No. 8
Paris, this Friday.—A very valuable note of M. Masson (Josephine Repudiée, 198) enables us to fix this letter at its correct date. He says: “It has to do with the exile of Madame de la T—— (viz., the Princess Louis de la Trémoille), which takes place on September 28th, 1810, and this 28th September is also a Friday: there is also the question of Mlle. de Mackau being made a baroness” (and this lady had not joined the Court of Josephine till May 1810); “lastly, the B—— mentioned therein can only be Barante, the Prefect, whose dismissal (from Geneva) almost coincides with this letter.” It may be added that the La Trémoille family was one of the oldest in France, allied with the Condés, and consequently with the Bourbons. Barante’s fault had been connivance at the letters and conduct of Madame de Staël.