Chapter 80

Madame de Staël's letters reveal the sufferings of that period, in which talents were at each moment threatened with a dungeon, in which one busied one's self only with the means of escaping, in which one aspired to flight as to a deliverance: when liberty has disappeared there remains a country, but no more mother-land. [Sidenote: Madame de Staël's marriage.] When writing to her friend that she did not wish to see her, from apprehension of the evil which she might bring upon her, Madame de Staël did not say all: s…