Villemain has left a record of the evening of the 18th March 1815, which he passed in the salon of the Countess Rumford, and where he met Madame de Staël. Several famous, and to us now familiar, personages were present—Lafayette, Constant, Jaucourt, Cuvier, Sismondi, and Lemercier among others. Every moment somebody arrived with news of the advancing hero. Madame de Staël came late, and instantly attracted the general attention to herself. She was overwhelmed with sadness, but more for France even than for herself. She had been at the Tuileries, and found that there all hope of resistance was abandoned. Her own mind was made up for flight, yet she urged Madame de Rumford to remain, showing that she considered Napoleon’s hatred of herself to be inextinguishable and as active as ever. In point of fact, Napoleon’s earliest care, on reaching the capital, was to express his regret at her departure. It is very unlikely that he would have molested her in any way had she remained; but it was ordained that, to the last, he should make her suffer even more in imagination than in reality. She urged Madame Récamier to escape with her, for, Juliette’s prescription never having been formally revoked, Madame de Staël considered her danger as great as her own. But Madame Récamier, more calm, refused. With her remained also Benjamin Constant, although he also was admonished by Madame de Staël to seek safety in another land. His career during the Hundred Days is well known. He began by attacking Napoleon violently, then had an interview with him, was fascinated, converted, appointed a councillor of state, and helped to edit the _Acte Additionnel_. Another convert was the sober-minded Sismondi, and several people have asserted, on the authority first of an English editor, and then of M. Thiers, that the great, the irreconcilable “Corinne” herself, gave in a tardy but complete adhesion. Ste. Beuve endorsed the error, and based his belief upon the style of an unsigned note in French found among Lord Castlereagh’s posthumous papers, and attributed by Lord Londonderry’s secretary to Madame de Staël. This letter was supposed to have been written at Coppet and forwarded to Mr. Crawford, the American Minister in Paris, in order that he might take it to London. Its object was to inspire English statesmen with the writer’s own belief in Napoleon’s new-found sincerity, and to recommend his government to their support.