MADAME DE STAEL

"At Madame de Stael''s this evening I meet the world," wrote early American statesman Gouverneur Morris, and British biographer Fairweather''s expansive biography of Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) rightly focuses on the salon as backdrop to French literary and political intrigues of the 18th and 19th centuries. The salons—where the great men of politics and culture gathered during and after the ancien régime—were often a woman''s only avenue of influence, and Mme. de Staël''s gatherings included the most brilliant politicians, writers and artists of her day, including Chateaubriand, Talleyrand and Lafayette. Fairweather digs deep into de Staël''s past to contextualize her rise from daughter of a self-made Swiss banker, a former finance minister to Louis XVI, and a Protestant governess whom he married, to author and hostess of one of Paris''s leading salons. The result is a complicated portrait of a passionate woman well versed in Enlightenment philosophy, German literature and Calvinism, whose outspokenness pitted her against France''s extreme factions—the royalists, the Jacobins—and eventually Napoleon, leading to her exile in Geneva. But this did not deter her from challenging France''s leaders from afar or continuing her fruitful literary life. Fairweather (The Pilgrim Princess) offers an extensively researched history; however, only dedicated students of French culture and literature may have the fortitude to wade into this almost over-rich tome. Illus. not seen by PW.