Necker, and
really warmly attached to him. Necker, on his part, was her worshipping
lover to the end of his life.

The daughter of such parents could scarcely fail to be remarkable in
some way. It is not from such sources that the mediocrities are
recruited. But the child was utterly unlike her parents, and never
showed much likeness to either in after life. Her genius was
unquestioned even from her precocious babyhood, and she was the wonder
and admiration of all the brilliant circle of her father's friends. Her
temperament was most vehement and impulsive, and her vivacity a wonder
even to the Parisians. She seemed to know everything by intuition, and
made light of the hardest tasks which could be given her. The streams of
her childish eloquence seemed to flow from some exhaustless fountain.
The celebrated men who were her father's guests were never weary of
expressing their astonishment at her powers of conversation.

Gibbon, the Abbe Raynal, Baron Grimm and Marmontel were among these
friends, and they undoubtedly did much to stimulate the childish
intellect, although Madame Necker, troubled at the precocity of her
darling, frowned upon all attempts to unduly excite her mind. But great
themes were constantly discussed in her presence; the frivolity of the
old _regime_ was being rapidly displaced by the intense earnestness of
the men of the new era, and the most momentous questions of life and
death, of time and eternity, were the subjects of the conversations to
which the young genius listened with such rapt attention. Doubtless it
was in listening to these profound discussions in her earliest years
that she acquired that confidence which in after years never deserted
her, but which always led her to believe that she could save both her
country and the world, if people would only let her manage things in her
own way. Charles X. used to tell the story of her calling upon him,
after the return of the Bourbons to France, and offering him a
constitution ready-made, and insisting upon his accepting it. He says:--

"It seemed like a thing resolved--an event decided upon,--this
proposal of inventing a constitution for us. I kept as long as I
could upon the defensive; but Madame de Stael, carried away by her
zeal and enthusiasm, instead of speaking of what presumably
concerned herself, knocked me about with arguments and crushed me
with threats and menaces; so, tired to death of entertaining,