Sismondi sometimes visited Madame de Staël herself with criticism not less captious, although he was generally vanquished in the end by her heroism and her charm. During the summer of 1811 she was in a very restless and unhappy mood, which often drew forth his censure. The conviction of the extreme disfavor with which Napoleon regarded her was now widely spread, and one of its results was a real or fancied falling-off of friends, which wounded her exceedingly. To nothing was she so sensitive as to any failure of affection, and the ardor with which she sought to defend herself from blame was caused not so much by offended self-love as by slighted feeling of a more amiable kind. Just about this time she wrote to Camille Jordan a very characteristic letter. Its tone was indignant, for Jordan, always rather cold and repellent, had evidently stung her by some censure of her conduct. Apparently also, he had sought to justify himself for not coming to see her, for she assured him that she had never dreamed of blaming him, nor entertained a thought against his loyalty. She quivered under a shaft which had struck more deeply home, and in one sentence made an allusion applying apparently to Rocca. She owned that being placed, as it appeared to her, on the highest pinnacle of moral dignity, she had felt some wonder at the fact that Jordan, “indulgent towards the inconceivable conduct of Girando,” should have reserved all his wrath for an unhappy woman who, “while resisting all attacks and defending her children and her talent at the risk of happiness, security, and life,” had allowed herself to be momentarily touched by the self-sacrificing chivalry of a young man. Her anger was but fleeting, and a few months later she wrote as affectionately as ever to Camille, who, perhaps, for once had been shaken from his prudent calm by her fiery words, and had calmed her by protesting unaltered regard.