe en Europe par la destruction de la feodalité]' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 393) (III, xxi)
'22eme chapitre. De l'ignorance et de la mediocrité dans leur rapports avec la morale' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 393) (III, xxi)
On ivory paper, 76 pages, 260 x 200mm, two blank leaves.
17. Inscribed at the head '5eme cahier du 3eme volume 6eme partie. De la religion et de l'enthousiasme'
'1er chapitre. Considerations generales sur la Religion en Allemagne' ('Les nations de la race germanique ont toutes des dispositions religieuses', B variant opening, Pange, V, 7) (Part IV, i)
'2eme chapitre. Le Protestantisme' (B, variant title, Pange, V, 27) (IV, ii)
'3eme chapitre. Du culte des Moraves' (IV, iii)
'4eme chapitre. De l'esprit de secte' (IV, viii)
'5eme chapitre. Du catholicisme' (IV, iv)
'6eme chapitre. De la disposition religieuse appelée mysticité' (IV, v)
'7eme chapitre. De la douleur' (B variant chapter numbering, Pange, V, 112) (IV, vi)
On ivory paper, 95 pages, 260 x 200mm (penultimate leaf torn out).
18. Inscribed in upper left margin on first page '6eme cahier du 3eme volume, 6eme partie'
'8eme chapitre. Des théosophes et des visionnaires' (IV, vii)
'9eme chapitre. De la contemplation de la nature' opening 'La mort est elle du néant? La tombe est elle du sommeil' (Pange, V, 155) (IV, ix)
On cream paper, 53 pages, 260 x 200mm, including seven pages written from the end relating to 'chapitre 7. La douleur' (Pange, V, 155), 24 blank leaves. (18)
THE MANUSCRIPT OF MADAME DE STAËL'S MOST IMPORTANT WORK, IN WHICH SHE INTRODUCED GERMAN ROMANTICISM TO THE FRENCH
There are three manuscripts of De l'Allemagne. A critical edition based upon the manuscripts and including variants was published in 5 volumes in 1958-1960, by Comtesse Jean de Pange, with the assistance of Simone Balayé. The manuscripts are designated by Madame de Pange as A, B and C. Manuscript A, probably the earliest, is entirely in autograph. Manuscript B, also in autograph, is a revised version of A. Manuscript C is a copy of B (in the hand of Madame de Staël's amanuensis, Fanny Randall), including numerous autograph corrections and revisions. Both A and B are in 18 cahiers of unequal length and paper size, and there are numerous variants between the three manuscripts and between C and the published text. Ten of the cahiers in the present manuscript (listed below as 1-6, 8 and 10-12) are from Manuscipt A. The remaining eight (listed as 7, 9 and 13-18) include variant chapter headings and numberings identified by Madame de Pange as Manuscript B. A list of the contents of each cahier is given below.
The manuscript is written in Madame de Staël's often difficult hand, sometimes small and regular, elsewhere dense and sprawling. There is a frequent absence of capitals, accents or punctuation, and on some pages long revisions are inserted between lines of writing. Most of the chapters have headings and her original numberings.
Provenance. By descent to the present owner.
Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël, daughter of the Swiss banker Jacques Necker, who became minister and Director-General of Finance to Louis XVI, was precocious from early childhood. Formidably well read and heiress to one of the greatest fortunes in Europe, she was familiar from her mother's salon with the intellectual and social luminaries of the French capital. She was briefly and unhappily married to the Swedish ambassador to Paris, Baron Eric Magnus Staël von Holstein (d. 1802), by whom she had three children, but she followed Necker to his estate at Coppet outside Geneva on his resignation in 1790. During the early years of the Revolutionary period and the Directorate she was sometimes in France, sometimes in Switzerland, and in 1793 spent five months in England at Juniper Hall, presiding over a distinguished group of emigrés. She became increasingly influential through her writings and the brilliance of her salon in Paris, where Benjamin Constant was among the most frequent guests, and soon became her lover. As her early expectations that Napoleon would show himself a liberal were disappointed, and her disenchantment became increasingly ill-concealed, the First Consul began to perceive her as a dangerous intriguer, and in 1803 she was banished from within forty leagues of Paris.
