parte. The true ground of offence was, that a so- | one of Mme. de Genlis' novels, called Le Château ciety which did not derive all its éclat from him, de Coppet. which kept aloof from his sphere, gave him umAlthough the blockade became stricter, and the brage; and he showed his ill-humor, and even surveillance more vigilant and unrelenting every his serious displeasure, on every occasion. To day, Mme. Récamier determined once more to frequent Mme. Récamier's house was far from being the way to obtain his favor; indeed, some courage was needed to carry individuals through such an ordeal, as the following anecdote will show: Three of his ministers met by chance in this society-the object of so anxious a surveillance. At the council subsequent to this accidental meeting, Napoleon said, in a tone of angry reproach, "Since when has the council of ministers been held at Mme. Récamier's house?" A financial crisis, caused by the unexpected renewal of hostilities, gave a fatal shock to public credit. The house of M. Récamier had no assistance to hope from the government, and, like many others, sank under it. Mme. Récamier bore her unlooked-for adversity in such a manner as to inspire universal respect and interest. Though in all the splendor of her youth, she gave up going into society; yet not only did she retain all her friends, she continued to be the centre of that very society which she had renounced. We must extract a note referring to this event from Corinna. It is not uninteresting to remark how the descriptien of Corinna's dancing suggests thoughts of so different a kind : It was (says Mme. de Staël) Mme. Récamier's dancing which gave me the idea of that which I have endeavored to depict. That charming woman, so celebrated for her grace and beauty, offers an example of so touching a resignation, so complete a forgetfulness of her personal interests, that her moral qualities seem to all who know her, no less eminent than her attractions. brave it. She did so, and this time was the last. She knew, indeed, to what she exposed herself, for the emperor and his servants made no secret of their intentions; a strong tyranny can afford at least to be open and sincere. Fouché went himself to tell Mme. Récamier that if she persisted in rejoining Mme. de Staël, she would be allowed neither to return to Paris nor to remain at Coppet. She replied, "What can it signify to the emperor, the master of the world, whether I am at Paris or at Coppet? Heroes have been known to yield to the weakness of love for women, but he would be the first who betrayed that of fearing them." Mme. Récamier set out in spite of all these warnings. She had hardly reached the spot marked by the imperial ban when she received her letter of exile. "Thus, then," said Mme. de Staël, "the coalition of two women on the banks of the lake of Geneva frightened the master of the world." M. Matthieu de Montmorency had just shared the same fate. The Dix Années d'Exil contains an account of that cruel separation which was followed by so many fatal results. I was in this state (says Mme. de Staël) when I received a letter from Mme. Récamier, that lovely woman who has been the object of the homage of all Europe, and who never abandoned a friend in misfortune. I shudder when I think that the fate of M. de Montmorency may extend to her. I sent a courier to meet her, and to entreat her not to come on to Coppet. She would not listen to my prayers; and it was with an agony of tears that I saw her enter a house where her arrival had always been a festival. She left the next day, but it was in vain. Sentence of banishment was passed upon her. The Shortly after, Mme. Récamier had the misfor-reverses of fortune she had suffered rendered the tune to lose her mother, (herself a very remarkable person,) whose prudence and forethought had secured to her beloved daughter a modest competency. Mme. de Staël was in exile. She had taken refuge in the retreat at Coppet which Napoleon watched with a jealous eye, and held in a sort of blockade by the terror of his name. Thither Mme. Récamier went to visit her, and for a considerable period divided her time between Paris and Coppet. It was during one of these visits that the intimacy between her and Prince Augustus of Prussia, brother of the late king, was formed. The prince, who was passionately enamored of Mme. Récamier, used every persuasion to induce her to obtain a divorce from M. Récamier and to marry him; but in vain.