Page:Madame de Staël (1887 Bella Duffy).djvu/54

44 had the mortification of seeing it accepted with perfect indifference both by the Assembly and the King.

Before leaving Paris for ever, he deposited in the royal treasury two millions of his own property. The exact object of this munificence is not clear: even Madame de Staël failed to explain it on any practical grounds. But she admired it extremely, and so may we.

The journey with the terrified and suffering Madame Necker to Switzerland was a great contrast to the return in the previous year to Paris. Then it had been "roses, roses all the way"; now it was nothing but insults. At Arcis-sur-Aube the carriage was stopped by an infuriated crowd, who accused M. Necker of having betrayed the cause of the people in the interests of the emigrant nobles. The accusation was an absurd one, since he had only endeavoured to be superhumanly kind to everybody. He had wished to preserve the people from crimes and starvation, the clergy from ruin, and the emigrant nobles from detection, and this was the result. It was hard but inevitable, and as there were many worse fates than M. Necker's in those days, one cannot quite free oneself from a feeling of impatience at Madame de Staël's perpetual lamentations over the inconceivable hardships of her parent's lot.

We now approach an episode in Madame de Staël's life which it is necessary to touch on with discretion. This is her connection with the Count Louis de Narbonne. The stories circulated in regard to them are familiar to all readers of Madame d'Arblay's memoirs. Dr. Burney thought himself in duty bound to warn his little Fanny against her growing adoration for Necker's great, but, according to him, not blameless daughter, who,