Thither Madame de Staël hastened to join him, and to console by her unfailing sympathy, her constant applause, and inexhaustible admiration, a misfortune which, after all, had been singularly mitigated. M. Necker accepted all this homage as his due, and his magnanimous wish, that the Archbishop of Toulouse might serve the State and King better than he would have done, is recorded by his daughter with the unction of a true devotee. There is something adorably simple and genuine in all her utterances about this time. In a letter to her husband (who apparently never objected to play second fiddle to M. and Madame Necker) she directs him exactly how to behave at Court, so as to bring home with dignity, yet force, to their Majesties the wickedness of their conduct towards so great and good a man; and she adds that but for her position as Ambassadress she would never again set foot within the precincts of Versailles. This she wrote even after the _lettre de cachet_ was cancelled. A few months later a reparation was offered to her father with which even his own sense of his worth and the idolatry of his family should have been satisfied; for he was recalled to power—unwillingly recalled, it is true. The King’s hand was forced. His present sentiments to M. Necker, if not hostile, were cold; while those of the Queen had changed to aversion. But the Marquis de Mirabeau had defined the position of France as “a game of blind-man’s buff which must lead to a general upset”; consternation had invaded even the densest intelligences; and the voice of the public clamored for its savior. This time, again, the title given to M. Necker was Director-General of Finance; but, on the other hand, the coveted entry into the Royal Council was accorded him. It was the first instance, since the days of Sully, of such an honor being granted to a Protestant; it was given at a moment when the suggestion to restore civil rights to those of alien faith had been bitterly resented by the French clergy; and it was one of the many signs (for those who had eyes to see) that the last hour of the old régime had struck. The nomination was hailed with a burst of applause from one end of France to the other. Madame de Staël hurried to St. Ouen with the news, but she found her father the reverse of elated. Fifteen months previously—the fifteen months wasted by the ineptitude of Brienne—he said he might have done something; now it was too late. Madame de Staël was far from sharing these feelings. When anything had to be accomplished by her father, she was of the opinion of Calonne, in his celebrated answer to Marie Antoinette—“_Si c’est possible, c’est fait; si c’est impossible, cela se fera._” And undoubtedly M. Necker did his best on returning to power; but, in spite of his honesty, good faith, and unquestionable abilities, he was not the man for the hour.