of seducing him into her head.  She became so mischievous that he bundled her out of France.  “As long as I live,” said he, “she shall not return.”  He advised that she should live in Berlin, Vienna, Milan, or London, the latter for preference.  There she would have full scope for her genius in producing pamphlets.  “Oh yes,” says the “god who had descended on earth”; “she has talent, much talent, in fact far too much, but it is offensive and revolutionary.”  This poetess-politician, who said brave things and wrote amazing diatribes against her “god,” was in truth one of the most servile creatures on earth.  She pleaded to be allowed to come back to her native land, and pledged herself to a life of retirement, but the great man’s faith in his own sound judgment was not to be shaken.

“Her promises are all very fine,” he said, “but I know what they mean.  Why should she be so anxious to be in the immediate reach of tyranny?”

Like all eccentric women who desire to play the part of man, she made her appearance before Napoleon in the most absurd, tasteless attire.  This woman of genius and folly lacked the wisdom of gauging the taste of Bonaparte, whom she desired to captivate with her sluttish appearance and whirling words.

This man of method and order, who had a keen eye for grace or beauty in its varied phases, was always pronounced in his opinion that women should dress simply but with faultless taste.  It improves good looks, and, if need be, it covers up defects; but in any case it is the bounden duty of women to dress with some regard to conventional custom.  It gives them much greater influence than they would otherwise have.  Most women know the importance of this trick, and do it, and they are amply rewarded for their good sense.

Madame de Stael did quite the opposite.  She appeared before the Man of Destiny in a shocking garb, and he regarded it as a piece of impertinence.  It stirred up his prejudice openly against her, in spite of his indifferent attempts to conceal it, but her egotism was so gigantic, she actually believed she was making great strides towards curing his callousness towards her.  This woman has been used elaborately by anti-Napoleonic writers to prove that he was an inhuman despot and she a high-minded, virtuous Frenchwoman, and a genius in the art of government.  They quote her as a great authority.  Her knowledge of his evil deeds and mistakes of administration is set forth as being flawless.  They bemoan his treatment of this amiable female, and in the midst of their ecstasy of compassion and wrath they hand down to posterity a record of unheard-of woes.  There is little doubt Napoleon’s remark that “the Neckers were an odd lot, always comforting themselves in mutual admiration,” is well merited.  The daughter utilised the name of the father with lavish persistence.  Her ambition and impudence were boundless, and were the cause of Napoleon bestowing some wholesome discipline upon her, which, like a true heroine, she resented, and sent forth from her exile streams of relentless wailing, adorned by a fluency of venom that would have put the most militant suffragette in our time to the blush.