Alas, Madame de Beaumont had not lain two years on the bank of the Tiber when I trod her natal soil in 1805; I was at but a few leagues from that Mont Dore where she had come in search of the life which she lengthened a little in order to reach Rome. Last summer, in 1838, I once more travelled through this same Auvergne. Between those two dates, 1805 and 1838, I can place the transformations which society has undergone around me. We left Clermont and, on our way to Lyons, passed through Thiers and Roanne. This road, then little frequented, followed at intervals the banks of the Lignon. The author of the _Astrée_[674], who is not a great genius, nevertheless invented places and persons that live: such is the creative power of fiction, when it is appropriate to the age in which it appears. There is, moreover, something ingeniously fantastic in that resurrection of the nymphs and naiads who mingle with shepherds, ladies and knights: those different worlds go well together, and one is agreeably pleased with the fables of mythology united to the lies of fiction; Rousseau has related how he was taken in by d'Urfé. [Sidenote: Geneva.] At Lyons, we again found M. Ballanche: he made the excursion to Geneva and Mont Blanc with us. He went wherever one took him, without having the smallest business there. At Geneva, I was not received at the gate of the city by Clotilda, the betrothed of Clovis: M. de Barante, senior[675], had become Prefect of the Léman. At Coppet, I went to see Madame de Staël: I found her alone, buried in her castle, which was built round a melancholy court-yard. I spoke to her of her fortune and of her solitude as a precious means of independence and happiness: I offended her. Madame de Staël loved society; she looked upon herself as the most wretched of women, in an exile with which I should have been enchanted. Where in my eyes was the unhappiness of living on one's property with all the comforts of life? Where was the misfortune of enjoying fame, leisure, peace, in a sumptuous retreat within sight of the Alps, in comparison with those thousands of breadless, nameless, helpless victims, banished to all the corners of Europe, while their parents had perished on the scaffold? It is sad to be attacked by an ill which the crowd cannot understand. For the rest, that ill is therefore only the more intense: it is not lessened by being confronted with other ills; one is not judged by another's pain; that which afflicts the one rejoices the other; hearts have varied secrets, incomprehensible to other hearts. Let us deny none his sufferings; it is with sorrows as with countries: each man has his own.