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Fate was very kind to Madame De Stael.
She ran the gamut of life from highest love to direst pain—from rosy
dawn to blackest night. Name if you can another woman who touched life at
so many points! Home, health, wealth, strength, honors, affection,
applause, motherhood, loss, danger, death, defeat, sacrifice, humiliation,
illness, banishment, imprisonment, escape. Again comes hope—returning
strength, wealth, recognition, fame tempered by opposition, home, a few
friends, and kindly death—cool, all-enfolding death.
If Harriet Martineau showed poor judgment in choosing her parents, we
can lay no such charge to the account of Madame De Stael.
They called her "The Daughter of Necker," and all through
life she delighted in the title. The courtier who addressed her thus
received a sunny smile and a gentle love-tap on his cheek for pay. A
splendid woman is usually the daughter of her father, just as strong men
have noble mothers.
Jacques Necker was born in Geneva, and went up to the city, like many
another country boy, to make his fortune. He carried with him to Paris
innocence, health, high hope, and twenty francs
in silver. He found a place as porter or "trotter" in a bank.
Soon they made him clerk.
A letter came one day from a correspondent asking for a large loan, and
setting forth a complex financial scheme in which the bank was invited to
join. M. Vernet, the head of the establishment, was away, and young Necker
took the matter in hand. He made a detailed statement of the scheme,
computed probable losses, weighed the pros and cons, and when the employer
returned, the plan, all worked out, was on his desk, with young Necker's
advice that the loan be made.
"You seem to know all about banking!" was the sarcastic
remark of M. Vernet.
"I do," was the proud answer.
"You know too much; I'll just put you back as porter."
The Genevese accepted the reduction and went back as porter without
repining. A man of small sense would have resigned his situation at once,
just as men are ever forsaking Fortune when she is about to smile; witness
Cato committing suicide on the very eve of success.
There is always a demand for efficient men; the market is never
glutted; the cities are hungry for them—but the trouble is, few men are
efficient.
"It was none of his business!" said M. Vernet to his partner,
trying to ease conscience with reasons.
"Yes; but see how he accepted the inevitable!"
"Ah! true, he has two qualities that are the property only
of strong men: confidence and resignation. I think—I think I was
hasty!"
So young Necker was reinstated, and in six months was cashier, in three
years a partner.
Not long after, he married Susanna Curchod, a poor governess.
But Mademoiselle Curchod was rich in mental endowment: refined, gentle,
spiritual, she was a true mate to the high-minded Necker. She was a Swiss,
too, and if you know how a young man and a young woman, countryborn, in a
strange city are attracted to each other, you will better understand this
particular situation.
Some years before, Gibbon had loved and courted the beautiful
Mademoiselle Curchod in her quiet home in the Jura Mountains. They became
engaged. Gibbon wrote home, breaking the happy news to his parents.
"Has the beautiful Curchod of whom you sing, a large dowry?"
inquired the mother.
"She has no dowry! I can not tell a lie," was the meek
answer. The mother came on and extinguished the match in short order.
Gibbon never married. But he frankly tells us all about his love for
Susanna Curchod, and relates how he visited her, in her splendid Paris
home. "She greeted me without embarrassment," says Gibbon,
resentfully; "and in the evening Necker left us together in the
parlor, bade me good-night, and lighting a candle went off to bed!"
Gibbon, historian and philosopher, was made of common
clay (for authors are made of clay, like plain mortals), and he could not
quite forgive Madame Necker for not being embarrassed on meeting her
former lover, neither could he forgive Necker for not being jealous.
But that only daughter of the Neckers, Germaine, pleased
Gibbon—pleased him better than the mother, and Gibbon extended his stay
in Paris and called often.
"She was a splendid creature," Gibbon relates; "only
seventeen, but a woman grown, physically and mentally; not handsome, but
dazzling, brilliant, emotional, sensitive, daring!"
Gibbon was a bit of a romanticist, as all historians are, and he no
doubt thought it would be a fine denouement to life's play to capture the
daughter of his old sweetheart, and avenge himself on Fate and the
unembarrassed Madame Necker and the unpiqued husband, all at one fell
stroke—and she would not be dowerless either. Ha, ha!
But Gibbon forgot that he was past forty, short in stature, and short
of breath, and "miles around," as Talleyrand put it.
