WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION AND THE EMPIRE
Many women of the revolutionary period have no claim for mention other
than a last glorious moment on the guillotine--"ennobled and endeared
by the self-possession and dignity with which they faced death, their
whole life seems to have been lived for that one moment." The society
which had brought on and stirred up the Revolution was enervated and
febrile. Paris was one large kennel of libellers and pamphleteers and
intriguers. The salon frequenters were trained conversationalists and
brilliant beauties who danced and drank, discoursed and intrigued.
It was a superficial elegance, with virtue only assumed. The art of
pleasing had been developed to perfection, but, instead of the actual
accomplishments of the old regime, there was merely the outward
appearance--luxury, dress, and magnificence; the bearing and language
were of the ambitious common people. "The great women are those who,
the day before, were taken from the cellar or garret of the salon."
During the Directorate, luxury and libertinism reigned almost as
absolutely as during the monarchy. Barras was supreme. He had his
mistress, or _maitresse-en-titre_, in the beautiful Mme. Tallien,
the queen of beauty of the salon of _la mode_. Ease and dissolute
enjoyment were the aims of Barras, and in these his mistress was his
equal. They gave the most sumptuous dinners, prepared by the famous
chefs of the late aristocratic kitchens, while the people were
starving or living on black bread. She impudently arrayed herself in
the crown diamonds and appeared at the reception given to Napoleon.
The salons under the Empire are said to have preserved French
politeness, courtesy, and the usages of _la bonne compagnie_, but
intolerance and tyranny reigned there; the spirit of intrigue only was
obeyed. From the beginning of the Revolution to the Empire, it may be
said that the streets of Paris from one end to the other were a wild
turmoil of people in fever heat--ready for any crime or cruelty,
anxious for anything promising excitement. Where formerly the elegant
lovers of the nobility were wont to promenade, the rabid populace held
undisputed possession.
These were years, about 1780 to 1800, during which women shared the
same fate with men; and, consigned to the same prisons, ever resigned
and ready to die for principle, they knew how to die nobly. It was
truly an age of the martyrdom of woman--an age in which she lived,
through almost superhuman conditions, at the side of man. She was
all-powerful, triumphant as never before; not, however, through her
intellectual superiority as in the previous age, but through her
courage. There was not one powerful woman standing out alone,
but groups of them, hosts of them. It was during the Directorate
especially that woman controlled almost every phase of activity.
The woman who embodied all the heterogeneous vices of the past
nobility and the rising plebs was Mme. Tallien, the goddess of vice
and of the vulgar display of wealth. Her caprices were scrupulously
followed, while about her jealousy and slanders were thick. Then
immorality had no veil, but was low, brutish, and open to everyone.
With the accession of Napoleon to absolute power, there was a fusion
of the element just described with the remnant of the old regime.
Josephine soon formed a select and congenial social circle, excluding
Mme. Tallien and the Directorate adherents. Evidences of saddening
memories of the past and a general gloom were visible everywhere in
this circle. The disappointment of the nobility on returning from
their exile was somewhat lessened by the very select bi-weekly
reunions in the salon of Talleyrand, and by the brilliant suppers of
the old regime, which were revived at the Hotel d'Anjou.
The salon of Mme. de Stael was a political debating club rather than
a purely social reunion. She being an ardent Republican, it was in
her salon that the Royalist plot to bring back the Bourbons was
overthrown. In a short time there were a number of brilliant salons,
each one showing a nature as distinct as those of the eighteenth
century. Thus, Joseph Bonaparte received the distinguished
governmentals and the intriguing women of society at the Chateau de
Mortfoulaine; at Lucien Bonaparte's hotel youth and beauty assembled;
at Mme. de Permon's salon there were music and conversation, tea,
lemonade, and biscuits, twice a week. It remains but to characterize
these different ages of French social and political evolution by the
great women who, each one of her age, are the representative types.
The woman who, during the Revolution, not only added her name to the
long list of martyrs, but who also made history and contributed to the
very nature of those days of terror and uncertainty, was Mme. Roland,
whom critics both extol and condemn--the fate of all historical
characters. It would be difficult to estimate this remarkable person
and her work without some details of her life.
When a mere girl she showed signs of a tempestuous future; she
was seductive, but impulsive, with an inborn love for the common
people--which is not always credited to her--and for democracy. These
qualities were quickened during her experience at Versailles, for
while there for a few days' visit she saw the pitiless social world in
all its orgies, revelries of luxury, and wanton extravagances.
