Madame Necker wrote to him frequent letters, which prove that if she had ever had any grievance to complain of in the past, it was not only forgiven, but entirely forgotten.

The letters, indeed, testify a warmth of sentiment on her part which, coming from a lady of less spotless propriety, would almost imply a revival of youthful affection for her early lover.

"You have always been dear to me," she writes, "but the friendship you have shown to M.Necker adds to that which you inspire me with on so many grounds, and I love you at present with a double affection."-- "Come to us when you are restored to health and to yourself; that moment should always belong to your first and your last friend (_amie_), and I do not know which of those titles is the sweetest and dearest to my heart."-- "Near you, the recollections you recalled were pleasant to me, and you connected them easily with present impressions; the chain of years seemed to link all times together with electrical rapidity; you were at once twenty and fifty years old for me.

Away from you the different places, which I have inhabited are only the milestones of my life telling me of the distance I have come." With much more in the same strain.

Of Madame de Stael Gibbon does not speak in very warm praise.