HER LOVERS, AND HER FRIENDS.

As the most beautiful woman of her day, Madame Récamier is widely known;

as the friend of Châteaubriand and De Staël, she is scarcely less so. An

historic as well as literary interest is attached to her name; for she

lived throughout the most momentous and exciting period of modern times.

Her relations with influential and illustrious men of successive

revolutions were intimate and confidential; and though the _rôle_ she

played was but negative, the influence she exerted has closely connected

her with the political history of her country.

But interesting as her life is from this point of view, in its social

aspect it has a deeper significance. It is the life of a beautiful

woman,--and so varied and romantic, so fruitful in incident and rich in

experience, that it excites curiosity and invites speculation. It is a

life difficult, if not impossible, to understand. Herein lies its

peculiar and engrossing fascination. It is a curious web to unravel, a

riddle to solve, a problem at once stimulating and baffling. Like the

history of the times, it is full of puzzling contradictions and striking

contrasts. The daughter of a provincial notary, Madame Récamier was the

honored associate of princes. A married woman, she was a wife only in

name. A beauty and a belle, she was as much admired by her own as by the

other sex. A coquette, she changed passionate lovers into lifelong

friends. Accepting the open and exclusive homage of married men, she

continued on the best of terms with their wives. One day the mistress of

every luxury that wealth can command,--the next a bankrupt's wife. One

year the reigning "Queen of Society,"--the next a suspected exile. As

much flattered and courted when she was poor as while she was rich. Just

as fascinating when old and blind as while young and beautiful. Loss of

fortune brought no loss of power,--decline of beauty, no decrease of

admiration. Modelled by artists, flattered by princes, adored by women,

eulogized by men of genius, courted by men of letters,--the beloved of

the chivalric Augustus of Prussia, and the selfish, dreamy

Châteaubriand,--with the high-toned Montmorencys for her friends, and

the simple-minded Ballanche for her slave. Such were some of the

triumphs, such some of the contrasts in the life of this remarkable

woman.

It is hard to conceive of a more brilliant career, or of one more

calculated from its singularity to give rise to contradictory

impressions. This natural perplexity is much increased by the character

of Madame Récamier's memoirs, published in 1859, ten years after her

death. They are from the pen of Madame Lenormant, the niece of Monsieur

Récamier, and the adopted daughter of his wife. To her Madame Récamier

bequeathed her papers, with the request that she should write the

narrative of her life. Madame Lenormant had a delicate and difficult

task to execute. The life she was to portray was strictly a social one.

It was closely interwoven with the lives of other persons still living

or lately dead. She owed heavy obligations to both. It is, therefore,

not surprising, if her narrative is at times broken and obscure, and she

a too partial biographer. Not that Madame Lenormant can be called

untrustworthy. She cannot be accused of misrepresenting facts, but she

does what is almost as bad,--she partially states them. Her vague

allusions and half-and-half statements excite curiosity without

gratifying it. We also crave to know more than she tells us of the

heart-history of this woman who so captivated the world,--to see her

sometimes in the silence of solitude, alone with her own thoughts,--to

gain an insight into the inner, that we may more perfectly comprehend

the outward life which so perplexes and confounds. Instead of all this,

we have drawing-room interviews with the object of our interest. We see

her chiefly as she appeared in society. We have to be content with what

others say of her, in lieu of what she might say for herself. We hear of

her conquests, her social triumphs, we listen to panegyrics, but are

seldom admitted behind the scenes to judge for ourselves of what is gold

and what is tinsel. We, moreover, seek in vain for those unconscious

revelations so precious in divining character. The few letters of Madame

Récamier that are published have little or no significance. She was not

fond of writing, still she corresponded regularly with several of her

friends; but her correspondence, it seems, has not been obtained by her

biographer. The best insight we get, therefore, into the emotional part

of her nature is from indirect allusions in letters addressed to her,

and from conclusions drawn from her course of conduct in particular

cases. Some of the incidents of her life are so dramatic, that, if fully

and faithfully told, they would of themselves reveal the true character

of the woman, but as it is we have but little help from them. It is

impossible to resist the conviction that Madame Lenormant would not

hesitate to suppress any circumstances that might cast a shadow on the

memory of her aunt. It is true that she occasionally relates facts

tending to injure Madame Récamier, but it is plain to be seen that she

herself is totally unconscious of the nature and tendency of these

disclosures. Upon the publication of her book, these indiscretions

excited the displeasure of Madame Récamier's warm personal friends. One

of them, Madame Möhl, by birth an Englishwoman, undertook her defence.

This lady corrects a few slight inaccuracies of the "Souvenirs," and

since she cannot controvert its more important facts, she attempts to

explain them. Her sketch[A] of Madame Récamier is pleasant, from its

personal recollections, but far inferior to one by Sainte-Beuve,[B]

which is eminently significant. Neither, as sources of information, can

supply the place of the more voluminous and explicit "Souvenirs." It is

a little singular that this work has not been translated into English,

for, in spite of its lack of method, its diffuseness and

disproportionate developments, it is very attractive and interesting. It

is also highly valuable for its large collection of letters from

distinguished people. In the sketch we propose to make of Madame

Récamier's life, we shall rely mainly upon it for our facts, giving in

connection our own view of her character and career.

The beauty which first won celebrity for Madame Récamier was hers by

inheritance. Her father was a remarkably handsome man, but a person of

narrow capacity, who owed his advancement in life solely to the

exertions of his more capable wife. Madame Bernard was a beautiful

blonde. She was lively and _spirituelle_, coquettish and designing.

Through her influence with Calonne, minister under Louis XVI., Monsieur

Bernard was made _Receveur des Finances_. Upon this appointment, in

1784, they came to Paris, leaving their only child, Juliette, then seven

years old, at Lyons, in the care of an aunt, though she was soon

afterward placed in a convent, where she remained three years. Monsieur

and Madame Bernard's style of living in Paris was both elegant and

generous. Their house became the resort of the Lyonnese, and also of

literary men,--the latter being especially courted by Madame Bernard.

But, though seemingly given up to a life of gayety and pleasure, she did

not neglect her own interests. Her cleverness was of the Becky-Sharp

order. She knew how to turn the admiration she excited to her own

advantage. Having a faculty for business, she engaged in successful

speculations and amassed a fortune, which she carried safely through the

Reign of Terror. This is the more remarkable as Monsieur Bernard was a

known Royalist. He and his family and his wife's friends escaped not

only death, but also persecution; and Madame Lenormant attributes this

rare good-fortune to the agency of the infamous Barrère. Barrère's

cruelty was equalled only by his profligacy, his cunning by his

selfishness. Macaulay said of him, that "he approached nearer than any

person mentioned in history or fiction, whether man or devil, to the

idea of consummate and total depravity"; and everybody must remember the

famous comparison by which he illustrated Barrère's faculty of lying.

But even taking a much milder view of Barrère's character, it is a

matter of history by what terms the unfortunate victims of the

Revolution purchased of him their own lives and those of their friends,

and it is certain that his friendship and protection were no honor to

any woman. This view of their intimacy is confirmed by Madame Möhl. In

speaking of a rumor current in Madame Récamier's lifetime, which

reflected severely upon her mother, she says that Madame Bernard's

reputation had nothing to lose by this story, and mentions the favors

she received at the hands both of Calonne and Barrère.

Juliette Bernard was ten years old when she joined her parents in Paris,

where she was placed under the care of masters. She played with skill on

the harp and piano, and being passionately fond of music, it became her

solace and amusement at an advanced age. In her youth dancing was

equally a passion with her. The grace with which she executed the

shawl-dance suggested to Madame de Staël the dance-scene in "Corinne."

It is said that great care was bestowed upon her education; but as it is

also stated that long hours were passed at the toilette, that she was

the pet of all her mother's friends, who, as proud of her daughter's

beauty as she was of her own, took her constantly to the theatre and

public assemblies, little time could have been devoted to systematic

instruction. There is no mention made throughout her life of any

favorite studies or favorite books, and she was, moreover, married at

fifteen.

Monsieur Récamier was forty-four years old when he proposed for the hand

of Juliette Bernard. She accepted him without either reluctance or

distrust. Much sympathy has been lavished upon Madame Récamier on

account of this marriage, and her extreme youth is urged as an excuse

for this false step of her life. Still she did not take it blindly. Her

mother thought it her duty to lay before her all the objections to a

union where there existed such a disparity of age. No undue influence

was exerted, therefore, in favor of the marriage. Nor was Mademoiselle

Bernard as unsophisticated as French girls usually are at that age. Her

childhood had not been passed in seclusion. Since she was ten years old

she had been constantly in the society of men of letters and men of the

world. Under such influences girls ripen early, and in marrying Monsieur

Récamier she at least realized all her expectations. She did not look

for mutual affection; she expected to find in him a generous and

indulgent protector, and this anticipation was not disappointed. If she

discovered too late that she had other and greater needs, she was deeply

to be pitied, but the responsibility of the step must remain with her.

Madame Lenormant says of the union,--"It was simply an apparent one.

Madame Récamier was a wife only in name. This fact is astonishing. But I

am not bound to explain it, only to attest its truth, which all of

Madame Récamier's friends can confirm. Monsieur Récamier's relations to

his wife were strictly of a paternal character. He treated the young and

innocent child who bore his name as a daughter whose beauty charmed him

and whose celebrity flattered his vanity."

As an explanation of these singular relations, Madame Möhl states that

it was the general belief of Madame Récamier's contemporaries that she

was the own daughter of Monsieur Récamier, whom the unsettled state of

the times had induced him to marry; but there is not a shadow of

evidence in support of this hypothesis,--though, to make it more

probable, Madame Möhl adds, that "Madame Lenormant rather confirms than

contradicts this rumor." In this she is strangely mistaken. Madame

Lenormant does not allude to the report at all. Still she tacitly

contradicts it. Her account of Monsieur Récamier's course with regard to

the divorce proposed between him and his wife is of itself a sufficient

refutation of this idle story.

