_A Transition Period--Mme. de Montesson--Mme. de Genlis--Revival of the
Literary Spirit--Mme. de Beaumont--Mme. de Remusat--Mme. de Souza--Mme.
de Duras--Mme. de Krudener--Fascination of Mme. Recamier--Her
Friends--Her Convent Salon-- Chateaubriand--Decline of the Salon_
In the best sense, society is born, not made. A crowd of well-dressed
people is not necessarily a society. They may meet and disperse with no
other bond of union than a fine house and lavish hospitality can give.
It may be an assembly without unity, flavor, or influence. In the
social chaos that followed the Revolution, this truth found a practical
illustration. The old circles were scattered. The old distinctions were
virtually destroyed, so far as edicts can destroy that which lies in
the essence of things. A few who held honored names were left, or had
returned from a long exile, to find themselves bereft of rank, fortune,
and friends; but these had small disposition to form new associations,
and few points of contact with the parvenus who had mounted upon the
ruins of their order. The new society was composed largely of these
parvenus, who were ambitious for a position and a life of which they had
neither the spirit, the taste, the habits, nor the mellowing traditions.
Naturally they mistook the gilded frame for the picture. Unfamiliar
with the gentle manners, the delicate sense of honor, and the chivalrous
instincts which underlie the best social life, though not always
illustrated by its individual members, they were absorbed in matters of
etiquette of which they were uncertain, and exacting of non-essentials.
They regarded society upon its commercial side, contended over questions
of precedence, and, as one of the most observing of their contemporaries
has expressed it, "bargained for a courtesy and counted visits." "I have
seen quarrels in the imperial court," she adds, "over a visit more or
less long, more or less deferred." Perhaps it is to be considered that
in a new order which has many aggressive elements, this balancing
of courtesies is not without a certain raison d'etre as a protection
against serious inroads upon time and hospitality; but the fault lies
behind all this, in the lack of that subtle social sense which makes the
discussion of these things superfluous, not to say impossible.
It was the wish of Napoleon to reconstruct a society that should rival
in brilliancy the old courts. With this view he called to his aid a few
women whose names, position, education, and reputation for esprit and
fine manners he thought a sufficient guarantee of success. But he
soon learned that it could not be commanded at will. The reply of the
Duchesse d'Brantes, who has left us so many pleasant reminiscences of
this period, in which she was an actor as well as an observer, was very
apt.
"You can do all that I wish," he said to her; "you are all young, and
almost all pretty; ah, well! A young and pretty woman can do anything
she likes."
"Sire, what your Majesty says may be true," she replied, "but only to
a certain point. If the Emperor, instead of his guard and his good
soldiers, had only conscripts who would recoil under fire, he could not
win great battles like that of Austerlitz. Nevertheless, he is the first
general in the world."
But this social life was to serve a personal end. It was to furnish an
added instrument of power to the autocrat who ruled, to reflect always
and everywhere the glory of Napoleon. The period which saw its cleverest
woman in hopeless exile, and its most beautiful one under a similar
ban for the crime of being her friend, was not one which favored
intellectual supremacy. The empire did not encourage literature, it
silenced philosophy, and oppressed the talent that did not glorify
itself. Its blighting touch rested upon the whole social fabric. The
finer elements which, to some extent, entered into it were lost in the
glitter of display and pretension. The true spirit of conversation was
limited to private coteries that kept themselves in the shade, and were
too small to be noted.
The salon which represented the best side of the new regime was that
of Mme. de Montesson, wife of the Duc d'Orleans, a woman of brilliant
talents, finished manners, great knowledge of the world, fine gifts of
conversation, and, what was equally essential, great discrimination and
perfect tact. If her niece, Mme. de Genlis, is to be trusted, she had
more ambition that originality, her reputation was superior to her
abilities, and her beauty covered many imperfections. But she had
experience, finesse, and prestige. Napoleon was quick to see the value
of such a woman in reorganizing a court, and treated her with the
greatest consideration, even asking her to instruct Josephine in the old
customs and usages. Her salon, however, united many elements which
it was impossible to fuse. There were people of all parties and all
conditions, a few of the nobles and returned emigres, the numerous
members of the Bonaparte family, the new military circle, together with
many people of influence "not to the manner born." Mme. de Montesson
revived the old amusements, wrote plays for the entertainment of her
guests gave grand dinners and brilliant fetes. But the accustomed links
were wanting. Her salon simply illustrates a social life in a state of
transition.
