But suddenly her hysteria subsided, and after a brief repose she switched off the truculent side and sought the pity of the man whose life she had set herself to make one long ache if he did not yield to her arrogant pretensions.  She had written in a perpetual scream of his iniquities, and was thrown over by her former associates, who saw clearly enough that no real good could be accomplished by whining about cruelty when stern flawless justice only existed.  They recognised that she was a personality, but her antics puzzled them, and well they might.  She bewailed her isolation with a throbbing heart, and after committing indiscretions that Robespierre would have sent her head flying for, she was suddenly bereaved of her neglected husband.  This event gave Benjamin Constant a better chance, but the Baroness aimed at higher game.  She was held in the grip of a delusion that she had it in her power to hypnotise the First Consul and cause him to become her lover.  She had an uncontrollable idolatry for this august person, whom she hoped to win over by writing for the consumption of his enemies the many reasons for her aversion to him.  Without a doubt the woman was madly in love with the object of her supposed aversion, and was driven to frenzy by his obvious distaste for her.

In 1811 she secretly married a young officer called M. de Rocca, who had fallen desperately in love with her.  He was amiable and brilliant; became an officer of Hussars in the French Army; did valiant deeds amongst the hills in Andalusia in 1809; and was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour.  Subsequently he was shot down by guerillas, badly wounded in the thigh, foot, and chest; had a romantic deliverance; was hidden in a chapel by a young lady, and nursed into consciousness and convalescence by loving care, which enabled him to reach Madrid, and ultimately Geneva, where, in the radiance of youthful infatuation, he rode with reckless energy down a risky steep part of the city, so that he might pass the window of the lady, who was more than old enough to be his mother, and in a few months was to be made his wife.  A child was born to them in 1812, and in order to save its legitimacy, she acknowledged the marriage to a few, but it was not generally known until after her death that Rocca was her lawful husband.  Conscious, and sensitive no doubt, that it was not quite natural for old women to marry young men, she prudently had the event kept secret.  The young husband did not only possess tender affection for her, but he combined chivalrous ambitions which made the romance additionally attractive.