Madame de Staël was not an important personage at all, but she had the power of attracting people to her who, like herself, had grievances to be discussed, and we may without doubt conclude that these gatherings were composed of well-selected intriguers whom she had fixed in her feline eye. Her great grievance was the First Consul's, and subsequently the Emperor's, coldness towards her. He estimated her at her true value. He treated her with the courtesy due to a French citizen, but nothing more, and when she misbehaved in his presence, he rebuked her with due consideration for her sex. When she caused people to talk to him of her, he merely shrugged his shoulders as was his habit, and smiled disdainfully; though occasionally he could not resist the temptation of ridiculing her comic pretensions. But this human curiosity had power for mischief.
She was not only an intriguer, but, subsequent to her failure in love-making, she developed a literary tyrannicide. She condescended to patronise the head of the State by causing it to be conveyed to him that her hostility would cease under certain well-defined conditions. When he became the real Governor of France, Napoleon put a stop to religious persecution, and put the churches into use. He re-established religion, and by doing so brought under his influence one hundred million Catholics. This wise policy created strong opposition from a section of the clergy. Madame de Staël and the friends whom she had whipped up, many of them being the principal generals, were mischievously opposed to it, and brought pressure to bear so that he might be induced to establish the Protestant religion. Napoleon ignored them all. He knew he was on the right ground, and that the nation as a whole was with him. France was essentially a Roman Catholic country, and the head of it gave back to her people what was regarded as the true faith. The exile frequently referred to these matters in conversation with one or other of his followers. Napoleon's disdain for Madame de Staël was well merited, and he never saw or heard of her that it did not set his nerves on edge. She was the "death on man" sort of female who persisted in being, either directly or indirectly, his political adviser. Dr. Max Lenz accuses the Emperor of developing a despotism that caused him to drive a woman like Madame de Staël from land to land, "and trampled under foot every manifestation of independence."