"I quite like you," said the daring daughter, as the eloquent
Gibbon sat by her side at a dinner.
"Why shouldn't you like me—I came near being your papa!"
"I know, and would I have looked like you?"
"Perhaps."
"What a calamity!"
Even then she possessed that same bubbling wit that was hers years
later when she sat at table with D'Alembert. On one side of the great
author was Madame Recamier, famous for beauty (and later for a certain
"Beauty-Cream"), on the other the daughter of Necker.
"How fortunate!" exclaimed D'Alembert with rapture; "how
fortunate I sit between Wit and Beauty!"
"Yes, and without possessing either," said Wit.
No mistake, the girl's intellect was too speedy even for Gibbon. She
fenced all 'round him and over him, and he soon discovered that she was
icily gracious to every one, save her father alone. For him she seemed to
outpour all the lavish love of her splendid womanhood. It was unlike the
usual calm affection of father and daughter. It was a great and absorbing
love, of which even the mother was jealous.
"I can't just exactly make 'em out," said Gibbon, and
withdrew in good order.
Before Necker was forty he had accumulated a fortune, and retired from
business to devote himself to literature and the polite arts.
"I have earned a rest," he said; "besides, I must have
leisure to educate my daughter."
Men are constantly "retiring" from business, but someway the
expected Elysium of leisure forever eludes us. Necker had written several
good pamphlets and showed the world that he had ability outside of
money-making. He was appointed Resident Minister of Geneva at
the Court of France. Soon after he became President of the French East
India Company, because there was no one else with mind broad enough to
fill the place. His house was the gathering-place of many eminent scholars
and statesmen. Necker was quiet and reserved; his wife coldly brilliant,
cultured, dignified, religious. The daughter made good every deficiency in
both.
She was tall, finely formed, but her features were rather heavy, and in
repose there was a languor in her manner and a blankness in her face. This
seeming dulness marks all great actors, but the heaviness is only on the
surface; it often covers a sleeping volcano. On recognizing an
acquaintance, Germaine Necker's face would be illumined, and her smile
would light a room. She could pronounce a man's name so he would be ready
to throw himself at her feet, or over a precipice for her. And she could
listen in a way that complimented; and by a sigh, a nod, an exclamation,
bring out the best—such thoughts as a man never knew he had. She made
people surprise themselves with their own genius; thus proving that to
make a good impression means to make the man pleased with himself.
"Any man can be brilliant with her," said a nettled competitor;
"but if she wishes, she can sink all women in a room into creeping
things."
She knew how to compliment without flattering; her cordiality warmed
like wine, and her ready wit, repartee, and ability to thaw all social ice
and lead conversation along any line, were
accomplishments which perhaps have never been equaled. The women who
"entertain" often only depress; they are so glowing that
everybody else feels himself punk. And these people who are too clever are
very numerous; they seem inwardly to fear rivals, and are intent on
working while it is called the day.
Over against these are the celebrities who sit in a corner and smile
knowingly when they are expected to scintillate. And the individual who
talks too much at one time is often painfully silent at another—as if he
had made New-Year resolves. But the daughter of Necker entered into
conversation with candor and abandon; she gave herself to others, and knew
whether they wished to talk or to listen. On occasion, she could
monopolize conversation until she seemed the only person in the room; but
all talent was brighter for the added luster of her own. This simplicity,
this utter frankness, this complete absence of self-consciousness, was
like the flight of a bird that never doubts its power, simply because it
never thinks of it. Yet continual power produces arrogance, and the soul
unchecked finally believes in its own omniscience.
Of course such a matrimonial prize as the daughter of Necker was sought
for, even fought for. But the women who can see clear through a man, like
a Roentgen ray, do not invite soft demonstration. They give passion a
chill. Love demands a little illusion; it must be clothed in
mystery. And although we find evidences that many youths stood in the
hallways and sighed, the daughter of Necker never saw fit by a nod to
bring them to her feet. She was after bigger game—she desired the
admiration and approbation of archbishops, cardinals, generals, statesmen,
great authors.
Germaine Necker had no conception of what love is.
Many women never have. Had this fine young woman met a man with
intellect as clear, mind as vivid, and heart as warm as her own, and had
he pierced her through with a wit as strong and keen as she herself
wielded, her pride would have been broken and she might have paused. Then
they might have looked into each other's eyes and lost self there. And had
she thus known love it would have been a complete passion, for the woman
seemed capable of it.
