“Madam de Stael,” said the prefect of Geneva, “has contrived to make herself a very pleasant life at Coppet; her friends and foreigners come to see her:  the emperor will not allow that.”  And why did he torment me in this manner? that I might print an eulogium upon him:  and of what consequence was this eulogium to him, among the millions of phrases which fear and hope were constantly offering at his shrine?  Bonaparte once said:  “If I had the choice, either of doing a noble action myself, or of inducing my adversary to do a mean one, I would not hesitate to prefer the debasement of my enemy.”  In this sentence you have the explanation of the particular pains which he took to torment my existence.  He knew that I was attached to my friends, to France, to my works, to my tastes, to society; in taking from me every thing which composed my happiness, his wish was to trouble me sufficiently to make me write some piece of insipid flattery, in the hope that it would obtain me my recall.  In refusing to lend myself to his wishes, I ought to say it, I have not had the merit of making a sacrifice; the emperor wished me to commit a meanness, but a meanness entirely useless; for at a time when success was in a manner deified, the ridicule would not have been complete, if I had succeeded in returning to Paris, by whatever means I had effected it.  To satisfy our master, whose skill in degrading whatever remains of lofty mind is unquestionable, it was necessary that I should dishonor myself in order to obtain my return to France,—­that he should turn into mockery my zeal in praise of him, who had never ceased to persecute me,—­and that this zeal should not be of the least service to me.  I have denied him this truly refined satisfaction; it is all the merit I have had in the long contest which has subsisted between his omnipotence and my weakness.

M. de Montmorency’s family, in despair at his exile, were anxious, as was natural, that he should separate himself from the sad cause of this calamity, and I saw that friend depart without knowing if he would ever again honor with his presence my residence on this earth.  On the 31st of August, 1811, I broke the first and last of the ties which bound me to my native country; I broke them, at least so far as regards human connections, which can no longer exist between us; but I never lift my eyes towards heaven without thinking of my excellent friend, and I venture to believe also, that in his prayers he answers me.  Beyond this, fate has denied me all other correspondence with him.

When the exile of my two friends became known, I was assailed by a whole host of chagrins of every kind; but a great misfortune renders us in a manner insensible to fresh troubles.  It was reported that the minister of police had declared that he would have a soldier’s guard mounted at the bottom of the avenue of Coppet, to arrest whoever came to see me.  The prefect of Geneva, who was instructed, by order of the emperor