The Swedish ambassadress herself could easily have left France at any moment, but she lingered on from day to day, unwilling to quit the country while so many of her friends were in danger; and she was rewarded at last by the opportunity of interfering to save Jaucourt, who had been conveyed to the Abbaye—now aptly named “the Ante-chamber of Death.” Madame de Staël knew none of the members of the Commune, but, with her unfailing presence of mind, she remembered that one of them, Manuel, the _procureur_, had some pretensions to be literary. These pretensions being greater than his talent, Madame de Staël rightly concluded that he possessed sufficient vanity to be moved by solicitation. She wrote to ask for an interview, which was accorded her for the next morning at 7 o’clock in the official’s own house. “The hour was democratic,” she remarks, but she was careful to be punctual. Her eloquence achieved an easy victory over Manuel, who, unlike so many of his colleagues, was no fanatic; and on the 1st of September he made Madame de Staël happy by writing to inform her that, thanks to his good offices, Jaucourt had been set at liberty. She now, at last, determined to quit France the next day, but not alone. Resolute to the end in risking her life for that of others, she consented to take the Abbé de Montesquion with her in the disguise of a domestic, and convey him safely into Switzerland. A passport obtained for one of her servants was given to one of his, and a place on the high road indicated as a rendezvous where the Abbé was to join her suite. When the next morning dawned a fresh element of terror had invaded the public mind. The news of the fall of Longwy and Verdun had arrived and Paris was in effervescence. Again in all the sections the tocsin was sounding; and everybody whose own life was his chief preoccupation kept as quiet as possible. But Madame de Staël could not keep quiet—that was impossible for her at all times—and at this moment the image paramount in her mind was that of the poor Abbé waiting anxiously at his rendezvous—perhaps only to be discovered if his generous deliverer delayed. Turning a deaf ear to all remonstrance, she started in a travelling-carriage drawn by six horses, and accompanied by her servants in gala livery. This was an unfortunate inspiration. Instead of filling the minds of the vulgar with awe, as she had vainly hoped, it aroused their vigilant suspicions. The carriage had hardly passed under the portals of the hotel before it was surrounded by a furious crowd of old women, “risen from hell,” as Madame de Staël energetically expressed it, who shrieked out that she was carrying away the gold of the nation. This intelligent outcry brought a new contingent of exasperated patriots of both sexes, who ordered the fugitive Ambassadress to be conveyed to the Assembly of the Section nearest at hand.