Chapter XII: Book XI: 336 (1)

Madame Récamier--Childhood of Madame Récamier described by M. Benjamin Constant--Letter to Madame Récamier from Lucien Bonaparte--Continuation of M. Benjamin Constant's narrative: Madame de Staël--Madame Récamier's journey to England--Madame de Staël's first journey to Germany--Madame Récamier in Paris--Plans of the generals--Portrait of Bernadotte--Trial of Moreau--Letters from Moreau and Masséna to Madame Récamier--Death of M. Necker--Return of Madame de Staël--Madame Récamier at Coppet--Prince Augustus of Prussia--Madame de Staël's second journey to Germany--The Château de Chaumont--Letter from Madame de Staël to Bonaparte--Madame Récamier and M. Mathieu de Montmorency exiled--Madame Récamier at Châlons--Madame Récamier at Lyons--Madame de Chevreuse--Spanish prisoners--Madame Récamier in Rome--Albano-Canova: his letters--The Albano fisherman--Madame Récamier in Naples--The Duc de Rohan-Chabot--King Murat: his letters--Madame Récamier returns to France--Letter from Madame de Genlis--Letters from Benjamin Constant--Articles by Benjamin Constant on Bonaparte's return from Elba--Madame de Krüdener--The Duke of Wellington--I meet Madame Récamier again--Death of Madame de Staël--The Abbaye-aux-Bois.

We pass to the embassy to Rome, to Italy, the dream of my life. Before continuing my story, I must speak of a woman of whom we shall not lose sight again till the end of these Memoirs. A correspondence is about to open between us from Rome to Paris: it is necessary, therefore, to know to whom I am writing, how and at what period I became acquainted with Madame Récamier.

She met, in the different ranks of society, persons, more or less celebrated, engaged upon the stage of the world: all offered her their worship. Her beauty mingles its ideal existence with the material facts of our history: a placid light illuminating a stormy picture.

Let us resume once more the consideration of times gone by; let us endeavour, by the light of my setting sun, to trace a portrait on the sky where my night, which approaches, will soon spread its shadows.

A letter published in the _Mercure_ after my return to France, in 1800, had attracted the attention of Madame de Staël. I was not yet struck off the list of Emigrants; _Atala_ drew me from my obscurity. Madame Bacciocchi (Élisa Bonaparte), at the request of M. de Fontanes, applied for and obtained my erasure. Madame de Staël had interested herself in this matter: I went to thank her. I cannot remember if it was Christian de Lamoignon or the author of _Corinne_[337] who introduced me to Madame Récamier, her friend; the latter was then living at her house in the Rue du Mont-Blanc. On emerging from my woods and the obscurity of my life, I was still quite timid; I scarce dared lift my eyes to a woman surrounded by adorers.

One morning, about a month later, I was at Madame de Staël's; she had received me at her toilet; she let Mademoiselle Olive dress her, while she talked, twisting a little green branch between her fingers. Entered suddenly Madame Récamier, dressed in a white gown; she sat down in the middle of a sofa covered in blue silk. Madame de Staël, remaining standing, continued her very animated conversation, and talked eloquently; I hardly answered, my eyes fixed on Madame Récamier. I had never imagined anything like her, and was more than ever discouraged: my admiration changed into ill-humour against my person. Madame Récamier went out, and I did not see her again till twelve years later.

Twelve years! What adverse power thus cuts and fritters away our days, squandering them ironically on all the indifferences called attachments, on all the miseries styled felicities! Then, by a further derision, when it has blighted and spent the most precious part, it brings you back to the starting-point of your career. And how does it bring you back? With your mind possessed with the foreign ideas, the importunate phantoms, the deluded or incomplete feelings of a world which has left you no happiness. Those ideas, those phantoms, those feelings place themselves between you and the bliss which you might still enjoy. You return with your heart sick with regret, afflicted by those errors of youth so painful to the memory in the modesty of years. That is how I returned, after having been to Rome, to Syria, after seeing an empire go by, after becoming the man of noise, after ceasing to be the man of silence. What had Madame Récamier done? What had been her life?

I have not known the greater portion of the existence at once brilliant and retired of which I am about to talk to you: I am obliged, therefore, to betake myself to authorities other than mine; but they shall be unexceptionable. First, Madame Récamier has described to me facts which she has witnessed and communicated to me valuable letters. She has written, on what she has seen, notes of which she has permitted me to consult the text and, too rarely, to quote it. Next, Madame de Staël in her correspondence, Benjamin Constant in his recollections, some printed, the others in manuscript, M. Ballanche in a notice on our common friend, Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantès in her sketches, Madame de Genlis in hers have furnished abundant materials for my narrative: I have only knotted all these fine names together, filling up the gaps with my own statement, when some links of the chain of events were overlooked or broken.

Montaigne says that men go gaping after future things[338]: I have the passion for gaping after past things. All is pleasure, particularly when we turn our eyes to the early years of those we love; we spin out a cherished life; we extend the affection which we feel over days which we never knew and which we revive; we adorn that which was with that which is; we recompose youthfulness.

[Sidenote: Madame Récamier.]

