a minute niche in history because of the fact that
Napoleon stooped to hate her, and because she personifies sensibility.

Criticism has stripped from her the rags and tatters of the philosophy
which was not her own. It is seen that she was indebted to the brains
of others for such imaginative bits of fiction as she put forth in
Delphine and Corinne; but as the exponent of sensibility she remains
unique. This woman was Anne Louise Germaine Necker, usually known as
Mme. de Stael.

There was much about Mile. Necker's parentage that made her
interesting. Her father was the Genevese banker and minister of Louis
XVI, who failed wretchedly in his attempts to save the finances of
France. Her mother, Suzanne Curchod, as a young girl, had won the love
of the famous English historian, Edward Gibbon. She had first refused
him, and then almost frantically tried to get him back; but by this
time Gibbon was more comfortable in single life and less infatuated
with Mlle. Curchod, who presently married Jacques Necker.

M. Necker's money made his daughter a very celebrated "catch." Her
mother brought her to Paris when the French capital was brilliant
beyond description, and yet was tottering to its fall. The rumblings of
the Revolution could be heard by almost every ear; and yet society and
the court, refusing to listen, plunged into the wildest revelry under
the leadership of the giddy Marie Antoinette.

It was here that the young girl was initiated into the most elegant
forms of luxury, and met the cleverest men of that time--Voltaire,
Rousseau, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Volney. She set herself to be the
most accomplished woman of her day, not merely in belles lettres, but
in the natural and political sciences. Thus, when her father was
drawing up his monograph on the French finances, Germaine labored hard
over a supplementary report, studying documents, records, and the most
complicated statistics, so that she might obtain a mastery of the
subject.

"I mean to know everything that anybody knows," she said, with an
arrogance which was rather admired in so young a woman.

But, unfortunately, her mind was not great enough to fulfil her
aspiration. The most she ever achieved was a fair knowledge of many
things--a knowledge which seemed surprising to the average man, but
which was superficial enough to the accomplished specialist.

In her twentieth year (1786) it was thought best that she should marry.
Her revels, as well as her ha