Barbara Juliane von Krüdener

Barbara Juliane von Krüdener, referred to in the account as Mme Krüdener, appears as a woman who makes an audience out of both society and heaven. Her self-presentation moves from a choreographed shawl dance to religious conviction and influence over Alexander I: in each sphere, the decisive reward is not simply to perform or act, but to be recognized as exceptional. The account ultimately treats that self-confirming mission as a substitute for effective freedom in the world.

Identity and the cultivated spectacle

Krüdener is introduced through a performance of the shawl dance, described in her novel Valérie. The scene gives unusual weight to the preparation: a dark blue muslin shawl is drawn over the head, the hair disappears, the forehead takes on an antique appearance, and the eyelids lower as the performer’s usual smile gradually fades. Her head bends; the shawl settles across her crossed arms and bust. Through these deliberate changes, an article of clothing becomes the instrument of a composed public image.

That image depends on controlled transformation rather than spontaneous display. At first, the lowered gaze and fading smile shape a figure of quiet resignation; when Krüdener’s eyes lift and her lips dare a smile, the effect changes. The passage evokes Shakespeare’s image of Patience smiling before a monument to Pain. The performer does not merely embody sadness: she arranges the audience’s passage from solemnity to a moment of expressive release.

The account then cites a portrait of Valérie as timid, noble, and profoundly sensitive, with a power to trouble, lead, move, and draw tears. The passage associates this influence with a grace that cannot be taught and that nature reveals to a few supposedly superior beings. Read alongside the elaborate staging of the shawl dance, the description shows how an appearance of innate grace can be produced and presented through artful conduct.

From display to religious self-confirmation

Krüdener’s wish to be the object of special attention reappears in her imagined relationship with God. The account places her beside women who seek divine love as they seek a lover’s love: a sovereign gaze fixed on them, attentively and lovingly. It reports that Krüdener imagined God to be constantly occupied with her. Sainte-Beuve’s anecdote sharpens the overlap between sacred devotion and personal excitement: at decisive moments with her lover, Krüdener is reported to have exclaimed that she was so happy she asked God to forgive her extreme happiness.

The comparison makes divine attention function as an enlarged mirror. In the account’s interpretation, the narcissist experiences herself as cherished and magnified through God’s love. Krüdener’s importance here lies not only in her belief, but in the way the belief sustains a sense of singular election: the performance of the self acquires a sacred audience, and admiration seems no longer dependent on ordinary human approval.

The apostolic role and Alexander I

The account distinguishes Krüdener’s eventual apostolic activity from the purposeful work of women whose religious revelations give shape to goals they have already chosen. It groups her with Mme Guyon as a woman who, after a period of silent fervor, suddenly feels herself to be in an apostolic state. In this portrayal, the task is not carefully specified; what matters is the excitement of doing something under the sign of a mission.

Krüdener’s public self-fashioning had already included appearing as an ambassador and as a novelist. She then turned her conception of her own worth inward, and, the account says, took the destiny of Alexander I in hand—not chiefly to bring definite ideas to victory, but to have her position as God’s inspired one confirmed. The progression links performance, authorship, religious conviction, and political influence without treating them as identical: each offers another arena in which her exceptional status can be made visible.

The account also describes the broader mechanism through which such a mission can expand. A woman who believes herself chosen may preach doubtful doctrines, found sects, and experience the members of the group she inspires as a multiplication of her own personality. In this analysis, the followers are not incidental: their presence enlarges the reach of the self-image that Krüdener seeks to have confirmed. Her apostolic role turns private conviction into a public circle of influence.

Action, agency, and the limits of the portrait

The contrast with women of action sets a boundary around Krüdener’s agency. The account names Saint Catherine, Saint Teresa, and Joan of Arc as figures who know their ends and lucidly devise means to reach them; their revelations give an objective form to convictions that direct them along planned paths. By comparison, Krüdener’s mission is represented as imprecise about its practical ends. The difference is not simply between religious and secular conduct, but between action organized around a definite objective and activity that confirms the actor’s sense of being called.

The broader argument does not claim that religious fervor or narcissism makes an active life impossible. It argues instead that individual attempts at salvation fail when they leave a person in a relation with an unreal object—her own double or God—or in an unreal relation with a real person. Applied to Krüdener, this judgment makes her influence over Alexander I a sign of reach without secure grasp: she may intervene in another person’s destiny, yet the account sees her freedom as still enclosed by self-confirmation. It presents positive action projected into human society, rather than a mission that magnifies the self, as the condition for freedom to become effective.