imm, Thomas, and the Abbe Raynal delighted in
calling out her ready wit, her brilliant repartee, and her precocious
ideas. Surrounded thus from childhood with all the appointments as
well as the talent and esprit that made the life of the salons so
fascinating; inheriting the philosophic insight of her father, the
literary gifts of her mother, to which she added a genius all her own;
heir also to the spirit of conversation, the facility, the enthusiasm,
the love of pleasing which are the Gallic birthright, she took her place
in the social world as a queen by virtue of her position, her gifts, and
her heritage. Already, before her marriage, she had changed the tone
of her mother's salon. She brought into it an element of freshness and
originality which the dignified and rather precise character of Mme.
Necker had failed to impart. She gave it also a strong political
coloring. This influence was more marked after she became the wife
of the Swedish ambassador, as she continued for some time to pass her
evenings in her mother's drawing room, where she became more and more
a central figure. Her temperament and her tastes were of the world in
which she lived, but her reason and her expansive sympathies led her to
ally herself with the popular cause; hence she was, to some extent, a
link between two conflicting interests.

It was in 1786 that Mme. de Stael entered the world as a married woman.
This marriage was arranged for her after the fashion of the time, and
she accepted it as she would have accepted anything tolerable that
pleased her idolized father and revered mother. When only ten years
of age, she observed that they took great pleasure in the society of
Gibbon, and she gravely proposed to marry him, that they might always
have this happiness. The full significance of this singular proposition
is not apparent until one remembers that the learned historian was not
only rather old, but so short and fat as to call out from one of his
friends the remark that when he needed a little exercise he had only to
take a turn of three times around M. Gibbon. The Baron de Stael had an
exalted position, fine manners, a good figure, and a handsome face, but
he lacked the one thing that Mme. de Stael most considered, a commanding
talent. She did not see him through the prism of a strong affection
which transfigures all things, even the most commonplace. What this
must have meant to a woman of her genius and temperament whose ideal of
h