At Lyons, I have seen the Jardin des Plantes laid down on the ruins of the ancient amphitheatre and in the gardens of the old Abbaye de la Déserte, now pulled down; the Rhone and the Saône flow at its feet; far away rises the highest mountain in Europe, the first mile-post of Italy, with its white board above the clouds. Madame Récamier was placed in this abbey; she there passed her childhood behind a grill which opened upon the outer church only at the elevation of the Mass. Then one saw young girls bowing down in the inner chapel of the convent. The saint's-day of the abbess was the principal festival of the community; the prettiest boarder paid the customary compliment: her dress was arranged, her hair plaited, her head veiled and crowned by the hands of her playmates; and all this in silence, for the hour of rising was one of those which were called "grand silence" in the monasteries. It goes without saying that Juliette[339] had the honours of the day. Her father and mother, having settled in Paris, sent to fetch their child. From some rough drafts written by Madame Récamier, I gather this note:

"On the eve of the day on which my aunt was to come to fetch
me, I was taken to the room of Madame the Abbess to receive
her blessing. The next day, bathed in tears, I went out
through the door, which I did not remember seeing opened to
admit me, found myself in a carriage with my aunt, and we
drove off for Paris.

"I leave with regret a time so calm and so pure to enter upon
that of excitement. It often comes back to me as in a vague,
sweet dream, with its clouds of incense, its numberless
ceremonies, its processions in the gardens, its singing and
its flowers."

Those hours which have left a pious desert now rest in another religious solitude, without having lost anything of their freshness and their harmony.

Benjamin Constant, the wittiest man after Voltaire, strives to give an idea of Madame Récamier's early youth: he has drawn from the model whose features he aimed at tracing a grace which was not natural to him.

"Among the women of our time," he says, "whom advantages of
feature, mind, or character have rendered famous, there is
one whom I wish to depict. Her beauty made her admired at
first; her soul next made itself known, and her soul appeared
even superior to her beauty. The habit of society supplied
her mind with the means to display itself, and her mind
remained below neither her beauty nor her soul.

"At the age of barely fifteen[340], married to a man[341]
who, occupied by an immense amount of business, could not
guide her extreme youthfulness, Madame Récamier found herself
left almost entirely to herself in a country which was still
in a state of chaos.

"Several women of the same period have filled Europe with
their diverse fames. The majority have paid tribute to their
century, some through indelicate loves, others by guilty
condescensions towards the successive tyrannies.

"She whom I am describing emerged radiant and pure from
that atmosphere which blighted all that it did not corrupt.
Childhood was at first a safeguard for her, thanks to the
Author of this beautiful work, who made everything turn to
her advantage. Far removed from the world, in a solitude
beautified by the arts, she formed for herself a gentle
occupation out of all those attractive and poetic studies
which remain the charm of another age.

"Often also, surrounded by young companions, she indulged
with them in clamorous sports. Slender and light of foot,
she outstripped them in the race; she covered with a bandage
her eyes which were one day to penetrate every soul. Her
glance, to-day so expressive and so profound, which seems to
us to reveal mysteries unknown to herself, sparkled then only
with a lively and playful gaiety. Her beautiful hair, which
cannot become undone without filling us with perturbation,
then fell, without danger to any, over her white shoulders.
Laughter loud and long often interrupted her childish
conversation; but already one could perceive in her that nice
and quick observation which seizes upon the ridiculous, that
gentle malice which is amused by it without ever wounding,
and particularly that exquisite sentiment of eloquence,
purity and good taste, a real inborn nobility, the titles to
which are stamped upon privileged beings.

[Sidenote: Her girlhood.]

"The great world of that time was too uncongenial to her
nature that she should not prefer retirement. She was
never seen in the houses open to all comers, the only
meeting-places possible when every closed company was
suspected; where all classes rushed, because there they could
talk and say nothing, meet and not be compromised; where ill
manners took the place of wit and disorder of gaiety. She was
never seen at the Court of the Directory, where the power
was at once terrible and familiar, inspiring dread without
escaping contempt.

"However, Madame Récamier sometimes issued from her retreat
to go to the play or to the public walks and, in those places
frequented by all, her rare appearances were real events.
Every other object of those vast assemblies was forgotten,
and all flung themselves in her way. The man fortunate
enough to escort her had to overcome admiration as it were
an obstacle; his steps were at every moment delayed by the
onlookers crowding around her; she delighted in this success
with the gaiety of a child and the shyness of a young girl;
but her graceful dignity, which in her home distinguished
her from her young friends, abroad restrained the exuberant
throng. It was as though she reigned by her mere presence
over her companions and the public. Thus passed the first
years of Madame Récamier's marriage, between poetical
occupations, childish sports at home, and short and brilliant
appearances in the world."

Interrupting the narrative of the author of _Adolphe_[342], I will say that, in this society following upon the Terror, everybody feared to have the air of possessing a home. People met in the public places, especially in the Pavillon de Hanovre[343]: when I saw that pavilion, it was deserted like the hall of a yesterday's feast, or like a stage from which the actors had descended for ever. There were wont to come together young women escaped from prison, whom André Chénier had made to say:

Je ne veux point mourir encore[344].

Madame Récamier had met Danton on his road to execution and, soon after, she saw some of the fair victims snatched from men who had themselves become victims of their own fury.

I come back to my guide Benjamin Constant:

"Madame Récamier's mind had need of another food. The
instinct for the beautiful caused her to delight beforehand,
without knowing them, in men distinguished by a reputation
for talent and genius.

