“His feeling towards her daughter, Madame de Staël, has much of the same nature. To this hour, his _amour propre_ is wounded by the obligation he owes her for having obtained, through her credit with Barras, his recall from exile, and thus, in reality, laid the foundation of his fortune. This unwillingness to own a debt may savour somewhat of ingratitude; but the prince will be excused when it is remembered that Madame de Staël possessed, in common with all persons of a nervous, irritable temperament, an excess of that susceptibility which phrenologists have denominated ‘approbativeness,’ which made her over-value her success, and never cease bringing it to the memory of the person obliged. This, to a proud, sarcastic temper like that of the prince, must have been peculiarly annoying, the more so as Napoleon, with the gross, soldier-like want of tact which he would sometimes display, loved to remind him both of the immensity of the service, and by whom it had been rendered, and then would laugh coarsely to see him wince under the reproach, which all his wonted philosophy did not enable him to bear with calmness. “He had never the same high opinion of Madame de Staël which the world professed. He thought her style pedantic and _guindé_, and would complain, when any of her compositions were read to him, of their total want of nature and _coloris_. I have often heard him say, that those who read the writings might fairly boast of knowing the writer, for that nothing could more resemble Madame de Staël herself than the false, exaggerated sentiments and superficial erudition of her compositions. I have seldom seen him enjoy more keenly a story than the one he will sometimes tell of an adventure which befel Madame de Staël at a party where he himself was present. I think it was at a _fête champêtre_ given by Madame Helvetius at her pretty little château at Auteuil. The garden was full of all the talent of Europe and America combined, for it was just at the height of the American mania, and the fête, indeed, was given to the great champion of liberty, the regenerator of his race—_l’homme de la nature_—the immortal Franklin. I could tell you, by the bye, some curious circumstances connected with the great patriot, which you, as an Englishman, would be glad to hear, and which I am sure the prince would be equally glad to communicate, for he has but small esteem for the _faux bonhomme_, as he called him.