Paradoxically, her exile from the capital was to inspire her most influential work, by prompting her journeys in 1803-1804 to Frankfurt, Weimar and Berlin, and in 1807-1808 to Munich and Vienna. In 1797 Madame de Staël knew no German, and only one chapter of De la littérature, her study of the relationship of literature to social institutions, published in 1800, is concerned with German writers. Her exploration of German literature and philosophy and the writing of De l'Allemagne had its origin in part in this earlier work. Her knowledge of the language progressed so that by the end of 1800 Wilhelm von Humboldt (whom she had met in Paris) could refer to it as passable. In 1803-1804 she met Goethe, Wieland and Schiller, also Fichte, Kotzbue, and Ludwig and Christian Friedrich Tieck, and notably August Wilhelm Schlegel, whom she persuaded to return with her to Coppet in April 1804 as tutor to her son. He was to remain part of her immediate circle until her death. With Schlegel's arrival her studies became more intense, culminating in her immersion in German literary and dramatic works during the winter of 1808-1809, while she worked on the first draft of De l'Allemagne.
From 1803-1808 Madame de Staël studied and made notes, and recorded her impressions when she travelled. At the same time she wrote plays for the entertainment of her circle at Coppet, and completed the novel, Corinne. It was after a brilliant five-month season in Vienna that on her return to Coppet she gave instructions for the stitching of the cahiers in which she would write the first draft of her new work. She announced in a letter of 8 July 1808 to the Prince de Ligne, 'J'ai déjà fait coudre un cahier pour mes lettres sur l'Allemagne et j'ai écrit dix lignes que je rélis avec une sorte de peur'.
Her original title, 'Lettres sur l'Allemagne', is inscribed on the first page of the present manuscript. The first 42 lines of her 'Observations générales', which introduce the work, although present in all three manuscripts, were abandoned for the publication, probably as being too likely to cause offence. In this passage she anticipates the enrichment of French writers from a study of German literature, with which she compares the uniformity of artistic creation and the stifling control of opinion in France, 'quand on est seulement entouré de voix qui vous repétent ce qui'il faut juger et sentir on a peur de tout ce qui diffère des autres en soi-même et l'on se hâte de se conformer à la discipline morale qui fait marcher des pensées comme des soldats bien alignés [...] Le but de cet écrit est de faire connoitre impartialement un pays de 30 millions d'hommes et le faire connoitre surtout dans ses rapports littéraires et philosophiques'.
The first part of the manuscript describes Germany and its people, and also Vienna; in the second, German literature is introduced in all its manifestations and contrasted with the rigidity of the French tradition; in the third, Madame de Staël discusses philosophy and morals, and the final chapters are devoted to religion and enthusiasm. The manuscript includes the earliest versions of all the chapters of the published work, originally planned in three parts. All the chapters were corrected and some later rewritten and reordered, or altered almost beyond recognition as the author's knowledge of her subject increased, and her arguments were developed. But the main themes of the final text are already present in this first draft.
In the key chapter entitled 'La poësie' (cahier 5) she sets out the theories dear to the New School of German Romanticism and central to her own view of individual freedom of expression. Her concept of poetry is mystical, 'La poësie est à la religion ce que le talent de peindre est à la nature. C'est la forme artiste que l'homme peut donner à ce culte interieure de l'âme qui existe dans tous les êtres restés enfants de Dieu mais qui tous n'ont pas le don de révéler par la parole'. She reveals for the first time in French the doctrines of Wilhelm Schlegel, as developed in his lectures in Vienna on dramatic art and literature (in 'De la poësie classique et de la poësie romantique', cahier 6), and quotes from Goethe, never before translated into French. The chapter entitled 'De l'art dramatique' (cahier 6) includes a long and later much reduced disquisition on tragedy and the three unities of the classical tradition, containing further criticism of French writers. 'Je crois pouvoir affirmer que les franais ne feront plus de nouveaux progrés dans l'art dramatique que s'ils ne donnent pas une direction nouvelle à leur rare sagacité [...] Il faut qu'ils deviennent conquérants dans la domaine de l'imagination. On dirait que ce conseil ne doit pas les coûter à suivre'.
The chapter to which Madame de Staël gave first the title 'Un héros allemand', later cancelling and amending it to 'Un héros de roman', exists only in the present manuscript (cahier 1). Her description of the perfect hero who must also embody the qualities necessary to save Germany was based on the young Austrian count, Maurice O'Donnell, with whom she enjoyed a romantic liaison in Vienna during the winter of 1807-1808. The resemblance was considered to be compromising. As she wrote to the Count on 27 July 1808, 'Schlegel prétend que l'idéal d'un allemand que j'ai écrit en parlant du plus parfait héros de roman vous ressemble à me faire du tort. Vous en jugerez'. The chapter was removed, and published for the first time only in the edition of 1958.