A better pen than mine has written, "A woman's love is a dog's
love." The dog that craves naught else but the presence of his
master, who is faithful to the one and whines out his life on that
master's grave, waiting for the caress that never comes and the cheery
voice that is never heard—that's the way a woman loves! A woman may
admire, respect, revere and obey, but she does not love until a passion
seizes upon her that has in it the abandon of Niagara. Do you remember how
Nancy Sikes crawls inch by inch to reach the hand of Bill, and reaching
it, tenderly caresses the coarse fingers that a moment before clutched her
throat, and dies content? That's the love of
woman! The prophet spoke of something "passing the love of
woman," but the prophet was wrong—there's nothing does.
So Germaine Necker, the gracious, the kindly, the charming, did not
love. However, she married—married Baron De Stael, the Swedish
Ambassador. He was thirty-seven, she was twenty. De Stael was
good-looking, polite, educated. He always smiled at the right time, said
bright things in the right way, kept silence when he should, and made no
enemies because he agreed with everybody about everything. Stipulations
were made; a long agreement was drawn up; it was signed by the party of
the first and duly executed by the party of the second part; sealed,
witnessed, sworn to, and the priest was summoned.
It was a happy marriage. The first three years of married life were the
happiest Madame De Stael ever knew, she said long afterward.
Possibly there are hasty people who imagine they detect tincture of
iron somewhere in these pages: these good people will say, "Gracious
me! why not?"
And so I will at once admit that these respectable, well-arranged, and
carefully planned marriages are often happy and peaceful.
The couple may "raise" a large family and slide through life
and out of it without a splash. I will also admit that love does not
necessarily imply happiness—more often 't is a pain, a wild yearning,
and a vague unrest; a haunting sense of heart-hunger
that drives a man into exile repeating abstractedly the name
"Beatrice! Beatrice!" And so all the moral I will make now is
simply this: the individual who has not known an all-absorbing love has
not the spiritual vision that is a passport to Paradise. He forever
yammers between the worlds, fit for neither Heaven nor Hell.
Necker retired from business that he might enjoy peace; his daughter
married for the same reason. It was stipulated that she should never be
separated from her father. She who stipulates is lost, so far as love
goes—but no matter! Married women in France are greater lions in society
than maidens can possibly hope to be. The marriage-certificate serves at
once as a license for brilliancy, daring, splendor, and it is also a badge
of respectability. The marriage-certificate is a document that in all
countries is ever taken care of by the woman and never by the man.
And this document is especially useful in France, as French dames know.
Frenchmen are afraid of an unmarried woman—she means danger, damages, a
midnight marriage and other awful things. An unmarried woman in France can
not hope to be a social leader; and to be a social leader was the one
ambition of Madame De Stael.
It was called the salon of Madame De Stael now. Baron De Stael was
known as the husband of Madame De Stael. The salon of Madame Necker was
only a matter of reminiscence. The daughter of Necker was greater than her
father, and as for Madame Necker, she was a mere figure in towering
headdress, point lace and diamonds. Talleyrand summed up the case when he
said, "She is one of those dear old things that have to be
tolerated."
Madame De Stael had a taste for literature from early womanhood.
She wrote beautiful little essays and read them aloud to her company, and
her manuscripts had a circulation like unto her father's bank-notes. She
had the faculty of absorbing beautiful thoughts and sentiments, and no
woman ever expressed them in a more graceful way. People said she was the
greatest woman author of her day. "You mean of all time,"
corrected Diderot. They called her "the High Priestess of
Letters," "the Minerva of Poetry," "Sappho
Returned," and all that. Her commendation meant success and her
indifference failure. She knew politics, too, and her hands were on all
wires. Did she wish to placate a minister, she invited him to call, and
once there he was as putty in her hands. She skimmed the surface of all
languages, all arts, all history, but best of all she knew the human
heart.
Of course there was a realm of knowledge she wist not of—the
initiates of which never ventured within her scope. She had nothing for
them—they kept away. But the proud, the vain, the ambitious, the
ennui-ridden, the people-who-wish-to-be, and who are ever looking for the
strong man to give them help—these thronged her parlors.
