a long while, but his visitor reiterating to him, "If you say No, an only son, a man without reproach, will be assassinated within twenty-four hours, and your simple word will have killed him," he ultimately succumbed. Madame de Staël says it was his emotion that triumphed; it is just possible that it was sheer physical exhaustion. Madame de Staël was at no time a quiet person to deal with; when excited, as in the present instance, she must have been overpowering.
It was shortly after these events that Madame de Staël visited England, and, while there, went to Mickleham, there to be introduced to, and for a time to captivate, Fanny Burney. Except Talleyrand, she was the most illustrious of the brilliant band of exiles gathered together at Juniper Hall, and familiar to all readers of the memoirs of Madame d'Arblay and the journal of Mrs. Phillips. It is well known how Fanny withdrew from her intimacy with the future author of Corinne on learning the stories which connected the latter's name with Narbonne. Mrs. Phillips herself was much more indulgent, and Madame de Staël appears to have felt a grateful liking for her; but it is evident that she was deeply hurt at Fanny's coldness. The approbation of a nature so narrow could hardly have affected her much, one would think, and yet it is plain that she longed for it—she longed, indeed, all her life for such things as she possessed not. She could sacrifice her wishes at all times generously and unregretfully, but she never knew how to bear being denied one of them.
In all the glimpses one obtains of Madame de Staël in different countries and from different people, she never seems quite so womanly, so imperfect and yet so pathetic, as in these journals of Mrs. Phillips.
