FOOTNOTES: 

[22] Vol. iii. pp. 451-2.

CHAPTER V

MESDAMES DE STAEL AND DE REMUSAT

It is a strange human frailty that cannot stand for long the purgatory of seeing the elevation of a great public benefactor.  The less competent the critics, the more merciless they are in their declamation and intrigue.  They hint at faults, and if this is too ineffective, they invent them.  Men in prominent public positions rarely escape the vituperation of the professional scandalmonger.  These creatures exist everywhere.  Their vanity is only equal to their incompetency in all matters that count.  Their capacity consists in knowing the kind of diversion a certain class of people relish, and the more exalted their prey is, and the larger the reputation he may have for living a blameless life, the more persistent their whisperings, significant nods, and winkings become.  They know, and they could tell, a thing or two which would paralyse belief.  They could show how correct they have been in consistently proclaiming that so and so was a very much overestimated man, and never ought to have been put into such a high position; “and besides, I don’t want to say all I know, but his depravity!  Well, there, I could, if I would, open some people’s eyes, but I don’t want to do anybody any harm,” and so on.  These condescending ulcerous-minded defamers congratulate themselves on their goodness of heart in withholding from the public gaze their nasty imaginary accusations, which are merely the thoughts of a conceited and putrid mind.

Many and many a poor man, without knowing it, is the innocent victim of unfounded accusations, hatched and circulated in that subtle, insinuating way so familiar to the sexless calumniator.  The genuine female traducer is an awful scourge, especially if she be political.  No male can equal her in refined aggressive cunning.  She can circulate a filthy libel by writing a virtuous letter, and never a flaw will appear to trip her into responsibility for it.  And her sardonic smile is an inarticulate revelation of all she wishes to convey.  It is more than a mere oration.  It emits the impression of a bite.

Madame de Stael showed an aptitude for this ignoble aggressiveness towards Napoleon after she had exhausted every form of strategy to allure him into a flirtation with her.  She was frequently a sort of magnificent horse-marine who bounced herself into the presence of prominent individuals, thrusting her venomed points on those who had been flattered into listening; at other times she was feline in her methods.  Talleyrand and Fouche made use of this latter phase of her character to serve their own ends.  She had a talent which was used for mischief, but her vulgarity and egotism were quite deplorable.  She would have risked the torments of Hades if she could but have embarked