as a whole was with him.  France was essentially a Roman Catholic country, and the head of it gave back to her people what was regarded as the true faith.  The exile frequently referred to these matters in conversation with one or other of his followers.  Napoleon’s disdain for Madame de Stael was well merited, and he never saw or heard of her that it did not set his nerves on edge.  She was the “death on man” sort of female who persisted in being, either directly or indirectly, his political adviser.  Dr. Max Lenz accuses the Emperor of developing a despotism that caused him to drive a woman like Madame de Stael from land to land, “and trampled under foot every manifestation of independence.”

Really, the good doctor lays himself open to the charge of not making himself better informed of the doings of this sinister person, who was steeped in treason, and who refused to accept the laws of life with proper submission.  It is merely farcical to assume that Madame de Stael was kept well under discipline because of a whimsical despotism on the part of the man who had fixed a settled government on France, and who was kept well informed of the attempts of the Baroness and her anarchist associates to undermine and destroy the Constitution it had cost France and its ruler so much to reconstruct and consolidate.  “Let her be judged as a man,” said Napoleon, and in truth he was right in deciding in this way, as her whole attitude aped the masculine.  He was right, too, in showing how wholly objectionable she had made herself to him.  He had been led to adopt a sort of “For God’s sake, what does she want?” idea of her during the early years of his rule, though he never at any time showed weakness in his actual dealings with her.  He disliked women who asserted themselves as men, and he disliked the amorous offspring of Necker more because he loathed women who threw themselves into the arms of men; she had surfeited him with her persistent attempts at making love to him.  In one of her letters to him she says it was evidently an egregious error, an entire misunderstanding of human nature, that the quiet and timid Josephine had bound up her fate with that of a tempestuous temper like his.  She and Napoleon seemed born for each other, and it appeared as if nature had only gifted her with so enthusiastic a disposition in order to enable her to admire such a hero as he was.  Napoleon in his fury tore this precious letter up and exclaimed, “This manufacturer of sentiments dares to compare herself with Josephine!”

The letters were not answered, though this had no deterrent effect on Madame de Stael.  She continued to pour out in profusion adoration.  He was “a god who had descended on earth.”  She addressed him as such, and his callous reception of her madness drove her into despair and vindictiveness which brought salutary punishment to herself.  Her weapons of wit and sarcasm availed nothing.  He looked upon her as a sort of gifted lunatic that had got the idea