A variety of circumstances arose to put an end to this state of things and to revive Napoleon’s dislike to Madame de Staël. Her father published his work, _Dernières Vues de Politique et de Finance_, with the avowed intention of protesting against Napoleon’s growing tyranny. His daughter had encouraged him in this feeling, herself unable, as she declares, to silence this “Song of the Swan.” Then Bernadotte had inaugurated a certain sullen opposition to the First Consul, and Madame de Staël immediately became his friend. Finally, her salon was more crowded than ever, and by great personages, such as the Prince of Orange and other embryo potentates, besides foreigners of celebrity in letters and science. Napoleon detested salons. It was his conviction that a woman who disposed of social influence might do anything in France, inasmuch as he held that the best brains in the country were female. Madame de Staël, moreover, possessed the art of keeping herself well before the public. Even now she had just published _Delphine_, and all the papers were full of it. To please Napoleon, they condemned it as immoral—a strange criticism in that age, and an excellent advertisement in any. Napoleon, on Madame de Staël’s again visiting Switzerland, hinted to Lebrun that she would do well not to return to Paris. His obsequious colleague hastened to intimate this by letter; and although the communication was not official, the First Consul’s lightest intimations by this time carried so much weight that Madame de Staël was compelled to obey. She did so very reluctantly; and perhaps if her father’s prudence had not been greater than her own, her longing to be back in the capital would have overpowered every other consideration. As it was, she made the best that she could of a year’s uninterrupted sojourn at Coppet. The Tribunat meanwhile had shown itself again rebellious. Bonaparte, irritated, declared that he would shake twelve or fifteen of its members “from his clothes like vermin,” and Constant had no choice but to rejoin his friend in Switzerland. CHAPTER IX. NEW FACES AT COPPET.