in consequence of the
unconventionalities of her relations, especially with M. de Narbonne,
received, from English society generally, a cold shoulder, which she has
partly avenged, or tried to avenge, in _Corinne_ itself. She had already
written, or was soon to write, a good deal, but nothing of the first
importance. Then she went to Coppet, her father's place, on the Lake of
Geneva, which she was later to render so famous; and under the Directory
was enabled to resume residence in Paris, though she was more than once
under suspicion. It was at this time that she met Benjamin Constant, the
future brilliant orator, and author of _Adolphe_, the only man perhaps
whom she ever really loved, but, unluckily, a man whom it was by no
means good to love. For some years she oscillated contentedly enough
between Coppet and Paris. But the return of Bonaparte from Egypt was
unlucky for her. Her boundless ambition, which, with her love of
society, was her strongest passion, made her conceive the idea of
fascinating him, and through him ruling the world. Napoleon, to use
familiar English, "did not see it." When he liked women he liked them
pretty and feminine; he had not the faintest idea of admitting any kind
of partner in his glory; he had no literary taste; and not only did
Madame de Stael herself meddle with politics, but her friend, Constant,
under the Consulate, chose to give himself airs of opposition in the
English sense. Moreover, she still wrote, and Bonaparte disliked and
dreaded everyone who wrote with any freedom. Her book, _De la
Litterature_, in 1800, was taken as a covert attack on the Napoleonic
_regime_; her father shortly after republished another on finance and
politics, which was disliked; and the success of _Delphine_, in 1803,
put the finishing touch to the petty hatred of any kind of rival
superiority which distinguished the Corsican more than any other man of
equal genius. Madame de Stael was ordered not to approach within forty
leagues of Paris, and this exile, with little softening and some
excesses of rigour, lasted till the return of the Bourbons.

Then it was that the German and Italian journeys already mentioned (the
death of M. Necker happening between them and recalling his daughter
from the first) led to the writing of _Corinne_.

A very few words before we turn to the consideration of the book, as a
book and by itself, may appropriately finish all that need be said here
about the author's life. Afte