From Auxerre she went to Rouen:  this was approaching some leagues nearer the centre to which all the recollections and all the affections of her youth attracted her.  There she could at least receive letters daily from Paris; she had penetrated without any obstacle the inclosure, entrance into which had been forbidden to her; she might hope that the fatal circle would progressively be contracted.  Those only who have suffered banishment will be able to understand what passed in her heart.  M. de Savoie-Rollin was then prefect of the Lower Seine; it is well known by what glaring injustice he was removed some years afterwards, and I have reason to believe that his friendship for my mother, and the interest which he shewed for her, during her residence at Rouen, were no slight causes of the rigor of which he became the object.

Fouche was still minister of police.  His system was, as my mother has said, to do as little evil as possible, the necessity of the object admitted.  The Prussian monarchy had just fallen; there was no longer any enemy upon the Continent to struggle with the government of Napoleon; no internal resistance shackled his progress, or could afford the least pretext for the employment of arbitrary measures; what motive, therefore, could he have for prolonging the most gratuitous persecution of my mother?  Fouche then permitted her to come and settle at the distance of twelve leagues from Paris, upon an estate belonging to M. de Castellane.  There she finished Corinne, and superintended the printing of it.  In other respects, the retired life she there led, the extreme prudence of her whole conduct, and the very small number of persons who were not prevented by the fear of disgrace from coming to visit her, might have been sufficient to tranquillize the most suspicious despotism.  But all this did not satisfy Bonaparte; he wanted my mother to renounce entirely the employment of her talents, and to interdict her from writing even upon subjects the most unconnected with politics.  It will be seen that even at a later period this abnegation was not sufficient to preserve her from a continually increasing persecution.

Scarcely had Corinne made her appearance, when a new exile commenced for my mother, and she saw all the hopes vanish, with which she had for some months been consoling herself.  By a fatality which rendered her grief more pungent, it was on the 9th of April, the anniversary of her father’s death, that the order which again banished her from her country, and her friends, was signified to her.  She returned to Coppet, with a bleeding heart, and the prodigious success of Corinne afforded very little diversion to her sorrow.

Friendship, however, succeeded in accomplishing what literary glory had failed to do; and, thanks to the proofs of affection which she received on her return to Switzerland, the summer passed more agreeably than she could have hoped.  Several of her friends left Paris to come to see her, and Prince Augustus of Prussia, to whom peace had restored his liberty, did us the honor to stop several months at Coppet, prior to his return to his native country.