but which explains her works--a dreamy and
meditative, and a lively, frolicsome nature; the first might throw
light upon her religious crisis, the second, upon her social side.
The combination of these two phases caused the numerous conflicts
of opinions and doctrines, extending her knowledge and inciting her
curiosity; the not infrequent result was an intellectual and moral
bewilderment and the deepest melancholy, from which she with great
difficulty freed herself. Because of these peculiarities she was
constantly agitated, her strongly reflective nature keeping her awake
to all important questions of the day.

Her intellectual development may be traced in her works, which, from
1830 to 1840, were personal, lyrical, spontaneous--a direct flow from
inspiration, issuing from a common source of emotions and personal
sorrows, being the expressions of her habitual reflections, of her
moral agitations, of her real and imaginary sufferings. These first
works were a protest against the tyranny of marriage, and expressed
her conception of a woman in love--a love profound and naive, exalted
and sincere, passionate and chaste: such is pictured in _Indiana_. In
_Valentine_ she portrays the impious and unfortunate marriage that the
sacrilegious conventions of the world have imposed, and the
results issuing therefrom. In all of these early works are seen an
inventiveness, a lively _allure_, an exquisite style, a freshness
and brilliancy, _finesse_ and grace; but they show an undisciplined
talent, giving vent to feelings that her unbounded enthusiasm would
not allow to be checked--there is emotion, but no system.

In her second period, from about 1840 to 1848, her reflection and
emotion combined produced a system and theories. The higher problems
took stronger hold on her as she matured; philosophy and religious
science in their deeper phases excited her emotive faculties,
which threw out a mere echo of what she had heard and studied.
Her inspiration thus came from without, throwing out those endless
declamatory outbursts which we meet in _Consuelo_ and in _Comtesse de
Rudolstadt_. These theory-novels were soon followed by novels dealing
with social problems, now and then relieved by delightful idyllics
such as _La Mare au Diable_ and _Francois le Champi_. This third
tendency M. d'Haussonville considers the least successful.

After 1850 there appeared from her pen a series of historical novels,
especially fine in the portrayal of