Page:Madame de Staël (1887 Bella Duffy).djvu/94

84 Besides, paltry as Napoleon showed himself in many respects, he was a phenomenon of so exceptional a nature that to judge him by ordinary standards was absurd. It was the weakness of France which made his opportunity; and if the epoch had not been abnormal, he never could have dominated it. The people whom he governed had two courses open to them: to submit or to protest. The first brought profit, the second glory; and the glory which is purchased by no sacrifice is unworthy of the name.

In 1801 Madame de Staël published her work on Literature, in which, as she says, there was not a word concerning Napoleon, although "the most liberal sentiments were expressed in it with force." The book produced an immense sensation; and Parisian society, in its admiration for the writer, forgot the First Consul's displeasure, and again crowded round her. She admits that the winter of 1801 was a pleasant one. Napoleon, passing through Switzerland the previous summer, had seen and spoken with M. Necker. It is characteristic of both interlocutors that the ex-statesman was far more impressed with the warrior than the latter with him. Necker divined in the young hero a strength of will to which his own hesitating nature was a stranger; while Napoleon, on his side, penetrating but prejudiced, contemptuously described the once august financier in two words, "A banker and an Idealist." With his usual cynicism, he attributed Necker's visit to the desire of employment; whereas Madame de Staël affirmed that her father's chief object was to plead her cause. In this he was so far successful that residence in France was for some time at least assured to her. "It was," she writes, "the last time that my father's protecting hand