el's life. Here, as Rousseau
had inculcated the story of nature and savage life, as Chateaubriand
was, at the same time, inculcating the study of Christian antiquity and
the middle ages, so Madame de Stael inculcated the cultivation of
aesthetic emotions and impulses as a new influence to be brought to bear
on life. Her style, though not to be spoken of disrespectfully, is, on
the whole, inferior to her matter. It is full of the drawbacks of
eighteenth-century _eloges_ and academic discourses, now tawdry, now
deficient in colour, flexibility, and life, at one time below the
subject, at another puffed up with commonplace and insincere
declamation. Yet when she understood a subject, which was by no means
invariably the case, Madame de Stael was an excellent exponent; and when
her feelings were sincere, which they sometimes were, she was a fair
mistress of pathos.

A considerable number of names of writers of fiction during the later
republic and the empire have a traditional place in the history of
literature, and some of their works are still read, but chiefly as
school-books. Madame de Genlis, the author of _Les Veillees du Chateau_,
and also of many volumes of ill-natured, and not too accurate, memoirs
and reminiscences, continued the moral tale of the eighteenth century,
and in _Mlle. de Clermont_ produced work of merit. Fievee, a journalist
and critic of some talent, is remembered for the pretty story of the
_Dot de Suzette_. Madame de Souza, in her _Adele de Senanges_ and other
works, revived, to a certain extent, the style of Madame de la Fayette.
_Ourika_ and _Edouard_, especially the latter, preserve the name of
Madame de Duras. Madame Cottin, in _Malek Adel_, _Elizabeth_ or _Les
Exiles de Siberie_, etc., combined a mild flavour of romance with
irreproachable moral sentiments. A vigorous continuator of the
licentious style of novel, with hardly any of the literary refinement of
its eighteenth-century contributors, but with more fertility of incident
and fancy, was Pigault Lebrun, the forerunner of Paul de Kock. Madame de
Krudener, a woman of remarkable history, produced a good novel of
sentiment in _Valerie_.

[Sidenote: Xavier de Maistre.]

Two novelists, singularly different in idiosyncrasy, complete what may
be called the eighteenth-century school. Xavier de Maistre, younger
brother of the great Catholic polemist, Joseph de Maistre, was born at
Chambery, in 1763. He served in the Piedmontese army during his