nuisance in the salons of Paris and its vicinity. He cared not the
least for her epigrams. She might go somewhere else and write all
the epigrams she pleased. When he banished her, in 1803, she
merely crossed the Rhine into Germany, and established herself at
Weimar.

The emperor received her son, Auguste de Stael-Holstein, with much
good humor, though he refused the boy's appeal on behalf of his
mother.

"My dear baron," said Napoleon, "if your mother were to be in
Paris for two months, I should really be obliged to lock her up in
one of the castles, which would be most unpleasant treatment for
me to show a lady. No, let her go anywhere else and we can get
along perfectly. All Europe is open to her--Rome, Vienna, St.
Petersburg; and if she wishes to write libels on me, England is a
convenient and inexpensive place. Only Paris is just a little too
near!"

Thus the emperor gibed the boy--he was only fifteen or sixteen--
and made fun of the exiled blue-stocking; but there was not a sign
of malice in what he said, nor, indeed, of any serious feeling at
all. The legend about Napoleon and Mme. de Stael must, therefore,
go into the waste-basket, except in so far as it is true that she
succeeded in boring him.

For the rest, she was an earlier George Sand--unattractive in
person, yet able to attract; loving love for love's sake, though
seldom receiving it in return; throwing herself at the head of
every distinguished man, and generally finding that he regarded