Jean-François Necker

“ He said to Necker that he desired the States-General because he wanted a guide. When, in 1788, after skirmishing with magistrates and prelates, he took the memorable resolution to call in the outer people, to compel a compromise with the class that filled his court, that constituted society, that ruled opinion, it was the act of a man destitute of energy, and gifted with an uncertain and indistinct enlightenment. And Necker said, "You may lend a man your ideas, you cannot lend him your strength of will." ”

“ The first time I ever read it was at the desire of Mme. de Staël." Mme. de Staël herself says somewhere: "I do not believe all men resemble Adolphe, but only vain men." Simple as the observation is, we feel that it is written by a woman in self-defence; for Adolphe had struck home to Necker's daughter personally, had bared her deepest heart wound.
Anne Marie Germaine Necker was born in Paris in 1766. Her father, the great Genevese financier, became First Minister of France shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution, and his name was at that time the watchword of liberal France. ”

“ On her death, in 1794, Necker was solaced by the affection and friendship of their accomplished daughter, Madame de Staël, since generally recognized as one of the most distinguished women who ever lived. In 1800 he was visited by Bonaparte, when marching to Marengo. Necker expired in the year 1803, and was buried in the grounds at Coppet, by the side of his departed spouse.
This famous man was not endowed with that splendid genius which has elevated many from obscure situations [81] to positions of power and dignity; but his industry was untiring, and his integrity beyond question. ”

“ The marquise, by this time infinitely weary of men and things, appears soon to have tired of Madame Necker's declamations and M. Necker's superiority. Her final judgment on the wife was very severe, rather ill-tempered, and therefore unjust. Madame Necker was, she says, "stiff and frigid, full of self-consciousness, but an upright woman." Her liking for the husband held out longer, but finally succumbed to the discovery that, while very intelligent, he failed to elicit wit from others. "One felt oneself more stupid in his company than when with other people or alone." ”

“ The discontent of the great financiers and that of the courtiers was becoming every day more noisy, without as yet shaking the credit of M. Necker. “M. Necker wants to govern the kingdom of France like his little republic of Geneva,” people said: “he is making a desert round the king; each loan is the recompense for something destroyed.” “Just so,” answered M. de Maurepas: “he gives us millions, provided that we allow him to suppress certain offices.” “And if he were to ask permission to have the superintendents’ heads cut off?” ”

“ Necker, the universal genius whose advent to the ministry was hailed as the panacea for all discords, and difficulties, and threatened dangers; Necker, the “Achilles of computation,” whose, vigorous hand and capacious brain were to seize France, tottering on the brink of some invisible gulf, and steady her ”

“ The young are apt to think their parents superior to the rest of the world. The claims which M. and Madame Necker possessed to real superiority, from their virtues and talents, naturally added to the warmth of their daughter's affection. The distinction in which they were held made the path of her life bright; and even the first check that occurred in her father's career tended to excite still more her admiration for him, as opposition gives form and strength to every power exerted to overcome it. ”

“ Silent themselves when they might have spoken, they leave an unanswered question in the hearts of their survivors. Monsieur Necker, with his exaggerated consciousness, must have asked himself repeatedly if he had cared for his strange and loving wife enough. ”

“ The wild current thus turned, the men, who in the morning had declared, ‘that liberty was safe, since Necker was allowed to watch over her,’ now accused him of ambition, and a desire to keep well with the court, by facilitating the return, or escape, of it’s minions. Such in fact was the inconstancy of a people, always running after theatrical scenes, that the tocsin was rung to denounce Necker as a courtier in one quarter of the city, at the very time the Palais 274Royal was illuminated to celebrate his return as a patriot. ”

“ Criticism has stripped from her the rags and tatters of the philosophy which was not her own. It is seen that she was indebted to the brains of others for such imaginative bits of fiction as she put forth in Delphine and Corinne; but as the exponent of sensibility she remains unique. This woman was Anne Louise Germaine Necker, usually known as Mme. de Stael.
There was much about Mile. Necker's parentage that made her interesting. Her father was the Genevese banker and minister of Louis XVI, who failed wretchedly in his attempts to save the finances of France. ”

“ Necker was always quite frank and outspoken, often showing a cutting harshness and a rigor which, as was said, was little in harmony with her bare neck and arms—a style then in vogue at court. She never judged persons by their reputations, but by their esprit; thus, it was possible for her to receive people of the most diverse tendencies. When the Marquise de La Ferté-Imbault, one of the few virtuous women of the time, and of the highest aristocracy, was invited to attend the salon of Mme. Necker and was told that the Maréchale de Luxembourg, Mme. ”

“ This was a cruel blow to Madame Necker. A nature allowed to develop spontaneously, a mind virgin of the pruning-hook, were objects of as much horror to her as if they had been forbidden by Heaven. That her daughter, just at the final moment, when what was doubtless the mere preliminary course of study had been traversed, should be released from bondage and abandoned to her own impetuosity, was well-nigh insupportable. ”

“ The statesmanship of Vergennes had no remedy for social disease. It was a statesmanship of alliances and treaties and wars, traditional and sometimes brilliant, but all on the surface, leaving the wounded heart untouched, the sore spirit unconsoled. The financial skill of Necker could not reach the evil. It was mere banking skill, and nothing more,—very respectable in its time and place, filling a few mouths more with bread, but failing to see, although told of it long ago by one who never erred, that "man does not live by bread alone." ”

“ Necker divined in the young hero a strength of will to which his own hesitating nature was a stranger; while Napoleon, on his side, penetrating but prejudiced, contemptuously described the once august financier in two words, “A banker and an Idealist.” With his usual cynicism, he attributed Necker’s visit to the desire of employment; whereas Madame de Staël affirmed that her father’s chief object was to plead her cause. In this he was so far successful that residence in France was for some time at least assured to her. ”