There, also, she contracted that deep-seated hatred for the queen and
royalty.
There was, indeed, a long list of suitors for the hand of the
impulsive maiden; but owing to her views as to a husband and her
restless, unsettled state of mind, she could not decide upon any one
of them. To her mother, when urged to accept one, she said: "I should
not like a husband to order me about, for he would teach me only to
resist him; but neither do I wish to rule my husband. Either I am
much mistaken, or those creatures, six feet high, with beard on their
chins, seldom fail to make us feel that they are stronger; now, if the
good man should suddenly bethink himself to remind me of his strength
he would provoke me, and if he submitted to me he would make me
feel ashamed of my power." For such a woman marriage was certainly
a difficult problem. Finally, Roland de la Platieres came within her
circle; and although somewhat adverse to him at first, after a number
of his visits she wrote: "I have been much charmed by the solidity of
his judgment and his cultured and interesting conversation." Just such
a man appealed to her nature and was in harmony with her views. After
months of monotonous life in the convent to which she had retired, she
at last consented to become the wife of Roland, not from expectations
of any fortune, but purely from a sense of devoting herself to the
happiness of an honorable man, to making his life sweeter.
Roland, scrupulously conscientious, painstaking, and observing, had
won the position of inspector of manufactures, which took him away on
foreign travels part of the time. He had acquired a thorough knowledge
of manufacturing and the principles of political economy. The first
years of their life were spent in each other's society exclusively,
as he was insanely jealous of her; she rarely left his side, and
they studied the same works, copied and revised his manuscripts, and
corrected his proofs. In this she was indispensable to him. But her
activity did not stop with literary work; she managed her husband's
household, and for miles around her home the peasants soon learned
to know her through her charitable deeds. She was the village doctor,
often going for miles to attend the poor in distress. With her own
hands she prepared dainty dishes with which to tempt her husband's
appetite. Thus, her best years were spent upon things for which much
less ability would have sufficed. She watched with breathless
interest the installation of Necker and the dismissal of Turgot, the
convocation of the notables, the struggles for financial recovery,
and, finally, the calling of a States-General, which had not been
in session since 1614. During the first stormy years, 1789-1790, she
wrote burning missives to her friend Bosc, at Paris, which appeared
anonymously in the _Patriote Francais_, edited by Brissot, the future
Girondist leader. Soon came the commission of Roland as the first
citizen of the city of Lyons, which had a debt of forty million
francs, to acquaint the National Assembly with its affairs.
When, in 1791, Mme. Roland arrived at Paris--for she accompanied her
husband--she had already become an ardent Republican. She immediately
threw herself into the whirlwind of popular enthusiasm. Her house
became the centre of an advanced political group, which met there four
times a week to discuss state questions. There Danton, Robespierre,
Petion, Condorcet, Buzot, and others were seen. She ably aided her
husband in all his work as commissioner to the National Assembly. She
was indefatigable in penning stirring letters and petitions to the
Jacobin societies in the different departments. A staunch friend
of Robespierre, she did much to protect him in his first efforts
in public. On returning home, after her husband had completed his
mission, she was no longer the same quiet, contented, submissive
woman; she longed for activity in the midst of excitement.
With the meeting of the Legislative Assembly, in 1791, the group of
men sent up from the Gironde immediately became the leaders, and when
Mme. Roland returned to Paris she became the centre of this circle,
exhorting and stimulating, advising and ordering. Through her friend
Brissot, who was all-powerful in the Assembly, about February,
1792, as leader of the Girondists, who were looking for men not yet
practically involved in politics, but qualified by experience for
political life, her husband was made minister of the interior, and in
March, 1792, he and his wife entered upon their duties. She was a
keen reader of human nature, at first glance giving her husband a
penetrating and generally truthful judgment of men. Being able to
comprehend the temperaments of the ministers, she managed them with
inimitable tact. Although all the Girondist ministers were supposed
friends, she readily saw how difficult it would be for a small
group of men with the same principles to act in concert. Seeing the
political machine in motion at close range, she lost some of her
enthusiasm for revolutionary leaders; above all, she recognized the
need of a great leader. As wife of the minister, installed in the
ministerial residence with no other woman present, she gave two
dinners weekly to her husband's colleagues, to the members of the
Assembly, and to political friends.
