On the opening of 1793, the French Constitutionalists were at the lowest point of depression and disgrace. They were reviled on all hands for having given weight and impetus to a movement which they were impotent to control. Norbury Park and Mickleham were eager that Miss Burney should see their new friends and judge them for herself. “Your French colonies,” she wrote in reply to Mrs. Locke’s pressing invitation, “are truly attractive: I am sure they must be so to have caught me—so substantially, fundamentally the foe of all their proceedings while in power.” Having tarried long enough to pay her birthday duty to the Queen, she left London at the commencement of the season, and went down to Surrey. A day or two after her arrival came the news of the French King’s execution. The excitement caused by this intelligence quickened the already frequent intercourse between the Lockes and Juniper Hall, and Fanny soon found herself on familiar terms with the refugees. Before the end of January, Madame de Staël appeared on the scene, and placed herself at the head of the little colony. Necker’s daughter had earned the rage of the Commune by her exertions to save life during the massacres of August and September; nor was it at all clear that the privilege which she enjoyed as wife of the Swedish Ambassador would avail for her protection. She had, therefore, crossed the Channel, and now joined her Constitutionalist friends at Juniper Hall, whither she was soon followed by Talleyrand, who had come to England in her company. No other party of refugees could boast two names of equal distinction, though French titles had become plentiful as blackberries in several parts of England. Madame de Staël paid the most flattering attention to the author of ‘Cecilia,’ whose second novel had procured her considerable reputation in Paris. A warm but short-lived intimacy between the two ladies ensued. No two persons could be less suited to one another than our timid, prudish little Burney and the brilliant and audacious French _femme de lettres_. The public acts of the Bishop of Autun—‘the viper that had cast his skin,’ as Walpole called him—had not inclined Fanny in his favour; but his extraordinary powers conquered her admiration, and as she listened to the exchanges of wit, criticism, and raillery between him and Madame de Staël, she could see for the moment no blemishes in either, and looked on the little band of exiles, some of whom could almost vie with these leaders, as rare spirits from some brighter world. The group, consisting at different times of some dozen persons,[112] were all most agreeable; but one, perhaps the least dazzling of the whole constellation, proved more attractive than the rest: