Whenever the carriage stopped, the popular idol harangued the crowd and impressed on them the necessity of respecting persons and property; he entreated of them, as they professed so much love for him, to give him the most striking proof that they could of it, by always doing their duty. Madame de Staël says that her father was fully aware of the fleeting nature of popularity; and, under these circumstances, one wonders that he took the trouble, in such a crisis, to make so many speeches. But it is probable that the intoxication of praise was a little too much for him; and he had at all times the sacerdotal tendency to preach.

At ten leagues from Paris, news was brought to the travellers that De Besenval had been arrested by order of the Commune, and was to be taken to the capital, where he would, said the pessimists, be infallibly torn to pieces by the populace. M. Necker, entreated to intervene, took upon himself to rescind the order of the Commune, and promised to obtain the sanction of the authorities to his act.

On arriving in Paris, consequently, his first care was to proceed, in company with his family, to the Hôtel de Ville. The streets, the roofs, the windows of every house were densely thronged. Cries of "Vive Necker!" rent the air, as the redeemer of the country appeared on a balcony and began his dis

course.

He demanded the amnesty of De Besenval and of all those who shared De Besenval's opinion. This extensive programme committed all those who accepted it to a reactionary policy, since to pardon the people's enemies unconditionally was to condone, and in a measure to sanction, their crimes.

But no such considerations presented themselves at that moment to impair Necker's triumph. The popular enthusiasm accorded him what he asked: fresh thunders of applause broke forth, and Madame de Staël, overcome with emotion, fainted.

CHAPTER V.

MADAME DE STAËL IS COURAGEOUS FOR HER FRIENDS.

NECKER'S victory over the rage of the populace was a fleeting one. He had, indeed, overstepped the prerogatives of a Minister in asking for the amnesty. Misled by the elation of his gratified vanity, and the impulse of his benevolent heart, he, an ardent defender of order, forgot that in placing himself between the Assembly and King on the one hand, and the people on the other, he practically recognised the right of a faction to act without the consent of the Government. It was for the latter to reverse the decree of the Commune and not for the electors of Paris.

His dream of smiling peace installed by his hand on the ruins of the Revolution was rudely and rapidly dispelled. Madame de Staël sorrowfully records that on the very evening of that glorious day the amnesty was retracted, and ascribes this result in great part to the influence of Mirabeau. But, in truth, a very little reflection must have sufficed to convince anybody that the utopian demands of Necker were singularly misplaced. The very electors who had acceded to them asserted that all they had ever intended was to

shield the arrested royalists from the fury of the populace, but in no sense from the action of justice. The Assembly confirmed this view, and from that moment Necker's influence was practically gone. It was proved to be a bubble; and his triumph, respectable as were some of the motives which had urged him to invoke it, became ludicrous when contrasted with the stern and tragic realities of the moment. This Madame de Staël did not, could not see. She was fain to console herself with the compassionate reflection that, after all, De Besenval-an old man—was saved.

She narrates with dolorous pride the efforts honestly, courageously, and to a certain degree successfully, made by her father, during fifteen months, to avert the disaster of famine; and innocently appeals to them against the failure as a statesman to which she resolutely shuts her eyes.

One measure after another opposed by Necker was voted the confiscation of the property of the clergy, the suppression of titles of nobility, and the emission of assignats. No popularity could have resisted such. successive blows; and Necker was popular no longer. Still, Madame de Staël touchingly begs the world, in her writings, not to allow itself to be turned from the paths of virtue by the spectacle of a good man so persecuted by fate. She claims our admiration for a series of quixotic acts, and is perpetually insisting on the amazing magnanimity which would not allow her father to become base because he had ceased to be useful.

Thoroughly discouraged at last-perhaps partly convinced that to preach kindness to savages, and selfabnegation to the vile, was a task to be resumed in better times-Necker tendered his resignation, and

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.

46

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,