* This remarkable incident in the life of Mme. Récamier, which is related at some length in the Mémorial de St. Hélène, furnished the subject for * It must be confessed that the project was extremely Prussian. But the laxity of the marriage-tie in Protestant Germany was not likely to find acceptance with a devout Catholic like Mme. Récamier. breaking up of her natural establishment very painfully inconvenient to her. Separated from all her friends, she passed whole months in all the dulness Such is and monotony of a small provincial town. Mme. de Staël soon began to find a residence in a place so completely proscribed, intolerable, and determined to quit it at any risk. If the independence of Mme. Récamier's salon was in the eyes of the emperor equivalent to opposition, Coppet he regarded as a storehouse of ideas the most diametrically hostile to his dictatorship. After remaining at Chalons or at Lyons two years, Mme. Récamier, determined not to take the least step to obtain the termination of her exile, formed the project of going into Italy, the climate of which would, she hoped, be favorable to her health, impaired by agitation and suffering. Her exile had. however, been more tolerable at Lyons than anywhere else. There she found Camille Jordan, who had retired from public life that he might preserve the purity of his sentiments ests of their people. It was from that once pow-panied her through every scene of her life is, how and opinions. It was also in that city that she became acquainted with M. Ballanche, who was then employed in writing his poem of Antigone, and who drew from her some of the features with which he invested his heroine. Mme. Récamier determined to set out for Italy in the month of March, 1813. She was accompanied to the frontier by M. de Montmorency. When the time came to take leave of him, she felt more acutely the grief of quitting France, for she regarded this virtuous man as the representative of all the noble friendships which had formed the charm of her life. She arrived at Rome, alone and without letters of recommendation; but she soon became there, as everywhere else, the object of universal admiration and attention. The vener able M. d'Agincourt, now approaching the close of his long and laborious career, was then putting the last touch to his great work on the history of art. One of the latest objects on which his eyes rested was on that lovely face, whose gentle, elevated, and pious expression, Canova tried to per petuate in marble. That graceful sculptor did not attempt to copy Mme. Récamier's features, so much as to embody the lineaments of her soul. Such is his bust of Beatrice. After satisfying her passionate and refined love of art at Rome, Mme. Récamier determined to visit Naples. She arrived there at the moment of Murat's defection from France, and was an involuntary witness of the painful efforts it cost him and the queen to persevere in a course demanded of them by the inter quainted with a life which honors and adorns the history of our times. It were much to be desired that she would put on record the thoughts of Mme. Récamier, as she was in the habit of expressing them. Her correspondence would be an invaluable treasure. It would contain intimate and confidential letters from many of the most celebrated persons who occupied the world's stage during that eventful period. Such are the outlines of Mme. Récamier's history. It only remains for one who saw her only at its close to say a few words as to the impression she produced when the season of her intoxicating triumphs was over. In the hearts of those who had the honor and the happiness of living in constant intercourse with her, (says M. Lemoine, in a notice which recently appeared in the Journal des Débats,) Madame Récamier will forever remain the object of a sort of adoration which we should find it impossible to express; and on the recollection of those who have ever seen her, she has left an impression which the dust of the every-day history of our times will not cover or efface. The writer of the following slight tribute to her memory, standing midway between these two classes, can, perhaps, speak in some degree both to the impression she made on a stranger, and to the endearing charm she exercised over her friends. Yet the task of saying anything about Mme. Récamier that will not wound my own sense of the refined beauty and nameless grace that accom erful sister of Bonaparte that Mme. Récamier learned, amid tears and lamentations, the end of the greatest political drama the world ever beheld. She returned to Rome, where she witnessed the entry of the Pope, that he might resume possession of his States. She saw the passionate enthusiasm of the people, contrasted with the calm and solemn rapture of the august old man who was the object of it. Mme. Récamier's sentence of banishment was never formally revoked; it was terminated by the general movement of the world. She reëntered ever, so difficult, that I should have resisted my desire to join my humble voice to the chorus of lamentation over her grave, had it not appeared to me that out of that grave her sovereign beauty might yet read a great lesson to those similarly, if not equally, gifted with herself. My first impression and my latest conviction with regard to Mme. Récamier were the same; they furnished me with one invariable answer to all the questions I have been asked about her. It was the atmosphere of benignity which seemed to exhale like a delicate perfume from her whole person, that prolonged the