In 1808 he had to pass through a sorrow which he felt most keenly. Ever since his father’s death his mother had continued to live at Frankfort. She was a woman of a genial and expansive nature, with a deep vein of poetry; and her real character was fully recognized only when she had to confront the world, alone. Every one loved her, and she was adored by young girls, whom she delighted to gather around her. To her great joy, Goethe repeatedly visited her, and she was also able to welcome to her home his wife and son. She was so generous that, after Schlosser’s death, the trustees for his children by his first wife, Cornelia, Goethe’s sister, wished to put some legal limit to her expenditure; and Goethe was asked to sanction their proposal. Goethe, however, who had inherited much of his mother’s disposition, replied that she had a right to spend her fortune as she pleased, and so the good Frau Rath went on living the life that best suited her kindly, happy temper. She corresponded regularly with Goethe, and it would be impossible to conceive a more beautiful relation than that which existed between mother and son. She died on September 13, 1808, at the age of seventy-seven, and Goethe mourned for her with a grief that cut deeply into his inward life. He sent his wife to Frankfort to make the necessary arrangements with regard to the inheritance that was to be divided between him and his sister’s children. Christiane showed on this occasion not only a thorough faculty for business, but a liberal spirit that won golden opinions from all whom the matter concerned. In the autumn of 1808 took place the famous meeting of Napoleon and Czar Alexander at Erfurt. Napoleon had read a French translation of “Werther,” and expressed a wish to see the author. Accordingly, on the morning of October 2nd, Goethe was presented. As the poet entered, the Emperor looked searchingly at him, and, turning round, exclaimed, “Voilà un homme!” Napoleon talked of “Werther,” and had also much to say about the French drama, frequently stopping to ask, “Qu’en dit M. Göt?” A few days afterwards Napoleon and his “pitful of kings” were present at a representation of Voltaire’s “La mort de César” at the Weimar Theatre. After the play there was a ball, in the course of which Napoleon repeatedly took occasion to converse with Goethe. He condemned Voltaire’s drama, and suggested that Goethe should write a better one on the subject, showing how Cæsar, if he had been allowed to live, would have done great things for Rome. The Emperor formed so high an opinion of Goethe that he begged him to come to Paris, assuring him of a fitting welcome. Goethe had arranged with Cotta, in 1805, for the publication of a new edition of his collected works. The appearance of this edition is memorable, because one of the volumes, issued in 1808, contained the First Part of “Faust,” as we now possess it.