In the autumn of 1816 she returned to Paris, and spent a number of months very happily in her old style—­in the society of the salon.  Though devoured by insomnia, enervated by the use of opium, and besieged by fear of death, she accepted all invitations, and kept open house herself, receiving in the morning, at dinner, and in the evening; and though at night she paced the floor for hours or tossed about on her bed until morning, she was yet fresh for all the pleasures of the next day.  But this mode of existence was undermining her health.

She endured this constant strain until one evening in February, 1817, when, at a ball at the Duke of Decazes’s, in the midst of her pleasure, she was stricken with paralysis.  At the Rue des Mathurins, she had all her friends come and dine with her.  Chateaubriand, who was one of the party, entered her room upon one occasion and found her suffering intensely, but able to raise herself and say:  “Bonjour, my dear Francis!  I am suffering, but that does not hinder me from loving you.”  She lingered until July, when there ended a life which not only influenced but even modified politics and the institutions of nations, which exercised, by writings, an incalculable influence upon French literature, opening paths which previously had not been trod.

The most important of her works is De l’Allemagne, in writing which her only desire was to make Germany known to the French, to explain it by comparison with France and to make her people admire it, and to open new paths to poetry.  According to her, Germany possessed no classic prose, because the Germans attributed less importance to style than did the French.  German poetry, however, had a distinct charm, being all sentiment and poetry of the soul, touching and penetrating; whereas French poetry was all esprit, eloquence, reason, raillery.

In her treatise on the drama, she was the first in French literature to use the term “romantic” and to define it; but she had not invented the word, Wieland having used it to designate the country in which the ancient Roman literature flourished.  Her definition was:  “The classic word is sometimes taken as a synonym of perfection.  I use it in another acceptance by considering classic poetry that of the ancients and romantic poetry that which holds in some way to the chivalresque traditions.  The literature of the ancients is a transplanted literature with us; but romantic or chivalresque literature is indigenous.  An imitation of works coming from a political, social, and religious midst different from ours means a literature which is no longer in relation with us, which has never been popular, and which will become less so every day.  On the contrary, the romantic literature is the only one which is susceptible of being perfected, because it bears its roots from our soil and is, consequently, the only one which can be revived and increased.  It expresses our religion and recalls our history.”  This opinion alone was enough to create a revolt among her contemporaries.  Almost all other interpretations of Faust were based on her conception.