"M. de La Harpe was one of the first to appreciate this woman
who was destined one day to group around herself all the
celebrities of her age. He had met her in her childhood, he
saw her again married, and the conversation of this young
person of sixteen years possessed a thousand attractions
for a man whom his excessive self-esteem and the habit of
intercourse with the most intelligent men in France rendered
extremely difficult and hard to please.

"M. de La Harpe divested himself, in the presence of Madame
Récamier, of most of the defects which made commerce with
him laborious and almost insupportable. He took pleasure in
acting as her guide: he admired the swiftness with which
her mind made good her want of experience and grasped all
that he revealed to her concerning the world and mankind.
It was at the time of the famous conversion which so many
people have qualified as hypocrisy. I have always regarded
that conversion as sincere. The sentiment of religion is an
inherent faculty in man; it is absurd to pretend that fraud
and falsehood have created that faculty. Nothing is put
into the human soul except what nature has put there. The
persecutions, the abuses of authority in favour of certain
dogmas can delude us personally and revolt us against what we
should feel if it were not imposed upon us; but, so soon as
the external causes have ceased, we return to our primitive
tendency: when there is no more courage in resisting, we
no longer applaud ourselves for our resistance. Now, the
Revolution having taken this merit from unbelief, the men
whom vanity alone had rendered unbelieving were able to
become religious in good faith.

"M. de La Harpe was of that number; but he retained his
intolerant character and that bitterness of disposition which
made him conceive new hatreds without abjuring the old ones.
All those thorns of his devotion disappeared, however, when
he was with Madame Récamier."

[Sidenote: M. de La Harpe.]

Here are a few fragments of the letters from M. de La Harpe to Madame Récamier of which Benjamin Constant speaks:

"SATURDAY, 28 _September._

"What, madame, you carry your kindness so far as to wish to
honour a poor outlaw like myself with a visit! This time I
might say, like the ancient patriarchs, whom I resemble so
little otherwise, that 'an angel has come into my house.' I
well know that you like to do works of mercy; but, as things
go nowadays, all good is difficult, and this like the rest.
I must inform you, to my great regret, that to come alone
is first of all impossible, for many reasons: among others
that, with your youth and your face, the splendour of which
will follow you everywhere, you could not travel without a
waiting-maid, to whom prudence forbids me to confide the
secret of my retreat, which is not mine alone. You would
therefore have only one means of carrying out your generous
resolution, which would be to take counsel with Madame de
Clermont, who would bring you one day to her little sylvan
castle, and from there it would be very easy for you to
come with her. You are both made to appreciate and love one
another.... I am writing many verses at this moment. In
writing them, I often reflect that I shall one day be able
to read them to the fair and charming Juliet, whose mind is
as penetrating as her glance, and her taste as pure as her
soul. I would also willingly send you the fragment of Adonis
which you like, although it has become a little profane for
me; but I would want a promise that it shall not leave your
hands....

"Farewell, madame; I indulge with you in ideas which anyone
but yourself would think very extraordinary addressed to a
person of sixteen years; but I know that your sixteen years
are only in your face[345]."

"SATURDAY[346].

"It is long indeed, madame, since I had the pleasure of
talking with you, and, if you be sure, as you must be,
that this is one of my privations, you will make me no
reproaches....

"You have read in my soul; you have seen there that I wore
in it the mourning for the public misfortunes and for my own
faults, and I could not but feel that this sad disposition
formed too strong a contrast with all the brilliancy that
encompasses your age and your charms. I even fear lest it
should sometimes have made itself felt in the few moments
which I have been permitted to spend with you, and I entreat
your indulgence therefore. But now, madame, when Providence
seems to show us a better future very near at hand, to whom
could I better than to yourself confide the joy which I
derive from hopes so sweet and, to my belief, so near? Who
will fill a greater place than you in the private pleasures
which will be mingled with the public joy? I shall then be
more susceptible and less unworthy of the delights of your
charming company, and how happy I shall deem myself still
to count for something in it! If you deign to attach the
same value to the fruit of my labour, you shall always be
the first to whom I shall hasten to present it. Then no
more contradictions nor obstacles; you shall always find me
at your orders, and none, I hope, will be able to blame me
for this preference. I shall say, 'Here is she who, at the
age of illusions and with all the brilliant advantages that
can excuse them, has known all the nobility and delicacy of
proceedings of the purest friendship and, in the midst of
every homage, has remembered an outlaw!' I shall say, 'Here
is she whose youth and grace I have seen grow amid a general
corruption which was never able to overtake them, she whose
reason at sixteen years has often put mine to shame!' and I
am sure that none will be tempted to contradict me."

The sadness of events, of age and of religion, hidden under a melting expression, present in these letters a singular admixture of thought and style. Let us return once more to Benjamin Constant's narrative:

"We come to the time when Madame Récamier saw herself for the
first time the object of a strong and regular passion. Till
then she had received unanimous worship from all who had met
her, but her manner of life nowhere offered centres of union
where one could be sure of finding her. She never received
at home and she had not yet formed a society where one could
penetrate every day to see her and try to please her.

[Sidenote: Lucien Bonaparte.]

"In the summer of 1799, Madame Récamier came to live at the
Château de Clichy, a quarter of a league from Paris. A man
since celebrated through different sorts of pretensions, and
even more celebrated through the advantages which he has
refused than through the successes which he has won, Lucien
Bonaparte, obtained an introduction to her.

