Sensuous she may have been, but sex never clamoured very loudly for appeasement. Her emotions were too vivid and intense for her organism and she lived in perpetual warfare with herself. Profoundly egotistic she delighted in revealing herself. Her self-esteem did not permit her to soften a defect or enhance a quality. In spite of her egotism she gave out more than she received because of her abounding vitality of mind and body. Her early love affairs were purely cerebral--indeed all of them were until she met Benjamin Constant. She married without love, because her mind told her that having reached the age of twenty-eight it would be unwise to delay. Monsieur Hermenches, an older man, was her first friend--one could scarcely call him lover. He had had success with women, but she could not accept a master. When she was twenty-three she met Boswell and for nine months she amused herself at his expense. He was so assured of his own charm that he believed Zélide was in love with him, and if he could reform her, he intended to marry her. But Zélide had no desire or intention to reform. After endeavouring in vain to support the boredom of life at Colombier, whither she had gone with her conventional and unemotional husband, she became ill and was sent to Paris for a change. There she met Benjamin Constant, the nephew of her early friend Hermenches. He was twenty, she was forty-seven. The attraction was mutual and immediate; disparity of years was ignored; they spoke a common language and felt that they had each found an _alter ego_. Constant, despite a most unattractive exterior, appears to have made powerful appeal to women; during his long association with Zélide, he had many _amours_ of which she was cognisant. They did not arouse in her the slightest feeling of jealousy. She feared only intellectual rivalry. Her love affair with Constant lasted many years and was interrupted and finally shattered by the advent of Madame de Staël. Constant was unable to withstand Madame de Staël. Possibly he was tired of being completely understood and may have craved the companionship of some one who would idealise him. He met her at the psychological moment. Her strong personality, combined with great sensuality, attracted him and obscured her limitations. There was not room in his heart and mind for two women and Zélide had to give way. She accepted the situation quietly and reasonably, but never recovered.