Page:Madame de Staël (1887 Bella Duffy).djvu/151

Rh denounced her and her companions as French. Instantly the people rose and clamoured for them to be turned out. The performance was stopped; the actors decamped; and poor Madame de Staël, sobbing with indignation and grief, was led away. Even then she felt the insult chiefly as levelled at Racine, and repeated incessantly, "Oh! les barbares, les barbares! Oh, mon Racine!" Arndt was rather astonished at her taking such a scene so much to heart; but, on reflection, arrived at the conclusion that German women might be the better for a little of the same passionate patriotism.

But unpleasant incidents during her stay in the Russian capital seem to have been few. She visited several institutions; was received everywhere with politeness and cordiality; and revelled again, as she had done in Vienna, in listening to the free expression of sentiments that agreed with her own. Events, however, were progressing rapidly, and, in spite of the engagement never to sign a peace entered into by the Czar with Bernadotte at Abo, the battle of Borodino and the taking of Moscow filled most people with dismay. Madame de Staël, always easily alarmed, thought that the moment had arrived when she could no longer remain in Russia with safety, and she set her face towards Sweden, en route for England; thus quitting St. Petersburg a few days too soon to receive in all its force the electric shock of learning that Moscow was fired. At Abo, where she was to embark for Stockholm, she met Bernadotte, now Prince Royal of Sweden, whom she had formerly known in Paris as an habitué of her own and Madame Récamier's salon. Of course he admired the lovely Juliette, and hastened to inquire after her with an interest which Madame de