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62 monarchists, that it resulted in nothing better than a spirit of intrigue.

She could not understand that the law, whatever it may be, which governs circumstances, makes no account of individuals. She believed that, by causing Mathieu de Montmorency and Talleyrand to be recalled from exile, and inspiring Benjamin Constant with the loftiest ideals, she could obliterate the blood-stained past and reverse the logic of events. When everybody (everybody, that is, whom she cared about) should have been restored to peace, prosperity, and the air of France, she conceived that the study of metaphysical systems and the cultivation of the affections would alone be needed to re-model and perfect humanity.

With this in view she toiled and plotted unceasingly, clasping the hands of regicides like Barras, rubbing skirts with such women as Madame Tallien, and sacrificing her own pet ideal of womanly duty, which consisted, as she repeatedly proclaimed, in loving and being loved, and leaving the jarring strife of politics to men.

Had she remained in France, she must inevitably have been betrayed into greater inconsistencies still. But, fortunately for her fame, her intellect, and her character, the period was approaching in which Bonaparte's aversion was to condemn her to a decade of illustrious exile.