Monsieur Récamier was a tall, vigorous, handsome man, of easy, agreeable

manners. Perfectly polite, he was deficient in dignity, and preferred

the society of his inferiors to that of his equals. He wrote and spoke

Spanish with fluency, had some knowledge of Latin, and was fond of

quoting Horace and Virgil. "It would be difficult to find," says his

niece, "a heart more generous than his, more easily moved, and yet more

volatile. Let a friend need his time, his money, his advice, it was

immediately at his service; but let that same friend be taken away by

death, he would scarcely give two days to regret: '_Encore un tiroir

fermé'_, he would say, and there would end his sensibility. Always ready

to give and willing to serve, he was a good companion, and benevolent

and gay in his temper. He carried his optimism to excess, and was always

content with everybody and everything. He had fine natural abilities,

and the gift of expression, being a good story-teller." He was married

in 1793, the most gloomy period of the Reign of Terror, and went every

day to see the executions, wishing, he said, to familiarize himself with

the fate he had every reason to fear would be his own.

The first four years of her marriage were passed by Madame Récamier in

retirement, but when the government was settled under the Consulate she

mingled freely and gayly in society. This was probably the happiest

period of her life. Her husband was at the height of financial

prosperity, and lavished every luxury upon his beautiful wife. Both

their country-seat at Clichy and their town-house in the Rue Mont Blanc

were models of elegant taste. Large dinner-parties and balls were given

at the latter, but all the intimate friends went to Clichy, where Madame

Récamier chiefly resided with her mother. Her husband only dined there,

driving in to Paris every night. She was very fond of flowers, and

filled her rooms with them. At that time floral decorations were a

novelty, and another attraction was added to the charms of Clichy. Not

only there, but in society, Madame Récamier reigned a queen. She had

been pronounced by acclamation "the most beautiful," and she enjoyed her

triumphs with all the gayety and freshness of youth. Madame Lenormant

asserts that she was unconscious of her beauty, and yet, with an amusing

inconsistency, she adds that Madame Récamier always dressed in white and

wore pearls in preference to other jewels, that the dazzling whiteness

of her skin might eclipse their softness and purity. It was, in fact,

impossible to be unconscious of a beauty so ravishing that it

intoxicated all beholders. At the theatre, at the promenade, at public

assemblies, she was followed by admiring throngs.

"She was sensible," writes one who knew her well, "of every look, every

word of admiration,--the exclamation of a child or a woman of the

people, equally with the declaration of a prince. In crowds from the

side of her elegant carriage, which advanced slowly, she thanked each

for his admiration by a motion of the head and a smile."

As an instance of the effect she produced, Madame Lenormant gives the

testimony of a contemporary, Madame Regnauld de Saint-Jean d'Angely,

who, talking over her own beauty and that of other women of her youth,

named Madame Récamier. "Others," she said, "were more truly beautiful,

but none produced so much effect. I was in a drawing-room where I

charmed and captivated all eyes. Madame Récamier entered. The brilliancy

of her eyes, which were not, however, very large, the inconceivable

whiteness of her shoulders, crushed and eclipsed everybody. She was

resplendent. At the end of a moment, however, the true amateurs returned

to me."

It was not her own countrymen alone who raved about her beauty. The

sober-minded English people were quite as much impressed. When she

visited England during the short peace of Amiens, she created intense

excitement. The journals recorded her movements, and on one occasion in

Kensington Gardens the crowd was so great that she narrowly escaped

being crushed. At the Opera she was obliged to steal away early to avoid

a similar annoyance, and then barely succeeded in reaching her carriage.

Châteaubriand tells us that her portrait, engraved by Bartolozzi, and

spread throughout England, was carried thence to the isles of Greece.

Ballanche, remarking on this circumstance, said that it was "beauty

returning to the land of its birth."

Years after, when the allied sovereigns were in Paris, and Madame

Récamier thirty-eight years old, the effect of her beauty was just as

striking. Madame de Krüdener, celebrated for her mysticism and the power

she exerted over the Emperor Alexander, then held nightly reunions,

beginning with prayer and ending in a more worldly fashion. Madame

Récamier's entrance always caused distraction, and Madame de Krüdener

commissioned Benjamin Constant to write and beseech her to be less

charming. As this piquant note will lose its flavor by translation, we

give it in the original.

"Je m'acquitte avec un peu d'embarras d'une commission que Mme. de

Krüdener vient de me donner. Elle vous supplie de venir la moins belle

que vous pourrez. Elle dit que vous éblouissez tout le monde, et que par

là toutes les âmes sont troublées, et toutes les attentions impossibles.

Vous ne pouvez pas déposer votre charme, mais ne le rehaussez pas."

Madame Récamier's personal appearance at eighteen is thus described by

her niece:--

"A figure flexible and elegant; neck and shoulders admirably formed and

proportioned; a well-poised head; a small, rosy mouth, pearly teeth,

charming arms, though a little small, and black hair that curled

naturally. A nose delicate and regular, but _bien français_, and an

incomparable brilliancy of complexion. A countenance full of candor, and

sometimes beaming with mischief, which the expression of goodness

rendered irresistibly lovely. There was a shade of indolence and pride

in her gestures, and what Saint Simon said of the Duchess of Burgundy is

equally applicable to her: 'Her step was that of a goddess on the

clouds.'"

Madame Récamier retained her beauty longer than is usual even with

Frenchwomen, nor did she seek to repair it by any artificial means. "She

did not struggle," says Sainte-Beuve, "she resigned herself gracefully

to the first touch of Time. She understood, that, for one who had

enjoyed such success as a beauty, to seem yet beautiful was to make no

pretensions. A friend who had not seen her for many years complimented

her upon her looks. 'Ah, my dear friend,' she replied, 'it is useless

for me to deceive myself. From the moment I noticed that the little

Savoyards in the street no longer turned to look at me, I comprehended

that all was over.'" There is pathos in this simple acknowledgment, this

quiet renunciation. Was it the result of secret struggles which taught

her that all regret was vain, and that to contrast the present with the

past was but a useless and torturing thing for a woman?

But at the time of which we write Madame Récamier had no sad realities

to ponder. She was surrounded by admirers, with the liberty which French

society accords to married women, and the freedom of heart of a young

girl. She was still content to be simply admired. She understood neither

the world nor her own heart. Her life was too gay for reflection, nor

had the time arrived for it: "all analysis comes late." It is not until

we have in a measure ceased to be actors, and have accepted the more

passive _rôle_ of spectators, that we begin to reflect upon ourselves

and upon life. And Madame Récamier had not tired of herself, or of the

world. She was too young to be heart-weary, and she knew nothing yet of

the burdens and perplexities of life. All her wishes were gratified

before they were fairly expressed, and she had neither anxieties nor

cares.

Her first vexation came with her first lover. It was in the spring of

1799 that Madame Récamier met Lucien Bonaparte at a dinner. He was then

twenty-four, and she twenty-two. He asked permission to visit her at

Clichy, and made his appearance there the next day. He first wrote to

her, declaring his love, under the name of Romeo, and she, taking

advantage of the subterfuge, returned his letter in the presence of

other friends, with a compliment on its cleverness, while she advised

him not to waste his ability on works of imagination, when it could be

so much better employed in politics. Lucien was not thus to be repulsed.

He then addressed her in his own name, and she showed the letters to her

husband, and asked his advice. Monsieur Récamier was more politic than

indignant. His wife wished to forbid Lucien the house, but he feared

that such extreme measures toward the brother of the First Consul might

compromise, if not ruin, his bank. He therefore advised her neither to

encourage nor repulse him. Lucien continued his attentions for a

year,--the absurd emphasis of his manners at times amusing Madame

Récamier, while at others his violence excited her fears. At last,

becoming conscious that he was making himself ridiculous, he gave up the

pursuit in despair. Some time after he had discontinued his visits he

sent a friend to demand his letters; but Madame Récamier refused to give

them up. He sent a second time, adding menace to persuasion; but she was

firm in her refusal. It was rumored that Lucien was a favored lover, and

he was anxious to be so considered. His own letters were the strongest

proof to the contrary, and as such they were kept and guarded by Madame

Récamier. But the unpleasant gossip to which his attentions gave rise

was a source of great annoyance to her. If it was her first vexation, it

was not the only one of the same kind. Madame Lenormant makes no

allusion, to any other, but in the lately published correspondence of

Madame de Staël[C] we find among the letters to Madame Récamier one

which consoles her under what was probably a somewhat similar trouble.

"I hear from Monsieur Hochet that you have a chagrin. I hope by the time

you have read this letter it will have passed away.... There is nothing

to dread but truth and material persecution; beyond these two things

enemies can do absolutely nothing. And what an enemy! only a

contemptible woman who is jealous of your beauty and purity united."

