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Whilst the title here may appear surprising or provocative when applied to the Napoleonic world—a priori, the term “abdication”, still two hundred years on, evokes only bad memories or echoes of the Emperor being forced to step down by the allies after Waterloo—nevertheless, other resonances are possible. The word “abdication”, a fundamentally Staëlian term, can also be seen as the programmatic key or decode for relations between Germaine de Staël and Napoleon. Here, the abdication is not historical or military but rather philosophical and moral. As shown in her Réflexions sur le suicide (which she published in 1812), for Madame de Staël, “abdication” means the sacrifice of self and of one’s interests when put to the test by pain: “There is no doubt that we emerge appreciably improved from the trials of adversity, provided we submit ourselves to them with a gentle firmness. The finest faculties of the soul only develop as a result of suffering, and this perfecting of ourselves brings, over time, happiness. [...] Human existence, in its best form, is in fact the sacrifice of self in order to fit perfectly once more within the universal order of things.”