fascination of her beauty. France at the same time with the Bourbons; and It was her heart, rather than her head, that inbers, to enable everybody to present himself in the most favorable light; -it was the suavity, the refined humanity of her nature, that gave grace to all her acts and gestures; that rendered her beauty irresistible in youth, and the charm of her manner scarcely less powerful in age. passing through Lyons to Paris, was present at the first fêtes given in their honor. Her illustrious friend returned at the same time from the other extremity of Europe; but they met again only to part forever. Soon after Mme. de Staël's death, Mme. Récamier took up her residence at the Abbaye aux Bois. This step, which seemed to sever her from the world, only proved more clearly the irresistible attraction of her society and conversation. The powerful friendships which she had made and retained, enabled her to be useful to many victims of faction and party, and even to save some from destruction. But the biography of a contemporary can never be more than a bare outline. We must trust to Mme. Récamier's friend to make posterity ac spired her with the faculty of animating, guiding, harmonizing the society over which she presided. with a quiet yet resistless power, the secret of which was with herself. Mme. Récamier was by no means a talker, nor was I ever struck by her talents or acquirements. She seldom said much; and it was only on an attentive study that one perceived how much of the charm and the value of the conversation was due to her gentle influence, never asserted yet always felt. It would be a mistake, nay, a disparagement, to imagine that she attracted round her such a circle of distinguished men by the brilliancy of her conversation. It was the ineffable charm of the sweetest and kindliest of tempers; the strongest desire to give pleasure, to avert pain, to avoid offence, to render her society agreeable and soothing to all its mem It is not, therefore, the sermon so often preached over the grave of beauty that it is transient and perishable that we would fain pour into fair and youthful ears. Those who cannot see that most obvious and salient of truths, and upon whom the sight does not force some serious reflections, are far beyond the reach of words. Neither are we sion she made on me was stronger and more beautiful in her age and darkness, than it would have been had I seen her in the pride of her beauty and the triumphs of her charms. It is certain that those who had known her in the plenitude of her power never forsook her, and that the attachments she inspired ended only with life. It must be remembered, however, that Mme. Récamier was a French woman, and that Paris, and not London, was the scene of her dominion. I question if a woman with all her gifts and graces (and as many more as imagination can add to them) could ever obtain an equal influence in this at all inclined to assert the well-worn falsehood, country. I have no intention either of depreso often told by the very men whose whole life ciating or of exalting France in a comparison with belies it, that beauty is of no value. Beauty, like England. I am an Englishwoman, and I not only any other power, is one of the great gifts of God, who has so constituted man that he is, and ever must be, its subject, often its slave. It is the highest and the most intoxicating of all powers, for it is at its zenith when the reason is yet unripe; it is attained without toil or sacrifice, and held without responsibility. It is, then, not by decrying or depreciating so mighty a gift that any good can be done. The consciousness of her triumphs (unknown, perhaps, to any but herself) will speak louder to the possessor of beauty, than any attempts of ours to depreciate their value. love my own country, but I prefer it; and I esteem the subordinate position which women occupy in society here as one source of its strength, its constancy, and its thoroughly virile character. It is also, doubtless, the source of some of its most striking and obvious defects; but in the actual state of the world, and weighing the evils arising from either side, I should rather accept those resulting from the complete predominance of the manly character. We must make our election. Social life can attain to its highest culture and perfection only at the expense of domestic life; and vice versû. They are two conditions of existence which, to a considerable extent, exclude each other; and they involve or suppose relations But what may perhaps be done, at least where beauty is combined with tolerable understanding, is, to show its high vocation, and its sweet influences on social life; to point to the withered, of the sexes totally different and incompatible. heartless, and spiteful coquette, whose beauty sur- The English idea of those relations is very nearly vives only in her own memory, and to her own tor- the Roman, and will probably be that of every nament, and then to Mme. Récamier, old and blind, surrounded