a perpetual exile
The status of persona non grata, if somewhat unusual, was certainly
not unheard of in France either before, or after, the Revolution. Napoleon, in fact, became famous for
sending those who displeased him into exile. With one of these, Germaine de Staël, he got more than
he bargained for: resentful of her criticism of his authoritarian rule, he
banished her forever from French dominions, whereupon she set out on a
long tour of Europe, speaking out against the Emperor of France and
attracting legions of admirers wherever she went. One reason that she
established herself at Coppet and
gathered around her a set of pan-European intellectuals was that she could
not return to Paris. Mary Shelley, in
the ambience of Geneva in the summer of 1816, would have
well aware of this record. Madame de Staël's last book, published
posthumously in 1820, was
called Ten Years of Exile. Whether Napoleon was afforded a copy on
St. Helena, his island of exile in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, is
unlikely. Nonetheless, Germaine de Staël decidedly had the last
laugh.
