The chief executive power had been placed in the hands of the Directory, and he had control of the army.  He had won brilliant victories in Italy, and had been made commander-in-chief of the expedition against Egypt He now returned to Paris, turned out the Directory, drove out the Council of Five Hundred from the hall of the Assembly at the point of the bayonet, made the government into a consulate with three consuls, of whom he was the first, and lived at the Tuileries in almost royal style.

All this time Madame de Stael felt the egotism and heartlessness of Napoleon.  Her salon became more crowded than ever with those who had their fears for the future.  “The most eloquent of the Republican orators were those who borrowed from her most of their ideas and telling phrases.  Most of them went forth from her door with speeches ready for the next day, and with resolution to pronounce them—­a courage which was also derived from her.”  Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte, the brothers of Napoleon, were proud of her friendship, and often were guests at her house, until forbidden by their brother.

When Benjamin Constant made a speech against the “rising tyranny,” Napoleon suspected that she had prompted it, and denounced her heartily, all the time declaring that he loved the Republic, and would always defend it!  He said persons always came away from De Stael’s home “less his friends than when they entered.”  About this time her book, Literature considered in its Relation to Social Institutions, was published, and made a surprising impression from its wealth of knowledge and power of thought.  Its analysis of Greek and Latin literature, and the chief works in Italian, English, German, and French, astonished everybody, because written by a woman!

Soon after Necker published his Last Views of Politics and Finance, in which he wrote against the tyranny of a single man.  At once Napoleon caused a sharp letter to be written to Necker advising him to leave politics to the First Consul, “who was alone able to govern France,” and threatening his daughter with exile for her supposed aid in his book.  She saw the wisdom of escaping from France, lest she be imprisoned, and immediately hastened to Coppet.  A few months later, in the winter of 1802, she returned to Paris to bring home Baron de Stael, who was ill, and from whom she had separated because he was spending all her fortune and that of her three children.  He died on the journey.

Virtually banished from France, she now wrote her Delphine, a brilliant novel which was widely read.  It received its name from a singular circumstance.