LONDON: Published by J.M. DENT and COMPANY at
ALDINE HOUSE in Great Eastern Street, E.C.

MDCCCXCIV




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE CROWD BREAK THEIR RANKS AS THE HORSES PASS _Frontispiece_.

CORINNE AT THE CAPITOL PAGE 33

CORINNE SHOWING OSWALD HER PICTURES " 235

[Illustration]




INTRODUCTION.


In Lady Blennerhassett's enthusiastic and encyclopædic book on Madame de
Stael she quotes approvingly Sainte-Beuve's phrase that "with _Corinne_
Madame de Stael ascended the Capitol." I forget in which of his many
dealings with an author who, as he remarks in the "Coppet-and-Weimar"
_causeries_, was "an idol of his youth and one that he never renounced,"
this fancy occurs. It must probably have been in one of his early