who nicknamed her Mademoiselle de Ste. Écritoire, could not correct the tendency, even by his unceasing gentle raillery. In a comedy entitled Sophie, ou les Sentiments Secrets, she scandalised Madame Necker, by selecting for a subject the struggles of a young orphan against the passion inspired in her by her guardian, a married man. To this period belong also Jane Grey and Montmorency, both tragedies, and various novelettes.
When Germaine was nearing twenty, the weighty question of her marriage came under discussion; and serious consideration was then, for the first time, accorded to a suitor whom her large fortune had long attracted.
This was the Baron de Staël Holstein, Secretary to the Swedish Embassy. He seems to have been one of the elegant and amiable diplomatists whom the Courts of Europe in those days turned out by the score. He had wit and good manners, as he had also the golden key of the Court Chamberlain; otherwise, his personality was insignificant in the extreme.
He was fortunate, however, in serving under a very popular ambassador, the Count de Creutz; and in representing a king who, both for political and personal reasons, was anxious to keep on good terms with France. Gustavus III. of Sweden adored Paris, and was in continual correspondence with Madame de la Mark, Madame d'Egmont, Madame de Boufflers, and anybody who would keep him conversant with the gossip of the Tuileries and Versailles. The Count de Creutz having the intention of shortly retiring, it was understood that the Baron de Staël-Holstein was to be his successor. That gentleman, who comprehended his own interests, and was head-over-ears in debt,
