nded
those with whom she conversed. Schiller declared that when she left
he felt as though he were just convalescing after a long spell of
illness. One day she abruptly asked the staid old philosopher Fichte:
"M. Fichte, can you give me, in a short time, an _apercu_ of your
system of philosophy, and tell me what you mean by your ego? I find it
very obscure." He began by translating his thoughts into French, very
deliberately. After talking for some ten minutes, in the midst of a
deep argument she interrupted him, crying out: "Enough, M. Fichte,
quite enough! I understand you perfectly; I have seen your system
in illustration--it is an adventure of Baron Muenchhausen." The
philosopher assumed a tragic attitude, and a spell of silence fell
upon the audience.

The result of her visit to Italy was her novel _Corinne_, in which the
problems of the destiny of women of genius--the relative joys of love
and glory--are discussed. This work remained for a whole generation
the standard of love and ideals, and at the same time revealed Italy
to the French, After a second visit to Germany, she began to labor
seriously on her work on that country, in 1810 going _incognito_ to
Paris to have it printed. Ten thousand copies, ready for sale, were
destroyed before reaching the public. This work opened the German
world to the French; it applied, to a great nation, the doctrine of
progress, defending the independence and originality of nations, while
endeavoring to show that the future lay in the reciprocal respect
of the rights of people, declaring that nations are not at all the
arbitrary work of men or the fatal work of circumstances, and that the
submission of one people to another is contrary to nature. She wished
to make "poor and noble Germany" conscious of its intellectual
riches, and to prove that Europe could obtain peace only through
the liberation of that country. The censors accused her of lack
of patriotism in provoking the Germans to independence, and of
questionable taste in praising their literature; consequently, the
book was denounced, all the copies obtainable were destroyed, and a
vigorous search for the manuscript was undertaken. After this episode,
her friends were not permitted to visit her at Coppet.

In 1811 she was secretly married to a young Italian officer, Albert de
Rocca, a handsome man of twenty-three--she was then forty-five. In him
she realized the conditions which she described in _Delphine_, namely,
a