The words of Lauriston brought to my recollection the conversations I had often had with Bonaparte respecting Madame de Stael, of whose advances made to the First Consul, and even to the General of the Army of Italy, I had frequently been witness.  Bonaparte knew nothing at first of Madame de Stael but that she was the daughter of M. Necker, a man for whom, as I have already shown, he had very little esteem.  Madame de Stael had not been introduced to him, and knew nothing more of him than what fame had published respecting the young conqueror of Italy, when she addressed to him letters full of enthusiasm.  Bonaparte read some passages of them to me, and, laughing, said, “What do you think, Bourrienne, of these extravagances.  This woman is mad.”  I recollect that in one of her letters Madame de Stael, among other things, told him that they certainly were created for each other—­that it was in consequence of an error in human institutions that the quiet and gentle Josephine was united to his fate—­that nature seemed to have destined for the adoration of a hero such as he, a soul of fire like her own.  These extravagances disgusted Bonaparte to a degree which I cannot describe.  When he had finished reading these fine epistles he used to throw them into the fire, or tear them with marked ill-humour, and would say, “Well, here is a woman who pretends to genius—­a maker of sentiments, and she presumes to compare herself to Josephine!  Bourrienne, I shall not reply to such letters.”

I had, however, the opportunity of seeing what the perseverance of a woman of talent can effect.  Notwithstanding Bonaparte’s prejudices against Madame de Stael, which he never abandoned, she succeeded in getting herself introduced to him; and if anything could have disgusted him with flattery it would have been the admiration, or, to speak more properly, the worship, which she paid him; for she used to compare him to a god descended on earth,—­a kind of comparison which the clergy, I thought, had reserved for their own use.  But, unfortunately, to please Madame de Stael it would have been necessary that her god had been Plutua; for behind her eulogies lay a claim for two millions, which M. Necker considered still due to him on account of his good and worthy services.  However, Bonaparte said on this occasion that whatever value he might set on the suffrage of Madame de Stael, he did not think fit to pay so dear for it with the money of the State.  The conversion of Madame de Stael’s enthusiasm into hatred is well known, as are also the petty vexations, unworthy of himself, with which the Emperor harassed her in her retreat at Coppet.