Her husband, the French Quaker of the Revolution, in all his
simplicity of dress and honesty, was being constantly duped by the
apparent good nature and sincerity of the king, against whom his wife
was constantly warning him. It was she who, convinced of the king's
duplicity and the need of a safeguard for the country, originated the
plan of a federate camp of twenty thousand men to protect Paris when
war had been declared against Austria. It was she who wrote a letter
to the king in the name of the council, but sent in Roland's own name,
imploring him not to arouse the mistrust of the nation by constantly
betraying his suspicion of it, but to show his love by adopting
measures for the welfare and safety of the country. The effect of this
letter, which became historical, was the fall of the ministers. After
their recall, her husband became more and more powerful. The political
circulars which were published by his paper, _The Sentinel_, were
composed by her. Then came the horrible massacres and executions by
the hundreds, which inspired Mme. Roland with hatred for Danton, a
feeling she communicated to the whole Girondist party. She desired
above everything to see punished the perpetrators of the September
massacres. In this plan the Girondists failed. Robespierre, Danton,
and Marat were victorious, and Mme. Roland and her party fell.
When all parties and the whole populace vied with each other in
welcoming back the victorious General Dumouriez, there seemed to be
a possibility of a reconciliation between Danton and Mme. Roland, for
when the general went to dine with her he presented her with a bouquet
of magnificent oleanders. This dinner, on October 14th, auguring good
fortune to all, was the last success of Mme. Roland. She had been
pushed to the very front of the Revolution. She cooeperated in
composing and promulgating the numerous writings of her husband
by which public opinion was to be instructed. But she retained her
implacable hatred for Danton, who, when her husband, ready to resign,
was pressed to remain in office, cried out in the convention: "Why not
invite Mme. Roland to the ministry, too! everyone knows that Roland
is not alone in the office!" At this period her husband made the
fatal mistake of appropriating a chest of important state papers and
examining them himself instead of calling together a commission. As
is known, the papers turned out to be fatal to Louis XVI. Libels and
denunciations were pronounced against Roland, but his wife, called
before the convention, not only succeeded in turning aside all
accusations, but was voted the honors of the sitting.
At the time of the trial of the king, the power and influence of
the Girondists were waning; then the Rolands became the butt of many
violent and unreasonable outbursts. With the resignation of Roland on
January 22, 1792, the day of the execution of the king, the fate of
the Girondists was sealed. This time the minister was not asked to
reconsider; in fact, his exposure of the pilfering then going on among
the officials made him one of the most unpopular men in Paris. Upon
their return to private life, Mme. Roland was accused of forming the
plot to destroy the republic. When an armed force arrived one morning
at half-past five o'clock to arrest her husband, she resisted them,
herself going to the convention to expose the iniquity of such a
proceeding. Failing in this, she returned to her husband, to find him
safe with a friend. Being again arrested, she met the ordeal with her
accustomed courage; and when the officers offered to pull down the
blinds of the carriage, to shield her from the gaze of the unfriendly
public, she said: "No, gentlemen! innocence, however oppressed, should
not assume the attitude of guilt. I fear the eyes of no one, and do
not wish to escape even those of my enemies." "You have much more
character than many men," they replied; "you can calmly await
justice," "Justice!" she cried; "if it existed, I should not be
in your power! I would go to the scaffold as calmly as if sent by
iniquitous men. I fear only guilt, and despise injustice and death!"
She has been deeply criticised for her letters written to her friend
Buzot while she was in prison; yet it should be remembered that there
was not the slightest chance of their meeting again, and, besides,
the letters reveal the terrible struggle through which she had passed.
While in prison, her beauty, grace, and fearlessness won and humanized
nearly all who came under her spell. She was once unexpectedly
set at liberty, but only to be sentenced to the lowest of
prisons--Sainte-Pelagie. There, in the space of about one month,
her memoirs, now among the French classics, were written. At the
Conciergerie, where the lowest criminals and the filthiest paupers
were crowded into cells with the highest of the nobility, and where
the cowardly Mme. du Barry spent her last hours, Mme. Roland, by her
quiet dignity and patient serenity, commanded silence and respect, and
calmness and peace replaced angry and pitiful wrangling. The prisoners
clung to her, crying and kissing her hand, while she spoke words of
advice and consolation to the doomed women, who "looked upon her as a
beneficent divinity." Her conduct under these circumstances alone is
sufficient to keep alive her memory. In the last days, she clung to
and upheld most passionately her principles of liberty and moderation,
and in her conversation with Beugnot it was evident that she had been
the real inspiration in the Girondist party for all that was best and
most uplifting.
