Towards the spring of 1800, I published my work on Literature, and the success it met with restored me completely to favor with society; my drawing room became again filled, and I had once more the pleasure of conversing, and conversing in Paris, which, I confess has always been to me the most fascinating of all pleasures. There was not a word about Bonaparte in my book, and the most liberal sentiments were, I believe, forcibly expressed in it. But the press was then far from being enslaved as it is at present; the government exercised a censorship upon newspapers, but not upon books; a distinction which might be supported, if the censorship had been used with moderation: for newspapers exert a popular influence, while books, for the greater part, are only read by well informed people, and may enlighten, but not inflame opinion. At a later period, there were established in the senate, I believe in derision, a committee for the liberty of the press, and another for personal liberty, the members of which are still renewed every three months. Certainly the bishopricks in partibus, and the sinecures in England afford more employment than these committees. Since my work on Literature, I have published Delphine, Corinne, and finally my work on Germany, which was suppressed at the moment it was about to make its appearance. But although this last work has occasioned me the most bitter persecution, literature does not appear to me to be less a source of enjoyment and respect, even for a female. What I have suffered in life, I attribute to the circumstances which associated me, almost at my entry into the world, with the interests of liberty, which were supported by my father and his friends; but the kind of talent which has made me talked of as a writer, has always been to me a source of greater pleasure than pain. The criticisms of which one's works are the objects, can be very easily borne, when one is possessed of some elevation of soul, and when one is more attached to noble ideas for themselves, than for the success which their promulgation can procure us. Besides, the public, at the end of a certain time, appears to me always equitable; self-love must accustom itself to do credit to praise; for in due time, we obtain as much of that as we deserve. Finally, if we should have even to complain long of injustice, I conceive no better asylum against it than philosophical meditation, and the emotion of eloquence. These faculties place at our disposal a whole world of truths and sentiments, in which we can breathe at perfect freedom. CHAPTER 4. Conversation of my father with Bonaparte.--Campaign of Marengo.