Byron, Mme de Stael, Schlegel, and the religious motif in Armance

Comparative Literature, Fall 1994 by Rosa, George M

Ces plats allemands toujours betes et emphatiques se sont empares du systeme romantique, lui ont donne un nom et l'ont gate. Ce systeme tel qu'il est pratique par Lord Ba-i-ronne (Lord Byron, jeune pair, Lovelace de trente-six ans) et tel qu'il est enseigne par l'Edinburgh Review est sur d'entrainer le genre humain. Schlegel reste un pedant ridicule....qui un de ces jours sera jete dans la boue. Byron, Byron est le nom qu'il faut faire sonner ferme. (Correspondance 1:819-20)

Stendhal reiterated this view in another letter to Louis Crozet dated October 1:

La superiorite logique des Anglais, produite par la discussion d'interets chers, les met a cent piques au-dessus de ces pauvres gobe-mouches d'Allemands qui croient tout. Le systeme romantique, gate par le mystique Schlegel, triomphe tel qu'il est explique dans les vingt-cinq volumes de l'Edinburgh Review et tel qu'il est pratique par Lord Ba-i-ronne (Lord Byron)....Lorsqu'il [Byron] entre dans un salon toutes les femmes en sortent. La representation de cette farce a eu lieu plusieurs fois a Coppet. (Correspondance 1:827-28)

These passages invidiously contrasting Schlegel to Byron are of particular interest because the two rival Romantic authors actually had met at Coppet, as Stendhal was well aware: indeed, he explicitly evokes the encounter of the English poet with the German critic in Rome, Naples et Florence en 1817 (1817), where he remarks that "il y a eu cet automne, sur les bords du lac [Leman], la reunion la plus etonnante" in a "salon oh...les de Broglie, les Brougham, les de Breme, les Schlegel, les Byron discutent les plus grandes questions de la morale et des arts devant Mmes Necker-Saussure, de Broglie, de Stael" (Voyages 155). In the late summer and early autumn of 1816, Stendhal himself witnessed the flowering of a sort of mini-Coppet at Milan, where Breme received several of Mme de Stal's former guests, including Henry Brougham, Dr. John William Polidori, John Cam Hobhouse, and, most notably, Lord Byron, whom Stendhal met in person on October 17, 1816, less than three weeks after he first penned the poet's name.

These historical details all point to the conclusion that Stendhal from the outset associated Byron with Mme de Stael's entourage at Coppet and that he had good reason in 1816 to take a lively interest in any news concerning Byron's experiences there--news that would of course have been readily available either directly through Breme and Breme's visitors from Coppet or indirectly through the Italian habitus of Breme's salon.

Stendhal scarcely could avoid learning from these sources about the religious climate at Coppet, which was so mystically nebulous in 1816 as to invite humorous comment. According to the Duc de Broglie, Schlegel was obsessed with ideas of conversion throughout that year,(2O) and extravagant religious notions issuing from the 'tersants duJura" preyed on 'l'tat d'esprit de madame de Stael," who, along with other "mes naturellement pieuses," sought to promote, "en fait de religion, le sentiment...et l'abngation de la raison" (1:369). The Duc de Broglie also indicates that, in late September or early October 1816--a period during which Byron and Hobhouse both made appearances at Coppet (see Hobhouse, Icollections 2:14-16, 25-28)--"deux patriarches" of a "petite secte ou glise mystique" descended upon the place, and one of them scored notable successes in discoursing "sur des sujets de pure spiritualite" (1:367-68). All of these circumstances no doubt set Byron even more conspicuously apart from the assembled company than he might otherwise have been, in view of his reputation for being irreligious: the Duc de Broglie, who met Byron at Coppet, observes that the poet seemed determined to "se faire passer...,sinon pour le diable en personne, du moins pour un vivant exemplaire de Manfred ou de Lara" (1:361).