There are many passages in the text of De l'Allemagne which reflect Germaine de Staël's own experience, and perhaps none more than her famous and bitter lines on the relationship between men and women and the consequence of 'la gloire', or fame, in the chapter here entitled 'De la destinée des femmes' (cahier 16), and published as De l'amour dans le mariage. It opens, 'Le cristianisme a tiré les femmes d'un état qui ressemblait à l'esclavage. L'égalité devant Dieu étant la base de cette sublime religion elle tend à établir l'égalité des droits sur la terre [...] Cependant il a resté de l'esclavage des femmes des prejugés qui se combinant avec la grande liberté que la societé leur donne ont amené beaucoup de maux. Rien de plus naturel que d'exclure les femmes des affaires politiques et civiles; elles ne savent pas braver la mort, c'en est assez pour ne pas diriger la vie, et d'ailleurs rien n'est plus opposé a leur destination, que tout ce qui leur donnerait des rapports de rivalité avec les hommes, et la gloire elle même ne saurait être pour une femme que le deuil de bonheur, porté comme les rois avec les couleurs éclatantes. Mais si le sort d'une femme doit être d'aimer, de vivre pour ce qu'elle aime [...] il faut que cet amour de leur destinée ne soit point flétri par l'injuste opinion qui semble affranchir les hommes d'une fidelité scrupuleuse'.
The same cahier includes (in chapter 22) a passage defining her vision of an intellectual world that transcends national boundaries, 'Il reste encore une chose vraiment belle et dont l'ignorance ne peut jouir. C'est l'association de tous les hommes qui pensent d'un but de l'Europe à l'autre. Souvent ils ne se connaissent pas. Ils sont dispersés souvent à de grandes distances l'un de l'autre. Mais quand ils se rencontrent un mot suffit pour les lier ensemble'.
In De l'Allemagne Madame de Staël avoids direct criticism of Napoleon, but uses allegory, notably in her sketch of Attila, while apparently discussing Werner's play of that name ('Il a comme une sort de superstition de lui même. Il est un culte. Il croit en lui. Il se regarde comme l'instrument des décrets du ciel et cette conviction mêle un certain système d'equité à ses crimes').
Madame de Staël began to write the second manuscript of De l'Allemagne (now in the archives at Coppet) on 13 May 1809 (Isbell, page 222). The third, the copy in Fanny Randall's hand with autograph corrections, was sent to her publisher, Nicolle, in January 1810. On February 5 an Imperial decree established control of printing and publishing under the Minister of the Interior. Nicolle resolved to submit not the manuscript but the proofs to the censors, and Madame de Staël moved to Chaumont in order to examine them, and carried out the many changes exacted by the censorship. Meanwhile, as Simone Balayé has shown (in Le Dossier de la suppression de De l'Allemagne), the police provided the Emperor with daily bulletins on her activities and visitors, and proofs of the work sometimes reached Rovigo, the Minister of Police, even before the author had seen them. The work appeared to contain a dual message, the first addressed to the French, urging them to seek freedom, the second to the Germans, encouraging them to independence. It was impossible for Napoleon to ignore it.
In September 1810 the prefect of Blois, Corbigny, was ordered to recover from Madame de Staël the manuscript and proofs, and to have her move to Coppet, or to a port from which to sail to America (which she had contemplated doing). The police seized the plates, and the leaves of the first two volumes, of which 5,000 copies had been printed. No complete copy of the edition of 1810 has survived. At the moment that the orders were given for it to be pulped, the printing of the third volume had hardly begun. There are sets of proofs in the Bibliothèque Nationale, in the University of Vienna (a bequest from Friedrich Schlegel), and at Broglie. The latter, including the author's autograph amendments, was used for the London edition of 1813. It was saved from destruction in 1810 by Fanny Randall, with the connivance of Monsieur Corbigny, the sympathetic prefect of Blois. The destruction of the book filled Madame de Staël with grief - 'Cette nouvelle douleur me prit l'âme avec une grande force'.
