display.  Her forte lies in the ornate and elaborate exhibition of roles,” for which she creates the most capricious and fantastic garbs.  She is a great manager,—­omitting the financial part,—­quite a writer, somewhat of a painter and sculptor, throwing her money away, except to her creditors, adored by some and execrated by others.  Her care of her physical self and her utter disregard for money have undoubtedly contributed to her long and brilliant career; rest and idleness are her most cruel punishments.  All nervous energy, never happy, restless, she is a true fin de siecle product.

Among the large number of women who wielded influence in the nineteenth century, either through their salons or through their works, Mme. Guizot was one of the most important as the author of treatises on education and as a moralist.  As an intimate friend of Suard, she was placed, as a contributor, on the Publiciste, and for ten years wrote articles on morality, society, and literature which showed a varied talent, much depth, and justness.  Fond of polemics, she never failed to attack men like La Harpe, De Bonald, etc., thus making herself felt as an influence to be reckoned with in matters literary and moral.

As Mme. Guizot, she naturally had a powerful influence upon her husband, shaping his thoughts and theories, for she immediately espoused his principles and interests.  In 1821, at the age of forty-eight, she began her literary work again, after a period of rest, writing novels in which the maternal love and the ardent and pious sentiments of a woman married late in life are reflected.  In her theories of education she showed a highly practical spirit.  Sainte-Beuve said that, next to Mme. de Stael, “she was the woman endowed with the most sagacity and intelligence; the sentiment that she inspires is that of respect and esteem—­and these terms can only do her justice.”

Mme. de Duras, in her salon, represented the Restoration, “by a composite of aristocracy and affability, of brilliant wit and seriousness, semi-liberal and somewhat progressive.”  Her credit lies in the fact that, by her keen wit, she kept in harmony a heterogeneous mixture of social life.  She wrote a number of novels, which are, for the most part, “a mere delicate and discreet expression of her interior life.”

Mme. Ackermann, German in her entire makeup, was, among French female writers, one of the deepest thinkers of the nineteenth century.  A true mystic, she was, from early youth, filled with ardent, dreamy vagaries, to which she gave expression in verse—­poems which reflect a pessimism which is rather the expression of her life’s experiences, and of twenty-four years of solitude after two years of happy wedded state, than an actual depression and a discouraging philosophy of life.  Her poetry shows a vigor, depth, precision of form, and strength of expression seldom found in poetry of French women.