"He had not, till then, aspired to any save facile conquests
and, to obtain these, had studied only the romancing methods
which his want of knowledge of the world represented to him
as infallible. It is possible that he was enticed at first
by the idea of captivating the loveliest woman of his time.
Young, the leader of a party in the Council of the Five
Hundred, the brother of the first general of the age, he was
gratified at uniting the triumphs of a statesman and the
successes of a lover in his person.

"He conceived the idea of having recourse to a fiction to
declare his love to Madame Récamier; he imagined a letter
from Romeo to Juliet, and sent it as a work of his to her who
bore the same name."

Here is this letter from Lucien, known to Benjamin Constant; in the midst of the revolutions which have stirred the world of reality, it is racy to see a Bonaparte plunge into the world of fictions:

LETTER FROM ROMEO TO JULIET by the author of the _Tribu
indienne_[347]

"VENICE, 29 _July._

"Romeo writes to you, Juliet: if you refuse to read me, you
will be crueller than our parents whose long strife has at
last been appeased; no doubt that horrid strife will not
revive. ... A few days since, I knew you only by repute. I
had sometimes seen you in the temples and at feasts; I knew
you were the most beautiful; a thousand lips repeated your
praises, and your charms had struck but not dazzled me....
Why has peace delivered me to your empire? Peace! It reigns
in our families, but trouble reigns in my heart....

"Recall to yourself the day when I was first presented
to you. We were celebrating at a large banquet the
reconciliation of our fathers. I had come from the Senate,
where the troubles raised against the Republic had created a
lively impression.... You arrived; then all flocked round:

"'How lovely she is!' they cried....

"The throng in the evening filled the gardens of Bedmar.
Importunate people, who are everywhere, took possession
of me. This time I had neither patience with them nor
affability: they kept me from you!... I wished to account for
the emotion that was overcoming me. I knew love and wished
to master it.... I was carried away, and with you left the
festive spot.

"I have seen you since: love has seemed to smile upon me.
One day, seated at the water's edge, motionless and pensive,
you were stripping a rose of its leaves; alone with you,
I spoke.... I heard a sigh... vain illusion! Recovering
from my mistake, I saw indifference with its placid brow
seated between us two.... The passion which masters me found
utterance in my discourse, and yours bore the amiable and
cruel impress of childhood and pleasantry.

"Each day I would wish to see you, as though the dart were
not fixed deep enough in my heart. The moments at which I see
you are very rare, and those young Venetians who surround you
and talk insipid gallantry to you are hateful to me. How is
it possible to talk to Juliet as to other women!

"I have wanted to write to you; you will know me, you will
no longer refuse to believe me; my soul is ill at ease; it
thirsts for sentiment. If love has not stirred yours; if
Romeo in your eyes is but an ordinary man, oh, I conjure you
by the bonds which you have laid upon me, be severe with me
from kindness; do not smile to me again, do not speak to me
again, thrust me far from you. Tell me to go away and, if I
can execute that rigorous order, remember at least that Romeo
will ever love you; that none has ever reigned over him as
Juliet has; and that he can no longer cease to live for her,
at least in remembrance."

For a sober-minded man, all this is rather laughable: the Bonapartes used to live on theatres, novels and verses; is the life of Napoleon himself aught else than a poem?

[Sidenote: Lucien's passion.]

Benjamin Constant continues, while commenting upon this letter:

"The style of this letter is evidently imitated from all the
novels that have depicted the passions, from _Werther_ to the
_Nouvelle Héloïse._ Madame Récamier easily discovered, from
several circumstances of detail, that she herself was the
object of the declaration offered as though simply for her
perusal. She was not sufficiently accustomed to the language
of love to be warned by experience that everything in the
expressions was, perhaps, not sincere; but a true and sure
instinct warned her; she replied with simplicity and even
gaiety, and showed much more indifference than disquietude or
fear. It needed no more for Lucien really to experience the
passion which he had at first somewhat exaggerated.

"Lucien's letters grew truer, more eloquent, in proportion
as he grew more impassioned; certainly they always show the
ambition for ornamentation, the desire to attitudinize; he
cannot go to sleep without 'flinging himself into the arms of
Morpheus.' In the midst of his despair, he describes himself
as surrendered to the great occupations which surround him;
he is astonished that a man like him sheds tears; but, in all
this alloy of declamation and phrases, there is nevertheless
eloquence, sensibility and grief. At last, in a letter full
of passion in which he wrote to Madame Récamier, 'I cannot
hate you, but I can kill myself,' he suddenly makes a general
reflection: 'I am forgetting that love is not snatched, but
won,' and then adds, 'After receiving your note, I received
many of a diplomatic character; I learnt some news of which
public rumour has no doubt informed you. Congratulations
surround, deafen me... people talk to me of what is not you!
'Then another exclamation:

"'How weak is nature compared to love!'

"And yet this news which found Lucien unconcerned was an
immense piece of news: Bonaparte's disembarkation on his
return from Egypt.

"A new destiny had landed with its promises and its threats;
the 18 Brumaire was not more than three weeks distant.

"Barely escaped from the dangers of that day, which will
always fill so great a place in history, Lucien wrote to
Madame Récamier:

"'I have seen your image!... You will have had my last
thought!'...

