capital, contrasted with the advantages collected in the most
agreeable city in the world, fails not in the long run to shake the
greater part of exiles, habituated from their infancy to the charms
of a Parisian life.

On the eve of the day when Benjamin Constant was to deliver his
speech, I had a party, among whom were Lucien Bonaparte, MM. ----
and general others, whose conversation in different degrees
possesses that constant novelty of interest which is produced by the
strength of ideas and the grace of expression. Every one of these
persons, with the exception of Lucien, tired of being proscribed by
the directory, was preparing to serve the new government, requiring
only to be well rewarded for their devotion to its power. Benjamin
Constant came up and whispered to me, "Your drawing room is now
filled with persons with whom you are pleased: if I speak, tomorrow
it will be deserted:--think well of it." "We must follow our
conviction," said I to him. This reply was dictated by enthusiasm;
but, I confess, if I had foreseen what I have suffered since that
day, I should not have had the firmness to refuse M. Constant's
offer of renouncing his project, in order not to compromise me.

At present, so far as opinion is affected, it is nothing to incur
the disgrace of Bonaparte: he may make you perish, but he cannot
deprive you of respect. Then, on the contrary, France was not
enlightened as to his tyrannical views, and as all who had suffered
from the revolution expected to obtain from him the return of a
brother, or a friend, or the restoration of property, any one who
was bold enough to resist him was branded with the name of Jacobin,
and you were deprived of good society along with the countenance of
the government: an intolerable situation, particularly for a woman,