"I saw him for the first time,"[1133] says Madame de Stael, "on his return to France after the treaty of Campo-Formio.

After recovering from the first excitement of admiration there succeeded to this a decided sentiment of fear." And yet, "at this time he had no power, for it was even then supposed that the Directory looked upon him with a good deal of suspicion." People regarded him sympathetically, and were even prepossessed in his favor; "thus the fear he inspired was simply due to the singular effect of his person on almost all who approached him.

I had met men worthy of respect and had likewise met men of ferocious character; but nothing in the impression which Bonaparte produced on me reminded me of either.

I soon found, in the various opportunities I had of meeting him during his stay in Paris, that his character was not to be described in terms commonly employed; he was neither mild nor violent, nor gentle nor cruel, like certain personages one happens to know.

A being like him, wholly unlike anybody else, could neither feel nor excite sympathy; he was both more and less than a man; his figure, intellect, and language bore the imprint of a foreign nationality..