“ But Madame Necker, besides being young, rich, and handsome, was bitten with the prevailing craze for literature, could listen unwearingly for hours to the most laboured portraits and éloges, and, although herself the purest and most austere of women, would open her salon to any reprobate, provided only he were witty.
Madame Necker, first known to us as Suzanne Curchod, was the daughter of a Swiss pastor, and saw the light in the presbytery of Crassier in the Pays de Vaud. ”

“ All made love to her, and, misled by the studied warmth of pompous eloquence with which she proclaimed her delight in their society, they not rarely persuaded themselves that they had added her to the list of their conquests, and were chagrined and not a little disgusted later to discover that the only man she cared for was her husband. Indeed, she bored everybody with praise of M. Necker, composing and reading aloud in her own salon a preposterous portrait of him, in which she compared him to most things in heaven and earth and the waters under the earth, from an angel to a polypus. ”

“ The tomb at Coppet in which she rests, together with her husband and daughter, was built in conformity with her wishes, and in great part under her eyes. She died on 6th May, 1794. M. Necker felt her death acutely, and for months not even his daughter’s sympathy could console him. Madame Necker had one of those self-tormenting natures which poison the existence of others in embittering their own. Too noble to be slighted, and too exacting to be appeased, they work out the doom of unachieved desires ”

“ Yet continual power produces arrogance, and the soul unchecked finally believes in its own omniscience.
Of course such a matrimonial prize as the daughter of Necker was sought for, even fought for. But the women who can see clear through a man, like a Roentgen ray, do not invite soft demonstration. They give passion a chill. Love demands a little illusion; it must be clothed in mystery. And although we find evidences that many youths stood in the hallways and sighed, the daughter of Necker never saw fit by a nod to bring them to her feet. ”

“ What brings thousands to this quiet retreat every year? Because here lived and wrote and suffered the only person whom the great Napoleon feared, whom Galiffe, of Geneva, declared "the most remarkable woman that Europe has produced"; learned, rich, the author of Corinne and Allemagne, whose "talents in conversation," says George Ticknor, "were perhaps the most remarkable of any person that ever lived."
April 27, 1766, was the daughter of James Necker, Minister of Finance under Louis XVI., a man of fine intellect, the author of fifteen volumes ”

“ It is unreasonable to expect that a certain class of society shall commit political and economic suicide for the benefit of another group of fellow-citizens. The 127 Notables obstinately refused to surrender a single one of their ancient rights. The crowd in the street, being now exceedingly hungry, demanded that Necker, in whom they had confidence, be reappointed. ”

“ Necker unveiled the progress which the first consul of the republic was making towards a throne. This untimely disclosure of his secret ways injured Bonaparte: he spoke bitterly of Necker, and said of madame de Staël that she should not visit Paris again, since she conveyed such false impressions to her father.
Love for this father was the master passion of madame de Staël's life. She looked on him as the wisest and best of men; but, more than this, his kindness and sympathy gifted him with something angelic in her eyes. ”

“ Humanity, what a poor judge you are!"
Shortly after her marriage, Mme. Necker wrote to one of her friends: "My dear, I have married a man who, according to my ideas, is the kindest of mortals, and I am not the only one to judge thus. I had had a liking for him ever since I learned to know him. At present, I see, in all nature, only my husband. I take notice of other men only in so far as they come more or less up to the standard of my husband, and I compare them only for the pleasure of seeing the difference." ”

“ If such were the widow's ideas, they were doomed to disappointment; for very soon after Necker's introduction to Suzanne he made a transfer of his affections to her. He left, however, for Geneva, without declaring his sentiments; and Mademoiselle Curchod, once again in love, and once again in despair, poured out her feelings in a long letter to Moulton. That ever faithful friend did his best to bring things to a happy termination, by taking care that M. Necker, during his sojourn in Geneva, should hear nothing but praise of Suzanne. ”

“ He came charged by the directory to offer a safeguard to her father. Thus re-assured with regard to the dearest interest of her life, she began to feel fresh anguish for the Swiss, attacked thus against the law of nations. She heard at Coppet the cannon of the battle between the Bernese and French;—her heart, for the first time, was against the latter. As soon as the triumph of France united Geneva to its own territory, it became necessary that Necker's name should be erased from the list of emigrants. Madame de Staël visited Paris, and presented a memorial from her father to the directory. ”

“ On the brink of the irrevocable, even the pride of controversy may come to be a little thing; and Buffon's wearied spirit perhaps recoiled from further speculation on the eternal problem of futurity. And to be at one, in that supreme moment, with the pitying woman who had come to solace his final agony, may have weighed with him above the praise and blame over which the grave was to triumph for ever.
Madame Necker delighted in making herself miserable, and the melancholia natural to him probably caused Thomas to be the most thoroughly congenial to her of all her friends. ”

“ An army of one hundred thousand men was arrayed in a night; on the 14th of July, the Bastile was destroyed, and the king was forced to attend in person at the Hotel de Ville, and to express his approbation of the acts of the revolutionists. A courier, bearing an order of recall, overtook Necker at Frankfort. He hesitated, but at last determined to comply. “What a moment of happiness,” says Madame de Stael, “was our journey to Paris! I do not think that the like ever happened to any man who was not sovereign of the country. ”

“ I suppose your friend is like his brethren?"
"Now, Neckart, just wait until you see Van Ness. You'll be charmed, or I've no judgment. Most men are, and all women," laughing significantly.
They rose at the moment. As they left the room Neckart caught sight in a mirror of his own dwarfed bulk and the massive head set in its black mane. He stopped and looked for an instant at himself fixedly, a thing which he had not done perhaps for years, and then walked on in silence beside the judge. When they parted in the street he wrote a line on a card and gave it to him. ”