Page:Madame de Staël (1887 Bella Duffy).djvu/67

Rh to one whose single desire night and day, was to cast herself into the arena there to combat and to save. One outlet she found for her activity in perpetual plans for enabling her friends, and often her enemies, to escape from Paris.

The scheme which she projected was to find some man or woman, as the case might be, who would enter France with Swiss passports, certificates, &c., and after getting these properly visés, would hand them over to the person who was to be saved.

Nothing could be simpler, Madame de Staël averred; and as she provided money, time, thought, energy, and presumably infected her agents with a little of her own enthusiasm, her efforts were often successful. Among those who engaged her attention were Mathieu de Montmorency, François de Jaucourt, the Princess de Poix, and Madame de Simiane.

Among the people whom she saved, and whose rescue she records with the most complacency, is that of young Achille du Chayla. He was a nephew of De Jaucourt's, and was residing at Coppet under a Swedish name—(M. de Staël had lent himself to many friendly devices of that kind). The news came that Du Chayla, when trying to escape across the frontier under cover of a Swiss passport, had been arrested at a frontier town on suspicion of being what he truly was—a refugee Frenchman. Nevertheless, the authorities declared themselves willing to release him if the Lieutenant Baillival of Nyon would attest that he was Swiss. What was to be done? To bring M. Reverdil, the functionary aforesaid, to such a declaration seemed well-nigh hopeless, and Jaucourt was in despair. His nephew, if once his identity were discovered, had no chance of escape from death; for not only was his