It was at a _fête_ given by Lucien that Madame Récamier had her first

and only interview with the First Consul. On entering the drawing-room,

she mistook him for his brother Joseph, and bowed to him. He returned

her salutation with _empressement_ mingled with surprise. Looking at her

closely, he spoke to Fouché, who leaned over her chair and whispered,

"The First Consul finds you charming." When Lucien approached, Napoleon,

who was no stranger to his brother's passion, said aloud, "And I, too,

would like to go to Clichy!" When dinner was announced, he rose and left

the room alone, without offering his arm to any lady. As Madame Récamier

passed out, Eliza (Madame Bacciocchi), who did the honors in the absence

of Madame Lucien, who was indisposed, requested her to take the seat

next to the First Consul. Madame Récamier did not understand her, and

seated herself at a little distance, and on Cambacères, the Second

Consul, occupying the seat by her side, Napoleon exclaimed, "_Ah, ah,

citoyen consul, auprès de la plus belle_!" He ate very little and very

fast, and at the end of half an hour left the table abruptly, and

returned to the drawing-room. He afterward asked Madame Récamier why she

had not sat next to him at dinner. "I should not have presumed," she

said. "It was your place," he replied; and his sister added, "That was

what I said to you before dinner." A concert following, Napoleon stood

alone by the piano, but, not fancying the instrumental part of the

performance, at the end of a piece by Jadin, he struck on the piano and

cried, "Garat! Garat!" who then sang a scene from "Orpheus." Music

always profoundly moved Madame Récamier, but whenever she raised her

eyes she found those of the Consul fixed upon her with so much intensity

that she became uncomfortable. After the concert, he came to her and

said, "You are very fond of music, Madame," and would probably have

continued the conversation, had not Lucien interrupted. Madame Récamier

confessed that she was prepossessed by Napoleon at this interview. She

was evidently gratified by his attentions, scanty and slight as they

seem to us. Indeed, his whole conduct during the dinner and concert was

decidedly discourteous, if not positively rude. Madame Lenormant

attributes Napoleon's subsequent attempt to attach Madame Récamier to

his court to the strong impression she made upon him at this interview,

and gives Fouché as her authority. Still, if this were the case, it is

rather strange that Napoleon did not follow up the acquaintance more

speedily. It was not until five years afterwards that he made the

overtures to which Madame Lenormant refers,--and then Madame Récamier

had long been in the ranks of the Opposition. It was Napoleon's policy

to conciliate, if possible, his political opponents. He had succeeded in

gaining over Bernadotte, of whose intrigues against him Madame Récamier

had been the _confidante_, and he concluded that she also could be as

easily won. He accordingly sent Fouché to her, who, after several

preliminary visits, proposed that she should apply for a position at

court. As Madame Récamier did not heed his suggestions, he spoke more

openly. "He protested that the place would give her entire liberty, and

then, seizing with finesse upon the inducements most powerful with a

generous spirit, he dwelt upon the eminent services she might render to

the oppressed of all classes, and also the good influence so attractive

a woman would exert over the mind of the Emperor. 'He has not yet,' he

added, 'found a woman worthy of him, and no one knows what the love of

Napoleon would be, if he attached himself to a pure person,--assuredly

she would obtain a power over him which would be entirely beneficent.'"

If Madame Récamier listened with politic calmness to these disgraceful

overtures, she gave Fouché no encouragement. But he was not easily

discouraged. He planned another interview with her at the house of the

Princess Caroline, who added her persuasions to his. The conversation

turning on Talma, who was then performing at the French theatre, the

Princess put her box, which was opposite the Emperor's, at Madame

Récamier's disposal; she used it twice, and each time the Emperor was

present, and kept his glass so constantly in her direction that it was

generally remarked, and it was reported that she was on the eve of high

favor. Upon further persistence on the part of Fouché, Madame Récamier

gave him a decided refusal. He was vehemently indignant, and left Clichy

never to return thither. In the St. Helena Memorial, Napoleon attributes

Madame Récamier's rejection of his overtures to personal resentment on

account of her father. In 1800 Monsieur Bernard had been appointed

_Administrateur des Postes_; being implicated in a Royalist conspiracy,

he was imprisoned, but finally set at liberty through the intercession

of Bernadotte. Napoleon believed that Madame Récamier resented her

father's removal from office, but she was too thankful at his release

from prison to expect any further favors. Her dislike of the Emperor

was caused by his treatment of her friends, more particularly of the one

dearest to her, Madame de Staël.

The friendship between these women was highly honorable to both, though

the sacrifices were chiefly on Madame Récamier's side. She espoused

Madame de Staël's cause with zeal and earnestness; and when the latter

was banished forty leagues from Paris, she found an asylum with her.

Among the few fragments of autobiography preserved by Madame Lenormant

is this account of the first interview between the friends.

"One day, which I count an epoch in my life, Monsieur Récamier arrived

at Clichy with a lady whom he did not introduce, but whom he left alone

with me while he joined some other persons in the park. This lady came

about the sale and purchase of a house. Her dress was peculiar. She wore

a morning-robe, and a little dress-hat decorated with flowers. I took

her for a foreigner, and was struck with the beauty of her eyes and of

her expression. I cannot analyze my sensations, but it is certain I was

more occupied in divining who she was than in paying her the usual

courtesies, when she said to me, with a lively and penetrating grace,

that she was truly enchanted to know me; that her father, Monsieur

Necker.... At these words, I recognized Madame de Staël! I did not hear

the rest of her sentence. I blushed. My embarrassment was extreme. I had

just read with enthusiasm her letters on Rousseau, and I expressed what

I felt more by my looks than by my words. She intimidated and attracted

me at the same time. I saw at once that she was a perfectly natural

person, of a superior nature. She, on her side, fixed upon me her great

black eyes, but with a curiosity full of benevolence, and paid me

compliments which would have seemed too exaggerated, had they not

appeared to escape her, thus giving to her words an irresistible

seduction. My embarrassment did me no injury. She understood it, and

expressed a wish to see more of me on her return to Paris, as she was

then on the eve of starting for Coppet. She was at that time only an

apparition in my life, but the impression was a lively one. I thought

only of Madame de Staël, I was so much affected by her strong and ardent

nature."

The sweet serenity of Madame Récamier's nature soothed the more restless

and tumultuous spirit of her friend. The unaffected veneration, too, of

one so beautiful touched and gratified the woman of genius. Still, this

intimacy was not unmixed with bitterness for Madame de Staël. But it

troubled only her own heart, not the common friendship. She continually

contrasted Madame Récamier's beauty with her own plain appearance, her

friend's power of fascination with her own lesser faculty of

interesting, and she repeatedly declared that Madame Récamier was the

most enviable of human beings. But in comparing the lives of the two, as

they now appear to us, Madame de Staël seems the more fortunate. If her

married life was uncongenial, she had children to love and cherish, to

whom she was fondly attached. Madame Récamier was far more isolated.

Years had made her entirely independent of her husband, and she had no

children upon whom to lavish the wealth of her affection. Her mother's

death left her comparatively alone in the world, for she had neither

brother nor sister, and her father seems to have had but little hold on

her heart, all her love being lavished on her mother. She had a host of

friends, it is true, but the closest friendship is but a poor substitute

for the natural ties of affection. Both these women sighed for what they

had not. The one yearned for love, the other for the liberty of loving.

Madame Récamier was dependent for her enjoyments on society, while

Madame de Staël had rich and manifold resources within herself, which no

caprice of friends could materially affect, and no reverse of fortune

impair. Her poetic imagination and creative thought were inexhaustible

treasures. Solitude could never be irksome to her. Her genius brought

with it an inestimable blessing. It gave her a purpose in

life,--consequently she was never in want of occupation; and if at

intervals she bitterly felt that heart-loneliness which Mrs. Browning

has so touchingly expressed in verse,--

"'My father!'--thou hast knowledge, only thou!

How dreary 't is for women to sit still

On winter nights by solitary fires,

And hear the nations praising them far off,

Too far! ay, praising our quick sense of love,

Our very heart of passionate womanhood,

Which could not beat so in the verse without

Being present also in the unkissed lips,

And eyes undried because there's none to ask

The reason they grew moist,"--

in the excitement and ardor of composition such feelings slumbered,

while in the honest and pure satisfaction of work well done they were

for the time extinguished. Madame Récamier, though beautiful and

beloved, had no such precious compensations. She depended for her

happiness upon her friends, and they who rely upon others for their

chief enjoyments must meet with bitter and deep disappointments. Madame

Récamier had great triumphs which secured to her moments of rapture.

When the crowd worshipped her beauty, she probably experienced the same

delirium of joy, the same momentary exultation, that a _prima donna_

feels when called before an excited and enthusiastic audience. But

satiety and chagrin surely follow such triumphs, and she lived to feel

their hollowness.

In a letter to her adopted daughter, she says,--"I hope you will be more

happy than I have been"; and she confessed to Sainte-Beuve, that more

than once in her most brilliant days, in the midst of _fêtes_ where she

reigned a queen, she disengaged herself from the crowd surrounding her

and retired to weep in solitude. Surely so sad a woman was not to be

envied.

Another friend of Madame Récamier's youth, whose friendship in a marked

degree influenced her life, was Matthieu de Montmorency. He was

seventeen years older than she, and may with emphasis be termed her best

friend. A devout Roman Catholic, he awakened and strengthened her

religious convictions, and constantly warned her of the perils

surrounding her. Much as he evidently admired and loved her, he did not

hesitate to utter unwelcome truths. Vicomte, afterward Duc de

Montmorency, belonged to one of the oldest families of France, but,

espousing the Revolutionary cause, he was the first to propose the

abolition of the privileges of the nobility. He was married early in

life to a woman without beauty, to whom he was profoundly indifferent,

and soon separated from her, though from family motives the tie was

renewed in after-years. In his youth he had been gay and dissipated; but

the death of a favorite brother, who fell a victim to the Revolution,

changed and sobered him. From an over-sensibility, he believed himself

to be the cause of his brother's death on account of the part he had

taken in hastening the Revolution, and he strove to atone for this

mistake, as well as for his youthful follies, by a life of austerity and

piety. While his letters testify his great affection for Madame

Récamier, they are entirely free from those lover-like protestations and

declarations of eternal fidelity so characterise of her other masculine

correspondents. He always addressed her as "_amiable amis_", and his

nearest approach to gallantry is the expression of a hope that "in

prayer their thoughts had often mingled, and might continue so to do."

He ends a long letter of religious counsel with this grave warning:--"Do

what is good and amiable, what will not rend the heart or leave any

regrets behind. But in the name of God renounce all that is unworthy of

you, and which under no circumstances can ever render you happy."

Adrien de Montmorency, Duke of Laval, if not so near and dear a friend,

was quite as devoted an admirer of Madame Récamier as his cousin

Matthieu. His son also wore her chains, and frequently marred the

pleasure of his father's visits by his presence. In reference to the

family's devotion, Adrien wrote to her,--"My son is fascinated by you,

and you know that I am so also. It is the fate of the Montmorencys,--

"'Ils ne mouraient pas tous, mais tout étaient frappés.'"

