And thus it fell to Madame de Krüdener's lot to give practical proof of what the rehabilitation of Christianity as authority meant. For it was only as _authority_, as _power_, as _order_, that Christianity was wanted. It was employed as the police, the army, the prisons were employed, to keep everything quiet and support the principle of authority. From the moment when it began to be regarded as a personal matter, as a thing in itself, and to be practised in a manner which threatened to produce social disturbances, from that moment it was _disorder_, and the authorities expedited it, in the person of Madame de Krüdener, as promptly as possible from frontier to frontier.[5]
[1] A manuscript of Chênedollé's, quoted by Sainte-Beuve in _Derniers Portraits_, p. 290.
[2] Chateaubriand, _Congrès de Vérone_, i. 147.
[3] Sainte-Beuve, from the account of an eye-witness.
[4] Katerkamp, _Denkwürdigkeiten aus dem Leben der Fürstinn Amalia von Galitzin_, Münster, 1828.
The best idea of her religious enthusiasm is to be gained from such a production as the following beautiful little poem:--
Liebe! lehre uns beten, dass uns erhöre die Liebe. O der Liebe vereintes Gebet ist Quelle der Liebe, Quelle des ewigen Lebens und unaussprechlicher Wonne! Schwester, rufe mir zu: "O Bruder! Bitten der Liebe Sende dem Vater für mich--ich sende Bitten der Liebe Täglich dem Vater für dich." O Schwester! der Bitten nicht eine Kann an die Liebe, von Liebe, für Liebe umsonst seyn.]
[5] Sources: Charles Eynard, _Vie de Madame Krüdener_, vols. i. and ii.; Sainte-Beuve, _Portraits de Femmes; Derniers Portraits; Deutsche Rundschau_ for November and December 1899.
When the Hundred Days were over, and Louis XVIII, had returned for the second time, a mixed feeling, in which melancholy was the chief ingredient, took possession of the French people. Their king's first return had partaken of the appearance of a recall by the nation. But, seeing that he himself had made no attempt whatever to resist Napoleon with the troops which remained faithful to him, it was not possible to disguise the fact that he had been brought back by the bayonets of foreign armies. Hence in the eyes of the great majority his second accession bore the appearance of a humiliation inflicted upon France. But, on the other hand, it meant the restoration of lawful liberty after the terrible military despotism under which France had now sighed for so many years.