The intelligent, refined Madame Émile de Girardin defended Balzac, answering very justly: "Is it Balzac's fault that thirty is now the age of love? Balzac is obliged to paint passion where he finds it, and nowadays it is not to be found in the heart of sixteen." VIII MADAME DE STAËL: "DELPHINE" In one of his letters Byron writes of _Adolphe_: "The book contains some melancholy truths, though I believe that it is too triste a work ever to have been popular. The first time I ever read it was at the desire of Mme. de Staël." Mme. de Staël herself says somewhere: "I do not believe all men resemble Adolphe, but only vain men." Simple as the observation is, we feel that it is written by a woman in self-defence; for _Adolphe_ had struck home to Necker's daughter personally, had bared her deepest heart wound. Anne Marie Germaine Necker was born in Paris in 1766. Her father, the great Genevese financier, became First Minister of France shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution, and his name was at that time the watchword of liberal France. Her mother was a highly gifted woman, but stiff, reserved, and the slave of duty; she believed that education did everything, nature little, and she laid pedantic stress upon trifles, being of opinion that nothing is trifling from the moral point of view. To this lady Rousseau's educational theories were naturally highly antipathetic, and the consequence was that Rousseau, with his belief in nature and in innate virtues, became her daughter's ideal. This daughter, a frank, lively child, developed into a bright, intelligent brunette, whose dark eyes sparkled with wit and beamed with kind-heartedness. While Mme. Necker chiefly appreciated common sense and the habit of self-examination, the daughter, who suffered from the strict control under which she was kept, and whose great gifts roused her mother's jealousy, grew to love all the qualities and virtues which spring without cultivation from Nature's own health and wealth. In her father's house she was from childhood brought into contact with the most famous men of the day, who were amused and attracted by her quick repartee and surprising originality. The lively, marvellously intelligent child was her father's pride, and she returned his affection with a boundless love and admiration which lasted all her life and can be traced in most of her writings.