Madame de Staël passes over in her _Memoirs_ a scene at the theatre, during her visit to St. Petersburg, which wounded her deeply, and is related by Arndt. She went with her son and somebody else to the “Théatre Français,” to see Racine’s _Phèdre_. Scarcely was she seated, when somebody in the pit denounced her and her companions as French. Instantly the people rose and clamored for them to be turned out. The performance was stopped, the actors decamped, and poor Madame de Staël, sobbing with indignation and grief, was led away. Even then she felt the insult chiefly as levelled at Racine, and repeated incessantly, “_Oh! les barbares, les barbares! Oh, mon Racine!_” Arndt was rather astonished at her taking such a scene so much to heart; but, on reflection, arrived at the conclusion that German women might be the better for a little of the same passionate patriotism. But unpleasant incidents during her stay in the Russian capital seem to have been few. She visited several institutions, was received everywhere with politeness and cordiality, and revelled again, as she had done in Vienna, in listening to the free expression of sentiments that agreed with her own. Events, however, were progressing rapidly, and, in spite of the engagement never to sign a peace entered into by the Czar with Bernadotte at Abo, the battle of Borodino and the taking of Moscow filled most people with dismay. Madame de Staël, always easily alarmed, thought that the moment had arrived when she could no longer remain in Russia with safety, and she set her face towards Sweden, _en route_ for England; thus quitting St. Petersburg a few days too soon to receive in all its force the electric shock of learning that Moscow was fired. At Abo, where she was to embark for Stockholm, she met Bernadotte, now Prince Royal of Sweden, whom she had formerly known in Paris as an _habitué_ of her own and Madame Récamier’s salon. Of course he admired the lovely Juliette, and hastened to inquire after her with an interest which Madame de Staël straightway conveyed in a letter to her friend—a letter worded, however, with a caution that reveals the inconceivable difficulty even of private correspondence in those stormy days. At Stockholm she was welcomed, according to her son, with “perfect kindness”; and as she was notoriously enthusiastic about Bernadotte, whom she unhesitatingly pronounced to be “the hero of the age,” it is probable that he honored her with a great deal of his confidence. Galiffe (author of _D’un siècle à l’autre_), who had access to her correspondence from Sweden with J. A. Galiffe in St. Petersburg, was of opinion that her influence had a large share in determining Bernadotte to declare himself against Bonaparte.