man who braved an opinion and prejudices; and she was ready to
submit herself to him, Coppet became the centre for endless pleasures
and fetes; Mme. de Stael began to write comedies and to forget Paris
entirely. This blissful happiness was suddenly checked by the emperor,
who determined to show his displeasure and also to give evidence
of his power by banishing Schlegel and exiling Mme. Recamier and De
Montmorency, who continued to visit Mme. de Stael. Fear for the safety
of her husband and children influenced her to leave for Russia, where
the czar ordered all Russians to honor her as the enemy of Napoleon.
Indeed, she was everywhere received like a visiting queen.

In the autumn of 1816 she returned to Paris, and spent a number of
months very happily in her old style--in the society of the salon.
Though devoured by insomnia, enervated by the use of opium, and
besieged by fear of death, she accepted all invitations, and kept
open house herself, receiving in the morning, at dinner, and in the
evening; and though at night she paced the floor for hours or
tossed about on her bed until morning, she was yet fresh for all the
pleasures of the next day. But this mode of existence was undermining
her health.

She endured this constant strain until one evening in February,
1817, when, at a ball at the Duke of Decazes's, in the midst of her
pleasure, she was stricken with paralysis. At the Rue des Mathurins,
she had all her friends come and dine with her. Chateaubriand, who
was one of the party, entered her room upon one occasion and found her
suffering intensely, but able to raise herself and say: "Bonjour, my
dear Francis! I am suffering, but that does not hinder me from loving
you." She lingered until July, when there ended a life which not only
influenced but even modified politics and the institutions of nations,
which exercised, by writings, an incalculable influence upon French
literature, opening paths which previously had not been trod.

The most important of her works is _De l'Allemagne_, in writing which
her only desire was to make Germany known to the French, to explain
it by comparison with France and to make her people admire it, and
to open new paths to poetry. According to her, Germany possessed no
classic prose, because the Germans attributed less importance to style
than did the French. German poetry, however, had a distinct charm,
being all sentiment and poetry of the soul, touching and penetrating;
whereas