Paris, Flammarion, 283 pages.
In her preface to Histoire de l’art et lutte des sexes (History of Art and the Battle of the Sexes), Fabienne Dumont highlights the wealth of historical anecdotes that accompany the portraits of Madame Récamier by David and Ingres. There is no doubt that Françoise drew on the documentation she had compiled over the previous decade for her Germaine de Staël.
Françoise’s closeness, even familiarity, with the characters and the era is striking, giving the impression that she is not working as a historian and biographer, but rather as a contemporary and neighbor.
For she had not forgotten the reception Napoleon had given to some of her great-aunts. Bringing him important papers from the Isle of France, from where they had been forced into exile when it became Mauritius after being taken by the English, they had asked for an exchange, a subsidy to set up a school for girls. This did not please the despot at all, who, professing that “women belong to men as fruit trees belong to gardeners,” considered any education for women that might distract them from their assigned role to be pernicious, and therefore rejected the request.
Françoise recounts her destiny in a style as loud and furious as Germaine de Staël’s life itself. The daughter of Necker and the greatest writer of the early 19th century, whom the Emperor detested, she never bowed down to him, and paid the price for it. The portrait is rich, nuanced, and scholarly, without ever veering into hagiography, but restoring her to her rightful place in literature and politics, just as she did for Christine of Sweden: one of the first, since she saved Talleyrand (who hastened to betray her), obtained concessions from the inflexible Fouché, and had the ear of the greatest European princes, while producing a body of work that would astonish Hugo, Chateaubriand, and so many others with its intelligence.
That is why I don’t think the title is entirely appropriate: more than a witness to her century, she was a major player, even inspiring an anti-Napoleonic coalition of northern European states. And Napoleon was not mistaken when he had her watched day and night and was able to recite her schedule while fighting his battles on the other side of Europe.
One last question remains: why was this political and philosophical genius not included in my studies, which were cluttered with so many writers of far lesser importance?