The charge against her when before the bar of judgment of
Fouquier-Tinville, the terrible prosecutor, consisted in her relation
to the Girondists who had been condemned to death as traitors to the
republic. She met her death heroically, as became a woman who had
lived bravely. At the very last moment of her life, she offered
consolation to fellow victims. Her death was that of the greatest
heroine of the Revolution, the climax of a life the one ambition of
which had been to save her country and to shed her blood for it. As
she rode through the city in her pure white raiment, serenely radiant
in her own innocence, she was the embodiment of all that was highest
and purest in the Revolution--one of the best and greatest women known
to French history. She stands out as a representative of the French
Republic.
There are a number of traits of Mme. Roland which should be considered
before giving a final estimate of her character, of her role in French
history, and of her right to be ranked among the most illustrious
women of France. Critics in general seem to show her a marked
hostility; such men as Caro assert that she had no modesty, that she
lacked sentiment, delicacy, and reserve. M. Saint-Amand said that she
reflected the vices and virtues of her age, summing up the passions
and illusions, being intellectually and morally the disciple of
Rousseau, but socially personifying the third estate, which in the
beginning asked for nothing, but later demanded all. Politics made
her cruel at times, although by nature she was good and sensible. He
declared that with her acquaintance with Buzot began her career of
love and ambition. In love, she believed herself a patriot, but all
the various phases of her public career were simply the results of her
emotions. Thus, for example, in order to see Buzot, she persuaded
her husband to return to Paris to seek his fortune and make the
realization of her dreams possible. She desired to play a role for
which her origin had not destined her, which made her actions appear
theatrical and affected. It is evident that she hated both the king
and the queen, and at the council for the Girondist ministry demanded
the death of the royal couple. And yet, Saint-Amand cites her as the
most beautiful of that group of martyrs who lost their lives in the
first heat of the Revolution--as the genius among them by her
force, purity, and grace--the brilliant and austere muse in all the
saintliness of martyrdom.
The two maxims which Mme. Roland followed throughout her career had
much to do with her fall: security is the tomb of liberty; indulgence
toward men in authority is the means of pushing them to despotism.
These maxims as her motto or impulse, united with the spirit of push,
energy, and at times rashness and impropriety, naturally led her to
her ruin in those days of revolutionary ideas. She was a woman of
powerful passion controlled by reason, and with frankness, devotion,
courage, and fidelity as forces impelling her to activity. But there
was one great defect which was at the bottom of her misfortunes,--a
too great ambition, which often led her into perilous paths, even to
the scaffold, which, in its turn, covered her errors.
She is said to have married M. Roland more as a theory than as
a husband, for her ideas of marriage were such as to make pure,
disinterested love impossible. Her husband was in many respects her
intellectual superior, but she excelled him in versatility. Being her
senior by twenty years, when he grew old and infirm he depended upon
her for a great deal, all of which contributed to her restlessness
and unhappiness. Then there developed in her that terrible struggle
between loyalty to her husband and passion for Buzot, in which reason
conquered. This devotion to duty was indeed rare in those days, when
passion was supreme and pure love was almost unknown. Mr. Dobson says
that this one trait by which she gave real expression of virtue is
profoundly a product of her mental self. Her instinct would have led
her to self-abandonment, so common in that day, but her "man by the
head" self was stronger than her "woman by the heart" self. These two
sides of her character, fostered by incessant reading, incited her
fearful and unrelenting hatreds as well as her passion, "masculine
enough to be mistrusted and feminine enough to be admired." These two
qualities made her a power and an attraction. Her better side will
continue to shine clearer as the horror of those days is revealed.
Whatever may be the effects of her ambitious nature and of her
unfortunate passion for Buzot, by the very virtue of her intellect and
reasoning she will remain the one great woman of the Revolution who
willingly and conscientiously sacrificed her life for her country.
A type perhaps more universally known in her relation to the
Revolution than is Mme. Roland, though no better understood, was
Charlotte Corday. Possessed of a most intense patriotism and an
unusual emotional nature, she represented better than any other woman
of her age the peculiar French trait--namely, the emotional perfectly
combined with the mathematical. She was unique; her compatriots
practised the art of studying themselves, in order to be attractive,
and thus accomplished their ends, while her ambition was not to
please merely, but to be of some real, practical value to her troubled
country. She stands out, however, as the product of the end of the
eighteenth century, a natural result of the reading of philosophy
and political pamphlets. Quite naturally, she entertained such
philosophical sentiments as this: "No one will lose in losing me,
and the country may be better off for the sacrifice. Death comes only
once, and let us use it to the good of the country or the greatest
number of people." Thus, her philosophy led her to a complete
detachment from her individual self, and fostered the idea of dying
for her country.