"Madame Récamier contracted a friendship, which became daily
more intimate and which still endures, with a woman who was
illustrious in a very different way from that in which M. de
La Harpe was famous.

"M. Necker, having been struck off the list of Emigrants,
charged Madame de Staël, his daughter, to sell a house which
he had. Madame Récamier bought it, and this was an occasion
for her to see Madame de Staël[348].

"The sight of this celebrated woman at first filled her with
excessive timidity. The face of Madame de Staël has been
very widely discussed. But a proud glance, a sweet smile,
an habitual expression of kindliness, the absence of any
minute affectation and of any embarrassing reserve, caressing
words, praises somewhat direct but seeming to escape from
enthusiasm, an inexhaustible variety of enthusiasm surprise,
attract and conciliate almost all who approach her. I know
no woman, nor even any man, who is more convinced of her
own vast superiority to all the world and who makes this
conviction bear less hard upon others.

"Nothing could be more engaging than the conversations of
Madame de Staël and Madame Récamier. The quickness of the
one in expressing a thousand new thoughts, the quickness of
the other in grasping and perceiving them; that masculine
and powerful mind which disclosed all, that delicate and
subtle mind which understood all; those revelations made by a
trained genius to a youthful intelligence worthy to receive
them: all this formed a union which it is impossible to
describe without having had the happiness to witness it one's
self.

"The friendship of Madame Récamier for Madame de Staël was
strengthened by a sentiment which they both entertained:
filial love. Madame Récamier was fondly attached to her
mother, a woman of rare merit, whose health was already
giving rise to fears and whose loss her daughter has never
since ceased to regret. Madame de Staël had vowed a worship
to her father which his death has rendered but the more
exalted. Always overpowering in her manner of expressing
herself, she becomes still more so, above all, when speaking
of him. Her earnest voice, her eyes ready to grow wet with
tears, the sincerity of her enthusiasm moved the soul of even
those who did not share her opinion of that celebrated man.
Ridicule has frequently been cast on the praises which she
has awarded him in her writings; but, when you have heard her
on that subject, it is not possible to make it an object of
mockery, for nothing that is true is ridiculous."

[Sidenote: Madame de Staël.]

The letters of Corinne to her friend Madame Récamier began at the period here recalled by Benjamin Constant: they have a charm which is almost akin to love; I will set forth a few:

"COPPET, 9 _September._

"Do you recollect, fair Juliet, a person whom you loaded
with marks of interest last winter and who is bold enough to
invite you to do twice as much in the winter to come? How
do you govern the empire of beauty? One awards it you with
pleasure, that empire, because you are eminently good, and it
seems natural that so gentle a soul should have a charming
face to express it. Of all your admirers you know that I
prefer Adrien de Montmorency[349]. I have received letters
from him, remarkable for wit and grace, and I believe in the
solidity of his affections, notwithstanding the charm of his
manners. For the rest, that word 'solidity' suits me, who
claim to play but a very secondary part in his heart. But
you, who are the heroine of every sentiment, are exposed to
the great events out of which tragedies and novels are made.
Mine[350] is progressing at the foot of the Alps. I hope you
will read it with interest. I like this occupation. . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Amid all those successes, what you are and what you will
remain is an angel of purity and beauty, and you will have
the worship of the devout as well as of the worldly....
Have you seen the author of _Atala_ again? Are you still at
Clichy? In short, I ask for details of yourself. I love to
know what you are doing, to represent to myself the places in
which you dwell. Is not all a picture in the memories which
one retains of you? I add to this natural enthusiasm for your
rare advantages a great inclination for your company. Pray
accept kindly all that I offer you, and promise me that we
shall meet often in the coming winter."

"COPPET, 30 _April._

"Do you know, fair Juliet, that my friends have been
flattering me somewhat with the notion that you might come
here? Could you not give me that great pleasure? It is some
time since happiness spoilt me, and your arrival would be a
return of luck and would give me hopes for all that I desire.
Adrien and Mathieu say they will come. If you came with them,
a month's stay here would serve to show you our splendid
nature. My father says that you ought to choose Coppet for
your residence and that we should make our excursions from
there. My father is very eager in his desire to see you. You
know what they said of Homer:

"Par la voix des vieillards tu louais la beauté[351].

"And independently of that beauty you are charming."

During the short Peace of Amiens[352], Madame Récamier took a journey to London with her mother. She had letters of introduction from the old Duc de Guignes, who had been Ambassador to England thirty years before. He had kept up a correspondence with the most brilliant women of the time: the Duchess of Devonshire[353], Lady Melbourne[354], the Marchioness of Salisbury[355], the Margravine of Anspach, with whom he had been in love. His embassy was still celebrated, his memory green among those respectable ladies.

[Sidenote: Madame Récamier in London.]

Such is the power of novelty in England that, on the morning after her arrival, the newspapers were full of the foreign beauty. Madame Récamier received visits from nearly all the persons to whom she had sent letters. Among these persons, the most remarkable was the Duchess of Devonshire, then between forty-five and fifty years of age. She was still in vogue and beautiful, although she had lost one eye, which she concealed behind a lock of her hair. The first time that Madame Récamier appeared in public, it was in her company. The duchess took her to the Opera in her box, in which were the Prince of Wales, the Duc d'Orléans and his brothers the Duc de Montpensier[356] and the Comte de Beaujolais[357]: the first two were to become kings; one was on the verge of the throne, the other was still separated from it by an abyss[358].

