her a fortune for them. The
three greatest--intellectually greatest--women of modern times have
lived in France, and it is remarkable that they have been three of the
most shamelessly profligate in all history. The worst of these,
probably, Madame de Stael, left us no record of her long-continued,
disgusting, and almost incredible licentiousness, so remarkable, that
Chateaubriand deemed her the most abandoned person in France, at a
period when modesty was publicly derided in the Assembly as a mere
'system of refined voluptuousness.' Few who have lately resided in Paris
are ignorant of the gross sensualism of the astonishing Rachel, whose
genius, though displayed in no permanent forms, is not less than that of
the Shakspeare of her sex, the forever-to-be-famous Madame Dudevant,
whose immoralities of conduct have perhaps been overdrawn, while those
of De Stael and Rachel have rarely been spoken of save where they
challenged direct observation. We perceive that Rachel is to be in New
York next autumn with a company of French actors."

"'Tis a pity when charming women talk of things that they don't
understand," is as true as if it had been promulgated by a _man_, and
the author of the above extraordinary statements will perhaps allow
that, in a few cases, the same may be predicated of the other sex. Some
aspirants for literary fame, before attaining much knowledge of life or
of books, are fond of attempting to startle by deviating from received
opinions; they advance monstrous paradoxes in morals, and strive to
produce a sensation by differing from the good and the wise. They have
heard the vulgar adage that genius and common sense seldom go together,
and they begin by rejecting common sense as a part of genius. Common
sense would suggest the advantage of knowing something of the history of
an illustrious person before describing his or her character; and, as we
feel assured no man who has an American heart would wish to advance or
maintain falsehoods against a woman, and one over whom the tomb has
closed, we take pleasure in giving the writer in the "International"
some information about Madame de Stael.

In the first place, he has been grossly imposed upon concerning
Chateaubriand. We have lately read the "Memoires d'outre Tombe," a work
we recommend to the author of the article, in which he will find much
information, and, what perhaps he values more, amusement; and, what is
to our present purpose, he will find that Ch