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148 were the distinguishing characteristics of Albert, it is very comprehensible that, the first pangs of natural grief overcome, his loss would not leave a great void in her active existence.

In the autumn of 1813 L'Allemagne was published. It appeared in London, and straightway caused the greatest ferment known for a long while in the literary world. The circumstances under which it saw the light—the social position, sex, and history of its author—and its own intrinsic merits, combined to make it an event. It is notorious how much Sir James Mackintosh and Byron admired it; and articles concerning it, critical and laudatory, poured from the European press. Goethe admitted that no previous writer had so largely revealed the riches of German literature to the intelligence of an unappreciative generation; and although the great Teutonic race was not fully satisfied with the work at the time, and has since become somewhat captious regarding it, the talent which it displayed has never been called in question. By a sufficiently striking coincidence the publication of L'Allemagne took place in the same month as the battle of Leipzic. Only a brief period then elapsed before Napoleon abdicated, and Madame de Staël, her splendid and triumphant exile terminated, was enabled once more to re-enter the gates of beloved but, alas! humiliated Paris. She was far too patriotic not to entertain saddened feelings on seeing the streets of the capital filled with soldiers in German, Russian, and Cossack uniforms; for while rejoicing in the overthrow of Napoleon, she mourned the tarnished glory of the French arms.

She was received with the utmost cordiality by Louis XVIII., and her salon quickly became the