To recruit her health, which was wasting with grief, she next undertook a journey into Italy. Hitherto she had appeared totally insensible to the beauties of nature, and when her guests at Coppet were in ecstasies with the Lake of Geneva, and the enchanting scenery about it, she would exclaim, "Give me a garret in Paris, with a hundred Louis a year." But in Italy she seems to have had a glimpse of the glories of the universe, for which enjoyment she always said she was indebted to her father's intercession. The delights which she experienced in that enchanting country are imbodied in the novel of "Corinne." Her representation of its society evinces a want of intimate acquaintance with it, but it is a lively and true picture of the surface. In this work her peculiar talent as a novelist is richly displayed. In the characters of Comte d'Erfeuil, Corinne, and Oswald, we have not only examples of the most true and delicate discrimination, but vivid portraits of individuals, in whom are imbodied the most pleasing peculiarities of their respective nations. A purer morality displays itself in Corinne; the result, rather than the object, of the book. She does not seek, by logical demonstration, to enforce a moral axiom, but the influence of the spirit which emanates from the whole is purifying and elevating. Madame de Stael was forbidden to approach within forty leagues of Paris; but, after hovering about the confines of the magical circle, she at last established herself within it, at a distance of only twelve leagues from the city. So long as she was contented to remain in obscurity, in the society of a small circle of friends, and to maintain a strict silence on the subject of politics, her violation of the imperial mandate was overlooked. But the publication of Corinne put an end to the indulgence, and she was ordered to quit France. The tedium of her life at Coppet was somewhat relieved by the visits of her friends, and of distinguished foreigners. She was occupied, too, by her work on Germany, which was completed in 1810. To superintend its publication, she took up her abode at the permitted distance from Paris, at the old chateau of Chaumont-sur-Loire, already notable as the residence of Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de Medicis, and Nostradamus.