Eyes and opera-glasses were turned on the duchess' box. The Prince of Wales said to Madame Récamier that, if she did not want to be suffocated, she must leave before the end of the performance. Scarcely was she on her feet, before the doors of the boxes opened precipitously; she escaped nothing, and was carried by the tide of the crowd to her carriage.

The next day, Madame Récamier went to Kensington Gardens, accompanied by the Marquess of Douglas, later Duke of Hamilton[359], who has since received Charles X. at Holyrood[360], and by his sister the Duchess of Somerset[361]. The crowd flung itself on the fair foreigner's footsteps. This effect was repeated each time she showed herself in public; the newspapers resounded with her name; her portrait, engraved by Bartolozzi[362], was spread broadcast through England. The author of Antigone, M. Ballanche, adds that ships carried it as far as the isles of Greece: beauty returned to the spots where its image had been invented. We have a sketch of Madame Récamier by David, a full-length portrait by Gérard, a bust by Canova. The portrait is Gérard's master-piece; but it does not please me, because I recognise the model's features in it without recognising the expression.

On the eve of Madame Récamier's departure, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Devonshire asked leave to call on her and to bring with them some persons of their society. Music was performed. Together with the Chevalier Marin, the first harper of the time, she played variations on a theme by Mozart. This evening was mentioned in the public press as a concert which the beautiful foreigner had given, on leaving, to the Prince of Wales.

The next day, she set sail for the Hague and took three days to make a crossing of sixteen hours. She has told me that, during those days dashed with storms, she read the _Génie du Christianisme_ straight through; I was "revealed" to her, to use her kind expression: I recognise in this the good-will which the winds and the sea have always had for me.

Near the Hague, she visited the country-house of the Prince of Orange. The Prince, having made her promise to go to see that residence, wrote her several letters in which he speaks of his reverses and of his hope to conquer them: William I. has, in fact, become a monarch[363]; at that time one intrigued to become king as nowadays to become a deputy, and those candidates for the sovereignty used to throng round the feet of Madame Récamier as though she had crowns in her gift.

The following note from Bernadotte, who reigns to-day over Sweden[364], ended Madame Récamier's journey to England: . . . . . . . . . .

"The English papers, while calming my apprehensions for
your health, have informed me of the dangers to which you
have been exposed. I at first blamed the people of London
for their too great assiduity, but, I confess to you, I
soon excused them, for I am an interested party when it is
necessary to justify persons who become indiscreet in order
to admire the charms of your celestial countenance.

"Amid the lustre which surrounds you and which you deserve by
such manifold rights, deign sometimes to remember that the
being most devoted to you in nature is

"BERNADOTTE."

[Sidenote: Madame de Staël's exil.]

Madame de Staël, threatened with exile, attempted to settle down at Maffliers, a country-place eight leagues from Paris. She accepted the proposal made to her by Madame Récamier, on her return from England, to spend a few days with her at Saint-Brice; afterwards she went back to her first refuge. She relates what happened then, in the _Dix années d'exil_:

"I was at table," she says, "with three of my friends in a
room from which one saw the high road and the entrance-door.
It was at the end of September[365], at four o'clock: a man
in grey, on horseback, stopped and rang; I was sure of my
fate; he asked for me; I received him in the garden. As I
went towards him, I was struck by the scent of the flowers
and the beauty of the sun. The sensations that come to us
through the combinations of society are so different from
those of nature! The man told me that he was the commandant
of the Versailles Gendarmery.... He showed me a letter,
signed by Bonaparte, which contained the order to remove me
to forty leagues from Paris, with an injunction to make me
leave within twenty-four hours, while treating me, however,
with all the consideration due to a woman whose name was
known.... I replied to the officer of gendarmes that to set
out within twenty-four hours might suit conscripts, but not
a woman and children. Consequently I proposed that he should
accompany me to Paris, where I had need of three days to make
the necessary arrangements for my journey. I therefore got
into my carriage with my children and this officer, who had
been selected as being the most literary of the gendarmes. In
fact, he paid me compliments on my writings.

"'You see, monsieur,' I said to him, 'what comes of being an
intellectual woman. I beg you, dissuade the members of your
family from it, if you have occasion to do so.'

"I tried to rouse myself with pride, but I felt the clutching
at my heart.

"I stopped for a few moments at Madame Récamier's. I there
found General Junot[366], who, out of devotion for her,
promised to go the next day to speak to the First Consul. He
did so in fact with the greatest warmth....

"On the eve of the last day given me, Joseph Bonaparte made
yet one attempt....

"I was obliged to await the answer in an inn at two leagues
from Paris, not daring to return to my own home in town. A
day passed without the answer reaching me. Not wishing to
attract attention by remaining longer at the inn where I was,
I made the circuit of the walls of Paris to go to look for
another, also at two leagues from Paris, but on a different
road. This wandering life, at four steps from my friends and
my home, caused me a grief which I cannot recall without
shuddering[367]."

Madame de Staël, instead of returning to Coppet, set out on her first journey to Germany. At that time she wrote me the letter on the death of Madame de Beaumont which I quoted when writing of my first journey to Rome.