Her decision to rid France of Marat was arrived at by degrees of
silent brooding over the evils which beset her native land; at last
she felt herself called to some great act which would necessitate the
loss of her life. "The time brought forth desperation, intense warmth
of feeling, concentrated upon some purpose or object;" the reasoning
self seemed to be stifled by the intensity of the emotion. Yet,
reason was to conquer in her. When the Girondists returned to Caen
and described Robespierre and Marat in the darkest colors, she at once
felt moved to put forth all her efforts to rid France of that evil
blot--Marat. She was beautiful, strong, and graceful, presenting a
most striking appearance. Loved by all, she felt love and devotion
only for her country. Desperate and determined, she set out to fulfil
her mission. She was a mere expression of the conservative element
which acts only when driven by sheer necessity. Her reason impressed
her with her duty and circumstances; the time acted upon her mind.
"Easy, calm, resigned, she looked upon the angry masses of people who
cursed her," confident that she had done her country a service, and
proud that she had been the fortunate one to render it. This was her
glory, and for this she will be remembered in history.
Possibly the rarest phenomenon in the history of the illustrious women
of France is Mme. Recamier, who, by force of her beauty and social
fascination, and without intellectual gifts or even wit, won for
herself the position of queen of French society, which she held for
nearly half a century. The very name of Recamier has come to evoke a
vision of beauty, a beauty so well known to every lover of art who
has visited the Luxembourg and gazed upon the figure "so flexible
and elegant, with head well poised, brilliant complexion, little rosy
mouth with pearly teeth, black curling hair, soft expressive eyes, and
a bearing indicative of indolence and pride, yet with a face beaming
with good nature and sympathy." Her beauty has been considered
perfect, but a recent writer has proved this to be an error.
M.J. Turquan, in a new volume on Mme. Recamier, is everything but
sympathetic to the woman at whom criticism has rarely been pointed.
"Quite a contrast to her extraordinary beauty of face," he declares,
"were her hands, with big fingers square at the end and having flat
nails. The same may be said of her feet, which were not only big, but
were without the slightest trace of _finesse_ in their lines." But
though Turquan has raised numerous points in her disfavor, they
are not at all likely to detract from her unrivalled reputation for
beauty.
Critics have made of her a sort of enigmatic figure, supernatural
and having only the form of the human. Thus, in Lamartine we find the
following description: "The young girl was, they say, a _sous-entendu_
of nature: she could be a wife, she could not be a mother. These are
the two mysteries we must respect, but which we must know to have been
the secret of the entire life of Mme. Recamier--a mournful and eternal
enigma which will never have its words divined,... All her looks
produced an intoxication, but brought hope to no heart. The divine
statue had not descended from its pedestal for anyone, as though such
a performance would have been too divine for a mortal." Her beauty was
so marked, so singular, that wherever she appeared--at the ball, the
theatre--it caused a sensation; all turned to look at her and admire
in subdued astonishment. Her form was said to be marvellously
elegant and supple, her neck of an exquisite perfection, her mouth
"deliciously small and pink, her teeth veritable pearls set in
coral, her arms splendidly moulded, her eyes full of sweetness
and admiration, her nose most attractive in its regularity, her
physiognomy candid and spiritual, her air indolent and haughty, and
her attitude reserved. Before this ensemble, you remained in ecstasy."
All this beauty was particularly well set off by an exquisite white
dress adorned with pearls--a style she affected the year around.
But her beauty alone could hardly have contributed to the marvellous
success of Mme. Recamier, as some critics assert. Guizot, for
instance, suspects her nature to have been less superficial than
other writers might lead one to suppose. He said: "This passionate
admiration, this constant affection, this insatiable taste for society
and conversation, won her a wide friendship. All who approached and
knew her--foreigners and Frenchmen, princes and the middle classes,
saints and worldlings, philosophers and artists, adversaries as
well as partisans--all she inspired with the ideas and causes she
espoused." Her qualities outside of her beauty were tact, generosity,
and elevation of soul, combined with an amiable grace which was
unlimited, however superficial it may have been. Knowing how to
maintain, in her salon, harmony and even cordial relations between men
of the most varied temperaments and political ideas, it was possible
for her to remain all her life an intelligent and warm-hearted bond
between the elite minds and their diverse sentiments, which she
tactfully tempered. Though ever faithful to one cause, she admitted
men and women of all parties to her salon. She was moderate and
just in the midst of the most arduous struggles, tolerant toward her
adversaries, generous toward the conquered, sympathetic to all, and
remarkably successful in conciliating all political, literary, and
philosophical opinions as well as the passions which she aroused in
her worshippers. To these qualities, as much as to her beauty, were
due the harmony of her life, the unity of her character--which were
never troubled by the turmoils of politics or the emotions of love.
