men, casting their fearless glance upon all subjects, and agitating the age by their great ideas.  In France especially there was a notable literary awakening.  A more brilliant circle than ever assembled at the Hotel de Rambouillet met in the salons of Madame Geoffrin and Madame de Tencin and Madame du Deffand and Madame Necker, to discuss theories of government, political economy, human rights,—­in fact, every question which moves the human mind.  They were generally irreligious, satirical, and defiant; but they were fresh, enthusiastic, learned, and original They not only aroused the people to reflection, but they were great artists in language, and made a revolution in style.

It was in this inquiring, brilliant, yet infidel age that the star of Madame de Stael arose, on the eve of the French Revolution.  She was born in Paris in 1766, when her father—­Necker—­was amassing an enormous fortune as a banker and financier, afterwards so celebrated as finance minister to Louis XVI.  Her mother,—­Susanne Curchod,—­of humble Swiss parentage, was yet one of the remarkable women of the day, a lady whom Gibbon would have married had English prejudices and conventionalities permitted, but whose marriage with Necker was both fortunate and happy.  They had only one child, but she was a Minerva.  It seems that she was of extraordinary precocity, and very early attracted attention.  As a mere child Marmontel talked with her as if she were twenty-five.  At fifteen, she had written reflections on Montesquieu’s “Spirit of Laws,” and was solicited by Raynal to furnish an article on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.  So brilliant a girl was educated by her wealthy parents without regard to expense and with the greatest care.  She was fortunate from the start, with unbounded means, surrounded with illustrious people, and with every opportunity for improvement both as to teachers and society,—­doubtless one important cause of her subsequent success, for very few people climb the upper rounds of the ladder of literary fame who are obliged to earn their living; their genius is fettered and their time is employed on irksome drudgeries.

Madame de Stael, when a girl, came very near losing her health and breaking her fine constitution by the unwise “cramming” on which her mother insisted; for, although a superior woman, Madame Necker knew very little about the true system of education, thinking that study and labor should be incessant, and that these alone could do everything.  She loaded her daughter with too many restraints, and bound her by a too rigid discipline.  She did all she could to crush genius out of the girl, and make her a dictionary, or a machine, or a piece of formality and conventionalism.  But the father, wiser, and with greater insight and truer sympathy, relaxed the cords of discipline, unfettered her imagination, connived at her flights of extravagance, and allowed her to develop her faculties in her own way.  She had a remarkable fondness for her father,—­she