s herself considered a gem of wit and mental power, ready to
discuss political economy, or the romantic movement of socialism, or
platonic love?

Many differed about this. Mlle. Necker was, to be sure, rich and
clever; but the Baron de Stael was of an old family, and had a title.
Moreover, his easy-going ways--even his punch-drinking and his
card-playing--made him a desirable husband at that time of French
social history, when the aristocracy wished to act exactly as it
pleased, with wanton license, and when an embassy was a very convenient
place into which an indiscreet ambassadress might retire when the mob
grew dangerous. For Paris was now approaching the time of revolution,
and all "aristocrats" were more or less in danger.

At first Mme. de Stael rather sympathized with the outbreak of the
people; but later their excesses drove her back into sympathy with the
royalists. It was then that she became indiscreet and abused the
privilege of the embassy in giving shelter to her friends. She was
obliged to make a sudden flight across the frontier, whence she did not
return until Napoleon loomed up, a political giant on the
horizon--victorious general, consul, and emperor.

Mme. de Stael's relations with Napoleon have, as I remarked above, been
among her few titles to serious remembrance. The Corsican eagle and the
dumpy little Genevese make, indeed, a peculiar pair; and for this
reason writers have enhanced the oddities of the picture.

"Napoleon," says one, "did not wish any one to be near him who was as
clever as himself."

"No," adds another, "Mme. de Stael made a dead set at Napoleon, because
she wished to conquer and achieve the admiration of everybody, even of
the greatest man who ever lived."

"Napoleon found her to be a good deal of a nuisance," observes a third.
"She knew too much, and was always trying to force her knowledge upon
others."

The legend has sprung up that Mme. de Stael was too wise and witty to
be acceptable to Napoleon; and many women repeated with unction that
the conqueror of Europe was no match for this frowsy little woman. It
is, perhaps, worth while to look into the facts, and to decide whether
Napoleon was really of so petty a nature as to feel himself inferior to
this rather comic creature, even though at the time many people thought
her a remarkable genius.

In the first place, knowing Napoleon, as we have come to know him
through the pages of Mme. de Remusat, Frederic Masson, an