Mme. de Genlis had lived much in the world before the Revolution, and
her position in the family of the Duc d'Orleans, together with her great
versatility of talent, had given her a certain vogue. Author, musician,
teacher, moralist, critic, poser, egotist, femme d'esprit, and friend
of princes, her romantic life would fill a volume and cannot be even
touched upon in a few lines. After ten years of exile she returned to
Paris, and her salon at the Arsenal was a center for a few celebrities.
Many of these names have small significance today. A few men like
Talleyrand, LaHarpe, Fontanes, and Cardinal Maury were among her
friends, and she was neutral enough, or diplomatic enough, not to give
offense to the new government. But she was a woman of many affectations,
and in spite of her numerous accomplishments, her cleverness, and her
literary fame, the circle she gathered about her was never noted for
its brilliancy or its influence. As a historic figure, she is more
remarkable for the variety of her voluminous work, her educational
theories, and her observations upon the world in which she lived, than
for talents of a purely social order.
One is little inclined to dwell upon the ruling society of this
period. It had neither the dignity of past traditions nor freedom of
intellectual expression. Its finer shades were drowned in loud and
glaring colors. The luxury that could be commanded counted for more than
the wit and intelligence that could not.
As the social elements readjusted themselves on a more natural basis,
there were a few salons out of the main drift of the time in which the
literary spirit flourished once more, blended with the refined tastes,
the elegant manners, and the amiable courtesy that had distinguished the
old regime. But the interval in which history was made so rapidly, and
the startling events of a century were condensed into a decade,
had wrought many vital changes. It was no longer the spirit of the
eighteenth century that reappeared under its revived and attractive
forms. We note a tone of seriousness that had no permanent place in that
world of esprit and skepticism, of fine manners and lax morals, which
divided its allegiance between fashion and philosophy. The survivors of
so many heart-breaking tragedies, with their weary weight of dead hopes
and sad memories, found no healing balm in the cold speculation and
scathing wit of Diderot or Voltaire. Even the devotees of philosophy
gave it but a half-hearted reverence. It was at this moment that
Chateaubriand, saturated with the sorrows of his age, and penetrated
with the hopelessness of its philosophy, offered anew the truths that
had sustained the suffering and broken-hearted for eighteen centuries,
in a form so sympathetic, so fascinating, that it thrilled the sensitive
spirits of his time, and passed like an inspiration into the literature
of the next fifty years. The melancholy of "Rene" found its divine
consolation in the "Genius of Christianity." It was this spirit that
lent a new and softer coloring to the intimate social life that blended
in some degree the tastes and manners of the old noblesse with a refined
and tempered form of modern thought. It recalls, in many points, the
best spirit of the seventeenth century. There is a flavor of the same
seriousness, the same sentiment. It is the sentiment that sent so many
beautiful women to the solitude of the cloister, when youth had faded
and the air of approaching age began to grow chilly. But it is not to
the cloister that these women turn. They weave romantic tales out of
the texture of their own lives, they repeat their experiences, their
illusions, their triumphs, and their disenchantments. As the day grows
more somber and the evening shadows begin to fall, they meditate, they
moralize, they substitute prayers for dreams. But they think also. The
drama of the late years had left no thoughtful soul without earnest
convictions. There were numerous shades of opinion, many finely drawn
issues. In a few salons these elements were delicately blended, and if
they did not repeat the brilliant triumphs of the past, if they focused
with less power the intellectual light which was dispersed in many new
channels, they have left behind them many fragrant memories. One is
tempted to linger in these temples of a goddess half-dethroned. One
would like to study these women who added to the social gifts of their
race a character that had risen superior to many storms, hearts that
were mellowed and purified by premature sorrow, and intellects that had
taken a deeper and more serious tone from long brooding over the great
problems of their time. But only a glance is permitted us here. Most of
them have been drawn in living colors by Saint-Beuve, from whom I gather
here and there a salient trait.
