MADAME DE KRUDENER.* BARBE-JULIE WIETINGROFF, to call the subject of
this curious but decidedly interesting memoir by her maiden name, was born at Riga in 1764, and was the daughter of a wealthy Livonian merchant-prince of German extraction. Though nominally a member of the Lutheran Church, she was brought up in an atmosphere of French Voltairian culture, learnt dancing of Vestris, travelled in Germany, France, and England, and was married before she was nineteen to the Baron de Krudener, a rising diplomatist in the service of the Russian Court, twice her age, and already twice divorced. The Baron, in spite of these unfortunate ante- cedents, seems to have been a man ot high character as well as ability, and was sincerely devoted to his young wife. Julie, though she married him simply out of social ambition, always recognised his good qualities, and in the early years of their married life lavished her attentions upon him, Unfortunately he was of an undemonstrative, unromantic, and unemotional nature. Her social talents as a dancer, amateur actress, and conversationalist attracted admirers wherever they went; and her inordinate vanity, and her invariable habit of yielding to the impulse of the moment, soon led her to seek consolation elsewhere. On the rare occasious when she rejoined her husband, her frivolity, eccentricity, and unpunctuality ren- dered her, as an Ambassador's wife, unpleasantly conspicuous. She was for a while the mistress of a French Count, and when it became necessary to return to her husband's roof, calmly avowed her intention in a letter, breathing all manner of pious resolves, of inaugurating a m4nage a trois. However, her husband's forbearance, wonderful as it was, stopped short of such lengths, and the episode was terminated by the return of the Count to his military duties. But her penitence was short-lived, and after a short interval we find her once more embarked on a career of Bohemian vagabondage, restlessly wandering from one fashionable health-resort to another, the centre, wherever Hho went, of a "fast" intellectual set, who danced and acted, and lived on epigrams and their emotions. Still, even at this epoch, when her sense of duty seemed atrophied, while her whole nature was eaten up with vanity and love of pose, it must be set down to her credit that women, quite as much as men, yielded to the fascination of her personality. Throughout her life she inspired a wonderful devotion in those of her own sex who were brought into the closest contact with her,— her stepdaughter and daughter most of all,—while the most remarkable literary tribute to her grace and accomplishments was paid by Madame de Statil, who immortalised her famous dans° du schall in one of her best novels, besides modelling many of the traits of her capricious heroine—Delphine--oe those of Julie de Krudener.
Mr. Ford is, we think, right in his view that the develop- ment of a literary ambition was the first sign of the awakening of a higher nature in Madame de Krudener. Love of notoriety —the pulerum est digit° monstrari feeling—was doubtless a good deal mixed up with it ; but still her literary efforts, saturated as they are with self-consciousness, give proof of the desire to emerge from the life of mere frivolity which she had been leading HO long. It was characteristic of her that in her first and most successful bid for literary fame- Valerie—she should simply have turned herself into "copy." ValtIrie is simply an idealised versiono an, episode in her own life, and the literary mkrit of the work, whi2li so great a critic as Sainte-Beuve dc Tared might be numbered among the books which can be road with pleasure thrice in a lifetime, can hardly atone for the self-glorification involved in the choice of the subject. One does not like to think of women advertising their conquests in this way ; it savours too much of the Indian and his scalps. Tee indefatigable energy, moreover, shown by the authoress in working the oracle, pulling the journalistic wires, and inspiring all manner of puffs preliminary, were worthy of an American impresario. The following account of her manwavres is given by her best and most sympathetic French biographer, and is worth quoting,— "During several days she made the round of the fashiona'Jle shopsincomIta asking sometimes for shawls, sotnetim)s for lilts, feathers, wreaths or ribbons, all a /a Valcirie. When they saw this beautiful and elegant stranger step out of her carriage with an air of assurance, and ask for fancy articles which she invented Life and hrtienq of ItIndame c Kvidener. lly OlnrPnco For 1. London : aniiC. BMA, on the spur of the moment, the shopkeepers were seized with a polite desire to satisfy her by any means in their power. Moreover, the lady would soon pretend to recognise the article she had asked for. And if the unfortunate shop-girl, taken aback by such unusual demands, looked puzzled, and denied all know- ledge of the article, Madame de Krudener would smile graciously, and pity them for their ignorance of the new novel, thus turning them all into eager renders of Va/Orie. Then, laden with her purchases, she would drive off to another shop, pretending to search for that which only existed in her imagination. Thanks to these manceuvres, she succeeded in exciting such ardent competition in honour of her heroine that for at least a week the shops sold everything (1 la Valerie."
