The Argosy — page 86: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Madame de Stael. aS French diligence. He was just the sort of son-in-law Monsieur and Madame Necker wanted, and he showed a decided admiration and liking for their daughter. Through the influence of Queen Marie Antoinette, with whom Monsieur Necker was at this time something of a favourite, a marriage was arranged, and before she well knew what was happening to her, Louise found herself Madame de Stael. The girl was not the least in love with her husband, but then it was the fate of every girl in France of her rank to be married without love ; so she resigned herself to her destiny without feeling that there was much to complain of in it. The marriage cannot be said to have been an unhappy one, though the pair were often separated for long periods, and though they knew nothing of what we call in Eng- land domestic, home life. ‘Two children, a son and a daughter, were given to bless it, and no doubt Madame de Stael learned, as years went on, to feel a sincere, warm esteem for her husband. In after life, however, Madame de Stael came to express a strong disapproval of the loveless character of French marriages in general, in high life. She would say, with eager, tender earnestness, that her own daughter should marry for love, and for nothing else ; and when Mademoiselle de Stael reached years of discretion, she fully obeyed her mother’s wishes in this respect in her choice of the young Duc de Broglie. But to return to Madame de Stael in the first days of her married life. She now enjoyed far more freedom than she had ever done before. She had a house of her own, where she could gather round her all the friends she loved best; she could talk as much as she pleased, because her being a married woman made all the difference ; she was near her beloved father, and could see him every day. Her brain and her pen were always busy. Altogether this was perhaps one of the calmest, happiest periods of her life. Probably her most un- comfortable experience at this time was when she had to attend at Court, as she had occasionally to do. Display of this kind never suited her; her irregular features had nothing of the sort of beauty which looks well in a State pageant, though her hand and arm are said to have been statuesquely perfect. Her whole figure was too strongly developed for her to move with much grace; she forgot, amid some grand wave of thought which came rushing over her, minute forms which she ought to have observed, and in the confusion consequent on such mistakes, with the eyes of many grand dames looking daggers at her, caught her feet 1n her train as she backed out of the presence of Royalty, or tore her rich lace in the crowd in the antechamber. The whole charm of her appearance always lay in her wondrous mobility of expression while she talked, and in the radiant splendour, now flashing lightning-like, now glowing soft as summer moonlight, of her dark, lustrous eyes. But loveliness of this kind did not shine much in the automaton drill which composed the ponderous gilded etiquette of the French court life. When the first warning trumpet-note, which foretold the coming COMIC OOO SS (C(O)