Adrien was a man of wit, and he had more ability than Matthieu. "Of all

your admirers," writes Madame de Staël, in a letter given in

Châteaubriand's Memoirs, "you know that I prefer Adrien de Montmorency.

I have just received one of his letters, which is remarkable for wit and

grace, and I believe in the durability of his affections,

notwithstanding the charm of his manners. Besides, this word durability

is becoming in me, who have but a secondary place in his heart. But you

are the heroine of all those sentiments out of which grow tragedies and

romances."

Other admirers succeeded the Montmorencys. The masked balls, fashionable

under the Empire, were occasions for fresh conquests. Madame Récamier

attended them regularly under the protection of an elder brother of her

husband, and had many piquant adventures. Prince Metternich was devoted

to her one season, and when Lent put an end to festivity, he visited her

privately in the morning, that he might not incur the Emperor's

displeasure. Napoleon's animosity had now become marked and positive. On

one occasion, when three of his ministers met accidentally at her house,

he heard of it, and asked petulantly how long since had the council been

held at Madame Récamier's? He was especially jealous of foreign

ministers, and treated with so much haughtiness any who frequented her

_salon_, that, as a matter of prudence, they saw her only in society or

visited her by stealth. The Duke of Mecklenburg, whom she met at one of

the masked balls, was extremely anxious to keep up her acquaintance. She

declined the honor, alleging the Emperor's jealousy as reason for her

refusal. He persuaded her, however, to grant him an interview, and she

appointed an evening when she did not generally receive visitors.

Stealing into the house in an undignified manner, the Duke was collared

by the _concierge_, who mistook him for a thief. This ill-fortune did

not deter him, however, from visiting her frequently. Years after, he

wrote,--"Among the precious souvenirs which I owe to you is one I

particularly cherish. It is the eminently noble and generous course you

pursued toward me, when Napoleon had said openly, in the _salon_ of the

Empress Josephine, that he 'should regard as his personal enemy any

foreigner who frequented the _salon_ of Madame Récamier.'"

Madame Récamier was to feel yet more severely the effects of the

Emperor's displeasure. In the autumn of 1806 the banking-house of

Monsieur Récamier became embarrassed, through financial disorders in

Spain. Their difficulties would have been temporary, had the Bank of

France granted them a loan on good security. This favor was refused, and

the house failed. While the decision of the bank was yet uncertain,

Monsieur Récamier confided to his wife the desperate state of his

affairs, and deputed her to do, the next day, the honors of a large

dinner-party, which could not be postponed, lest suspicion should be

excited. He went into the country, completely overwhelmed, and awaited

there the result of his application. Madame Récamier forced herself to

appear as usual. No one suspected the agony of her mind. She afterwards

said that she felt the whole evening as though she were a prey to some

horrible nightmare. In contrasting the conduct of the husband and wife,

Madame Lenormant is scarcely just to the former. Acutely as Madame

Récamier dreaded the impending ruin, it could not be to her what it was

to her husband. A fearful responsibility rested upon him. The failure of

his house was not only disaster and possible dishonor, but the ruin of

thousands who had confided in him. A strong intellect might well be

bowed down under the apprehension of such a catastrophe. Women, too, are

proverbially calmer in such emergencies than men. To them it simply

means sacrifice, but to men it is infinitely more than that.

When the blow fell, Monsieur Récamier met it manfully. He gave up

everything to his creditors, who had so much confidence in his integrity

that they put him at the head of the settlement of liquidation. Madame

Récamier was equally honorable. She sold all her jewels. They disposed

of their plate, and offered the house in the Rue Mont Blanc for sale. As

a purchaser could not immediately be found, they removed to the

ground-floor and let the other stories. This reverse of fortune involved

more than personal sacrifices. Madame Récamier was both generous and

charitable, and had dispensed her benefits with an open hand. She had,

with the aid of friends, founded a school for orphans, and had numerous

claims upon her bounty. To be restricted in her charities must have been

a sore trial. Further mortifications she was spared, for she was treated

with greater deference than ever. Her friends redoubled their

attentions, her door was besieged by callers, who vied with each other

in showing sympathy and respect. Junot was one of her firmest friends at

this crisis. Witnessing, in Paris, the attentions she received, he spoke

of them to the Emperor, when he rejoined him in Germany. He was checked

by Napoleon, who pettishly remarked that they could not have paid more

homage to the widow of a marshal of France fallen on the field of

battle.

Junot was not the only general of the Emperor who was concerned at her

reverse of fortune. Bernadotte, whom Sainte-Beuve numbers among her

lovers, and whose letters confirm this idea, wrote to her from Germany,

expressing his sympathy. Madame de Staël was sensibly afflicted. "Dear

Juliette," she writes, "we have enjoyed the luxury which surrounded you.

Your fortune has been ours, and I feel ruined because you are no longer

rich."

Another anxiety now weighed heavily upon Madame Récamier. Her mother's

health had long been failing, and the misfortunes of her son-in-law were

more than her shattered constitution could bear. She died six months

after the failure, leaving her fortune to her daughter, though her

husband was still living. To the last she was devoted to dress and

society. Throughout her illness she insisted upon being becomingly

dressed every day, and supported to a couch, where she received her

friends for several hours.

After Madame Bernard's death, her daughter passed six months in

retirement, but, her grief affecting her health, she was induced by

Madame de Staël to visit her at Coppet. Here she met the exiled Prince

Augustus of Prussia, nephew of Frederick the Great. We find in the

"Seaforth Papers," lately published in England, an allusion to this

Prince, who visited London in the train of the allied sovereigns in

1814. A lady writes, "All the ladies are desperately in love with

him,--his eyes are so fine, his moustaches so black, and his teeth so

white." Madame Lenormant describes him as extremely handsome, brave,

chivalric, and loyal. He was twenty-four when he fell passionately in

love with Madame de Staël's beautiful guest, to whom he at once proposed

a divorce and marriage. We give Madame Lenormant's account of his

attachment.

"Three months passed in the enchantments of a passion by which Madame

Récamier was profoundly touched, if she did not share it. Everything

conspired to favor Prince Augustus. The imagination of Madame de Staël,

easily seduced by anything poetical and singular, made her an eloquent

auxiliary of the Prince. The place itself, those beautiful shores of

Lake Geneva, peopled by romantic phantoms, had a tendency to bewilder

the judgment. Madame Récamier was moved. For a moment she welcomed an

offer of marriage which was not only a proof of the passion, but of the

esteem of a prince of a royal house, deeply impressed by the weight of

its own prerogatives and the greatness of its rank. Vows were exchanged.

The tie which united the beautiful Juliette to Monsieur Récamier was one

which the Catholic Church itself proclaimed null. Yielding to the

sentiment with which she inspired the Prince, Juliette wrote to Monsieur

Récamier, requesting the rupture of their union. He replied that he

would consent to a divorce, if it was her wish, but he made an appeal to

her feelings. He recalled the affection he had shown her from childhood.

He even expressed regret at having respected her susceptibilities and

repugnances, thus preventing a closer bond of union, which would have

made all thoughts of a separation impossible. Finally he requested,

that, if Madame Récamier persisted in her project, the divorce should

not take place in Paris, but out of France, where he would join her to

arrange matters."

This letter had the desired effect. Madame Récamier concluded not to

abandon her husband, and returned to Paris, but without undeceiving the

Prince, who started for Berlin. According to her biographer, Madame

Récamier trusted that absence would soften the disappointment she had in

store for him; but, if this was the case, the means she took to

accomplish it were very inadequate. She sent him her portrait soon after

her return to Paris, which the Prince acknowledged in a letter, of which

the following is an extract:--

"_April 24th_, 1808.

"I hope that my letter of the 31st has already been received. I

could only very feebly express to you the happiness I felt on the

receipt of your last, but it will give you some idea of my

sensations when reading it, and in receiving your portrait. For

whole hours I looked at this enchanting picture, dreaming of a

happiness which must surpass the most delicious reveries of

imagination. What fate can be compared to that of the man whom you

love?"

When Madame Récamier subsequently wrote to him more candidly, the Prince

was astonished. "Your letter was a thunderbolt," he replied; but he

would not accept her decision, and claimed the right of seeing her

again. Three years passed in uncertainty, and in 1811 Madame Récamier

consented to meet him at Schaffhausen; but she did not fulfil her

engagement, giving the sentence of exile which had just been passed upon

her as an excuse. The Prince, after waiting in vain, wrote indignantly

to Madame de Staël, "I hope I am now cured of a foolish love, which I

have nourished for four years." But when the news of her exile reached

him, he wrote to her expressing his sympathy, but at the same time

reproaching her for her breach of faith. "After four years of absence I

hoped to see you again, and this exile seemed to furnish you with a

pretext for coming to Switzerland. But you have cruelly deceived me. I

cannot conceive, if you could not or would not see me, why you did not

condescend to tell me so, and I might have been spared a useless journey

of three hundred leagues."

Madame Récamier's conduct to the Prince, even viewed in the light of her

biographer's representations, is scarcely justifiable. Madame Möhl

attempts to defend her. She alleges, that, at the time Prince Augustus

was paying his addresses to her, he had contracted a left-handed

marriage at Berlin. Even if this story be true, there is no evidence

that Madame Récamier was then acquainted with the fact, and if she had

been, there was only the more reason for breaking with the Prince at

once, instead of keeping him so long alternating between hope and

despair. In speaking of him to Madame Möhl, Madame Récamier said that he

was desperately in love, but he was very gallant and had many other

fancies. The impression she made upon him, however, seems to have been

lasting. Three months before his death, in 1845, he wrote to her that

the ring she had given him should follow him to the tomb, and her

portrait, painted by Gérard, was, at his death, returned to her by his

orders. Either the Prince had two portraits of Madame Récamier, or else

Madame Lenormant's statements are contradictory. She says that her aunt

sent him her portrait soon after her return to Paris, and the date of

the Prince's letter acknowledging the favor confirms this statement. It

is afterward asserted that Madame Récamier gave him her portrait in

exchange for one of Madame de Staël, painted by Gérard, as Corinne.