When finally De l'Allemagne was published in London by John Murray in October 1813, the 1500 copies sold out in three days. Madame de Staël wrote to Schlegel, 'J'ai publié ce livre où tout vous rappelle à moi; l'edition a été enlevée en trois jours'. The first Paris edition was published on her return to France, in 1814. The end of the Napoleonic era meant that its political impact was ultimately greatly reduced. But from a literary point of view it was of the greatest significance. In Europe at large it was seen as the manifesto of the Romantic movement, whilst inspiring, in the France of the Restoration, a new and liberated world of intellectual and literary activity.
The contents of the manuscripts are as follows:
The 18 cahiers include Madame de Staël's original numberings and headings for many of the chapters. In the following list references to the corresponding chapters, where they exist, in the four parts of the published text are given in brackets in roman numerals. References to variant headings are taken from Madame de Pange's critical edition of the work (Paris 1958-1960, I-V).
1. Inscribed in autograph at the head '1ere section Lettres sur l'Allemagne' and in a different hand, 'De l'Allemagne et les Allemands Observations générales'. The first 42 lines (opening 'Je ne pense pas qu'on ait besoin de se mettre en garde contre d'anciennes plaisanteries quand on veut s'occuper de la nature, la littérature et la philosophie allemande') were suppressed for publication (Pange I, 13).
'2. de l'Allemagne et des allemands Difficultés du sujet' (Part I, 11)
'3. De la nature et des villes' (I, i)
'4. Des allemands' (I, ii)
'5. Les femmes' (I, iii)
'6. [Un héros allemand] Sur un héros de roman' (not repeated in Manuscripts B or C. Pange, I 93-97)
'7. L'Allemagne du midi' (I, v)
'8. L'Autriche' (I, vi)
'9. Vienne' (I, vii)
'10. Le mariage de l'empereur' (I, vii)
'11. La société' (I, viii)
On light blue paper, 96 pages, 228 x 180mm (notes for further themes scribbled on the last page).
2. Inscribed at the head '2d cahier', continuing her description of Viennese society, 'C'est une invention singulière de la mediocrité pour annuler toutes les facultés de l'esprit que cette exhibition ceremonielle de tous les individus les uns les autres ...'
'12. De l'imitation des franais' (I, ix)
'13. Entrée dans le nord de l'Allemagne' (I xiii)
'14. La Saxe' (I, xiv)
'15. Veimar [sic]' (I, xv)
'16. La Prusse' (I, xiv)
'17. Berlin' (I, xvii)
'18. De la langue allemande dans les rapports avec la conversation' (I, xii)
'19. Des universités allemandes'
On light blue paper, 96 pages, 228 x 180mm, (notes for future themes scribbled on the last page).
3. Inscribed at the head '3eme cahier', continuing from No. 2 ('Des universités allemandes')
'L'école de Pestalozzi' (I, xix)
'La fête d'Interlacken' (I, xx)
On light blue paper, 38 pages, 228 x 180mm, blank leaves (small tear in first leaf); and 3 bifolia of draft passages for Part I, loosely inserted.
4. Inscribed at the head 'Ier cahier, 2de section La littérature et les arts'
'1er chap. Pourquoi les franais ne comprennent pas la littérature allemande' (Part II, i)
'2eme chapitre. Motifs de jugement qu'on porte en angleterre sur la littérature allemande' (II, ii)
'3eme chapitre. Quand la littérature allemande a commencé' (II, iii)
'4eme chap. Vieland [sic]' (II, iv)
'5eme chapitre. Klopstock' (II, v)
'6eme chapitre. De la langue allemande' (II, ix)
On light blue paper, 70 pages, 234 x 195mm.
5. Inscribed at the head '2eme cahier de la 2de section'
'7eme chap. Theorie du beau [Winkelmann et Lessing]' (II, vi)
'8eme chapitre. Goethe' (II, vii)
'9eme. Schiller' (II, viii)
'10eme. La poësie', annotated in the margin 'La prose plus poétique en France dans le chap. de la langue' (II, x)
The last four pages include a discussion (without heading or number) of Herder.
On ivory paper, 56 pages, 255 x 190mm.
