name on the list of the suspected ones, but his father actually held a command under Condé's banner. This was one of the opportunities in which Madame de Staël delighted. Her spirits rose at once in the face of such difficulties. Fortunately, M. Reverdil was an old friend of her family; she believed that she would be able to melt him, and she hurried away to try.
The task was more arduous than she had anticipated. M. Reverdil (by her own confession one of the most enlightened of Swiss magistrates) turned out to have a sturdy conscience and an uncomfortable amount of common sense. He represented to his ardent visitor, first, that he would be wrong in uttering a falsehood for any motive; next, that in his official position he might compromise his country by making a false attestation. "If the truth be discovered," he urged, "we shall no longer have the right of claiming our own compatriots when arrested in France; and thus I should jeopardise the interest of those who are confided to me for the sake of saving a man towards whom I have no duties." M. Reverdil's arguments had "a very plausible side," Madame de Staël allowed thus much herself; but the good man little knew with whom he had to deal if he thought that such cold justice would have the least effect on his petitioner. She swept all paltry considerations as to the remote danger of unknown unromantic Swiss burghers to the winds. Her object was to bring back to Jaucourt the assurance of his young nephew's safety; and from this no abstract principles could turn her.
She remained two hours with M. Reverdil, arguing, entreating, imploring. The task she proposed to herself was, in her own words, "to vanquish his conscience by his humanity." He remained inflexible for
