CHAPTER X.
MADAME DE STAËL VISITS GERMANY.
At Metz Madame de Staël was received in triumph. The Prefect of the Moselle entertained her; parties were given in her honour; and all the literary big-wigs of the place hastened to do her homage. She there, for the first time, came into personal contact with Charles de Villers, with whom she had previously corresponded on the subject of Kant. Of course she was charmed with him, her first impulse invariably being to find every clever or distinguished person delightful. Her friendship with him resembled all her friendships. She began by expecting to have inspired as much enthusiasm as she felt, possibly a little more, seeing that she was a woman, and such a woman, and exiled to boot. Villers, a cross-grained kind of Teuton, had no idea of allowing his theories, which were extremely sturdy on all subjects, to be spirited away by any of Madame de Staël's conversational conjuring tricks. They discussed philosophy, and he railed sourly at French taste; and, perhaps by way of proving his final emancipation from all such
