hero who had scorned her, wounded him more severely than weapons of
steel or iron. In the use of these weapons, Madame de Stael was his
superior, and the consciousness of this embittered Bonaparte all the
more against the lady, who dared prick the heel of Achilles with the
needle of her wit, and strike at the very point where he was most
sensitive.

A long and severe conflict now began between these two greatest geniuses
of that period, a struggle that was carried on by both with equal
bitterness. But Napoleon had outward power on his side, and could punish
the enmity of his witty opponent, as a ruler.

He banished Madame de Stael from Paris, and soon afterward even from
France. She who in Paris had been so ready to sing the praises of her
"god descended from heaven," now went into exile his enemy and a
royalist, to engage, with all her eloquence and genius, in making
proselytes for the exiled Bourbons, and to raise in the minds of men an
invisible but none the less formidable army against her enemy the
great Napoleon.

Madame de Stael soon gave still greater weight to the flaming eruptions
of her hatred of Napoleon, by her own increasing renown and greatness;
and the poetess of Corinne and Delphine soon became as redoubtable an
opponent of Napoleon as England, Russia, or Austria, could be.

But in the midst of the triumphs she was celebrating in her exile,
Madame de Stael soon began to long ardently to return to France, which
she loved all the more for having been compelled to leave it. She
therefore used all the influence she possessed in Paris, to obtain from
Napoleon permission to return to her home, but the emperor remained
inexorable, even after having read Delphine.

"I love," said he, "women who make men of themselves just as little as I
love effeminate men. There is an appropriate _role_ for every one in the
world. Of what use is this vagabondizing of fantasy? What does it
accomplish? Nothing! All this is nothing but do rangement of mind and
feeling. I dislike women who throw themselves in my arms, and for this
reason, if for no other, I dislike this woman, who is certainly one of
that number."

Madame de Stael's petitions to be permitted to return to Paris were
therefore rejected, but she was as little disposed to abandon her
purpose now as she was at the time she sought to gain Bonaparte's
good-will. She continued to make attempts to achieve her aim, for it was
not only her country that she wished to