with such respectful admiration, such affectionate and almost enthusiastic devotion, as few indeed of the young and brilliant can command. Such then as hers, we would say, fair creatures, is the sceptre which He who made you fair has placed within your reach. Would you obtain it? He, too, has taught you the means-first, by the law of your woman's nature, which He has written on your hearts; secondly, by that other divine law which He has given you in His word. You are, if you are true-born women, gentle, kind, and loving, anxious to please, and fearful to offend. If you are Christian women, you are meek and lowly of heart, full of pity and charity, of good-will manifested in kindly words and benevolent works. Let these things be added to your beauty, and see, in the example before us, how enduring is its empire ! It is true that Mme. Récamier was gifted with a corporeal grace which is not to be acquired, and which admirably seconded the grace of soul that inspired her lovely person. This was striking to the last. Even when bowed by age, and moving about with the uncertain step and gait of the blind, this did not forsake her. There was a gentleness and suavity in all her movements that excited admiration, even in the midst of the tender pity she excited. It is probable that the impres tion in which the character of citizen is strongly developed, and is the object of great respect and ardent aspiration. The general diffusion of political interests, duties, and occupations among the men of a community, harmonizes perfectly with the complete and exclusive development of domestic life. The man who is, above all, civis, and to whom belong all contests for power and influence, will desire to return home to find his house swept and garnished; the mistress of it, the honored matrona, awaiting his return, contented to share the quiet evening which is the only tolerable close to the o'erlabored day of a servant (often a voluntary servant) of the public. It seems questionable whether the duties and labors of the active citizen of a free nation can be pursued with equal ardor and constancy, where the pleasures, successes, and obligations of society are very engrossing; and, accordingly, up to the present moment we see (spite of repeated and violent convulsions to obtain liberty) no trace in France of any desire for really popular government; that is to say, for a general participation in the labors, duties, and responsibilities of public life. We are far enough from dreaming that the type we have spoken of above is commonly, or even frequently, realized amongst us, in the calm grandeur of its submissive and self-denying wifehood. Still we assert that this is the type present to the imagination and the wishes of the nation; that the prevathat "parties" are society? or that the true social taste and spirit could content itself with a breathless, fatiguing course of crowds for three months? In London almost every party" is resorted to with some arrière pensée. People dance, or eat, or hear music; or they hope to find themselves in lent taste and opinion of the country is, that the house (home) is a place to which the man is to retire, in full security that he is to find there nothing to disturb his tranquillity, interrupt his pursuits, or derange his habits; and that this security is afforded him by the general understanding and tacit contract that his wife shall rule his house to that the same room with the Duchess of - and the end and intent. Marchioness of ; or they go because they A man who adopts this scheme of life will nat-must; or anything, but the pleasure of interurally choose for such constant and exclusive com- changing thoughts, of hearing and talking, of panionship a woman who, he believes, will not be being amused and amusing, of admiring clever disagreeable to him, and who will love him well things and saying them, which is the real attracenough to endure the monotony and obscurity of tion of society to a French man or woman. It is domestic life; and hence marriages of inclination quite evident that society, in and for itself, has no will predominate over those of convenience. attractions for English people in general, from the In these things it is difficult to distinguish cause number of things deemed necessary to bribe them from effect. Has the absence of popular institu- to endure it. In England a vast outlay, a vast tions in France, and the traditional custom of mar- quantity of "foreign aid and ornament," is deemed riages assorted with a view to station and proper- indispensable to those who presume to invite. ty, driven men into society, and occasioned that Houses, servants, viands, all that money can proexquisite and complete development of the social cure, are pressed into the service. In France, talents, tastes, and qualities, which distinguishes though we heard there constant complaints of the the French? Or have those tastes, talents, and qualities, by rendering society the great scene of success and of