his daughter of sixteen to Richmond to witness the
trial of his bitter personal enemy, Aaron Burr, whom he regarded as an
arch-traitor. But she was so fascinated by Burr's charming manner that
she sat with his friends. Her father took her from the courtroom, and
locked her up, but she was so overcome by the fine manner of the
accused that she believed in his innocence and prayed for his
acquittal. "To this day," said she fifty years afterwards, "I feel the
magic of his wonderful deportment."

Madame Recamier was so charming that when she passed around the box at
the Church St. Roche in Paris, twenty thousand francs were put into it.
At the great reception to Napoleon on his return from Italy, the crowd
caught sight of this fascinating woman and almost forgot to look at the
great hero.

"Please, Madame," whispered a servant to Madame de Maintenon at dinner,
"one anecdote more, for there is no roast to-day." She was so
fascinating in manner and speech that her guests appeared to overlook
all the little discomforts of life.

According to St. Beuve, the privileged circle at Coppet after making an
excursion returned from Chambery in two coaches. Those arriving in the
first coach had a rueful experience to relate--a terrific
thunder-storm, shocking roads, and danger and gloom to the whole
company. The party in the second coach heard their story with
surprise; of thunder-storm, of steeps, of mud, of danger, they knew
nothing; no, they had forgotten earth, and breathed a purer air; such a
conversation between Madame de Stael and Madame Recamier and Benjamin
Constant and Schlegel! they were all in a state of delight. The
intoxication of the conversation had made them insensible to all notice
of weather or rough roads. "If I were Queen," said Madame Tesse, "I
should command Madame de Stael to talk to me every day." "When she had
passed," as Longfellow wrote of Evangeline, "it seemed like the ceasing
of exquisite music."

Madame de Stael was anything but beautiful, but she possessed that
indefinable something before which mere conventional beauty cowers,
commonplace and ashamed. Her hold upon the minds of men was wonderful.
They were the creatures of her will, and she shaped careers as if she
were omnipotent. Even the Emperor Napoleon feared her influence over
his people so much that he destroyed her writings and banished her from
France.

In the words of Whittier it could be said of her as might be said of
any w