The next important event in Madame Récamier's life is her exile, caused

by a visit she paid Madame de Staël when the surveillance exercised over

the latter by the government had become more rigorous. Montmorency had

been already exiled for the same offence. But, disregarding this

warning, Madame Récamier persisted in going to Coppet, and though she

only remained one night there, she was exiled forty leagues from Paris.

She bore her exile with dignity. She would not solicit a recall, and she

forbade those of her friends, who, like Junot, were on familiar terms

with the Emperor, to mention her name in his presence. She doubtless

felt all its deprivations, even more keenly than Madame de Staël, though

she made no complaints. Her means were narrow, as she does not appear to

have been in the full possession of her mother's fortune until after the

Restoration. She had lived, with scarcely an interruption, a life of

society; now she was thrown on her own resources, with little except

music to cheer and enliven her. It was not only the loss of Paris that

exiles under the Empire had to endure. They were subjected to an

annoying surveillance by the police, and even the friends who paid them

any attention became objects of suspicion.

The first eight months of her exile Madame Récamier passed at Chalons.

She had for companionship a little niece of her husband's, whom she had

previously adopted. At the suggestion of Madame de Staël, she removed to

Lyons, where Monsieur Récamier had many influential relatives. Here she

formed an intimacy with a companion in misfortune, the high-spirited

Duchess of Chevreuse, whose proud refusal to enter into the service of

the captive Spanish Queen was the cause of her exile. "I can be a

prisoner," she replied, when the offer was made to her, "but I will

never be a jailer."

Though the society of friends offered Madame Récamier many diversions,

she was often a prey to melancholy. The Duchess D'Abrantes, who saw her

here, casually mentions her dejection in her Memoirs, and Châteaubriand

says that the separation from Madame de Staël weighed heavily upon her

spirits. He also alludes to a coolness between the friends, caused by

Madame de Staël's marriage with Monsieur de Rocca. The desire to keep

this connection secret induced Madame de Staël to write to her friend,

declining a proposed visit from her, on the plea that she was about to

leave Switzerland. Châteaubriand asserts that Madame Récamier felt this

slight severely, but Madame Lenormant makes no allusion to the

circumstance.

At Lyons Madame Récamier met the author, Monsieur Ballanche. He was

presented to her by Camille Jordan, and, in the words of her biographer,

"from that moment Monsieur Ballanche belonged to Madame Récamier." He

was the least exacting of any of her friends. All he asked was to devote

his life to her, and to be allowed to worship her. His friends called

her his Beatrice. As he was an extremely awkward and ugly man, the two

might have been termed with equal propriety "Beauty and the Beast."

Monsieur Ballanche's face had been frightfully disfigured by an

operation, and though his friends thought that his fine eyes and

expression redeemed his appearance, he was, to strangers, particularly

unprepossessing. He was, moreover, very absent-minded. When he joined

Madame Récamier at Rome, she noticed, during an evening walk with him,

that he had no hat. In reply to her questions, he quietly said, "Oh,

yes, he had left it at Alexandria." He had, in fact, forgotten it; and

it never occurred to him to replace it by another. Madame Lenormant

relates an anecdote of his second interview with Madame Récamier, which

is illustrative of his simplicity.

"He found her alone, working on embroidery. The conversation at first

languished, but soon became interesting,--for, though Monsieur Ballanche

had no chit-chat, he talked extremely well on subjects which interested

him, such as philosophy, morals, politics, and literature.

Unfortunately, his shoes had an odor about them which was very

disagreeable to Madame Récamier. It finally made her faint, and,

overcoming with difficulty the embarrassment she felt in speaking of so

prosaic an annoyance, she timidly avowed to him that the smell of his

shoes was unpleasant. Monsieur Ballanche apologized, humbly regretting

that she had not spoken before, and then went out of the room. He

returned in a few moments without his shoes, resumed his seat, and

continued the conversation. Other persons came in, and noticing him in

this situation, he said, by way of explanation, 'The smell of my shoes

annoyed Madame Récamier, so I left them in the antechamber.'"

After the death of his father, Monsieur Ballanche left Lyons, and passed

the rest of his life in the society of her whom he worshipped with so

single-minded a devotion.

Madame Récamier subsequently left Lyons for Italy, and the next new

admirer whose attentions we have to chronicle is Canova. During her stay

in Rome he wrote a note to her every morning, and the heat of the city

growing excessive, he invited her to share his lodgings at Albano.

Taking with her her niece and waiting-maid, she became his guest for two

months. A Roman artist painted a picture of this retreat, with Madame

Récamier sitting near a window, reading. Canova sent the picture to her

in 1816. When she left Rome for a short absence, Canova modelled two

busts of her from memory, in the hope of giving her a pleasant

surprise,--one with the hair simply arranged, the other with a veil.

Madame Récamier was not pleased, and her annoyance did not escape the

penetrating eye of the artist. She tried in vain to efface the

unfavorable impression he had received, but he only half forgave her. He

added a crown of olives to the one with the veil, and when she asked him

about it, he replied, "It did not please you, so I made a Beatrice of

it."

Madame Récamier left Rome for Naples when Napoleon's power was on the

decline. The sovereigns Murat and Caroline Bonaparte treated her with

marked distinction, especially the Queen, who was not only gracious, but

confidential. Madame Récamier was with Caroline the day that Murat

pledged himself to the allied cause. He returned to the palace in great

agitation, and, stating the case to her without telling her that he had

already made his decision, asked what course he ought to pursue. She

replied, "You are a Frenchman, Sire. It is to France that you owe

allegiance." Murat turned pale, and, throwing open the window, showed

her the English fleet entering the harbor, and exclaimed, "I am, then, a

traitor!" He threw himself on a couch, burst into tears, covering his

face with his hands. Madame Récamier's candor did not affect their

friendly relations. When the Queen acted as Regent in the absence of her

husband, she signed the pardon of a condemned criminal at her request,

and, upon her return to Rome, wrote, begging her to come back to Naples.

She did so, though her stay was necessarily short. Paris was again open

to her by the overthrow of Napoleon, and she hastened to rejoin her

friends. Still she was not unmindful of the princess who had shown her

such marks of friendship. She did many kind services for her in Paris,

and after the execution of Murat, when Caroline lived in obscurity as

the Countess of Lipona, she paid her a visit, which cheered the

neglected woman whose prosperity had been of such short duration.

The Restoration was the beginning of a new era in the life of Madame

Récamier, one even more brilliant and animated, if not so thoughtlessly

gay as that of her youth. Her husband had, in a measure, retrieved his

fallen fortunes. She was in possession of her mother's property, able to

have a box at the Opera, and to keep her carriage, which was a

necessity, as she never walked in the street. Her exile had made her

more famous, while her joy at being restored to Paris and her friends

lent another charm to the seduction of her manners. Her association with

the Montmorencys, who were in high favor with the new court, increased

her political influence. She held nightly receptions after the Opera,

and her _salon_ was neutral ground, the resort of persons of all

parties. Paris was full of foreigners of distinction, who were curious

to know a person of so much celebrity, and they swelled the ranks of her

admirers. Among them was the Duke of Wellington, who, if Madame

Récamier's vanity did not mislead her, was willing and anxious to wear

her chains. But she never forgave his boastful speech after the Battle

of Waterloo. Remembering her personal dislike of the Emperor, and

forgetting that she was a Frenchwoman, he said to her, on his return to

Paris, "_Je l'ai bien battu_." The next time he called he was not

admitted. The Duke complained to Madame de Staël, and when he next met

Madame Récamier in society treated her with coldness, and devoted

himself to a young English lady. They rarely met afterward, though the

Duke came once to the Abbaye-aux-Bois.

Madame Récamier had at this time a much more earnest admirer in Benjamin

Constant. As common friends of Madame de Staël, they had been acquainted

for years, and had played together in private theatricals at Coppet.

Still it was not until 1814, when Madame Récamier had an interview with

him in regard to the affairs of the King and Queen of Naples, that the

relations between them assumed a serious aspect. He left her at the end

of this interview violently enamored. According to Madame Lenormant,

Benjamin Constant had not the slightest encouragement to justify his

madness, but it is clear from other testimony that Madame Récamier was

not free from blame in respect to him. Sainte-Beuve hints that the

subject is unpleasant, and summarily dismisses it; and Madame Möhl, ever

ready to defend Madame Récamier, acknowledges that in this case she was

to blame, and that Madame Récamier thought so herself, and wished

Constant's letters to be published after her death, in order to justify

him. She adds, that it was a mistake not to publish them, as their

suppression has given occasion for surmises utterly false. There is

nothing in the "Souvenirs" to explain either the vague hints of

Sainte-Beuve or the obscure allusions of Madame Möhl; and the

biographical sketches of Constant throw no light upon the subject: they

are chiefly narratives of his political career.

If we except Châteaubriand, who was more loved than loving, Benjamin

Constant stands last on the list of Madame Récamier's conquests; for,

after the author of "Atala" and of the "Genius of Christianity" crossed

her path, we hear of no more flirtations, no more despairing lovers.

Châteaubriand and Madame Récamier first met, familiarly, at the

death-bed of Madame de Staël, whose loss they mutually deplored. It was

not, however, until the next year, 1818, when Madame Récamier had

retired to the Abbaye-aux-Bois, that the acquaintance ripened into

intimacy. A second reverse of fortune was the cause of this retirement,

to which we shall briefly refer before entering upon the more

complicated subject of this friendship.

