Staal.

Staal. MARGUERITE JEANNE, BARONESS DE, usually distinguished from the greater Mme. de Staël-Holstein as Madame de Staal-Delaunay, was born at Paris, May 30, 1684, the daughter of a poor painter named Cordier, whose name she dropped for that of her mother, Delaunay. She had a sound education at the convent of Saint Louis at Rouen, and at twenty-seven was attached to the person of the imperious and intriguing Duchesse de Maine at the little court of Sceaux. Here she saw before her eyes all that comedy of life which she was later to describe with such penetrating insight. Her position was at first a servile one, and she must often have been sorely tried by the temper of her mistress, but in herself remained not one whit of what she calls the 'caractère indélébile de femme de chambre,' and all her life was ruled in harmony with her own words, that it is only our own actions which can degrade us. Her devotion to the interests of the Duchesse brought her two years in the Bastille, where she had a love affair with the Chevalier de Menil. In 1735 she married the Baron de Staal, an officer of the Gnard. She died at Paris, 16th June 1750. Her Mémoires (4 vols. 1755; eds. by Barrière, 1846; Lescure, 2 vols. 1878) show intellect and observation, as well as remarkable mastery of subtle irony, and are written in a style clear, firm, and individual. 'Je ne me suis peinté qu'en buste,' she says, by which must not be understood that this lofty soul and admirable writer was ever consciously or unconsciously untrue. For indeed sincerity is her first characteristic, and throughout she reflects things like a mirror, without addition, omission, or distortion. 'Le vrai est comme il peut, et n'a de mérite que d'être ce qu'il est.' Her Œuvres Complètes appeared at Paris in 2 vols. in 1821. See the study by Frary (1863), and Sainte-Beuve, Portraits Littéraires, vol. iii.