are only read by well informed
people, and may enlighten, but not inflame opinion. At a later
period, there were established in the senate, I believe in derision,
a committee for the liberty of the press, and another for personal
liberty, the members of which are still renewed every three months.
Certainly the bishopricks in partibus, and the sinecures in England
afford more employment than these committees.

Since my work on Literature, I have published Delphine, Corinne, and
finally my work on Germany, which was suppressed at the moment it
was about to make its appearance. But although this last work has
occasioned me the most bitter persecution, literature does not
appear to me to be less a source of enjoyment and respect, even for
a female. What I have suffered in life, I attribute to the
circumstances which associated me, almost at my entry into the
world, with the interests of liberty, which were supported by my
father and his friends; but the kind of talent which has made me
talked of as a writer, has always been to me a source of greater
pleasure than pain. The criticisms of which one's works are the
objects, can be very easily borne, when one is possessed of some
elevation of soul, and when one is more attached to noble ideas for
themselves, than for the success which their promulgation can
procure us. Besides, the public, at the end of a certain time,
appears to me always equitable; self-love must accustom itself to do
credit to praise; for in due time, we obtain as much of that as we
deserve. Finally, if we should have even to complain long of
injustice, I conceive no better asylum against it than philosophical
meditation, and the emotion of eloquence. These faculties place at
our disposal a whole world of truths and sentiments, in which we can
breathe at perfect freedom.

CHAPTER 4.

Conversation of my father with Bonaparte.--Campaign of Marengo.

Bonaparte set out in the spring of 1800, to make the campaign of
Italy, which was distinguished by the battle of Marengo. He went by
Geneva, and as he expressed a desire to see M. Necker, my father
waited upon him, more with the hope of serving me, than from any
other motive. Bonaparte received him extremely well, and talked to
him of his plans of the moment, with that sort of confidence which
is in his character, or rather in his calculation; for it is thus we
must always style his character. My father, at first seeing him,
experienced nothing of the