New and unfortunate speculations on the part of Monsieur Récamier had

not only left him penniless, but had to some extent involved his wife's

fortune, which she had confided to him. In this emergency, Madame

Récamier acted with her usual promptitude and decision. She had two

objects in view in her plans for the future,--economy, and a separation

from her husband. An asylum in the Abbaye-aux-Bois secured to her both

advantages. She established her husband and father in the vicinity of

the Convent, and they with Ballanche dined with her every day. From

Monsieur Récamier she exacted a promise to engage in no more

speculations, while she supplied his wants. "She anticipated his needs

with a filial affection, and until the last studied to make his life

mild and pleasant,--a singularly easy task on account of his optimism."

Monsieur Récamier had need to be a philosopher. The nominal husband of a

beautiful woman, with whom he had shared his prosperity, he had not only

to bear her indifference, but to see her form friendships and make plans

from which he was excluded. When his misfortunes left him a dependent

upon her bounty, he was a mere cipher in her household,--kindly treated,

but with a kindness that savored more of toleration than affection.

Monsieur Récamier died at the advanced age of eighty. Shortly before his

death, his wife obtained permission from the Convent to remove him to

the Abbaye, where he was tenderly cared for by her in his last moments.

The retirement forced upon Madame Récamier by her husband's reverses was

far from being seclusion. "_La petite cellule_" as Châteaubriand called

her retreat, was as much frequented as her brilliant _salons_ in Paris

had been, and she was even more highly considered. Châteaubriand visited

her regularly at three o'clock; they passed an hour alone, when other

persons favored by him were admitted. In the evening her door was open

to all. She no longer mingled in society, people came to her, and

nothing could be more delightful than her receptions. All parties and

all ranks met there, and her _salon_ gradually became a literary centre

and focus. Delphine Gay (Madame Émile de Girardin) recited her first

verses there, Rachel declaimed there, and Lamartine's "Méditations" were

read and applauded there before publication. Among distinguished

strangers who sought admittance to the Abbaye, we notice the names of

Humboldt, Sir Humphry Davy, and Maria Edgeworth. De Tocqueville,

Monsieur Ampére, and Sainte-Beuve were frequent visitors. Peace and

serenity reigned there, for Madame Récamier softened asperities and

healed dissensions by the mere magnetism of her presence. "It was

Eurydice," said Sainte-Beuve, "playing the part of Orpheus." But while

she was the presiding genius of this varied and brilliant society,

Châteaubriand was the controlling spirit. Everybody deferred to him, if

not for his sake, then for the sake of her whose greatest happiness was

to see him pleased and amused.

Madame Récamier has frequently been called cold and heartless. English

reviewers have doubted whether she was capable of any warm, deep

attachment. Sainte-Beuve even, with all his insight, believed that the

desire to be loved had satisfied her heart, and that she herself had

never loved. But he formed this opinion before the publication of Madame

Récamier's memoirs. Châteaubriand's letters, together with other

corroborating facts, warrant a totally different conclusion. It is very

evident that Madame Récamier loved Châteaubriand with all the strength

of a reticent and constant nature. That he was the only man she did

love, we think is also clear. Prince Augustus captivated her for a time,

but her conduct toward him, in contrast with that toward Châteaubriand,

proves that her heart had not then been touched. The one she treated

with caprice and coldness, the other with unvarying consideration and

tenderness. There is no reason to conclude that the Prince ever made her

unhappy, while it is certain that Châteaubriand made her miserable, and

a mere friendship, however deep, does not render a woman wretched. This

attachment not only shaped and colored the remainder of Madame

Récamier's life, but it threatened at one time to completely subvert all

other interests. She who was so equable, such a perfect mistress of

herself, so careful to give every one due meed of attention, became

fitful and indifferent. Her friends saw the change with alarm, and

Montmorency remonstrated bitterly with her. "I was extremely troubled

and ashamed," he writes, "at the sudden change in your manner toward

others and myself. Ah, Madame, the evil that your best friends have been

dreading has made rapid progress in a few weeks! Does not this thought

make you tremble? Ah, turn, while yet there is time, to Him who gives

strength to them who pray for it! He can cure all, repair all. God and a

generous heart are all-sufficient. I implore Him, from the bottom of my

heart, to sustain and enlighten you."

Ballanche, equally concerned and jealous, strove to interest her in

literature, and urged her to translate Petrarch. Madame Récamier

speedily recovered herself. She listened graciously to the admonitions

of Montmorency, and she consented to undertake Petrarch, but made little

progress in the work. Still, as far as her feelings for Châteaubriand

were concerned, the efforts of her friends were in vain. He occupied the

first place in her affections, and she regulated her time and pursuits

to please and accommodate him, though for a long time he but poorly

repaid her devotion. He admired and perhaps loved her, as well as he was

capable of loving anybody but himself, but it was not until

disappointments had sobered him that he fully appreciated her worth. At

the time their intimacy commenced he was the pet and favorite of the

whole French nation. "The Genius of Christianity" had been received with

acclamations by a people just recovering from the wild skepticism of the

Revolution. The reaction had taken place, the Goddess of Reason was

dethroned, and the burning words and vivid eloquence of Châteaubriand

appealed at once to the heart and the imagination of his countrymen.

They did not criticise, they only admired. Politically he was also a

rising man. The world, or at least the French world, expected great

things from the writer of the pamphlet, "De Buonaparte et des Bourbons."

His manners were courtly and distinguished, and women especially

flattered and courted him. Their attentions fostered his natural vanity,

and his fancy, if not his heart, wandered from Madame Récamier, and she

knew it. The tables were turned: she who had been so passionately

beloved was now to feel some of the pangs she had all her life been

unconsciously inflicting. Wounded and jealous, she stooped to

reproaches. The following extracts from letters addressed to her by

Châteaubriand while he was ambassador at London clearly betray the state

of her mind.

"I will not ask you again for an explanation, since you will not

give it. I have written you by the last courier a letter which

ought to content you, if you still love me."

* * * * *

"Do not delude yourself with the idea that you can fly from me. I

will seek you everywhere. But if I go to the Congress, it will be

an occasion to put you to the proof. I shall see then if you keep

your promises."

* * * * *

"_Allons_,--I much prefer to understand your folly than to read

mysterious and angry notes. I comprehend now, or at least I think

I do. It is apparently that woman of whom the friend of the Queen

of Sweden has spoken to you. But, tell me, have I the means to

prevent Vernet, Mademoiselle Levert, who writes me declarations,

and thirty _artistes_, men and women, from coming to England in

order to get money? And if I have been culpable, do you think that

such fancies can do you the least injury, or take from you

anything which I have given you? You have been told a thousand

falsehoods. Herein I recognize my friends. But tranquillize

yourself: the lady leaves, and will never return to England. But

perhaps you would like me to remain here on that account: a very

useless precaution; for, whatever happens, Congress or no

Congress, I cannot live so long separated from you, and am

determined to see you at any cost."

The letters from which we quote are very characteristic of their author.

While protesting eternal fidelity, and declaring his intention to

renounce the world and live but for Madame Récamier, he begs her at the

same time to use all her influence to get him sent to the approaching

Congress at Vienna as one of the French representatives,--an appointment

which would necessarily separate him still longer from her. "_Songez au

Congrès_" is the refrain to all his poetical expressions of attachment.

It is to be hoped that Madame Récamier did not perceive the

inconsistency of which he was totally unconscious. Though Châteaubriand

was perpetually analyzing himself and his emotions, no man had less

self-knowledge. He was too much absorbed by his "self-study,

self-wonder, and self-worship," as one of his critics styles his

egotism, to be clear-sighted. He had generous impulses, but no uniform

generosity of heart; and while glorying in the few ostentatious

sacrifices he made to pet ideas, he had no perception of the nature of

self-sacrifice. Much, therefore, as he was gratified at the devotion of

a woman of Madame Récamier's position and influence, he did not value it

sufficiently to make any sacrifices to secure it, and consequently she

was continually annoyed and distressed. Her life was also embittered by

his political differences with Mathieu de Montmorency, to whom, by means

which can scarcely be deemed honorable, he had succeeded as Minister of

Foreign Affairs. The confidential friend of both parties, her position

was a very difficult one; but she was equal to the emergency. She

satisfied each, without being false to, or unmindful of, the interests

of either.

But her relations to Châteaubriand were fast becoming intolerable, and

she resolved to break her chains and leave Paris. He regarded this

resolution as a mere threat. "No," he wrote, "you have not bid farewell

to all earthly joys. If you go, you will return." She did go, however,

taking with her Ballanche and her adopted daughter, whose delicate

health was the ostensible cause of her departure. What it cost her to

leave Paris may well be conjectured, and nothing is more indicative of

her power of self-control than this voluntary withdrawal from a

companionship which fascinated while it tortured her. Châteaubriand sent

letters after her full of protestations and upbraidings; but after a

while he wrote less frequently, and for a year they ceased to

correspond. To a friend who urged her to return Madame Récamier

wrote,--"If I return at present to Paris, I shall again meet with the

agitations that induced me to leave it. If Monsieur Châteaubriand were

unhappy on my account, I should be grieved; if he were not, I should

have another trouble, which I am determined henceforth to avoid. I find

here diversion in art, and a support in religion which shall shelter me

from all these storms. It is painful to me to remain absent six months

longer from my friends; but it is better to make this sacrifice, and I

confess to you that I feel it to be necessary."

There was much to make a stay in Italy attractive to Madame Récamier, if

she could have forgotten Châteaubriand, Her old admirer, the Duc de

Laval, was ambassador at Rome, and put his horses and servants at her

disposal. She renewed her acquaintance with the celebrated Duchess of

Devonshire, (Lady Elizabeth Foster,) whose career was quite as singular

as her own, while it was more open to reproach. The Duchess was a

liberal patron of the fine arts, and the devoted friend of Cardinal

Gonsalvi, from the shock of whose death she never recovered. Madame

Récamier also found at Rome the Duchess of Saint-Leu, whom she had

slightly known when she was Queen of Holland. For political reasons it

was unwise for them to visit openly, so they contrived private and

romantic interviews. Their friendship seems to have been close and

sincere. Subsequently, Madame Récamier was able, through her political

influence, to serve Hortense in many ways. She also took an interest in

her son Louis Napoleon, and visited him in prison after his

unsuccessful attempt at Strasbourg, which kindness he afterwards

acknowledged in several notes preserved by Madame Lenormant.