Who that is familiar with the fine and exquisite thought of Joubert can
fail to be interested in the delicate and fragile woman whom he met
in her supreme hour of suffering, to find in her a rare and permanent
friend, a literary confidante, and an inspiration? Mme. de Beaumont--the
daughter of Montmorin, who had been a colleague of Necker in the
ministry--had been forsaken by a worthless husband, had seen father,
mother, brother, perish by the guillotine, and her sister escape it only
by losing her reason, and then her life, before the fatal day. She, too,
had been arrested with the others, but was so ill and weak that she was
left to die by the roadside en route to Paris--a fate from which she
was saved by the kindness of a peasant. It was at this moment that
Joubert befriended her. These numerous and crushing sorrows had
shattered her health, which was never strong, but during the few
brief years that remained to her she was the center of a coterie more
distinguished for quality than numbers. Joubert and Chateaubriand were
its leading spirits, but it included also Fontanes, Pasquier, Mme. de
Vintimille, Mme. de Pastoret, and other friends who had survived the
days in which she presided with such youthful dignity over her father's
salon. The fascination of her fine and elevated intellect, her gentle
sympathy, her keen appreciation of talent, and her graces of manner lent
a singular charm to her presence. Her character was aptly expressed
by this device which Rulhiere had suggested for her seal: "Un souffle
m'agite et rien ne m'ebrante." Chateaubriand was enchanted with a nature
so pure, so poetic, and so ardent. He visited her daily, read to her
"Atala" and "Rene," and finished the "Genius of Christianity" under her
influence. He was young then, and that she loved him is hardly doubtful,
though the friendship of Joubert was far truer and more loyal than the
passing devotion of this capricious man of genius, who seems to have
cared only for his own reflection in another soul. But this sheltered
nook of thoughtful repose, this conversational oasis in a chaotic period
had a short duration. Mme. de Beaumont died at Rome, where she had
gone in the faint hope of reviving her drooping health, in 1803.
Chateaubriand was there, watched over her last hours with Bertin, and
wrote eloquently of her death. Joubert mourned deeply and silently over
the light that had gone out of his life.
We have pleasant reminiscences of the amiable, thoughtful, and
spirituelle Mme. de Remusat, who has left us such vivid records of the
social and intimate life of the imperial court. A studious and secluded
childhood, prematurely saddened by the untimely fate of her father in
the terrible days of 1794, an early and congenial marriage, together
with her own wise penetration and clear intellect, enabled her to
traverse this period without losing her delicate tone or serious
tastes. She had her quiet retreat into which the noise and glare did
not intrude, where a few men of letters and thoughtful men of the world
revived the old conversational spirit. She amused her idle hours by
writing graceful tales, and, after the close of her court life and the
weakening of her health, she turned her thoughts towards the education
and improvement of her sex. Blended with her wide knowledge of the
world, there is always a note of earnestness, a tender coloring of
sentiment, which culminates towards the end in a lofty Christian
resignation.
We meet again at this time a woman known to an earlier generation as
Mme. de Flahaut, and made familiar to us through the pens of Talleyrand
and Gouverneur Morris. She saw her husband fall by the guillotine, and,
after wandering over Europe for years as an exile, became the wife of M.
de Souza, and, returning to Paris, took her place in a quiet corner of
the unaccustomed world, writing softly colored romances after the manner
of Mme. de La Fayette, wearing with grace the honors her literary fame
brought her, and preserving the tastes, the fine courtesies, the gentle
manners, the social charms, and the delicate vivacity of the old regime.
One recalls, too, Mme. de Duras, whose father, the noble and fearless
Kersaint, was the companion of Mme. Roland at the scaffold; who drifted
to our own shores until the storms had passed, and, after saving her
large fortune in Martinique, returned matured and saddened to France. As
the wife of the Duc de Duras, she gathered around her a circle of rank,
talent, and distinction. Chateaubriand, Humboldt, Curier, de Montmorency
were among her friends. What treasures of thought and conversation do
these names suggest! What memories of the past, what prophecies for the
future! Mme. de Duras, too, wore gracefully the mantle of authorship
with which she united pleasant household cares. She, too, put something
of the sad experiences of her own life into romances which reflect the
melancholy of this age of restlessness and lost illusions. She, too,
like many of the women of her time whose youth had been blighted by
suffering, passed into an exalted Christian strain. The friend of Mme.
de Stael, the literary CONFIDANTE of Chateaubriand, the woman of many
talents, many virtues, and many sorrows, died with words of faith and
hope and divine consolation on her lips.
