her friends, Talleyrand, Narbonne, De Montmorency,
together with the approaching Revolution, drew her into politics. When
her father was called by the nation to the control of its finances,
his daughter shared his glories.

Her salon was the centre of the elite and of all literary and
political discussions; but as the majority of its frequenters were
partisans of the English constitution and expressed their views
openly and freely, her enemies became numerous. When Narbonne was made
minister of war, a great triumph for her and her party, the eloquence
of his reports was attributed to her, and when he fell into disgrace
she rescued him. However, the atmosphere of Paris was too unfriendly,
so she left in 1792 for her home at Coppet, which became an asylum
for all the proscribed. When she visited England, she began a
thorough study of its mode of life, its customs, and its parliamentary
institutions. Upon her return to Coppet she wrote _Reflexions sur le
Proces de la Reine_, to excite the commiseration of the judges. After
the death of her mother in 1794, she devoted her energies to the
education of her two boys.

After the violence of her love for Benjamin Constant, who drew
her back to politics, was somewhat cooled, she became an ardent
Republican, writing her treatise _Reflexions sur la Paix adressees
a M. Pitt et aux Anglais_, which facilitated her return in 1795 to
Paris, where she found her husband reinstalled as ambassador. Her
hotel in the Rue de Bac was reopened, and she proceeded to form a
salon from the debris of society floating about in Paris. It was an
assembly of queer characters--elements of the old and new regime, but
not at all reconciled, converts of the Jacobin party returning for the
first time into society, surrounded by the women of the old regime,
using all imaginable efforts and flattery to obtain the _rentree_ of
a brother, a son, or a lover; it was composed of the most moderate
Revolutionists, of former Constitutionalists, of exiles of the
Monarchy, whom she endeavored to bring over to the Republican cause.

Through the influence of Mme. de Stael, the decree of banishment was
repealed by the convention, thus opening Paris to Talleyrand. In 1795
appeared her _Reflexions sur la Paix Interieure_; the aim of that
work being to organize the French Republic on the plan of the United
States; it strongly opposed the restoration of the Monarchy. The
Comite du Salut Publique accused her of double play,