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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, Madam 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* of Madame Récamier is pleasant from its personal recollections, but far inferior to one by Sainte-Beuve,† 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 afterwards 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 life of gaiety 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

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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 honour to any woman. This view of their intimacy is confirmed by Madame Möhl. In speaking of a

rumour 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 favours 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 shawldance suggested to Madame de Staël the dancescene 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 toilet, 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 favourite studies or favourite 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 favour of the marriage; nor was Mademoiselle Bernard as unsophisticated as French girls usually are at that age. 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, bu

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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 rumour." 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 storyteller." 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 gaily 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 countryseat 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 re

sided with her mother. Her husband only dined there, driving into 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 gaiety 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 SaintJean 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 drawingroom 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. Chateaubriand 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."

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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 Krudener, celebrated for her mysticism and the power she exerted over the Emperor Alexander, then held nightly réunions,

beginning with prayer and ending in a more worldly fashion. Madame Récamier's entrance always caused distraction, and Madame de Krudener commissioned Benjamin Constant to write and beseech her to be less charming. As this piquant note will lose its flavour by translation, we give it in the original :

"Je m'acquitte avec un peu d'embarras d'une commission que Mme. de Krüner 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 candour, 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 St. 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 rumoured that Lucien was a favoured 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.

It was at a fête given by Lucien that Madame Récamier had her first and only interview with the First Consul. On entering the drawingroom 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, should 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 honours 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, Napo,

leon 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 drawingroom. He afterwards 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.

Madane 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 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 suggestion, 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 personassuredly 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 favour. 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 to expect any further favours. 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 honourable 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 morningrobe 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 analyse 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 wornan 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 'tis 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 grow moist,"

in the excitement and ardour 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.

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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. his youth he had been gay and dissipated, but the death of a favourite 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 characteristic of her other masculine correspondents; he always addressed her as "amiable amie," 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."

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