The devotion of Mme. de Cantal, the mysticism of Mme. Guyon, find a
nineteenth-century counterpart in the spiritual illumination of Mme.
de Krudener. Passing from a life of luxury and pleasure to a life of
penitence and asceticism, singularly blending worldliness and piety,
opening her salon with prayer, and adding a new sensation to the gay
life of Paris, this adviser of Alexander I, and friend of Benjamin
Constant, who put her best life into the charming romances which ranked
next to "Corinne" and "Delphine" in their time; this beautiful woman,
novelist, prophetess, mystic, illuminee, fanatic, with the passion of
the South and the superstitious vein of the far North, disappeared
from the world she had graced, and gave up her life in an ecstasy of
sacrifice in the wilderness of the Crimea.
It is only to indicate the altered drift of the social life that flowed
in quiet undercurrents during the Empire and came to the surface again
after the Restoration; to trace lightly the slow reaction towards the
finer shades of modern thought and modern morality, that I touch--so
briefly and so inadequately--upon these women who represent the best
side of their age, leaving altogether untouched many of equal gifts and
equal note.
There is one, however, whose salon gathered into itself the last rays
of the old glory, and whose fame as a social leader has eclipsed that of
all her contemporaries. Mme. Recamier, "the last flower of the salons,"
is the woman of the century who has been, perhaps, most admired, most
loved, and most written about. It has been so much the fashion to
dwell upon her marvelous beauty, her kindness, and her irresistible
fascination, that she has become, to some extent, an ideal figure
invested with a subtle and poetic grace that folds itself about her
like the invisible mantle of an enchantress. Her actual relations to the
world in which she lived extended over a long period, terminating only
on the threshold of our own generation. Without strong opinions or
pronounced color, loyal to her friends rather than to her convictions,
of a calm and happy temperament, gentle in character, keenly
appreciative of all that was intellectually fine and rare, but without
exceptional gifts herself, fascinating in manner, perfect in tact, with
the beauty of an angel and the heart of a woman--she presents a fitting
close to the long reign of the salons.
We hear of her first in the bizarre circles of the Consulate, as the
wife of a man who was rather father than husband, young, fresh, lovely,
accomplished, surrounded by the luxuries of wealth, and captivating all
hearts by that indefinable charm of manner which she carried with her
to the end of her life. Both at Paris and at her country house at Clichy
she was the center of a company in which the old was discreetly mingled
with the new, in which enmities were tempered, antagonisms softened, and
the most discordant elements brought into harmonious rapport, for the
moment, at least, by her gracious word or her winning smile. Here we
find Adrien and Mathieu de Montmorency, who already testified the rare
friendship that was to outlive years and misfortunes; Mme. de Stael
before her exile; Narbonne, Barrere, Bernadotte, Moreau, and many
distinguished foreigners. Lucien Bonaparte was at her feet; LaHarpe was
devoted to her interests; Napoleon was trying in vain to draw her into
his court, and treasuring up his failure to another. The salon of Mme.
Recamie was not in any sense philosophical or political, but after the
cruel persecution of LaHarpe, the banishment or Mme. de Stael, and the
similar misfortunes of other friends, her sympathies were too strong for
her diplomacy, and it gradually fell into the ranks of the opposition.
It was well known that the emperor regarded all who went there as his
enemies, and this young and innocent woman was destined to feel the full
bitterness of his petty displeasure. We cannot trace here the incidents
of her varied career, the misfortunes of the father to whom she was a
ministering angel, the loss of her husband's fortune and her own, the
years of wandering and exile, the second period of brief and illusive
prosperity, and the swift reverses which led to her final retreat. She
was at the height of her beauty and her fame in the early days of the
Restoration, when her salon revived its old brilliancy, and was a center
in which all parties met on neutral ground. Her intimate relations with
those in power gave it a strong political influence, but this was never
a marked feature, as it was mainly personal.
