Ten Years of Exile

Capturing eloquent observations of the Napoleonic period's most politically outspoken woman, this edition of Dix Annees d’Exil is the powerful memoir of Germaine de Stael’s tumultuous years fleeing Napoleon. Translated by an award-winning scholar, Ten Years of Exile is the only unabridged English edition of this strong-minded and passionate woman’s personal and political journal.

During the French Revolution, Mme. de Stael’s salon became a brilliant center of political and intellectual life. Stael herself helped to introduce Napoleon to French society, yet like other liberals in the Constitutional Club, she soon came to oppose the increasingly powerful general. He in turn banished her from Paris in 1803 for her liberal ideas.

In exile, Stael continued to agitate against the new master of France. When Napoleon began his great Russian campaign, she fled across Austria and Poland to avoid his advancing armies. She arrived in Moscow only weeks ahead of Napoleon and then barely escaped to England. After Napoleon’s defeat, Stael returned to Paris and again received ministers, generals, and sovereigns in her revived salon.

As the author of beloved novels and widely read works on literature, history, and politics, Stael knew and corresponded with many of the leading intellectuals and politicians of her day, including Talleyrand, Schiller, and Goethe. Her memoir provides penetrating insights into the society of Napoleonic Europe and vivid portraits of the leading figures of the age, including the emperor himself.

Based upon the definitive 1996 French text edited by Simone Balaye and Mariella Bonifacio, this edition includes a new introduction by Simone Balaye and Avriel Goldberger. Supplemented with notes, a chronology, and a map of de Stael’s dramatic flight across Europe, Ten Years of Exile will intrigue readers interested in biography, French history, women’s studies, political and intellectual history, literature, and the Age of Napoleon.