All this Madame de Staël seems never to have felt. If she loved unworthy people (and how many she did love!), it was because she deceived herself regarding them, as all her life she deceived herself about her father. She was intolerant of any triumph but that of virtue, and was thus rendered unjust to the great deeds of men who, imperfect and erring themselves, can sympathize with the aspirations of the human heart because its baseness is not unknown to them. On the 11th of July, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, M. Necker, who had become a sort of Cassandra to the Court party and was detested in proportion, received a letter from the King ordering him to quit Paris and France, and to accomplish the departure with the utmost secrecy and despatch. He was at table with some guests when this order was handed to him; he read it, put it into his pocket, and continued his conversation as though nothing had happened. Dinner over, he took Madame Necker aside, and informed her what had occurred. Nothing was communicated to Madame de Staël; probably her father thought she would be too much excited. M. and Madame Necker hastily ordered their carriage and, without bidding anybody farewell, without even delaying to change their clothes, they had themselves conveyed to the nearest station for post-horses. Thence they continued their journey uninterruptedly, fleeing like culprits from the people whose indignation was feared by the King. Madame de Staël is lost in admiration of this single-minded conduct of her father, and lays especial stress on the fact that, even during the journey, he made no effort to win for himself the suffrages of the multitude. “Where is another man,” she naïvely asks, “who would not have had himself brought back in his own despite?” Certainly an ambitious man might have adopted this theatrical plan; but it is much more likely, under the actual circumstances, that an ambitious man would never have left at all. M. Necker had only to announce his disgrace to the people of Paris, and go over once for all to the popular side, to have received an intoxicating ovation. As it was, the news of his dismissal cast the capital into consternation. All the theatres were closed, medals were struck in the fallen Minister’s honor, and the first cockade worn was green—the color of his liveries. What a career might then have been his if, instead of being an obedient subject, he had chosen to be a leader!