But the position in which one is most inclined to recall Mme. Recamier
is in the convent of Abbaye-aux-Bois, where, divested of fortune and
living in the simplest manner, she preserved for nearly thirty years the
fading traditions of the old salons. Through all the changes which tried
her fortitude and revealed the latent heroism of her character, she
seems to have kept her sweet serenity unbroken, bending to the passing
storms with the grace of a facile nature, but never murmuring at the
inevitable. One may find in this inflexible strength and gentleness
of temper a clue to the subtle fascination which held the devoted
friendship of so many gifted men and women, long after the fresh charm
of youth was gone.
The intellectual gifts of Mme. Recamier, as has been said before, were
not of a high or brilliant order. She was neither profound nor original,
nor given to definite thought. Her letters were few, and she has left
no written records by which she can be measured. She read much, was
familiar with current literature, also with religious works. But the
world is slow to accord a twofold superiority, and it is quite possible
that the fame of her beauty has prevented full justice to her mental
abilities. Mme. de Genlis tells us that she has a great deal of esprit.
It is certain that no woman could have held her place as the center of
a distinguished literary circle and the confidante and adviser of
the first literary men of her time, without a fine intellectual
appreciation. "To love what is great," said Mme. Necker "is almost to be
great one's self." Ballanche advised her to translate Petrarch, and she
even began the work, but it was never finished. "Believe me," he writes,
"you have at your command the genius of music, flowers, imagination,
and elegance. ... Do not fear to try your hand on the golden lyre of the
poets." He may have been too much blinded by a friendship that verged
closely upon a more passionate sentiment to be an altogether impartial
critic, but it was a high tribute to her gifts that a man of such
conspicuous talents thought her capable of work so exacting. Her
qualities were those of taste and a delicate imagination rather than of
reason. Her musical accomplishments were always a resource. She sang,
played the harp and piano, and we hear of her during a summer at Albano
playing the organ at vespers and high mass. She danced exquisitely, and
it was her ravishing grace that suggested the shawl dance of "Corinne"
to Mme. de Stael and of "Valerie" to Mme. de Krudener. One can fancy
her, too, at Coppet, playing the role of the angel to Mme. de Stael's
Hagar--a spirit of love and consolation to the stormy and despairing
soul of her friend.
But her real power lay in the wonderful harmony of her nature, in the
subtle penetration that divined the chagrins and weaknesses of others,
only to administer a healing balm; in the delicate tact that put people
always on the best terms with themselves, and gave the finest play to
whatever talents they possessed. Add to this a quality of beauty which
cannot be caught by pen or pencil, and one can understand the singular
sway she held over men and women alike. Mme. de Krudener, whose salon
so curiously united fashion and piety, worldliness and mysticism, was
troubled by the distraction which the entrance of Mme. Recamier was sure
to cause, and begged Benjamin Constant to write and entreat her to make
herself as little charming as possible. His note is certainly unique,
though it loses much of its piquancy in translation:
"I acquit myself with a little embarrassment of a commission which Mme.
de Krudener has just given me. She begs you to come as little
beautiful as you can. She says that you dazzle all the world, and that
consequently every soul is troubled and attention is impossible. You
cannot lay aside your charms, but do not add to them."
In her youth she dressed with great simplicity and was fond of wearing
white with pearls, which accorded well with the dazzling purity of her
complexion.
Mme. Recamier was not without vanity, and this is the reverse side of
her peculiar gifts. She would have been more than mortal if she had been
quite unconscious of attractions so rare that even the children in the
street paid tribute to them. But one finds small trace of the petty
jealousies and exactions that are so apt to accompany them. She liked to
please, she wished to be loved, and this inevitably implies a shade
of coquetry in a young and beautiful woman. There is an element of
fascination in this very coquetry, with its delicate subtleties and its
shifting tints of sentiment. That she carried it too far is no doubt
true; that she did so wittingly is not so certain. Her victims were
many, and if they quietly subsided into friends, as they usually did, it
was after many struggles and heart burnings. But if she did not exercise
her power with invariable discretion, it seems to have been less the
result of vanity than a lack of decision and an amiable unwillingness to
give immediate pain, or to lose the friend with the lover. With all her
fine qualities of heart and soul, she had a temperament that saved her
from much of the suffering she thoughtlessly inflicted upon others. The
many violent passions she roused do not seem to have disturbed at all
her own serenity. The delicate and chivalrous nature of Mathieu
de Montmorency, added to his years, gave his relations to her a
half-paternal character, but that he loved her always with the profound
tenderness of a loyal and steadfast soul is apparent through all the
singularly disinterested phases of a friendship that ended only with his
life.