But while accepting all the diversions offered her by the pleasant

society at, Rome, Madame Récamier was not unmindful of Châteaubriand.

She ordered from the artist Tenerani a bas-relief, the subject to be

taken from Châteaubriand's poem of "The Martyrs." She wrote constantly

to her friends in Paris for intelligence respecting him, and watched his

course from afar with interest and anxiety. It was not one to

tranquillize her. He had quarrelled with the President of the Council,

Villèle; and being also personally disliked by the King, he was

peremptorily dismissed, and he bore this disgrace with neither dignity

nor composure. Turning his pen against the government, he did as much by

his persistent savage opposition, clothed as it was in the language of

superb invective, to bring about the final overthrow of the elder

Bourbon dynasty, as either the stupid arrogance of Charles X. or the

dogged tyranny of Polignac. Yet no man was more concerned and disgusted

than he was at the result of the Revolution of 1830. So far true to his

convictions, he refused office under Louis Philippe, priding himself

greatly on his allegiance to the exiled princes, when neither his

loyalty nor his services could be of any use. The truth is, that, though

Châteaubriand was fond of meddling and making a noise, he had none of

the fundamental qualities of a statesman. By the inspiration of his

genius, he could seize the right moment for making a telling speech, or

he could promulgate in a pamphlet a striking truth, calculated to

electrify and convince. But he could not be calmly deliberate. Always

enthusiastic, he was never temperate. He was the slave of his

partialities and prejudices. Harriet Martineau, who for keen analysis

and nice discrimination of character has few equals among historians,

characterizes him as "the wordy Châteaubriand," and Guizot says of him,

"It was his illusion to think himself the equal of the most consummate

statesmen, and his soul was filled with bitterness because men would not

admit him to be the rival of Napoleon as well as of Milton." It was this

bitterness with which Madame Récamier had to contend, for his literary

successes did not console him for his political disappointments, and his

temper, never very equable, was now more variable and uncertain.

After an absence of eighteen months she returned to Paris. She apprised

Châteaubriand of her arrival by a note. He came immediately to see her,

and was rapturous with delight. No word of reproach passed between them,

and he fell at once into his old habits. From this time his behavior was

respectful and devoted. Absence and his disappointments had taught him

the inestimable value of such a friend. She daily became more and more

necessary to him. After his resignation of the Roman embassy in 1829,

which had been secured to him through her instrumentality, he no longer

engaged actively in politics, and, deprived of the stimulus of ambition,

he looked to her for excitement. She encouraged his literary exertions,

drew him out from his fits of depression, and soothed his wounded

self-love. This was no light task; for Châteaubriand's self-complacency

was not of that imperturbable sort which, however intolerable to others,

has at least the merit of keeping its possessor content and tranquil.

With him it partook more of the nature of egotism than of self-conceit,

and it therefore made him always restless and continually dissatisfied.

But no effort was too great for Madame Récamier's devotion. Her friends

looked upon her sacrifices with feelings of mingled regret and

admiration, but she herself was unconscious of them. They were simply a

labor of love; and much as her tranquillity must have been disturbed at

times by the caprices and exactions of this moody, melancholy man, she

was probably happy in being allowed to sacrifice herself. Of the

success of her efforts Sainte-Beuve thus gracefully speaks:--"Madame de

Maintenon was never more ingenious in amusing Louis XIV. than Madame

Récamier in interesting Châteaubriand. 'I have always remarked,' said

Boileau, on returning from Versailles, 'that, when the conversation does

not turn on himself, the King directly gets tired, and is either ready

to yawn or to go away.' Every great poet, when he is growing old, is a

little like Louis XIV. in this respect. Madame Récamier had each day a

thousand pleasant contrivances to excite and flatter him. She assembled

from all quarters friends for him,--new admirers. She chained us all to

the feet of her idol with links of gold."

One of her most successful efforts in amusing him was the reading of

"Les Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe" to a select and admiring audience at the

Abbaye. He first read them in private to Madame Récamier, who passed

judgment upon them, and they were then read aloud by M. Charles

Lenormant. This device worked like a charm; everybody applauded, and the

author was content. The personal interest attached to the chief parties

concerned, no doubt, made these readings very delightful. But it would

now be impossible for any reader to be enthusiastic about the Memoirs

themselves. Out of France it would be difficult to find a more

egotistical piece of self-portraiture. Châteaubriand is not quite so

ostentatious in his egotism as the Prince de Ligne, who headed the

chapters in his "Mémoires et Mélanges," "De moi pendant le jour," "De

moi pendant la nuit," "De moi encore," "Mémoirs pour mon coeur"; still

he parades himself on every possible occasion, and not always to his own

advantage. His conduct in passing himself off as a single man in an

English family who were kind to him during his exile, thereby engaging

the daughter's affections, is entirely inexcusable. That a person of

Madame Récamier's good judgment did not perceive the discredit that must

attach to such revelations is only to be accounted for by supposing her

blind to Châteaubriand's follies. But with all her partiality, it is

still surprising that she should have given her sanction to his

deliberate and cold analysis of the character of his parents, and his

equally heartless and selfish reflections on his marriage.

Châteaubriand married simply to please his sisters, feeling that he "had

none of the qualifications of a husband," and for years he seemed

entirely oblivious of his wife's existence. After he gave up his

wandering life, and became distinguished, he treated her with more

consideration. Madame de Châteaubriand was a pretty, delicate woman, of

quick natural intelligence. M. Danielo, Châteaubriand's secretary, has

written an interesting sketch of her, which is affixed to her husband's

memoirs. She was a person of eccentric habits, but of a warm heart and

lively sensibilities, and was devoted to her religious duties and the

Infirmary of Maria Theresa. She professed a great contempt for

literature, and asserted that she had never read a line of her husband's

works; but this was regarded as an affectation. Madame de Châteaubriand

was not an amiable person, but very frank and sincere. She often

reproached herself for her faults and love of contradiction. Though she

appears to have loved her husband, she was not blind to his weaknesses,

and he was afraid of her sallies. So vain and sensitive a man could not

feel comfortable in the society of a woman of her keen penetration, and

her wit was not always tempered by discretion. Madame Récamier gained by

the contrast. She believed in him, and "there are few things so

pleasant," says a writer in Fraser, "as to have a woman at hand that

believes in you." Madame Récamier's insight never disturbed

Châteaubriand, for it was of the heart, not of the intellect. It was not

a critical analysis that probes and dissects, but a sympathy that

cheered and tranquillized. There could be but little in common between

two such women, though they were on friendly terms; and when

Châteaubriand left his wife in Paris, he always commended her to Madame

Récamier's care. On one occasion he writes,--"I must again request you

to go and see Madame de Châteaubriand, who complains that she has not

seen you. What would you have? Since you have become associated in my

life, it is necessary to share it fully."

There is nothing to indicate Madame Récamier's sentiments toward the

wife of her friend, except a significant passage in one of

Châteaubriand's letters:--"Your judgments are very severe on the Rue du

Bac.[D] But think of the difference of habit. If you look upon her

occupations as trifles, she may on her side think the same with regard

to yours. It is only necessary to change the point of view."

Madame de Châteaubriand died in February, 1847, from the effects of

dieting. A few months after her death her husband offered himself in

marriage to Madame Récamier, who rejected him. "Why should we marry?"

she said. "There can be no impropriety in my taking care of you at our

age. If you find solitude oppressive, I am willing to live with you. The

world, I am confident, will do justice to the purity of our friendship,

and sanction all my efforts to render your old age comfortable and

happy. If we were younger, I would not hesitate,--I would accept with

joy the right to consecrate my life to you. Tears and blindness have

given me that right. Let us change nothing."

We have heard this refusal of Madame Récamier's urged as a proof that

she did not love Châteaubriand; but when we consider their respective

ages at the time, this objection has little weight. Châteaubriand was

seventy-nine; Madame Récamier seventy. The former was tottering on the

brink of the grave. He had lost the use of his limbs, and his mind was

visibly failing. Madame Récamier was keenly sensible of the decay of his

faculties, though she succeeded so well in concealing the fact from

others that few of the habitual visitors at the Abbaye recognized its

extent. The reason she gave to her friends for refusing him was

undoubtedly the true one. She said that his daily visit to her was his

only diversion, and he would lose that, if she married him.

The record of these last years of Madame Récamier's life is

inexpressibly touching, telling as it does of self-denial, patient

suffering, and silent devotion. To avert the blindness which was

gradually stealing upon her, she submitted to an operation, which might

have been successful, had she obeyed the injunctions of her physicians.

But Ballanche lay dying in the opposite house, and, true to the noble

instincts of her heart, she could not let the friend who had loved her

so long and well die alone. She crossed the street, and took her place

by his bedside, thus sealing her own fate, for all hopes of recovering

her sight were lost. Her health also was extremely delicate; but, much

as she needed quiet and repose, she kept up her relations with society

and held her receptions for Châteaubriand's sake. But both their lives

were fast approaching to a close. Châteaubriand died on the 4th of July,

1848. For some time before his death he was speechless, but kept his

dying eyes fixed upon Madame Récamier. She could not see him, and this

dark, dreary silence filled her soul with despair.

Madame Récamier shed no tears over her loss, and uttered no

lamentations. She received the condolences of her friends with

gratitude, and strove to interest herself in their pursuits. But a

deadly paleness, which never left her, spread over her face, and "the

sad smile on her lips was heart-breaking." Sightless and sad, it was

time for her to die. Madame de Staël and Montmorency, the friends of her

youth, had long since departed. Ballanche was gone, and now

Châteaubriand. She survived the latter only eleven months. Stricken with

cholera the following summer, her illness was short, but severe, and her

last words to Madame Lenormant, who bent over her, were, "_Nous nous

reverrons,--nous nous reverrons_."