And when you have named these you have named all those who are foremost
in commerce, politics, art, education, philanthropy and religion. The
world is run by second-rate people. The best are speedily crucified, or
else never heard of until long after they are dead.
Madame De Stael, in Seventeen Hundred Eighty-eight, was queen of the
people who ran the world—-at least the French part of it.
But intellectual power, like physical strength, endures but for a day.
Giants who have a giant's strength and use it like a giant must be put
down. If you have intellectual power, hide it!
Do thy daily work in thine own little way and be content. The personal
touch repels as well as attracts. Thy presence is a menace—thy existence
an affront—beware! They are weaving a net for thy feet, and hear you not
the echo of hammering, as of men building a scaffold?
Go read history! Thinkest thou that all men are mortal save thee alone,
and that what has befallen others can not happen to thee?
The Devil has no title to this property he now promises. Fool! thou
hast no more claim on Fate than they who have gone before, and what has
come to others in like conditions must come to thee. God himself can not
stay it; it is so written in the stars. Power to lead men! Pray that thy
prayer shall ne'er be granted—'t is to be carried to the topmost
pinnacle of Fame's temple tower, and there cast headlong upon the stones
beneath. Beware! beware!!
Madame De Stael was of an intensely religious nature throughout her
entire life; such characters swing between license and asceticism. But the
charge of atheism told largely against her even among the so-called
liberals, for liberals are often very illiberal. Marie Antoinette gathered
her skirts close about her and looked at the "Minerva of
Letters" with suspicion in her big, open eyes; cabinet officers
forgot her requests to call, and when a famous wit once coolly asked,
"Who was that Madame De Stael we used to read about?" people
roared with laughter.
Necker, as Minister of Finance, had saved the State from financial
ruin; then had been deposed and banished; then recalled. In September,
Seventeen Hundred Ninety, he was again compelled to flee. He escaped to
Switzerland, disguised as a pedler. The daughter wished to accompany him,
but this was impossible, for only a week before she had given birth to her
first child.
But favor came back, and in the mad tumult of the times the freedom of
wit and sparkle of her salon became a need to the poets and philosophers,
if city wits can be so called.
Society shone as never before. In it was the good nature of the mob. It
was no time to sit quietly at home and enjoy a book—men and women must
"go somewhere," they must "do something." The women
adopted the Greek costume and appeared in simple white robes caught
at the shoulders with miniature stilettos. Many men wore crape on their
arms in pretended memory of friends who had been kissed by Madame
Guillotine. There was fever in the air, fever in the blood, and the
passions held high carnival. In solitude, danger depresses all save the
very strongest, but the mob (ever the symbol of weakness) is made up of
women—it is an effeminate thing. It laughs hysterically at death and
cries, "On with the dance!" Women represent the opposite poles
of virtue.
The fever continues: a "poverty party" is given by Madame De
Stael, where men dress in rags and women wear tattered gowns that ill
conceal their charms. "We must get used to it," she said, and
everybody laughed. Soon, men in the streets wear red nightcaps, women
appear in nightgowns, rich men wear wooden shoes, and young men in gangs
of twelve parade the avenues at night carrying heavy clubs, hurrahing for
this or that.
Yes, society in Paris was never so gay.
The salons were crowded, and politics was the theme. When the
discussion waxed too warm, some one would start a hymn and all would chime
in until the contestants were drowned out and in token of submission
joined in the chorus.
But Madame De Stael was very busy all these days. Her house was filled
with refugees, and she ran here and there for passports and pardons, and
beseeched ministers and archbishops for
interference or assistance or amnesty or succor and all those things that
great men can give or bestow or effect or filch. And when her smiles
failed to win the wished-for signature, she still had tears that would
move a heart of brass.
About this time Baron De Stael fades from our vision, leaving with
Madame three children.
"It was never anything but a 'mariage de convenance' anyway, what
of it ?" and Madame bursts into tears and throws herself into
Farquar's arms.
"Compose yourself, my dear—you are spoiling my gown," says
the Duchesse.
"I stood him as long as I could," continued Madame.
"You mean he stood you as long as he could."
"You naughty thing!—why don't you sympathize with me?"
Then both women fall into a laughing fit that is interrupted by the
servant, who announces Benjamin Constant.