Prince Augustus, whom she met at Coppet, called up a passing ripple on
the surface of her heart, sufficiently strong to lead her to suggest a
divorce to her husband, whose relations to her, though always friendly,
were only nominal. But he appealed to her generosity, and she thought of
it no more. Why she permitted her princely suitor to cherish so long the
illusions that time and distance do not readily destroy is one of the
mysteries that are not easy to solve. Perhaps she thought it more kind
to let absence wear out a passion than to break it too rudely. At all
events, he cherished no permanent bitterness, and never forgot her. At
his death, nearly forty years later he ordered her portrait by Gerard to
be returned, but her ring was buried with him.
The various phases of the well-known infatuation of Benjamin Constant,
which led him to violate his political principles and belie his own
words rather than take a course that must result in separation from
her, suggest a page of highly colored romance. The letters of Mlle.
de Lespinasse scarcely furnish us with a more ardent episode in the
literature of hopeless passion. The worshipful devotion of Ampere and
Ballanche would form a chapter no less interesting, though less intense
and stormy.
But the name most inseparably connected with Mme. Recamier is that of
Chateaubriand. The friendship of an unquestioned sort that seems to
have gone quite out of the world, had all the phases of a more tender
sentiment, and goes far towards disproving the charge of coldness that
has often been brought against her. It was begun after she had reached
the dreaded forties, by the death bed of Mme. de Stael, and lasted
more than thirty years. It seems to have been the single sentiment that
mastered her. One may trace in the letters of Chateaubriand the restless
undercurrents of this life that was outwardly so serene. He writes
to her from Berlin, from England, from Rome. He confides to her his
ambitions, tells her his anxieties, asks her counsel as to his plans,
chides her little jealousies, and commends his wife to her care and
attention. This recalls a remarkable side of her relations with the
world. Women are not apt to love formidable rivals, but the wives of
her friends apparently shared the admiration with which their husbands
regarded her. If they did not love her, they exchanged friendly notes,
and courtesies that were often more than cordial. She consoles Mme. de
Montmorency in her sorrow, and Mme. de Chateaubriand asks her to cheer
her husband's gloomy moods. Indeed, she roused little of that bitter
jealousy which is usually the penalty of exceptional beauty or
exceptional gifts of any sort. The sharp tongue of Mme. de Genlis lost
its sting in writing of her. She idealized her as Athenais, in the novel
of that name, which has for its background the beauties of Coppet,
and vaguely reproduces much of its life. The pious and austere Mme.
Swetchine, whose prejudices against her were so strong that for a long
time she did not wish to meet her, confessed herself at once a captive
to her "penetrating and indefinable charm." Though she did not always
escape the shafts of malice, no better tribute could be offered to the
graces of her character than the indulgence with which she was regarded
by the most severely judging of her own sex.
But she has her days of depression. Chateaubriand is absorbed in his
ambitions and sometimes indifferent; his antagonistic attitude towards
Montmorency, who is far the nobler character of the two, is a source of
grief to her. She tries in vain to reconcile her rival friends. Once she
feels compelled to tear herself from an influence which is destroying
her happiness, and goes to Italy. But she carries within her own heart
the seeds of unrest. She still follows the movements of the man who
occupies so large a space in her horizon, sympathizes from afar with
his disappointments, and cares for his literary interest, ordering from
Tenerani, a bas-relief of a scene from "The Martyrs."
After her return her life settles into more quiet channels.
