the respect which I have always entertained for real liberty. These
sentiments have been in a manner transmitted to me as an
inheritance, and adopted as my own, ever since I have been able to
reflect on the lofty ideas from which they are derived, and the
noble actions which they inspire. The cruel scenes which have
dishonored the French revolution, proceeding only from tyranny under
popular forms, could not, it appears to me, do any injury to the
cause of liberty: at the most, we could only feel discouraged with
respect to France; but if that country had the misfortune not to
know how to possess that noblest of blessings, it ought not on that
account to be proscribed from the face of the earth. When the sun
disappears from the horizon of the Northern regions, the inhabitants
of those countries do not curse his rays, because they are still
shining upon others more favored by heaven.

Shortly after the 18th Brumaire, Bonaparte had heard that I had been
speaking strongly in my own parties, against that dawning
oppression, whose progress I foresaw as clearly as if the future had
been revealed to me. Joseph Bonaparte, whose understanding and
conversation I liked very much, came to see me, and told me, "My
brother complains of you. Why, said he to me yesterday, why does not
Madame de Stael attach herself to my government? what is it she
wants? the payment of the deposit of her father? I will give orders
for it: a residence in Paris? I will allow it her. In short, what is
it she wishes?" "Good God!" replied I, "it is not what I wish, but
what I think, that is in question." I know not if this answer was
reported to him, but if it was, I am certain that he attached no
meaning to it; for he believes in the sincerity of no one's
opinions; he considers every kind of morality as nothing more than a
form, to which no more meaning is attached than to the conclusion of