So impalpable was the attraction that brought the world to the feet of

Madame Récamier that it is interesting to analyze it. It did not lie in

her beauty and wealth alone; for she lost the one, while time blighted

the other. Nor was it due to power of will; for she was not great

intellectually. And had she been a person of strong convictions, she

would never have been so universally popular. As it was, she pleased

equally persons of every shade of opinion and principle. Her instinctive

coquetry can partly account for her sway over men, but not over women.

What, then, was the secret of her influence? It lay in the subtile power

of a marvellous tact. This tact had its roots deep in her nature. It was

part and parcel of herself, the distinguishing trait in a rare

combination of qualities. Though nurtured and ripened by experience, it

was not the offspring of art. It was an effect, not a cause,--not simply

the result of an intense desire to please, regulated by a fine intuitive

perception, but of higher, finer characteristics, such as natural

sweetness of temper, kindness of heart, and forgetfulness of self. Her

successes were the triumph of impulse rather than of design. In order to

please she did not study character, she divined it. Keenly alive to

outward influences, and losing in part her own personality when coming

in contact with that of others, she readily adapted herself to their

moods,--and her apprehension was quick, if not profound. It is always

gratifying to feel one's self understood, and every person who talked

with Madame Récamier enjoyed this pleasant consciousness. No one felt a

humiliating sense of inferiority in her presence, and this was owing as

much to the character of her intellect as to her tact. Partial friends

detected genius in her conversation and letters, and tried to excite her

to literary effort; but other and stronger evidence forces us to look

upon such praise as mere delicate flattery. A woman more beautiful than

gifted was far more likely to be gratified by a compliment to her

intellect than to her personal charms, as Madame de Staël was more

delighted at an allusion to the beauty of her neck and arms than to the

merits of "L'Allemagne" or "Corinne." But if Madame Récamier did not

possess genius, she had unerring instincts which stood her in lieu of

it, and her mind, if not original, was appreciative. The genuine

admiration she felt for her literary friends stimulated as well as

gratified them. She drew them out, and, dazzled by their own brilliancy,

they gave her credit for thoughts which were in reality their own. To

this faculty of intelligent appreciation was joined another still more

captivating. She was a good listener. "_Bien écouter c'est presque

répondre_," quotes Jean Paul from Marivaux, and Sainte-Beuve said of

Madame Récamier that she listened "_avec séduction_." She was also an

extremely indulgent and charitable person, and was severe neither on the

faults nor on the foibles of others. "No one knew so well as she how to

spread balm on the wounds that are never acknowledged, how to calm and

exorcise the bitterness of rivalry or literary animosity. For moral

chagrins and imaginary sorrows, which are so intense in some natures,

she was, _par excellence_, the Sister of Charity." The repose of her

manner made this sympathy more effective. Hers was not a stormy nature,

but calm and equable. If she had emotion to master, it was mastered in

secret, and not a ripple on the surface betrayed the agitation beneath.

She had no nervous likes or dislikes, no changeful humors, few unequal

moods. She did not sparkle and then die out. The fire was always kindled

on the hearth, the lamp serenely burning. Some women charm by their

mutability; she attracted by her uniformity. But in her uniformity there

was no monotony. Like the continuous murmur of a brook, it gladdened as

well as soothed.

It was probably these sweet womanly qualities, together with the

meekness with which she bore her honors, that endeared her to her

feminine friends. All her life had been a series of triumphs, which were

not won by any conscious effort on her part, but were spontaneous gifts

of fortune,--

"As though a shower of fairy wreaths

Had fallen upon her from the sky."

Yet her manner was entirely free from pretension or self-assertion.

It is not one of the least remarkable things about Madame Récamier, that

one who had been so petted from childhood, so exposed to pernicious

influences, should have continued unspoiled by adulation, uncorrupted by

example. The gay life she led was calculated to make her selfish and

arrogant, yet she was to an eminent degree self-sacrificing and gentle.

Constant in her affections, she never lost a friend through waywardness,

or alienated any by indifference. It has been prettily said of her, that

she brought the art of friendship to perfection. Coquettish she

was,--seldom capricious. Her coquetry was owing more to an instinctive

desire to please than to any systematic attempt to swell the list of her

conquests. She had received the gift of fascination at her birth: and

can a woman be fascinating who has not a touch of coquetry? It was as

natural in Madame Récamier to charm as it was to breathe. It was a

necessity of her nature, which her unnatural position developed and

fostered to a reprehensible extent. But while she permitted herself to

be loved, and rejoiced in the consciousness of this power, she never

carried her flirtations so far as to lose her own self-respect or the

respect of her admirers. She was ever dignified and circumspect, though

gracious and captivating. To most of her lovers, therefore, she was more

a goddess whom they worshipped than a woman whom they loved. Ballanche

compared her to the solitary phoenix, nourished by perfumes, and

living in the purest regions of the air,--

"Who sings to the last his own death-lay,

And in music and perfume dies away."

It is a singular fact, that the men who began by loving her passionately

usually ended by becoming her true friends. Still there were exceptions

to this rule, exceptions which her biographer does not care to dwell

upon, but which the more candid Sainte-Beuve acknowledges, giving as his

authority Madame Récamier, who was fond of talking over the past with

her new friends. "'_C'est une manière_,' disait-elle, '_de mettre du

passé devant l'amitié_.'" The subtile and piquant critic cannot resist

saying, in regard to these reminiscences, that "_elle se souvenait avec

goût_." Still, pleasant as her recollections were, she often looked back

self-reproachfully upon passages of her youth; and Sainte-Beuve, though

he calls her coquetry "_une coquetterie angelique_," recognizes it as a

blemish. "She, who was so good, brought sorrow to many hearts, not only

to indignant and soured men, but to poor feminine rivals, whom she

sacrificed and wounded without knowing it. It is the dark side of her

life, which she lived to comprehend."

This "dark side" suggests itself. It is impossible to read the record of

Madame Récamier's conquests without thinking of women slighted and

neglected for her sake. The greater number of her admirers were married

men. That their wives did not hate this all-conquering woman is strange

indeed; that they witnessed her triumphs unmoved is scarcely credible.

For, while French society allows great laxity in such matters, and a

domestic husband, as we understand the term, is a rarity, still French

wives, we imagine, differ very little from other women in wishing to be

considered a first object. Public desertion is rarely relished even

where there is no affection to be wounded, for it is not necessary to

love to be jealous. But whatever heart-aches and jealousies were caused

by Madame Récamier's conquests, they do not appear on the surface. In

her voluminous correspondence we find tender letters from husbands side

by side with friendly notes from their wives. Her biographer parades the

latter with some ostentation, as a proof of the friendship these women

entertained for Madame Récamier. That they respected her is evident;

that they loved her is not so apparent. Mere complimentary notes prove

but little. He must be but a superficial judge of life who draws decided

conclusions simply from appearances. Madame Lucien Bonaparte might

invite Madame Récamier to her _fêtes_; but the consciousness that all

her world knew that her husband was _épris_ with her beautiful guest did

not tend to make her cordial at heart. Madame Moreau, young and lovely,

might visit her intimately, and even cherish friendship for her; but she

could scarcely be an indifferent spectator, when the great General

demanded a white ribbon from her friend's dress as a favor, and

afterward wrote to her that he had worn it in every battle, and that it

had been the talisman that led him on to victory. Nor is it probable

that Madame de Montmorency and Madame de Châteaubriand, unloved wives,

saw without a pang another woman possess the influence which they

exerted in vain. But, if they suffered, it was in secret; and, moreover,

they did justice to the character of their rival. Madame Récamier's

reputation was compromised neither in their eyes nor in the eyes of the

world. Society is seldom just to any woman whose career in life is

exceptional; but to her it was not only just, but indulgent. When we

reflect upon her peculiar position, so exposed to injurious suspicions,

the doubtful reputation of some of her associates, the character for

gallantry possessed by many of her avowed admirers, it seems scarcely

possible that she should have escaped calumny. The few scandals caused

by some of her early indiscretions were soon dissipated, and she lived

down all unpleasant rumors. She, indeed, seemed to possess some

talisman, as potent as the magic ring that bewitched King Charlemagne,

by whose spell she disarmed envy and silenced detraction. This attaching

power she exercised on every person who came within the sphere of her

influence. Even the gossiping Duchess D'Abrantes has only words of

respectful admiration for her. The preconceived prejudices of Madame

Swetchine, whom Miss Muloch numbers among her "Good Women," vanished at

a first interview. She wrote to her,--"I found myself a captive before I

dreamt of defending myself. I yielded at once to that penetrating and

undefinable charm which you exert even over those persons to whom you

are indifferent." Madame de Genlis, equally prejudiced, was alike

subdued. She made Madame Récamier the heroine of a novel, and addressed

letters to her full of affectionate admiration and extravagant flattery.

"You are one of the phenomena of the age," she writes, "and certainly

the most amiable.... You can look back upon the past without remorse. At

any age this is the most beautiful of privileges, but at our time of

life it is invaluable." Madame Lenormant, even more enthusiastic, calls

her a saint, which she certainly was not, but a gracious woman of the

world. Some acts of her life it is impossible to defend. They tarnish

the lustre of an otherwise irreproachable career. Still, when we think

of the low tone of morals prevalent in her youth, together with her many

and great temptations, it is surprising that she should have preserved

her purity of heart, and earned the respect and love of the best and

wisest of her contemporaries. No woman has ever received more universal

and uniform homage, or has been more deeply lamented. Her death left a

void in French society that has never been filled. The _salon_, which,

from its origin in the seventeenth century, was so vital an element in

Paris life, no longer exists. That of the Hôtel de Rambouillet was the

first; that of the Abbaye-aux-Bois the last. "_On se réunit encore, on

donne des fêtes splendides, on ne cause plus_."

* * * * *