The training of their only child was to both parents a matter of immense importance. Her talents were precociously developed, and whilst yet the merest girl, she would listen with eager and intelligent interest to the conversation of the eminent _savans_ who constantly visited her father’s house. Without opening her mouth she seemed to speak in her turn, so much expression had her mobile features. When only ten years old she conceived the idea of marrying her mother’s early lover, that he might be retained near her parents, both of whom delighted in his company. At the age of twelve she amused herself in writing comedies. Perhaps Mademoiselle Necker lost nothing by having no regular tutor. The germs of knowledge once fairly implanted, an intellect like hers may, like the forest sapling, be left to its own powers of growth. Roaming through the rural scenes of St. Ouen, her mind was enriching itself by observation and reflection. Circumstances which would have depressed multitudes only quickened her. She turned all things to account. Her power of mental assimilation was extraordinary. In 1786, Mademoiselle Necker was married to the Baron de Staël-Holstein, Swedish ambassador at the court of Paris. The young Swede was a Protestant, amiable, handsome, courtly, and a great favourite with royalty. What more could the most fastidious require? It was not fashionable to put intellectual features in the bond. Perhaps had she been thirty instead of twenty years old, even in France, where the filial virtues to a large extent nullify the conjugal, no motherly persuasion nor fatherly approval would have induced her to marry a dull, unimaginative man like Baron de Staël, for whom she felt no kind of affection. After a few years a separation took place between them, two sons and a daughter having been meantime the fruit of their union. In France a wife may withdraw from her husband on the plea of saving her fortune for her children, and if unprincipled enough, console herself with another whose society she prefers. Madame de Staël was incapable of becoming _galante_. On her marriage she opened her saloons, and her position, wealth, and wit attracted to them the most brilliant inhabitants of Paris. At first she does not seem to have attained any remarkable degree of celebrity. She was too much of a genius. Paris was full of anecdotes about her foibles and infringements of etiquette. About this time too she began to produce those wonderful books which form an era in the history of modern literature, and which demonstrate that in intellectual endowment she had no compeer among her sex. As might be expected in a disciple of Rousseau, she cherished great expectations in reference to the French revolution of 1789; but soon ceased to admire a movement which discarded her beloved father, and began its march towards a reign of terror.