STADIUM. 482 STAEL-HOLSTEIN. trologie (2d ed., Berlin, 1882) ; Dorpfeld, in Mittlu'iltingen dcs deutschcn aichaologischen In- stituts Athens (Athens, 1882). STADTHOLDER (Dutch stadthouder, Ger. Htadthalter, stead-holder, lieutenant, viceroy, governor of a province). The title bestowed on William of Orange (q.v.) by the Dutch provinces which rose in revolt against the tyranny of Alva in the sixteenth century. (See Netherlands.) On the assassination of William in 1584 his son Maurice of Nassau was appointed to the office. The stadtholderate was considered to be at an end on the death of William 111. in 1702, but in 1747 William IV., descended from a collateral branch of the House of Nassau, was proclaimed stadtholder, captain-general, and admiral-in- chief of the United Provinces. His son, William v., the seventh stadtholder, was driven from the country by the French in 1795 and resigned his office in 1802. STAEL-HOLSTEIN, sta'el hol'stin, Fr. pron. still ol'staN', Anne Louise Germaine, Baronne de, commonly called Madame de Stael ( 1766- 1817). A famous French authoress, born in Paris, April 22, 1706. Slie was the daughter of the Genevese banker and distinguished French ilin- ister of Finance, Jacques Necker (q.v.), and of his wife, Suzanne Churchod, Gibbon's youthful beloved. She passed her childhood in one of the most brilliant literary salons of Paris, where her naturally active mind was stimulated by associa- tion with the keenest wits and critics of the pre- Revolutionary decade, chief among them F. M. Grimm, Thomas, Marmontel, and Raynal. In this vortex of disintegrating ideas she assimilated more than any other of her generation the intel- lectual spirit of that age. She married in 1786, in obedience to her mother's wush, tlie Swedish Minister, Baron de Stael-Holstein, by whom she had three children. But she kept the tenor of her independent way, always positive and self- assertive, a little boisterous and rather vain, writing much, but publishing nothing until the appearance of her Lcttres sur Jean Jacques Kous- seau (1788), whose social ideas she warmly ad- mired. She had fallen also under the spell of Goethe's Wert her, and thus she sympathized wuth the Revolution till the imprisonment of the King caused a revulsion to an equally indiscreet 'in- civism.' She abused her ambassadorial right of asylum, and, in fear of the consequences, left Pa'ris before the massacres of September, 1792, going to Coppet, near Geneva, where she gathered some political sympathizers. In 1793 she tried to make herself the centre of a more important group in England, not without some personal scandal. For nine years (1794-1803) she played at politics in Paris, with brief visits to Coppet. She was amicably separated from Baron de Stael in 1788, and irritated Napoleon by biting epigrams till the consular police banished her from Paris (1803). She went to Germany, which then 'ruled the kingdom of the air' (Rich- ter), and in her unwearying search for noted people to talk to she came in the winter of 1803- 04 to Weimar. Goethe, after at first excusing himself on the score of ill health, saw much of her and later on in his Annaten spoke of "her brilliant way of showing her readiness of thought and repartee." On the whole, in spite of her 'passion- ate demands' for ready information on the most important subjects, he" admitted that "one could get on with her easily and pleasantly if she was taken in lier own way." Schiller found her "with little ideality or poetry and no feminine re- serve." The Romanticists were more attracted, and A. W. Schlegel (q.v.), an eccentric prophet of the new school, became her devoted companion and counselor. Thus the German ideas that she introduced into France were seen tlirough Schlcgel's eyes, far from impartially, as is constantly obvious in her De I'Alknuu/ne, written in 1809-10 and printed in England in 1813. Before her exile Madame de Stael had written two essays, De I'influence des passions (1796) and De la litterature consid&ee datis ses rapports aveo les institutions sociales (1800), the latter curious for its marks of the close association with Benjamin Constant (q.v.), who gave his impression of their relation in Adolphe. Her literary power was first revealed in the novel Dclphine (1802), a half-autobiogra- phy of the 'misunderstood woman.' to be ex- ploited later bj- Cieorge Sand. Much finer is a second story, Corinne (1807), wherewith she made the novel carry artistic discussion, as Goethe and Richter had done in Germany. In 1810 she published her De I'Allemagne in Paris, but Napoleon condemned the entire edi- tion and expelled her from France. She retired to Coppet, and there, in 1811, she married secret- ly a j'oung officer, De Rocca, more than twenty years her junior. In the same year she set out on her travels in Russia. Sweden, and England, and after Napoleon's fall returned to France, though she still spent much time abroad, for her health was gradually failing, as her last book. Considerations sur la revolution fran(;aise (1818), witnesses. She died in Paris, July 14, 1817. Of her three children by her first husband, Auguste (1790-1827) became known as the au- thor of Lettres sur I'Angleterre : Albertine (died 1838) married the Duke Achille de Broglie, and Albert became a Swedish officer and fell in a duel. By her second husband (Rocca ) she had one child. In her person, excepting her fine eyes and well-formed figxue, Sladame de Stael was not at- tractive. In conversation she often repelled even those who appreciated her talents. If one con- siders only language and style she was not a great writer, but she had great enthusiasms, faith in human progress, and in democracy. Tims she did much to free French literature from the self-im- posed fetters of the classical criticism. Studiously cosmopolitan, she compelled France to contrast and compare her ideals of letters and art with those of Germany and England. The French spirit, she said, needed to be regenerated by some more vigorous sap. It was artistic, rationalistic. They were idealistic, individually subjective. To es- tablish in France Ossian, Byron. Goethe, Richter, was to complete the work begun by Rousseau. Thus the French romantic movement, one of the greatest literary regenerations in history, is in large measure the work of ^ladame de Stael. Bibltographt. Madame de Stael's complete works, edited by her son. Baron Auguste de Stael- Holstein, and with a biography by her cousin Madame Necker de Saussure. 17 vols. (Paris, 1820-21). There are Li'rcs by Norris (London, 1853) ; Stevens (lb.. 1880) ; Lady Blennerhasset, trans, (ib.. 1889); Sorel (Paris, 1891; trans. London, 1892). Consult also Count d'Hausson- ville, Le salon de Madame Necker (Paris, 1882;
