Her father, Minister Necker, had loaned his suffering country a million francs, at a time of financial distress and famine, to buy bread for the starving people, and Louis XVI. had guaranteed, in writing, that this “national debt of France” should be returned.

But the revolution that shattered the throne of the unfortunate king, also buried beneath the ruins of the olden time the promises and oaths that had been written on parchment and paper.

Madame de Stael now demanded that the emperor should fulfil the promises of the overthrown king, and that the heir of the throne of the Bourbons should assume the obligations into which a Bourbon had entered with her father.

She had once called Napoleon a god descended from heaven; and she even now wished that he might still prove a god for her, namely, the god Pluto, who should pour out a million upon her from his horn of plenty.

As she could not go to France herself, she sent her son to plead with the emperor, for herself and her children.

Well knowing, however, how difficult it would be, even for her son to secure an audience of the emperor, she addressed herself to Queen Hortense in eloquent letters imploring her to exert her influence in her son’s behalf.

Hortense, ever full of pity for misfortune, felt the warmest sympathy and admiration for the genius of the great poetess, and interceded for Madame de Stael with great courage and eloquence.  She alone ventured, regardless of Napoleon’s frowns and displeasure, to plead the cause of the poor exile again and again, and to solicit her recall to France, as a simple act of justice; she even went so far in her generosity as to extend the hospitalities of her drawing-rooms to the poetess’s son, who was avoided and fled from by every one else.

Hortense’s soft entreaties and representations were at last successful in soothing the emperor’s anger.  He allowed Madame de Stael to return to France, on the condition that she should never come to Paris or its vicinity; he then also accorded Madame de Stael’s son the long-sought favor of an audience.

This interview of Napoleon with Madame de Stael’s son is as remarkable as it is original.  On this occasion, Napoleon openly expressed his dislike and even his hatred as well of Madame de Stael as of her father, although he listened with generous composure to the warm defence of the son and grandson.

Young Stael told the emperor of his mother’s longing to return to her home, and touchingly portrayed the sadness and unhappiness of her exile.

“Ah, bah!” exclaimed the emperor, “your mother is in a state of exaltation.  I do not say that she is a bad woman.  She has wit, and much intellect, perhaps too much, but hers is an inconsiderate, an insubordinate spirit.  She has grown up in the chaos of a falling monarchy, and of a revolution, and she has amalgamized the two in her mind.  This is all a source of danger; she would make proselytes,