describe. When he had finished
reading these fine epistles he used to throw them into the fire, or tear
them with marked ill-humour, and would say, "Well, here is a woman who
pretends to genius--a maker of sentiments, and she presumes to compare
herself to Josephine! Bourrienne, I shall not reply to such letters."

I had, however, the opportunity of seeing what the perseverance of a
woman of talent can effect. Notwithstanding Bonaparte's prejudices
against Madame de Stael, which he never abandoned, she succeeded in
getting herself introduced to him; and if anything could have disgusted
him with flattery it would have been the admiration, or, to speak more
properly, the worship, which she paid him; for she used to compare him to
a god descended on earth,--a kind of comparison which the clergy, I
thought, had reserved for their own use. But, unfortunately, to please
Madame de Stael it would have been necessary that her god had been
Plutua; for behind her eulogies lay a claim for two millions, which M.
Necker considered still due to him on account of his good and worthy
services. However, Bonaparte said on this occasion that whatever value
he might set on the suffrage of Madame de Stael, he did not think fit to
pay so dear for it with the money of the State. The conversion of Madame
de Stael's enthusiasm into hatred is well known, as are also the petty
vexations, unworthy of himself, with which the Emperor harassed her in
her retreat at Coppet.

Lauriston had arrived at Paris, where he made but a short stay, some days
before Caffarelli, who was sent on a mission to Rome to sound the Papal
Court, and to induce the Holy Father to come to Paris to consecrate
Bonaparte at his coronation. I have already described the nature of
Bonaparte's ideas on religion. His notions on the subject seemed to
amount to a sort of vague feeling rather than to any belief founded on
reflection. Nevertheless, he had a high opinion of the power of the
Church; but not because he considered it dangerous to Governments,
particularly to his own. Napoleon never could have conceived how it was
possible that a sovereign wearing a crown and a sword could have the
meanness to kneel to a Pope, or to humble his sceptre before the keys of
St. Peter. His spirit was too great to admit of such a thought. On the
contrary, he regarded the alliance between the Church and his power as a
happy means of influencing the opinions of the people, and as an
additional tie