At the time of her triumph,—for Valerie was an incontestable success,—Madame de Krudener was still a young and attractive woman. As the widow of a Russian Ambassador, her social position was assured. She had estates of her own in Livonia, and the Czar had settled a considerable property on her as well, in return for the services rendered to the State by the husband she had treated so badly in his lifetime. She was on intimate terms with many of the great writers of the day in Paris, and had she chosen to devote herself to literature, or to keep a salon, might have enjoyed for many years the homage of admiration which seemed so essential to her happiness. The prospect was brilliant, and it might have been thought irresistible to one of her temperament ; and yet the unexpected happened. In the course of a long visit to Livonia, she was profoundly impressed by witnessing the sudden death of a friend. She regarded it as a solemn warning, and was filled with horror at the thought that she too might one day be smitten down without a moment for prayer or repentance. A chance question put to a village shoemaker revealed to her in the simple creed of the Mora- view), to which sect he belonged, a path out of the slough of despond into which she had fallen. Doctrinal subtleties and theological problems henceforth never troubled her. Her whole creed was summed up in the words " Corue to Jesus." She had "found salvation," and though her labours were often marred by extravagance, and her usefulness impaired by her credulity in the integrity of her associates, there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of her conversion, or the single-minded- ness of her aims. For let it be borne in mind that no woman is more likely to be misrepresented and maligned than the repentant Magdalen of modern fashionable society. This was Madame de Krudener's position, and oven her enemies are unable to deny that she sacrificed fortune, comfort, and health in the pursuit of her self-imposed missionary labours. In virtue of her position and social gifts she was at first impelled to exercise her new-found powers on aristocratic and noble hearers. She became the spiritual confidante of Queens and Princesses, while at the same time she fell under the influence of a vulgar and unscrupulous preacher of the Stiggins type, and a thought-reading prot6gee of his, and remained their dupe for many years. They induced her to found and endow a Christian community for their own special benefit, which was at once broken up by the authorities. Baden, Carlsruhe, Strasbourg, and Geneva were in turn the headquarters of her restless evangelistic activity until 1814, when she assumed the vas of spiritual Egeria to the Emperor of Russia. Alexander, who had been deeply impressed by the letters, full of vague prophecies and allusions to himself as the regenera- tor of Europe, which she had written to the Empress's favourite maid-of-honour, was disposed to meet her advances more than half-way. She waylaid him as be was travelling from Vienna to Heidelberg, and her abrupt and unexpected visit, though deliberately planned, doubtless struck him in the light of an almost miraculous response to his desire to meet and converse with her. As for the secret of that strange friendship, which gave rise to so much gossip and scandal, there is, we think, no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of Mr. Ford's view that it rested entirely on a spiritual basis. She was probably the first person who had ever dared to tell him the plain, unvarnished truth about his shortcomings, while, no doubt, he was flattered by her confidence in him as the appointed champion of the new order. So great was her influence over him, that at Paris vigorous but ineffectual efforts were made by Talleyrartd and Metternich to lure the Emperor back into the Venusberg. The grand climax of this, the most brilliant chapter of her life, was reached in the remarkable scene on the Plaine de Vertus, when, at the great religious thanksgiving in which 150,000 Russian troops took part, she was, after the Emperor, the most striking figure present. She disclaimed any con- scious effort to exert any influence on politics; but there is little doubt that she not only suggested the title of the Holy Alliance, but was one of the first persons consulted when it was being drawn up. The abrupt severance of these intimate relit. tins on Alexander's return to Russia was due primarily to his unstable nature and change of convictions, but also in part, no doubt, to the damaging representations made against her by her enemies. After bidding a final farewell to Paris, where, as her latest biographer puts it, "she had appeared with equal success in so many different rales,—.first as mondaine, then as literary star, and finally as prophetess," Madame de Krude- nor once more resumed her evangelistic labours in Switzer- land. By her indiscriminate almsgiving, her unlucky choice of associates, and her indulgence in unfulfilled prophecies, Madame de Krudener undoubtedly laid herself open to criticism. But there was no excuse for the harassing perse- cution to which she was subjected by the police, or the malignity with which she was assailed by her detractors in the Press. The last years of her life were mainly spent in seclusion in Livonia. She paid a visit to St. Petersburg in 1821, but her influence at Court was at an end. In 1824, worn out by privations, and after long suffering from a complication of maladies, she died in the Crimea, whither she had gone with a party of German and Swiss colonists to found a Christian community in accordance with a scheme propounded by Princess Anna Galitzin.
To most readers the statement in the preface of this exceedingly conscientious monograph, that Madame de Krudener was "one of the most striking feminine personalities of modern times," will appear a large if not an unwarrantable proposition. But it must be admitted that Mr., Clarence Ford has done all that was possible, by legitimate means, to vindicate the accuracy of his assertion. His heroine was unquestionably an extraordinary woman. As a girl and a young married woman, she was a sort of eighteenth-century Marie Bash.. kirtseff, devoured by complacent egotism, obeying no law but impulse, and actuated in all she did by her three guiding principles,—the love of pleasure, the thirst for admiration, and the craze for notoriety. It is impossible to read the record of her married life without irritation, and even disgust ; it is equally impossible to read the history of her closing years with- out being touched by her many trials, and the unflinching forti- tude with which she bore them. She was a woman of extremes, and the reaction, when it did set in, was excessive and even violent. Her mode of life, always severely simple from the date of her conversion, grew more ascetic year by year, and the feebler she became the greater was her passion for self-inflicted privations. As one reads on, insensibly irritation gives place to interest, and interest to respect and even admiration. She met with constant failure, misrepresentation, and even per- secution, but never complained or turned back. Indiscreet, credulous, and emotional as a religious teacher, she at least has left the example of self-sacrifice and of wide-ranging devotion to her struggling brethren and sisters, irrespective of creed or position, rare in one of her social eminence, rarer still in one of her time. Mr. Ford has done his work right well. Without making any pretence to originality, lie has given us a very careful and, on the whole, dispassionate summary of the extensive literature bearing on the subject. Madame de Krudener has been alternately the victim of bitter calumny and extravagant adulation. Mr. Ford steers clear of either extreme. His attitude is sympathetic, but it is eminently judicial.
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