6. Inscribed at the head '2eme cahier de la 2de section'
'11eme chapitre. De la poésie classique et de la poésie romantique (II, xi)
'12eme chapitre. De la poésie allemande' (II, xii, xiii)
'13eme chapitre. De l'art dramatique' [II, xv)
'14eme chapitre. Des differents genres de pieces dramatiques en Allemagne' (II, xvi)
'15eme chapitre. Les drames Lessing' (II, xvi)
'16eme chapitre. Walstein et le c[om]te Egmont' (II, xviii and xxi)
On ivory paper, 86 pages, 250 x 200mm (one leaf attached by pins).
7. Without heading, continuing from No. 6 ('12eme chapitre - De la poësie allemande'), and including Madame de Staël's translation of a poem by August Wilhelm Schlegel ('La Melodie de la vie') (Pange, II, 212)
'14eme chapitre. Du goût' (this chapter was a later insertion, (Pange, II, 216)) (II, xiv)
On ivory paper, 69 pages, 255 x 200mm, 2 blank leaves.
8. '17eme chapitre. Les voleurs et Don Carlos de Shiller [sic]' continuing on 'Jeanne d'Arc' and other works by Schiller (Manuscript B title and variants in Pange, II, 274-275) (II, xvii-xx)
followed by a chapter (without heading and unnumbered) on Goethe, discussing 'Goetz von Berlichungen', 'Le comte d'Egmont', 'Iphigenie en Tauride', 'Faust', and Werner (II, xxi, xxiii)
On ivory paper, 71 pages, 255 x 205mm, the first four pages cut away, chapter headings and notes on the last four pages, blank leaves.
9. An incomplete chapter (lacking the first four paragraphs of the published text) discussing 'Guillaume Tell' (by Schiller), opening with a reference to the third act, 'Gessler a fair élever un bonnet sur une pique au milieu de la place publique avec ordre que tous les peuples le saluassent' (Pange, III, 9) (II, xx)
On ivory paper, 22 pages, 250 x 200mm, including four leaves written from the end (cancelled passages for other chapters).
10. Inscribed at the head '6eme cahier. 2eme section', including eight unnumbered chapters:
'Luther, Attila, les fils de la vallée, La croix sur la Baltique etc' (B variant title, Pange, III, 130) (II, xxiv)
'Diverses pieces de theatre' (II, xxv)
'De la comédie' (text not present in Manuscript A, Pange, III, 187) (II, xxvi)
'Du bon gout' (B variant title, Pange, II, 216) (II, xiv)
'Des romans' (II, xxviii)
'Clodius et Jean Paul Richter' (II, xxviii)
'Des historiens allemands' (B variant title, Pange, III, 291) (II, xxix)
'Des richesses littéraires, de la critique litteraire [en Allemagne] et de l'introduction des poésies étrangères dans la langue allemande' (B variant title, Pange, III, 320) (II, xxxi)
On light blue paper, 140 pages, 265 x 200mm, a few ivory leaves stitched in (notes written on three pages from end, one leaf loosely inserted).
11. Inscribed at the head '25eme chapitre. [Kotzbue] Diverses pièces' (Pange, III, 187) (II, xxv)
'26eme chapitre. [De la comedie] Tragedie sur la mort de Polyxene' (II, xxv)
'De la critique littéraire' (Pange, III, 181) (II, xxxi)
'Herder' (II, xxx)
'Des historiens' (II, xxix)
On ivory paper, 70 pages, 255 x 210mm (notes for other chapters on the last 4½ pages).
12. Without heading, opening 'L'art de la déclamation ne laissant après lui que des souvenirs' (Manuscript A, Pange, III, 212) (II, xxvii)
'Les beaux arts en l'Allemagne. La peinture, la sculpture, l'architecture, la danse et la musique' (Pange, III, 356) (II, xxxii)
On light blue paper, 78 pages, 240 x 200mm (18 pages of notes for other chapters written at the end), blank leaves.
13. Inscribed at the head '3eme volume 1er cahier de la 3ème partie' (Manuscript B variant headings and text identified in Pange, IV)
'1er chapitre. De la philosophie' (III, i)
'2eme chapitre. De la philosophie anglaise [revoi]' (III, ii)
'3eme chapitre. De la philosophie francaise' (III, iii)
'4eme chapitre. Observations sur la philosophie allemande' (B variant numbering, Pange, IV, 89)
'5eme chapitre. Du persiflage introduit dans la littérature et dans la société par un certain genre de philosophie' (B, lacking A variant subtitle, Pange, IV, 73) (III, iv)
On ivory paper, 73 pages, 260 x 200mm (one page attached by pins to penultimate leaf).