enjoyment, indisposed men for the drudgery of civic and political, and for the monotony of domestic life? degeneracy of the age in this respect, it is still possible to have the best society without bribing or feeding. Good manners and good conversation are sufficient. Indeed, the best is to be obtained by no other means. We remember asking Has the early development of popular institu- the mistress of a most agreeable salon how she tions, by occupying the time and thoughts, and managed to keep out the bores. She laughed the custom of marriages of inclination, by en- and said "Oh, il n'y a pas de danger quand on gaging the affections, of Englishmen, indisposed n'a pas 200,000 francs de rente." It is certainly them for the exertions and the constraint of socie- true that show and luxury attract those to whom ty, and rendered them indifferent to its successes? Have these causes made them grave, reserved, unexpansive? Or have their natural gravity, reserve, and want of ready demonstrative sympathy, driven them from a field in which they were not formed either to enjoy or to shine, or converted what is called society into another form of business? show and luxury are the main objects; and what manner of men and women they are we all know. The most brilliant and fertile of all conversers, Sydney Smith, said of a very splendid party, "The lights put out the conversation." We are quite aware that the sort of society we speak of the society which was the pride and delight of old France-the compensation for her These are the questions which dispassionate many political defects and evils-is regarded by observers will ask themselves, instead of either those best qualified to compare and to judge it, as depreciating what they do not possess and cannot extinct. The fashion of showy crowds gains attain to, or asserting their supremacy in irrecon- ground, and even the habitués of houses run from cilable qualities. Had Mme. Récamier been salon to salon with a rapidity which augurs ill for called to the performance of maternal duties, and the attractive power of any. Mme. Récamier's was. had her influence been confined to the narrow, but, as we think, higher and more sacred circle of family, she would never have been what she If we do not envy France the possession and production of a person so exquisitely formed to be the charm and consolation of society, let us neither undervalue her mission, nor affect to be able to show anything comparable to her social gifts and graces. Suum cuique is the motto of every enlightened judge of national character. salon was perhaps the last which kept alive the memory of the ancient order of things. People came to see the mistress of the house, and to meet those they liked and were accustomed to meet; they came to talk and to listen. At the time I became a resident in Paris, I heard that Mme. Récamier had ceased to receive strangers. Her sight, afterwards completely extinguished, was already dimmed; her health was extremely delicate, and, as she afterwards told me That each should prefer his own lot is desirable; with her gentle smile, she did not care to have -that he should despise, or seek to appropriate, people come only to look at the once beautiful that of others, is contemptible and absurd. Mme. Récamier. I had, therefore, not the small People who know the sort of rage with which est hope of seeing a person concerning whom I "parties" are given and pursued during "the felt so much curiosity and interest, and it was season" in London, may wonder what we mean; with equal surprise and pleasure that I accepted but the very terms employed suffice to prove the the kind permission of her niece, Mme. Lenortruth of our assertion. Does anybody imagine mant, to accompany her one evening to the Ab baye aux Bois. From that time I became as frequent a visitor as all the obstacles interposed by great distance, health, weather, and occupation, would allow me. For a long time before her death (says Mme. Lenormant) she had ceased to make visits, but her salon was open every day before and after dinner. Before dinner (from three to six) was particularly devoted to M. de Chateaubriand. Every day, without fail, he came at three, and did not go till six. During the last two years, his valet de chambre and another servant brought him into the room in his arm-chair. M. de Chateaubriand had entirely lost the use of his legs. When I first saw him, his very elegant head wore no appearance of illness; he was still a singularly handsome old man, but it was evident that he suffered morally as well as physically from an infirmity which exhibited him in so helpless a state. Even then M. de Chateaubriand spoke little, and often appeared to take little part in the conversation. He spoke to me occasionally of England; and in a foreboding tone. He did not like the reform-bill; he augured no good from free-trade agitation, and seemed to fear that we were on a declivity. Considering the state of his health and spirits, and the nature of his political