BOOK XI

[336]

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.

[Illustration: madame Récamier.]

[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