She was not wife, mother, or lover; "she never belonged to anyone in
soul or sense." Always mistress of her imagination as well as of
her heart, she permitted herself to be charmed but never carried
away--receiving from all, but giving nothing in return. Her life
was brilliant, but there was lurking in the background the demon
of sadness and lassitude and the terrible disease of the eighteenth
century,--ennui.
Two splendid portraits of Mme. Recamier are left to us: one by her
passionate but unsuccessful lover, Benjamin Constant, picturing her
as the personification of attractiveness; the other by M. Lenormant,
showing that she desired constant admiration: "She lacked the
affections which bring veritable happiness and the true dignity of
woman. Her barren heart, desirous of tenderness and devotion, sought
recompense for this need of living, in the homage of passionate
admiration, the language of which pleases the ears." Mme. Recamier,
while still a child, seemed to realize the power of her beauty, and
even before her marriage in 1793 she would often say, when demanded
in marriage: "Mon Dieu! how beautiful I must be already!" A mere girl
when married, being only sixteen years of age, she felt no love for
her husband, who was her senior by twenty-five years. Soon after the
terrible times of "the Reign of Terror" she found herself one of the
most beautiful women in Paris, and her husband one of the wealthiest
of bankers. The three rival women of the times were Mme. Recamier,
Mme. Tallien, and Josephine. The terrible days of the guillotine were
succeeded by an uninterrupted reign of pleasure, "when a fever of
amusement possessed everyone, and the desire for distraction of all
kinds seemed to have been pushed to its limits." M. Turquan states
that in the reign of dissolute extravagance, immorality, and gorgeous
splendor, Mme. Recamier formed a striking contrast by her simplicity.
Her first triumph was at the church Saint-Roche, the most fashionable
of Paris, where she was selected to raise a purse for charity. On one
occasion the collection amounted to twenty thousand francs, all due to
the beauty of the woman passing the plate. She was soon invited by her
friend Barras to all the balls and fetes under the Directorate.
In 1798 M. Recamier bought the house formerly tenanted by Necker, and
later established himself in a chateau at Clichy, where he received
his friends, among whom was Lucien Bonaparte, who attempted the
ruin of the beautiful hostess, but without success. Napoleon himself
attempted in vain to win her to his court as maid of honor and as an
ornament, her refusal incurring his anger, especially as she was the
height of fashion and courted by all the great men of the age. Through
her preference for the Royalists--persisting in her line of conduct
in spite of her friend Fouche--she finally incurred the enmity of
the emperor. Even the Princess Caroline endeavored to obtain Mme.
Recamier's friendship for Napoleon, "but, although the princess gave
her _loge_ twice to the favorite, and upon each occasion the emperor
went to the theatre expressly to gaze upon her, she remained firm in
her refusal, which was one of the causes of the downfall of her
banker husband, whom Napoleon might have saved had his wife been the
emperor's friend." Napoleon certainly resented her refusal, for when
requested to save Recamier's bank he replied: "I am not in love with
Mme. Recamier!" Thus, because his wife preferred the aristocracy to
the favors of Napoleon, the banker lost his fortune.
She, however, bore her misfortunes with great reserve, immediately
selling her jewels and her hotel; after which they both retired to
small apartments, where they were even more honored and had greater
social prestige than ever. She at once made her salon the centre of
hostility against the emperor, who, according to Turquan, did not
banish her, but her friend Mme. de Stael, with whom she passed
over into Switzerland. Here began her romance with Prince August
of Prussia, who became so enamored of her that he asked her hand in
marriage. Encouraged by Mme. de Stael, she even went so far as to ask
her husband for a divorce, that she might wed the royal aspirant. Her
husband generously consented to this, but at the same time set forth
to her the peculiar position which she would occupy, an argument that
opened her eyes to her ingratitude, and she refused the prince.
