CHAPTER XII.
MADAME DE STAËL'S SECOND MARRIAGE.
Madame de Staël arrived at Coppet in a condition of despair, which she partially solaced by writing to Madame Récamier and thanking her again and again for the constancy of her friendship. Evidently many of her friends had already dropped away, or she fancied they had. Perhaps she wearied them a little with her lamentations, for one knows that silence was never her forte. But all at once a happy change came over her. Sismondi, writing to the Countess of Albany, mentioned the transformation, and spoke of their friend with admiration for her new-born but to him inexplicable courage. She had given up literary work, and no longer alluded to her afflictions; and yet, in spite of that, her gaiety was great and her conversation as charming and sparkling as ever. Sismondi doubtless considered that Reason—his beloved Reason was at last asserting its sway over "Corinne's" excitable imagination. He must have been greatly surprised a long time afterwards when he learnt that the
