This year of 1811 was fruitful of sorrow. Mathieu de Montmorency and Madame de Récamier were both exiled immediately after a visit paid by them to their illustrious friend. According to Madame Lenormant, the writer of _Coppet et Weimar_, as well as to Madame de Staël herself, the letter from the Minister of Police which conveyed the order of exile to Mathieu de Montmorency distinctly signified that friendship with the mistress of Coppet was the cause of his disgrace. Sismondi, however, who showed himself incredulous, and to a certain extent unsympathizing throughout all these circumstances, when writing to the Countess of Albany, was concerned to correct such an impression, and declared that not only had the Prefect of Geneva and the Minister of the French Police disclaimed the idea as unfounded, but he himself had never seen that anybody was in the least compromised by going to Coppet. Nevertheless, in a very short time Schlegel was ordered to quit the Château on the preposterous plea that he had pronounced the _Phædra_ of Euripides to be superior to that of Racine! Madame de Staël went to Aix for the sake of her youngest son’s health, but at the end of ten days was recalled by a letter from the Prefect, who advised her not to venture more than two leagues from Coppet. Very naturally she was irritated to the last degree and often deeply distressed at all these incidents. The exile imposed on Mathieu de Montmorency and Madame Récamier caused her the greatest grief, more especially as she never doubted but that unwittingly she was the cause. She had other causes of suffering also in her health at the time, and doubtless was far from being as brilliant as of yore. Circumstances (she had a son by Rocca in 1812) condemned her to an isolation which fretted her almost beyond endurance; and Sismondi, not possessing the key to the situation, was aggrieved at her sombre mood and nervous irritability. He wrote that he sometimes “bores himself” at Coppet (O Ichabod!); and he was induced to take refuge with sundry amiable persons at Geneva who soothed his wounded self love.