s he would have extended you
a helping hand, after having reached the summit of his mountain.'

"'I must speak with him,' said Madame de Stael; 'I have been injured in
his opinion.'

"'I think so too,' replied the queen, 'but you would judge him ill, if
you considered him capable of hating any one. He believed you to be his
enemy, and he feared you, which was something very unusual for him,'
added she, with a smile. 'Now that he is unfortunate, you will show
yourself his friend, and prove yourself to be such, and I am satisfied
that he will receive you well.'

"Madame de Stael also occupied herself a great deal with the young
princes, but she met with worse success with them than with us. It was
perhaps in order to judge of their mental capacity, that she showered
unsuitable questions upon them.

"'Do you love your uncle?'

"'Very much, madame!'

"'And will you also be as fond of war as he is?'

"'Yes, if it did not cause so much misery.'

'Is it true that he often made you repeat a fable commencing with the
words, "The strongest is always in the right?"'

"'Madame, he often made us repeat fables, but this one not oftener than
any other.'

"Young Prince Napoleon, a boy of astounding mental capacity and
precocious judgment, answered all these questions with the greatest
composure, and, at the conclusion of this examination, turned to me and
said quite audibly: 'This lady asks a great many questions. Is that what
you call being intellectual?'

"After the departure of our distinguished visitors, we all indulged in
an expression of opinion concerning them, and young Prince Napoleon was
the one upon whom the ladies had made the least flattering impression,
but he only ventured to intimate as much in a low voice.

"I for my part had been more dazzled than gladdened by this visit. One
could not avoid admiring this genius in spite of its inconsiderateness,
and its wanderings, but there was nothing pleasing, nothing graceful and
womanly, in Madame de Stael's manner[36]."

[Footnote 36: Cochelet, Memoires sur la Reine Hortense, vol. i., pp.
429-440.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE OLD AND THE NEW ERA.

The restoration was accomplished. The allies had at last withdrawn from
the kingdom, and Louis XVIII. was now the independent ruler of France.
In him, in the returned members of his family, and in the emigrants who
were pouring into the country from all quarters, was represented the
old era of France, the era of despot