of power. She condoned
the excesses of the Revolution in view of its aspirations. Napoleon
gained his first great victories in defence of its ideas. So at first,
in common with the friends of liberty, she was prepared to worship this
rising sun, dazzled by his deeds and deceived by his lying words. But
she no sooner saw him than she was repelled, especially when she knew he
had trampled on the liberties which he had professed to defend. Her
instincts penetrated through all the plaudits of his idolaters. She felt
that he was a traitor to a great cause,--was heartless, unboundedly
ambitious, insufferably egotistic, a self-worshipper, who would brush
away everything and everybody that stood in his way; and she hated him,
and she defied him, and her house became the centre of opposition, the
headquarters of enmity and wrath. What was his glory, as a conqueror,
compared with the cause she loved, trodden under foot by an iron, rigid,
jealous, irresistible despotism? Nor did Napoleon like her any better
than she liked him,--not that he was envious, but because she stood in
his way. He expected universal homage and devotion, neither of which
would she give him. He was exceedingly irritated at the reports of her
bitter sayings, blended with ridicule and sarcasm. He was not merely
annoyed, he was afraid. "Her arrows," said he, "would hit a man if he
were seated on a rainbow." And when he found he could not silence her,
he banished her to within forty leagues of Paris. He was not naturally
cruel, but he was not the man to allow so bright a woman to say her
sharp things about him to his generals and courtiers. It was not the
worst thing he ever did to banish his greatest enemy; but it was mean
and cruel to persecute her as he did after she was banished.

So from Paris--to her the "hub of the universe"--Madame de Stael, "with
wandering steps and slow, took her solitary way." Expelled from the Eden
she loved, she sought to find some place where she could enjoy
society,--which was the passion of her life. Weimar, in Germany, then
contained a constellation of illustrious men, over whom Goethe reigned,
as Dr. Johnson once did in London. Thither she resolved to go, after a
brief stay at Coppet, her place in Switzerland; and her ten years' exile
began with a sojourn among the brightest intellects of Germany. She was
cordially received at Weimar, especially by the Court, although the
dictator of German literature did not like her much. She