Madame Récamier gathered round her in Paris all that was most distinguished in the oppressed parties and in the opinions which had not yielded to victory. One saw there the lights of the old Monarchy and the new Empire: the Montmorencys, the Sabrans[368], the Lamoignons, Generals Masséna, Moreau and Bernadotte; one destined for exile, another for the throne. Illustrious foreigners also visited there: the Prince of Orange, the Prince of Bavaria[369], the brother[370] of the Queen of Prussia surrounded her, just as in London the Prince of Wales was proud to carry her shawl. So irresistible was the attraction that Eugène de Beauharnais[371] and the Emperor's very ministers went to these assemblies. Bonaparte could not suffer success, even when it was a woman's. He used to say:

"Since how long has the Council been held at Madame Récamier's?"

[Sidenote: General Bernadotte.]

I now return to Benjamin Constant:

"For a long time, Bonaparte, who had seized upon the
government, had been progressing towards tyranny. The most
opposite parties became incensed against him and, while
the bulk of the citizens were still allowing themselves to
be enervated by the tranquillity which was promised them,
the Republicans and the Royalists desired an inversion. M.
de Montmorency belonged to the latter by his birth, his
connections and his opinions. Madame Récamier cared for
politics only through her generous interest in the vanquished
of all parties. The independence of her character made her
averse to the Court of Napoleon, of which she had refused to
form part M. de Montmorency conceived the idea of confiding
his hopes to her, painted the restoration of the Bourbons
to her in colours calculated to arouse her enthusiasm,
and charged her to bring together two men at that time of
importance in France, Moreau and Bernadotte, to see if they
could unite against Bonaparte. She was intimately acquainted
with Bernadotte, who has since become Prince Royal of Sweden.
Something chivalrous in his appearance, something noble in
his manners, something very subtle in his intelligence,
something declamatory in his conversation make him a
remarkable man. Courageous in battle, bold in speech, but
timid in actions which are not military, irresolute in all
his designs, he has one thing which makes him very seductive
at first sight, but which, at the same time, places an
obstacle to any combination of plans with him, and that is a
habit of haranguing, a relic of his revolutionary education
which does not leave him. He sometimes has movements of real
eloquence; he knows it, he loves this kind of success and,
when he has entered upon the development of some general idea
connected with what he has heard in the clubs or the rostrum,
he loses sight of all that occupies him and is no longer
anything but an impassioned orator. That is what he appeared
in France during the early years of the reign of Bonaparte,
whom he always hated and by whom he was suspected, and that
again is what he has shown himself in these later days, amid
the disorder of Europe, of which, nevertheless, we owe the
liberation to him, because he reassured the foreigners by
showing them a Frenchman ready to march against the tyrant of
France and knowing how to say only such things as could have
an influence for his nation's good.

"Anything that offers a woman the means of exercising power
is always agreeable to her. Moreover, in the idea of rousing
against the despotism of Bonaparte men important through
their dignities and their glory there was something generous
and noble which was bound to tempt Madame Récamier. She
therefore lent herself to M. de Montmorency's wishes. She
often threw Bernadotte and Moreau together at her house.
Moreau wavered, Bernadotte spouted. Madame Récamier took
Moreau's indecisive speeches for a commencement of resolution
and Bernadotte's harangues as a signal for the overthrow of
tyranny. The two generals, on their side, were enraptured
to see their discontent pampered by so much beauty, wit and
grace. There was, in fact, something romantic and poetic in
that young and bewitching woman who talked to them of the
liberty of their country. Bernadotte never ceased repeating
to Madame Récamier that she was made to electrify the world
and create fanatics."

While noting the delicacy of this portraiture by Benjamin Constant, it must be said that Madame Récamier would never have entered into political interests but for the irritation which she felt at the banishment of Madame de Staël. The future King of Sweden had a list of the generals who still held with the party of independence, but Moreau's name was not on it; it was the only one fit to be opposed to Napoleon's, only Bernadotte did not know what manner of man the Bonaparte was whose power he was attacking.

Madame Moreau[372] gave a ball: all Europe was there, excepting France, which was represented only by the Republican Opposition. In the course of this entertainment, General Bernadotte led Madame Récamier to a little drawing-room where only the sound of the music followed them to remind them where they were. Moreau passed into this drawing-room; Bernadotte said to him, after long explanations:

"You have a popular name; you are the only one of us who can put himself forward with the support of the people; see what you can do, what we can do under your leader-ship."

Moreau repeated what he had often said before, that "he felt the danger with which liberty was threatened, that they must watch Bonaparte, but that he feared civil war."

This conversation was prolonged and became animated; Bernadotte lost his temper, and said to General Moreau: "You do not dare to take up the cause of liberty; well, then, Bonaparte will make sport of liberty and you. It will perish in spite of our efforts and, as for you, you will be involved in its ruin without having fought."

Prophetic words!

Madame Récamier's mother was intimately acquainted with Madame Hulot, the mother of Madame Moreau, and Madame Récamier had contracted with the latter one of those childish friendships which it is a pleasure to continue in after life.

[Sidenote: The trial of General Moreau.]