Constant came as near winning the love of Madame De Stael as any man
ever did. He was politician, scholar, writer, orator, courtier. But with
it all he was a boor, for when he had won the favor of Madame De Stael he
wrote a long letter to Madame Charriere, with whom he had lived for
several years in the greatest intimacy, giving reasons why he had forsaken
her, and ending with an ecstacy in praise of the Stael.
If a man can do a thing more brutal than to humiliate one
woman at the expense of another, I do not know it. And without entering
any defense for the men who love several women at one time, I wish to make
a clear distinction between the men who bully and brutalize women for
their own gratification and the men who find their highest pleasure in
pleasing women. The latter may not be a paragon, yet as his desire is to
give pleasure, not to corral it, he is a totally different being from the
man who deceives, badgers, humiliates, and quarrels with one who can not
defend herself, in order that he may find an excuse for leaving her.
A good many of Constant's speeches were written by Madame De Stael, and
when they traveled together through Germany he no doubt was a great help
to her in preparing the "De l'Allemagne."
But there was a little man approaching from out the mist of obscurity
who was to play an important part in the life of Madame De Stael. He had
heard of her wide-reaching influence, and such an influence he could not
afford to forego—it must be used to further his ends.
Yet the First Consul did not call on her, and she did not call on the
First Consul. They played a waiting game, "If he wishes to see me, he
knows that I am home Thursdays!" she said with a shrug.
"Yes, but a man in his position reverses the usual order: he does
not make the first call!"
"Evidently!" said Madame, and the subject dropped with a dull
thud.
Word came from somewhere that Baron De Stael was seriously ill. The
wife was thrown into a tumult of emotion. She must go to him at once—a
wife's duty was to her husband first of all. She left everything, and
hastening to his bedside, there ministered to him tenderly. But death
claimed him. The widow returned to Paris clothed in deep mourning. Crape
was tied on the door-knocker and the salon was closed.
The First Consul sent condolences.
"The First Consul is a joker," said Dannion solemnly, and
took snuff.
In six weeks the salon was again opened. Not long after, at a dinner,
Napoleon and Madame De Stael sat side by side. "Your father was a
great man," said Napoleon.
He had gotten in the first compliment when she had planned otherwise.
She intended to march her charms in a phalanx upon him, but he would not
have it so. Her wit fell flat and her prettiest smile brought only the
remark, "If the wind veers north it may rain."
They were rivals—that was the trouble. France was not big enough for
both.
Madame De Stael's book about Germany had been duly announced, puffed,
printed. Ten thousand copies were issued and—seized upon by Napoleon's
agents and burned.
"The edition is exhausted," cried Madame, as she smiled
through her tears and searched for her pocket-handkerchief.
The trouble with the book was that nowhere in it was Napoleon
mentioned. Had Napoleon never noticed the book, the author would have been
woefully sorry. As it was she was pleased, and when the last guest had
gone she and Benjamin Constant laughed, shook hands, and ordered lunch.
But it was not so funny when Fouche called, apologized, coughed, and
said the air in Paris was bad.
So Madame De Stael had to go—it was "Ten Years of Exile."
In that book you can read all about it. She retired to Coppet, and all the
griefs, persecutions, disappointments and heartaches were doubtless
softened by the inward thought of the distinction that was hers in being
the first woman banished by Napoleon and of being the only woman he
thoroughly feared.
When it came Napoleon's turn to go and the departure for Elba was at
hand, it will be remembered he bade good-by personally to those who had
served him so faithfully. It was an affecting scene when he kissed his
generals and saluted the swarthy grenadiers in the same way. When told of
it Madame picked a petal or two from her bouquet and said, "You see,
my dears, the difference is this: while Judas kissed but one, the Little
Man kissed forty."
Napoleon was scarcely out of France before Madame was back in Paris
with all her books and wit and beauty. An ovation was given the daughter
of Necker such as Paris alone can give.
But Napoleon did not stay at Elba, at least not according to any
accounts I have read.
When word came that he was marching on Paris, Madame hastily packed up
her manuscripts and started in hot haste for Coppet.
But when the eighty days had passed and the bugaboo was safely on board
the "Bellerophon," she came back to the scenes she loved so well
and to what for her was the only heaven—Paris.