Upon the fall of Napoleon, Mme. Recamier returned to Paris and, her
husband's fortune being restored, gathered about her all the great
nobles of the ancient regime. But fortune was unkind to her husband
for the second time, and she withdrew to the Abbaye-au-Bois, where she
occupied a small apartment on the third floor. Here her distinguished
friends followed her--such as Chateaubriand and the Duc de
Montmorency. Between her and the famous author of _Le Genie du
Christianisme_ there sprang up a friendship which lasted thirty years.
During this time it is said that he visited her at a certain hour
each day, the people in the neighborhood setting their clocks by his
appearance. When he was absent on missions, he wrote her of every
act of his life. Both, weary of the dissipations of society and
its flatteries, sought a pure and lofty friendship, spiritual and
affectionate, with no improper intimacy. There was mutual admiration
and mutual respect. Even Chateaubriand's wife, who was an invalid and
with whom he spent every evening, encouraged his friendship with Mme.
Recamier. When, through the fall of Charles X., Chateaubriand lost his
power, the friendship did not cease. M. Turquan insists that he did
not really care seriously for Mme. Recamier, that his visits were the
outgrowth of mere habit. But it is to be seen that throughout his book
Turquan has little sympathy for his subject, whom he pictures as
a beautiful, heartless, intriguing woman with immense hands, flat,
square fingers, and large feet.
The influence possessed by Mme. Recamier was most remarkable; for
with the new statesmen, Thiers, Guizot, Mignet, De Tocqueville,
Sainte-Beuve, as well as the nobles and princes, she was on most
cordial terms, and was received in any salon which she chose to visit.
Her unbounded sympathy, tact, and common sense made her friendship
and counsel much in demand by great men. One trait, however, her
exclusiveness, caused much discomfort in her life, such as bringing
upon her the ill will of Napoleon.
In her later years her physical beauty gradually developed into a
moral beauty. She was never a passionate woman, but rather passively
affectionate; purely unselfish, her one desire always was to make
people love her and to be happy. Her friendship with Chateaubriand in
the later days was possibly the most ideal and noble in the history of
French women. He never failed to make his appearance in the afternoon
at the _abbaye_, driven in a carriage to her threshold, where he was
placed in an armchair and wheeled to a corner by her fireplace. On one
of those visits, he asked her to marry him--he being seventy-nine, she
seventy-one--and bear his illustrious name. "Why should we marry at
our age?" Mme. Recamier replied. "There is no impropriety in my taking
care of you. If solitude is painful to you, I am ready to live in the
same house with you. The world will do justice to the purity of our
friendship. Years and blindness give me this right. Let us change
nothing in so perfect an affection." Her charm never deserted her, and
she continued to the very last to receive the greatest men and women
of the day. Still the reigning beauty and the queen of French society,
she died at the age of seventy-two, of cholera.
There is a wide difference between Mme. Recamier and Josephine, the
two women of the Napoleonic era who exerted so powerful an influence
upon the social and political fortunes of France. At the time of
Napoleon's first success, the former was only twenty-one, with
Madonna-like charms and attractiveness; the latter, thirty-five, but
with exquisite taste in dress and skill in beautifying. Possessed of
unstudied natural grace and elegance, and always attired in perfect
harmony with her beauty of face and form, she could easily stand a
comparison with the other beauties of the day, all of whom studied her
air and manner and marked the aristocratic ease and poise of her real
_noblesse_ of the old regime.
[Illustration 6:
_MME. RECAMIER'S SALON
After the painting by Adrien Moreau._
_Thus, in Lamartine we find: "The young girl was, they say, a_
sous-entendu _of nature: she could be a wife, she could not be a mother."
These are the two mysteries we must respect, but which we must know to
have been the secret of the entire life of Mme. Recamier. Knowing how to
maintain, in her salon, harmony between men of the most varied
temperaments and political ideas, it was possible for her to remain all
her life an intelligent and warm-hearted bond. She admitted men and
women of both parties to her salon.... was moderate and just in the
midst of the most arduous struggles, tolerant toward her adversaries,
generous toward the conquered, sympathetic to all, and remarkably
successful in conciliating all political, literary, and philosophical
opinions as well as the passions which she aroused in her worshippers._]
"Josephine had a faded and brown complexion, which she remedied with
rouge and powder; her small mouth concealed her bad teeth; her elegant
figure and graceful movements, refined expression, gentle voice and
dignity, all dexterously expressed with an air of coquetry, made her
delightful." The happiest part of the life of Napoleon and Josephine
was during their stay in Italy, when he was absolutely faithful
to her. As soon as Napoleon left for Egypt, Talleyrand secured the
erasure of many noble names from the list of the proscribed exiles and
soon gathered about him a large number of Royalists, who immediately
began to pay court to Josephine. Napoleon had enjoined her to keep
her salon according to the means he provided and to entertain all
influential people. To this she was equal; and all men of elevated
rank, the most distinguished artists, men of letters, orators, and
musicians, found her salon an enjoyable retreat. No greater galaxy of
talent and genius ever assembled under the old regime than was found
there,--David, Lebrun, Lesueur, Gretry, Cherubini, Mehul, J. Chenier,
Hoffman, Ducis, Desaugiers, Legouve, and others.
