thout injuring, wish to have an existence
independent of him. He is unwilling that in the whole universe, from
the details of housekeeping to the direction of empires, a single
will should act without reference to his.

"Madam de Stael," said the prefect of Geneva, "has contrived to make
herself a very pleasant life at Coppet; her friends and foreigners
come to see her: the emperor will not allow that." And why did he
torment me in this manner? that I might print an eulogium upon him:
and of what consequence was this eulogium to him, among the millions
of phrases which fear and hope were constantly offering at his
shrine? Bonaparte once said: "If I had the choice, either of doing a
noble action myself, or of inducing my adversary to do a mean one, I
would not hesitate to prefer the debasement of my enemy." In this
sentence you have the explanation of the particular pains which he
took to torment my existence. He knew that I was attached to my
friends, to France, to my works, to my tastes, to society; in taking
from me every thing which composed my happiness, his wish was to
trouble me sufficiently to make me write some piece of insipid
flattery, in the hope that it would obtain me my recall. In refusing
to lend myself to his wishes, I ought to say it, I have not had the
merit of making a sacrifice; the emperor wished me to commit a
meanness, but a meanness entirely useless; for at a time when
success was in a manner deified, the ridicule would not have been
complete, if I had succeeded in returning to Paris, by whatever
means I had effected it. To satisfy our master, whose skill in
degrading whatever remains of lofty mind is unquestionable, it was
necessary that I should dishonor myself in order to obtain my return
to France,--that he should turn into mockery my zeal in praise of
him, who had never ceased to persecute me,--and that this zeal
should not be of the least service to me. I have denied him this
truly refined satisfaction; it is all the merit I have had in the
long contest which has subsisted between his omnipotence and my
weakness.

M. de Montmorency's family, in despair at his exile, were anxious,
as was natural, that he should separate himself from the sad cause
of this calamity, and I saw that friend depart without knowing if he
would ever again honor with his presence my residence on this earth.
On the 31st of August, 1811, I broke the first and last of the ties
which bound me to my native country; I b