Chateaubriand, embittered by the chagrins of political life, welcomed
her with the old enthusiasm. From this time he devoted himself
exclusively to letters, and sought his diversion in the convent-salon
which has left so wide a fame, and of which he was always the central
figure. The petted man of genius was moody and capricious. His colossal
egotism found its best solace in the gentle presence of the woman who
flattered his restless vanity, anticipated his wishes, studied his
tastes, and watched every shadow that flitted across his face. He was in
the habit of writing her a few lines in the morning; at three o'clock
he visited her, and they chatted over their tea until four, when favored
visitors began to arrive. In the evening it was a little world that met
there. The names of Ampere, Tocqueville, Montalembert, Merimee, Thierry,
and Sainte-Beuve suggest the literary quality of this circle, in which
were seen from time to time such foreign celebrities as Sir Humphry and
Lady Darcy, Maria Edgeworth, Humboldt, the Duke of Hamilton, the gifted
Duchess of Devonshire, and Miss Berry. Lamartine read his "Meditations"
and Delphine Gay her first poems. Rachel recited, and Pauline Viardot,
Garcia, Rubini, and Lablache sang. Delacroix, David, and Gerard
represented the world of art, and the visitors from the grand monde were
too numerous to mention. In this brilliant and cosmopolitan company,
what resources of wit and knowledge, what charms of beauty and elegance,
what splendors of rank and distinction were laid upon the altar of the
lovely and adored woman, who recognized all values, and never forgot the
kindly word or the delicate courtesy that put the most modest guests at
ease and brought out the best there was in them!
One day in 1847 there was a vacant place, and the faithful Ballanche
came no more from his rooms across the street. A year later
Chateaubriand died. After the death of his wife he had wished to marry
Mme. Recamier, but she thought it best to change nothing, believing that
age and blindness had given her the right to devote herself to his last
days. To her friends she said that if she married him, he would miss the
pleasure and variety of his daily visits.
Old, blind, broken in health and spirit, but retaining always the charm
which had given her the empire over so many hearts, she followed him in
a few months.
Mme. Recamier represents better than any woman of her time the peculiar
talents that distinguished the leaders of some of the most famous
salons. She had tact, grace, intelligence, appreciation, and the gift of
inspiring others. The cleverest men and women of the age were to be met
in her drawing room. One found there genius, beauty, esprit, elegance,
courtesy, and the brilliant conversation which is the Gallic heritage.
But not even her surpassing fascination added to all these attractions
could revive the old power of the salon. Her coterie was charming, as a
choice circle gathered about a beautiful, refined, accomplished woman,
and illuminated by the wit and intelligence of thoughtful men, will
always be; but its influence was limited and largely personal, and it
has left no perceptible traces. Nor has it had any noted successor. It
is no longer coteries presided over by clever women that guide the age
and mold its tastes or its political destinies. The old conditions have
ceased to exist, and the prestige of the salon is gone.
The causes that led to its decline have been already more or less
indicated. Among them, the decay of aristocratic institutions played
only a small part. The salons were au fond democratic in the sense that
all forms of distinction were recognized so far as they were amenable to
the laws of taste, which form the ultimate tribunal of social fitness in
France. But it cannot be denied that the code of etiquette which ruled
them had its foundation in the traditions of the noblesse. The genteel
manners, the absence of egotism and self-assertion, as of disturbing
passions, the fine and uniform courtesy which is the poetry of life, are
the product of ease and assured conditions. It is struggle that destroys
harmony and repose, whatever stronger qualities it may develop, and
the greater mingling of classes which inevitably resulted in this took
something from the exquisite flavor of the old society. The increase of
wealth, too, created new standards that were fatal to a life in which
the resources of wit, learning, and education in its highest sense were
the chief attractions. The greater perfection of all forms of public
amusement was not without its influence. Men drifted, also, more and
more into the one-sided life of the club. Considered as a social phase,
no single thing has been more disastrous to the unity of modern society
than this. But the most formidable enemy of the salon has been the
press. Intelligence has become too universal to be focused in a few
drawing rooms. Genius and ambition have found a broader arena. When
interest no longer led men to seek the stimulus and approval of
a powerful coterie, it ceased to be more than an elegant form of
recreation, a theater of small talents, the diversion of an idle hour.
When the press assumed the sovereignty, the salon was dethroned.