But her life was not without its difficulties. She was always annoyed
by the Bonaparte family, who were jealous of her influence over
Bonaparte. Exceedingly extravagant, in fact a spendthrift, she was
always in need of money. Her virtues, however, easily offset these
defects. Josephine never offended anyone, never argued politics;
she made friends in all classes, thus conciliating Republicans and
aristocrats; therefore, her greatest influence was as a mediator
between two classes of society, by which she, more than any other
woman, unconsciously contributed to the forming of a new social
France. Napoleon was wise enough to recognize such diplomacy, and
encouraged her to intrigue like an experienced diplomat. She was the
most efficient aid and means to his future plans, and M. Saint-Amand
says that without her he would possibly never have become emperor.
When he returned from Egypt and found her away,--she had gone to meet
him, but missed him,--his suspicions were aroused as to her fidelity,
as she had been accused of many misdeeds. When the reconciliation
finally took place, after a day of sobbing and pleading, she put
to work all her tact and knowledge of Parisian society to help her
husband to the _coup d'etat_.
She was always of great service to Napoleon in his relations with the
men of whom he wished to make use; fascinating them and drawing them
over to him, she charmed such persons as Barras, Gohier, Fouche,
Moreau, Talleyrand, Sieyes, and others. By her skill she kept hidden
Napoleon's plans until all was ripe for them. She was in the secret
of the 18th Brumaire; "nothing was concealed from her. In every
conference at which she was present, her discretion, gentleness,
grace, and the ready ingenuity of her delicate and cool intelligence
were of great service." During the Directorate she allayed jealousies
and appeased the differences between Republicans and Royalists. As
wife of the First Consul, she conciliated the _emigres_. At that time
she was probably the most important figure in France. The _emigres_
would call at her salon in the morning so as to avoid meeting her
husband, with whom they refused to associate. Her task was not easy,
but she knew so well how to say a kind word to all, and her tact was
so great that when she became empress the duties and requirements
of that office were natural to her. She won the Republicans by her
friendship with Fouche, the representative of the revolutionary
element--the aristocracy, by her dignity and refinement. Her whole
appearance had a peculiar charm.
In 1803 the conditions began to be reversed. In 1796 Josephine had
worried Napoleon on account of her inconstancy; she was then young
and beautiful, while he was penniless and ailing. In 1803 he was
thirty-four and she forty--he in his prime, wealthy and popular,
she faded and powerless, no longer able to give cause for suspicion.
However, nothing could make Napoleon reject her, because she was
useful to him. "Her kindness was a weapon against her enemies, a charm
for her friends, and the source of her power over her husband." "I
gained battles, Josephine gained me hearts," are the well-known words
of Napoleon. As empress she had every wish gratified, but she
realized that a woman of her age could not continue indefinitely her
fascination over a man as capricious as Napoleon. In the brilliant
court of Fontainebleau she held the highest place, and no one could
suspect the anxieties that tormented her, so cool and happy did she
appear.
Josephine did many things that later on gradually helped reconcile
Napoleon to a divorce: her pride, her aristocratic tendencies,
extravagance and lavishness; her objection to the marriage of Hortense
to General Duroc on the grounds of humble birth; her religious
tendencies; her difficulty in keeping secrets, which led to highly
tragic scenes between her and Bonaparte; the encouragement she gave
to the jealousies and hatred of her brothers and sisters-in-law,
who maliciously slandered her at every opportunity; and finally, her
barrenness.
Her career after her divorce was honorable, and to-day Josephine is
still held in the highest esteem in France and in the world at large.
Her greatness is not in having been the wife of a great emperor, but
in knowing how to adapt herself to the conditions in France into which
she was suddenly thrust. As a conciliator and a mediator between two
almost hopelessly irreconcilable classes of society, she deserves a
prominent place among great French women.