rmitted by the last Napoleon! In this city, after her ten
years' exile, Madame de Stael reigned in prouder state than at any
previous period of her life. She was now at home, on her own throne as
queen of letters, and also queen of society. All the great men who were
then assembled in Paris burned their incense before her,--Chateaubriand,
Lafayette, Talleyrand, Guizot, Constant, Cuvier, Laplace. Distinguished
foreigners swelled the circle of her admirers,--Bluecher, Humboldt,
Schlegel, Canova, Wellington, even the Emperor of Russia. The
Restoration hailed her with transport; Louis XVIII. sought the glory of
her talk; the press implored her assistance; the salons caught
inspiration from her presence. Never was woman seated on a prouder
throne. But she did not live long to enjoy her unparalleled social
honors. She was stifled, like Voltaire, by the incense of idolaters; the
body could no longer stand the strain of the soul, and she sunk, at the
age of fifty-one, in the year 1817, a few months before her husband
Rocca, whom, it appears, she ever tenderly loved.

Madame de Stael died prematurely, as precocious people generally
do,--like Raphael, Pascal, Schiller, I may add Macaulay and Mill; but
she accomplished much, and might have done more had her life been
spared, for no one doubts her genius,--perhaps the most remarkable
female writer who has lived, on the whole. George Sand is the only
Frenchwoman who has approached her in genius and fame. Madame de Stael
was novelist, critic, essayist, and philosopher, grasping the
profoundest subjects, and gaining admiration in everything she
attempted. I do not regard her as pre-eminently a happy woman, since her
marriages were either unfortunate or unnatural. In the intoxicating
blaze of triumph and admiration she panted for domestic beatitudes, and
found the earnest cravings of her soul unsatisfied. She sought relief
from herself in society, which was a necessity to her, as much as
friendship or love; but she was restless, and perpetually travelling.
Moreover, she was a persecuted woman during the best ten years of her
life. She had but little repose of mind or character, and was worldly,
vain, and ambitious. But she was a great woman and a good woman, in
spite of her faults and errors; and greater in her womanly qualities
than she was in her writings, remarkable as these were. She had a great
individuality, like Dr. Johnson and Thomas Carlyle. And she lives in the
hearts of her