Mme de Staël’s courage was undimmed a decade later when she defied Napoleon, who had swiftly decided that both her writings and the brilliant Parisian salon she hosted were subversive. Winegarten is perceptive on the hostility Mme de Staël’s rare position as an independent female public figure aroused throughout her life, and from Napoleon in particular. In 1803 he banished her from the capital city. In 1810 he sent his minister of police, General Savary — a sinister figure with an uncanny resemblance to Dick Cheney — to confiscate her masterpiece, De l’Allemagne.
Constant’s reputation as a major liberal thinker has recently been revived, but he remains less familiar than Mme de Staël to a general readership. In many ways, he was quite as remarkable as her, although morally considerably less attractive. He was devouringly ambitious, frequently inconsistent, lecherous and a compulsive gambler. Politically, he moved from Jacobin sympathiser during the Revolution, to liberal dissident alongside Mme de Staël under the Napoleonic regime. He came near to ruining his reputation during the Hundred Days. Having compared Napoleon to Attila and Genghis Khan in March 1815, the very next month he rallied to the returning Emperor, ostensibly on a promise that henceforth liberty would be respected, but more probably through sheer opportunism. Yet he did make amends after Waterloo, emerging as a parliamentary champion of the poor, who were confronted by the rapacious capitalism of France’s expanding industrial and banking dynasties.
