monarchical government.

STAEL, MADAME DE, distinguished French lady, born in Paris, daughter
of Necker, and only child; a woman of eminent ability, and an admirer of
Rousseau; wrote "Letters" on his character and works; married a man ten
years older than herself, the Baron de Stael-Holstein, the Swedish
ambassador in Paris, where she lived all through the events of the
Revolution in sympathy with the royal family; wrote an appeal in defence
of the queen, and quitted the city during the Reign of Terror; on her
return in 1795 her _salon_ became the centre of the literary and
political activity of the time; the ambition of Napoleon excited her
distrust, and forced her into opposition so expressed that in 1801 she
was ordered to leave Paris within 24 hours, and not to come within 40
leagues of it; in 1802 she was left a widow, and soon after she went
first to Weimar, where she met Goethe and Schiller, and then to Berlin;
by-and-by she returned to France, but on the publication of her
"Corinne," was ordered out of the country; after this appeared her great
epoch-making work on Germany, "L'Allemagne," which was seized by the
French censors; after this she quitted for good the soil of France, to
which she had returned; settled in Switzerland, at Coppet, where she died
(1766-1817).

STAFFA ("pillar Island"), an uninhabited islet of basaltic formation
off the W. coast of Scotland, 54 m. W. of Oban; 11/2 m. in circumference,
and girt with precipitous cliffs, except on the sheltered NE., where
there is a shelving shore; is remarkable for its caves, of which Fingal's
Cave is the most famous, having an entrance 42 ft. wide and 66 ft. high,
and penetrating 227 ft.

STAFFORD (20), county town of Staffordshire, on the Sow, 29 m. NNW.
of Birmingham; has two fine old churches, St. Mary's and St. Chad's,
interesting architecturally, King Edward's grammar school, and Stafford
Castle finely situated on the outskirts; is an important railway centre,
and noted for its boot and shoe manufactures.

STAFFORDSHIRE (1,083), a midland mining and manufacturing county of
England, wedged in on the N. between Cheshire (W.) and Derby (N.), and
extending southward to Worcester, with Shropshire on the W., and
Leicester and Warwick on the E.; with the exception of the wild and hilly
"moorland" in the N. consists of an undulating plain crossed by the
Trent, and intersected in all directions by canals and railways; embraces
two rich coal-fields