The triumph was of short duration: striving to act a middle part, Necker incurred the distrust of both parties. His want of capacity, also, to rule the tempest, was most evident; his propositions were weak and inconsistent; but his daughter saw not this: the loss of the confidence of the king and of the favor of the people, was attributed by her to their ingratitude and perversity; in her eyes, her father was still the greatest of men. His resignation and departure from France was to her a subject of mortification, however. As he passed on his way to Switzerland, the same people who, the year before, had swelled the acclamations of triumph and joy, now met him with reproaches and revilings. At one place he was detained as a prisoner, and only released in pursuance of a decree of the National Assembly. His daughter remained at Paris. Although excluded theoretically from the exercise of any political power, there is no country where the women take so active a part in politics as in France. Madame de Stael was not a woman to forego the exercise of rights which custom had given her sex: accordingly we find her deeply involved in all the political intrigues of the day, and her drawing-room the scene of the most important political discussions. During the dreadful days of August, 1792, she exerted herself to the utmost to save the lives of her friends; fearlessly traversing the streets filled with the lowest wretches of both sexes; visiting the victims in the obscure houses in which they were concealed, and taking them into her own house, which, from the protection which the law of nations throws over an ambassador, she trusted would be to them a sanctuary. But those now in power heeded little the law of nations: the police demanded to search her house; she met them at the door, talked to them of the rights of ambassadors, and of the vengeance which Sweden would take if they persisted in their demand; she rallied them upon their want of courtesy, and finally, by argument and gayety, induced them to abandon their intention.