The French are present throughout Mme de Stael's works, so much so that scholars do not think of studying them in their own right, in the way that the Germans and Italians and other peoples have been studied. Simone Balaye has chosen to consider the social and poitical development of Frenchsociety as Mme de Stael experienced and observed it, from the Ancien Regime, the Revolution and the Empire down to the Restoration.