During General Moreau's trial, Madame Récamier spent all her time with Madame Moreau. The latter told her friend that her husband complained that he had not yet seen her among the public which filled the court and the bench. Madame Récamier arranged to be present at the sitting on the day after this conversation. One of the judges, M. Brillat-Savarin[373], undertook to pass her in through a private door which opened on to the amphitheatre of the court. She raised her veil, on entering, and cast a glance over the rows of prisoners in order to find Moreau. He recognised her, rose and bowed. All eyes were turned in her direction; she hastened to descend the steps of the amphitheatre to reach the place intended for her. The prisoners were forty-seven in number; they filled the benches placed opposite the judges of the court. Each prisoner was placed between two gendarmes: the soldiers treated General Moreau with deference and respect.

Messieurs de Polignac and de Rivière attracted attention, but especially Georges Cadoudal. Pichegru, whose name will remain associated with that of Moreau, was missing from his side, or, rather, one seemed to see his shadow there, for it was known that he was also missing from prison[374].

There was no more question of Republicans: it was Royalist loyalty fighting against the new power; nevertheless, this cause of the Legitimacy and of its high-born partisans had, as its leader, a man of the people, Georges Cadoudal. One saw him there, with the thought that that so pious and so fearless head was about to fall on the scaffold, that he, Cadoudal, alone, perhaps, would not be saved, for he would do nothing to be saved. He defended only his friends; as for what concerned him in particular, he told all. Bonaparte was not so generous as people supposed: eleven persons devoted to Georges perished with him[375].

Moreau did not speak. At the end of the sitting, the judge who had brought Madame Récamier came to take her away. She crossed the bar at the opposite side to that by which she had entered, and passed by the bench of the prisoners. Moreau came down, followed by his two gendarmes; he was separated from her only by a hand-rail. He addressed a few words to her, which, in her startled condition, she did not hear; she tried to reply, her voice broke.

To-day, when the times are changed and when Bonaparte's name alone seems to fill them, we do not conceive how small a hold his power as yet had. On the night preceding the sentence, during which the court sat, all Paris was on foot. Floods of people went towards the Palace of Justice. Georges wanted no mercy; he replied to them who wished to ask it for him:

"Do you promise me a finer occasion of death?"

Moreau, condemned to transportation, set out for Cadiz, whence he was to cross to America. Madame Moreau went to join him. Madame Récamier was with her at her departure. She saw her kiss her son in his cradle and saw her turn back again to kiss him a second time; she took her to her carriage, and received her last farewell.

[Sidenote: Letter from General Moreau.]

General Moreau wrote the following letter from Cadiz to his generous friend:

"CHICLANA (near Cadiz), 12 _October_ 1804.

"MADAME,

"You will, no doubt, be pleased to hear news of two fugitives
in whom you have shown so much interest. After going through
all sorts of fatigues, by land and sea, we were hoping to
rest at Cadiz, when the yellow fever, which in some way may
be compared to the ills we had recently undergone, came to
besiege us in that town.

"Although my wife's confinement obliged us to remain there
for more than a month during the sickness, we were lucky
enough to escape infection; only one of our servants caught
it.

"At last we are at Chiclana, a very pretty village at a few
leagues from Cadiz, enjoying good health, and my wife quite
convalescent, after giving me a very healthy daughter.

"She is persuaded that you take as great an interest in this
event as in all that has happened to us, and she asks me to
acquaint you with it and to send you her kind remembrances.

"I say nothing of the kind of life which we lead: it is
excessively tedious and monotonous, but at least we breathe
at liberty, although in the land of the Inquisition.

"I beg you, madame, to receive the assurance of my respectful
attachment, and to believe me ever

"Your most humble and most obedient servant,

"V. MOREAU."

This letter is dated from Chiclana, a spot which, together with glory, seemed to promise an assured reign to M. le Duc d'Angoulême: and yet he appeared on that coast only with as fatal a result as Moreau, who has been believed devoted to the Bourbons. Moreau, in the depths of his soul, was devoted to liberty; when he had the misfortune to join the Coalition, the question in his eyes was solely that of contending against the despotism of Bonaparte. Louis XVIII. said to M. de Montmorency, who was deploring the death of Moreau as a great loss to the Crown:

"Not so great: Moreau was a Republican."

The general returned to Europe only to find the cannon-ball on which his name was engraved by the finger of God.

Moreau recalls to my mind another illustrious captain, Masséna. The latter was going to the Army of Italy; he asked Madame Récamier for a white ribbon from the trimming of her dress. One day she received this note in Masséna's hand:

"The charming ribbon given him by Madame Récamier was worn by
General Masséna in the battles and the blockade of Genoa: it
never left the general and constantly promoted his victory."

The old manners peep out through the new manners of which they form the ground-work. The gallantry of the knight of gentle birth appeared again in the plebeian soldier: the memory of the tournaments and crusades lay hidden in the feats of arms with which modern France has crowned her ancient victories. Cisher, the companion of Charlemagne, did not deck himself in the fight with his lady's colours:

"He carried," says the Monk of Saint-Gall[376], "seven, eight, or even nine enemies strung on his lance."

Cisher went before and Masséna came after chivalry.

Madame de Staël in Berlin heard of her father's illness; she hurried back, but M. Necker was dead[377] before she reached Switzerland.

At that time happened M. Récamier's ruin[378]; Madame de Staël was soon informed of this unfortunate event. She at once wrote to Madame Récamier, her friend:

[Sidenote: Letter from Madame de Staël.]

"GENEVA, 17 _November._[379]