She has been called a philosopher and a literary light. But she was
only socio-literary. Her written philosophy does not represent the things
she felt were true—simply those things she thought it would be nice to
say. She cultivated literature, only that she might shine. Love, wealth,
health, husband, children—all were sacrificed that she might lead
society and win applause. No one ever feared solitude more: she must have
those about her who would minister to her vanity and upon whom she could
shower her wit. As a type her life is valuable, and in these pages that
traverse the entire circle of feminine virtues and foibles she surely must
have a place.
In her last illness she was attended daily by those faithful subjects
who had all along recognized her sovereignty—in Society she was Queen.
She surely won her heart's desire, for to that bed from which she was no
more to rise, courtiers came and kneeling kissed her hand, and women by
the score whom she had befriended paid her the tribute of their tears.
She died in Paris aged fifty-one.
When you are in Switzerland and take the little steamer that plies on
Lake Leman from Lausanne to Geneva, you will see on the western shore a
tiny village that clings close around a chateau, like little oysters
around the parent shell. This is the village of Coppet that you behold,
and the central building that seems to be a part of the very landscape is
the Chateau De Necker. This was the home of Madame De Stael and the place
where so many refugees sought safety.
"Coppet is Hell in motion," said Napoleon. "The woman
who lives there has a petticoat full of arrows that could hit a man were
he seated on a rainbow. She combines in her active head and strong heart
Rousseau and Mirabeau; and then shields herself behind a shift and screams
if you approach. To attract attention to herself she calls, 'Help,
help!'"
The man who voiced these words was surely fit rival to the chatelaine
of this vine-covered place of peace that lies smiling an ironical smile in
the sunshine on yonder hillside.
Coppet bristles with history.
Could Coppet speak it must tell of Voltaire and Rousseau, who had
knocked at its gates; of John Calvin; of Montmorency; of Hautville (for
whom Victor Hugo named a chateau); of Fanny Burney and Madame Recamier and
Girardin (pupil of Rousseau); and Lafayette and hosts of others who are to
us but names, but who in their day were greatest
among all the sons of men.
Chief of all was the great Necker, who himself planned and built the
main edifice that his daughter "might ever call it home." Little
did he know that it would serve as her prison, and that from here she
would have to steal away in disguise. But yet it was the place she called
home for full two decades. Here she wrote and wept and laughed and sang:
hating the place when here, loving it when away. Here she came when De
Stael had died, and here she brought her children. Here she received the
caresses of Benjamin Constant, and here she won the love of pale, handsome
Rocco, and here, "when past age," gave birth to his child. Here
and in Paris, in quick turn, the tragedy and comedy of her life were
played; and here she sleeps.
In the tourist season there are many visitors at the chateau. A grave
old soldier, wearing on his breast the Cross of the Legion of Honor, meets
you at the lodge and conducts you through the halls, the salon and the
library. There are many family portraits, and mementos without number, to
bring back the past that is gone forever. Inscribed copies of books from
Goethe and Schiller and Schlegel and Byron are in the cases, and on the
walls are to be seen pictures of Necker, Rocco, De Stael and Albert, the
firstborn son, decapitated in a duel by a swinging stroke from a German
saber, on account of a king and two aces held in his sleeve.
Beneath the old chateau dances a mountain brook, cold from the Jura; in
the great courtway is a fountain and fish-pond, and all around are
flowering plants and stately palms. All is quiet and orderly. No children
play, no merry voices call, no glad laughter echoes through these courts.
Even the birds have ceased to sing.
The quaint chairs in the parlors are pushed back with precision against
the wall, and the funereal silence that reigns supreme seems to say that
death yesterday came, and an hour ago all the inmates of the gloomy
mansion, save the old soldier, followed the hearse afar and have not yet
returned.
We are conducted out through the garden, along gravel walks, across the
well-trimmed lawn; and before a high iron gate, walled in on both sides
with massive masonry, the old soldier stops, and removes his cap. Standing
with heads uncovered, we are told that within rests the dust of Madame De
Stael, her parents, her children, and her children's children—four
generations in all.
The steamer whistles at the wharf as if to bring us back from dream and
mold and death, and we hasten away, walking needlessly fast, looking back
furtively to see if grim spectral shapes are following after. None is
seen, but we do not breathe freely until aboard the steamer and two short
whistles are heard, and the order is given to cast off. We push off slowly
from the stone pier, and all is safe.
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