opinions, this was to be expected. His ap pearance and manner were those of the most perfect breeding and courtesy. M. de Chateaubriand was the principal person in the group which formed itself round Mme. Récamier, and the object of the utmost respect and attention. There was something imposing in his silence and in his high-bred air, which well fitted him for the place he filled. Those (says Mme. Lenormant) who have seen them during the last two years, who have seen Mme. Récamier, blind, but retaining the sweetness and brilliancy of her eyes, surrounding the illustrious friend whose age had extinguished his memory, with cares so delicate, so tender, so watchful; have seen her joy when she helped him to snatch a momentary distraction from the conversation which passed around him, by leading it to subjects connected with that remoter past which still lingered in his memory-those persons will never forget the scene; for they could not help being deeply affected with pity and respect at the sight of that noble beauty, brilliancy and genius, bending beneath the weight of age, and sheltered with such ingenious tenderness by the sacred friendship of a woman who forgot her own infirmities in the endeavor to lighten his. Mme. Lenormant is right in saying that it is impossible to forget this touching scene. How distinctly is she now before me, as she seized my * Those who have read the third volume of the Memoires d'Outre Tombe will not be much alarmed at these predictions. The judgments of a man who, after having spent years in England, affirms that at the end of last century but two classes were known in England-patrons and clients, united by a common interest and by amity; that the jealous class called bourgeoise did not exist; that there was nothing interposed between the rich landowners and men occupied with their respective trades, are not very formidable. Into such childish blunders do conceit and prejudice lead even men of genius. hand, on one of my latest visits to the Abbaye aux Bois, and said rapidly in her sweet low voice, "Do not speak to him; talk across him!" At that time he had sunk into almost unbroken silence, but she never gave up the chance that conversation might afford him a momentary amusement. It is characteristic of Mme. Récamier's unselfish nature, that after the operation for cataract had proved unsuccessful, and she had to resign herself to hopeless darkness, she remarked, that an infirmity which was inconvenient only to herself was the one which she could the most easily submit to. I remember on one occasion when I called on her, and she fancied that she had neglected some act of courtesy, she said, with her sweet smile, and as if excusing herself, "Il est si incommode d'être aveugle." As if the chief value of sight was the power it gives of ministering to the pleasure of others! Next on the list of those who daily assembled about Mme. Récamier was the venerable and amiable Ballanche-that incomparable friend, who from the moment he behold her devoted his life to her. Nobody who knew M. Ballanche can forget him, or can remember any one like him. He realized all one's conception of the simplicity, serenity, and benevolence of a Christian philosopher. Nothing could be more engaging, nothing more venerable, than his manner. Even his ugliness had something singularly attractive. He inspired love, confidence and respect, in a degree rare indeed when united. Whilst he was engaged in the composition of his Antigone (says another of the illustrious group of devoted friends, M. J. J. Ampère, in his Mémoire of M. Ballanche,) poetry appeared to him under an enchanting form. He became acquainted with her, of whom he said, that the charm of her presence had laid his sorrows to sleep; who, after being the soul of his most elevated and delicate inspirations, became in later years the providence of every moment of his life, down to that final one. when she came to take her seat by the deathbed of the faithful friend she so deeply lamented. M. Ampère quotes the following passage from a letter of M. Ballanche to Mme. Récamier : Yes, you are the Antigone of my dreams; her destiny is not like yours, but the elevated soul, the generous heart, the genius of devotedness, are the features of your character. I was only beginning Antigone when you appeared to me at Lyons, and God only knows how large a share you have in the portrait of that noble woman! Antiquity is far from having furnished me with all the materials for it; the ideal was revealed to me by you. I shall explain all these things one day; I choose the world to know that so perfect a creature was not created by me. And again, at a later age, he says, If my name survives me, which appears more and more probable, I shall be called the philosopher of the Abbaye aux Bois, and my philosophy will be considered as inspired by you. Remember that it was only through Eurydice that Orpheus had any true mission to his brother men; and remember, too, that Eurydice was a marvellous |