14. Inscribed at the head, 'Kant 6eme chapitre', and opening 'Si l'homme se borne à ne rien connâitre que par les sens' (lacks first seven paragraphs of published text, Pange, IV, 111-114)
'7eme chapitre. Les discussions philosophiques [excitees par les] qui ont eu lieu en Allemagne avant et après écrits de Kant' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 152) (III, vii)
'8eme chapitre. Influence de la nouvelle philosophie allemande sur [l'esprit en Allemagne] [la direction et l'exercise] le développement de l'esprit' (B variant titles, Pange, IV, 214) (III, viii)
'9eme chapitre. Influence de la nouvelle philosophie sur les sciences' (B variant chapter number, Pange, IV, 234) (III, x)
On ivory paper, 73 pages, 260 x 200mm, inscribed on verso of last leaf in a different hand, 'MSS de l'Allemagne' (one blank leaf torn out, stitching weak).
15. Inscribed at the head '3eme cahier'
'10eme chapitre. Influence de la nouvelle philosophie allemande sur la littérature et les beaux-arts' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 214) (III, ix)
'11eme chapitre. De l'influence de la nouvelle philosophie sur l'energie des caractères en allemagne' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 273) (III, xi)
'12eme chapitre. De la morale fondée sur l'intérêt personnel' (III, xii and xiii)
'13eme chapitre. Du principe de la morale dans la nouvelle philosophie allemande' (III, xii and xiv)
On ivory paper, 64 pages, 260 x 200mm (blank leaves cut away).
16. Inscribed at the head '4eme cahier'
'15eme chapitre (revoi). Des écrivains moralistes [pratiques] en Allemagne' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 380) (III, xx)
'Revoi 14eme chapitre. De la morale scientifique' (III, xv)
'16eme chapitre. Woldemar par Jacobi' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 350) (III, xvi and xvii)
'17eme chapitre. De la moralité sentimentale' ('De la morale sentimentale' in A, B and C, Pange, IV, xviii) (III, xviii)
'Chapitre 18eme. Des lacunes de la morale' (B and C variant title, Pange, V, 6) (IV, i)
'19eme chapitre. De l'acceptance des emplois publiques' (a fragment related to Part III, xiii, and described as a variant of A, Pange, IV, 296) (III, xiii)
'20eme chapitre. De la destinée des femmes' (B variant chapter numbering, Pange, IV, 367) (III, xix)
'21eme chapitre. De l'oisivété de bonne compagne [Des loisirs introduits dans la premiere classe de la societe en Europe par la destruction de la feodalité]' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 393) (III, xxi)
'22eme chapitre. De l'ignorance et de la mediocrité dans leur rapports avec la morale' (B variant title, Pange, IV, 393) (III, xxi)
On ivory paper, 76 pages, 260 x 200mm, two blank leaves.
17. Inscribed at the head '5eme cahier du 3eme volume 6eme partie. De la religion et de l'enthousiasme'
'1er chapitre. Considerations generales sur la Religion en Allemagne' ('Les nations de la race germanique ont toutes des dispositions religieuses', B variant opening, Pange, V, 7) (Part IV, i)
'2eme chapitre. Le Protestantisme' (B, variant title, Pange, V, 27) (IV, ii)
'3eme chapitre. Du culte des Moraves' (IV, iii)
'4eme chapitre. De l'esprit de secte' (IV, viii)
'5eme chapitre. Du catholicisme' (IV, iv)
'6eme chapitre. De la disposition religieuse appelée mysticité' (IV, v)
'7eme chapitre. De la douleur' (B variant chapter numbering, Pange, V, 112) (IV, vi)
On ivory paper, 95 pages, 260 x 200mm (penultimate leaf torn out).
18. Inscribed in upper left margin on first page '6eme cahier du 3eme volume, 6eme partie'
'8eme chapitre. Des théosophes et des visionnaires' (IV, vii)
'9eme chapitre. De la contemplation de la nature' opening 'La mort est elle du néant? La tombe est elle du sommeil' (Pange, V, 155) (IV, ix)
On cream paper, 53 pages, 260 x 200mm, including seven pages written from the end relating to 'chapitre 7. La douleur' (Pange, V, 155), 24 blank leaves. (18)