Literary Women in Exile

Wednesday’s topics focused on language: a morning lecture on the French spoken in Switzerland, and on the regional varieties which characterize any language. After lunch at the University cafeteria, we traveled to a small village along Lake Geneva, site of the Chateau of Coppet, the manor house of Jacques Necker, the banker who tried to save the French treasury from the bankruptcy that eventually caused its downfall.


The current owners, direct descendants who winter in Paris, greeted us on our arrival. Necker’s daughter, born in Paris to this Protestant Swiss financier, became the renowned Madame de Stael, literary icon of the 18th century. Madame de Stael fled the wrath of Napoleon, who would rather have seen her run all the way to America, but had to settle for her exile to Coppet. From virtually next door to Napoleon’s France, she continued to hostess famed literary salons and to write of her exile and of her travels, in the form of published novels, essays, and as letters.

I lost the thread of Germaine Necker Stael’s literary accomplishments and political stature when the tour guide pointed out in passing a portrait of an 18th century stepfather named Schegal and the bust of Augusta, made at his request when his wife’s daughter died at age 15. Her curls were caught up in a scarf headband, her soft features looking wide-eyed held mine from her corner of the room. I wondered if she, like the famous occupant of the chateau, loved to read and to write. Much of Doris Jakubec’s scholarly talk about Swiss literature went by me as I dwelt on sweet memories of literary women.

Coppet

Once upon a princess
There lived another curly girl
Sweet visage framed
Ringlets escaping a scarf.

Escape frozen in stone
at Schlegel’s behest:
another German stepdad
who grieved Augusta.

She, gone at 15, left me grateful,
in Mme de Stael’s sitting room,
for the gift of 2 more years
before my own August grief.

Coppet

Il y était autre fois une princesse
une autre douce fille bouclée
dont le visage encadré de frisettes
échappées d’une écharpe.

Fuite capté en pierre
Sollicité de ce Schlegel
un autre beau-père allemand
auquel manqua cette Augusta.

Elle, morte à 15 ans, me laissa,
de son coin du salon de Madame de Stael,
reconnaissante de mes 2 ans de plus
avant mon propre deuil d’aout.

July 3, 2008
Coppet, Lake Geneva
Switzerland

We returned to Geneva in the most lovely fashion, by steam boat across the lake. Europe’s largest lake lulled us, the heat of the sun simply torrid. It was a dreamy ride under the sparkling eyes of the Rothchild mansion high on the lakeshore, back to the city whose water jet marks the entry to the Rhone.






We stopped at the baroque tomb of a wealthy Genevois, who in return for this prominent monument donated the land on which the United Nations now occupies. He is guarded by a veritable Aslan, again. Narnia is everywhere!