Stillness after that surrounding French article (7)
I believe the answer is:
silence
'stillness' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'after that surrounding french article' is the wordplay.
'after' becomes 'since' (since can mean after a certain time).
'that surrounding' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'french article' becomes 'le' (definite article in French).
'since' enclosing 'le' is 'SILENCE'.
(Other definitions for silence that I've seen before include "There's nothing heard" , "'The rest is - - '(Hamlet)" , "Shut up!" , "Soundlessness" , "It is golden, they say" .)