The greatest grievance which the Emperor Napoleon has against me, is the respect which I have always entertained for real liberty. These sentiments have been in a manner transmitted to me as an inheritance, and adopted as my own, ever since I have been able to reflect on the lofty ideas from which they are derived, and the noble actions which they inspire. The cruel scenes which have dishonored the French revolution, proceeding only from tyranny under popular forms, could not, it appears to me, do any injury to the cause of liberty: at the most, we could only feel discouraged with respect to France; but if that country had the misfortune not to know how to possess that noblest of blessings, it ought not on that account to be proscribed from the face of the earth. When the sun disappears from the horizon of the Northern regions, the inhabitants of those countries do not curse his rays, because they are still shining upon others more favored by heaven. Shortly after the 18th Brumaire, Bonaparte had heard that I had been speaking strongly in my own parties, against that dawning oppression, whose progress I foresaw as clearly as if the future had been revealed to me. Joseph Bonaparte, whose understanding and conversation I liked very much, came to see me, and told me, "My brother complains of you. Why, said he to me yesterday, why does not Madame de Stael attach herself to my government? what is it she wants? the payment of the deposit of her father? I will give orders for it: a residence in Paris? I will allow it her. In short, what is it she wishes?" "Good God!" replied I, "it is not what I wish, but what I think, that is in question." I know not if this answer was reported to him, but if it was, I am certain that he attached no meaning to it; for he believes in the sincerity of no one's opinions; he considers every kind of morality as nothing more than a form, to which no more meaning is attached than to the conclusion of a letter; and as the having assured any one that you are his most humble servant would not entitle him to ask any thing of you, so if any one says that he is a lover of liberty,--that he believes in God,--that he prefers his conscience to his interest, Bonaparte considers such professions only as an adherence to custom, or as the regular means of forwarding ambitious views or selfish calculations. The only class of human beings whom he cannot well comprehend, are those who are sincerely attached to an opinion, whatever be the consequences of it: such persons Bonaparte looks upon as boobies, or as traders who outstand their market, that is to say, who would sell themselves too dear. Thus, as we shall see in the sequel, has he never been deceived in his calculations but by integrity, encountered either in individuals or nations. CHAPTER 2. Commencement of opposition in the Tribunate--My first persecution on that account--Fouche.