The Catholic World
Chapter 138 : But where is Madame de Stael? In the autumn of 1803 she was exiled by Bonaparte, who f

But where is Madame de Stael? In the autumn of 1803 she was exiled by Bonaparte, who feared her talents and disliked her politics. As the daughter of Necker and the friend of limited monarchy, she was particularly obnoxious to one who represented both democracy and absolutism. Madame Recamier, with her habitual generosity, offered her an asylum at Clichy, which she accepted, under the impression that her further removal from Paris would not be insisted on. Junot, afterward the Duc d'Abrantes, their mutual friend, interested himself in her behalf, but without success. Her sentence of exile was confirmed; she was not to approach within forty leagues of the capital. So she wandered through Germany, and collected materials for her "_Allemagne_" and "_Dix annees d'Exil._" At Weimar she studied German literature under Goethe, Wieland, and Schiller, and in 1805 held her court at Coppet in the Canton de Vaud. Here occurred, as we shall presently see, one of the most singular episodes in Madame Recamier's life. She, with Madame de Stael in Switzerland, and Madame d'Albany in Florence, divided the empire of literary salons on the continent; and each of these ladies felt in turn the weight of the despot of Europe's sceptre. [Footnote 6] In 1810 the writer of "_Corinne_" became the guest of Mathieu de Montmorency, near Blois, and within the prescribed distance from Paris. In the chateau of Catherine de Medici she collected round her a few friends, who were fearless of annoyance and exile. But her work on Germany abounded with allusions to the imperial police. The whole edition of ten thousand copies was seized, and she received an order from the Duc de Rovigo to return immediately to Switzerland Madame Recamier, faithful and courageous, followed her, though timid advisers prophesied that no good would come of such imprudence. She stayed there only a day and a half, and then pursued her way in haste to Paris. But the sentence of exile had already gone forth against her. The calm and religious Duke Mathieu had just before expiated in like manner the crime of visiting the ill.u.s.trious exile.

Her book on Germany did not contain a line directly against the emperor; but it was enough that the auth.o.r.ess's heart beat with the pulses of rational freedom, and the Corsican's tyranny became minute in proportion to the territory over which it spread. Thus the ladies, who so loved each other, were not only exiled, but separated. Rivers rolled and Alps rose between them; lest, perchance, they should combine their elegant and harmless pursuits.

[Footnote 6: "_Comtesse d'Albany_," par M. St. Rene Taillandier, p.

229.]

The limits allowed us in this article do not admit of our tracing the events of Madame Recamier's life in strict chronological order, and bringing out by degrees the character and history of her several friends. Each of them in turn will lead us away from the main thread of our story, and we hope that our readers will follow us with indulgence when we are obliged to take it up again rather awkwardly.

We cannot do otherwise than ma.s.s together many things which had better be kept apart.

One day, in the autumn of 1806, Monsieur Recamier brought some dismal news to Clichy. The financial condition of Spain and her colonies, combined with other untoward events, had placed his bank in such jeopardy that, unless the government could be induced to advance him 40,000 on good security, he must stop payment within two days. A large party had been invited to dinner; and the hostess, suppressing her emotions with extraordinary self-command, did the honors of her house in a manner calculated to obviate alarm. It was a golden opportunity for imperial vengeance, and it was not lost. All aid from the Bank of France was {86} refused, and the much-envied Maison Recamier was made over, with all its liabilities, to the hands of its creditors. So cruel a reverse was enough to try the fort.i.tude of the most Christian. Nor was Madame Recamier found wanting in that heroic quality. Indeed, there are few women who, taken all in all, would serve better to enforce Eliza Famham's ingenious arguments for the superiority of her s.e.x. [Footnote 7] While her husband's spirit was almost broken under the blow, she calmly, if not cheerfully, sold her last jewel, and occupied a small apartment on the ground floor of her splendid mansion. The rest of the house was let to Prince Pignatelli, and ultimately sold. The French have their faults--great faults; what nation has not?--but let us do them the justice to say that in their friends.h.i.+ps they are faithful. The poor wife of the ruined banker was as much honored and courted by them in her adversity as she had been when surrounded with every luxury and every facility for hospitable entertainments. Let those who would form an idea of the sympathy expressed by her friends read that touching letter of Madame de Stael which Chateaubriand has preserved. [Footnote 8] The opulent and gay, the learned, the brilliant, the serious, came in troops to that garden of the hotel in the Rue du Mont Blanc, where the unsullied and queenly rose was bending beneath the storm. The jealous emperor, at the head of his legions in Germany, heard of the interest she excited; for Junot, just returned from Paris, could not refrain from reporting at length what he had seen. But Napoleon interrupted him with impatience, saying, "The widow of a field-marshal of France, killed on the battle-plain, would not receive such honors!" And why should she? Is there no virtue but that of valor? Are there no conquests but those of the sword?

[Footnote 7: "Woman and Her Era." 2 vols. New York.]

[Footnote 8: In the "_Memoires d'Outre-Tombe._"]

The trial which Juliette bore so patiently was fatal to her mother.

Madame Bernard's health had long been declining; laid on a couch, and elegantly attired, she received visits daily; but her strength gave way altogether when her daughter fell from her high estate. She little knew that Madame Recamier was on the very point of having a royal prince for her suitor. Only three months after the failure of the bank Madame Bernard pa.s.sed away, deeply lamented by her loving daughter, whom filial piety made blind or indulgent to her imperfections.

Prince Augustus of Prussia was a nephew of Frederick the Great.

Chivalrous, brave, and handsome, he united very ardent feelings with candor, loyalty, and love, of his country. He had, in October, 1806, been made prisoner at the battle of Saalfeld, where his brother, Prince Louis, had fallen fighting at his side. The mourning he still wore added to his dignity, and the society and scenery in the midst of which Madame Recamier first met him, deepened the charm of his presence and devoted attentions.

It was in 1807, on the banks of the lake of Geneva, hallowed to the thoughtful mind by so many historic a.s.sociations, and encircled by all the gorgeous loveliness of which nature is so lavish in the valleys of the Alps. There in the chateau of Madame de Stael, Juliette listened during three months to his earnest conversation, and heard him propose that she should be his bride. Her marriage with M. Recamier presented no real difficulty; it was a civil marriage only; the peculiar case was one in which the Catholic Church admits of declaration of nullity; and for which, in Protestant Germany, legal divorce could very easily be obtained. Madame de Stael's imagination was kindled by this romantic incident, and she did not fail to second the prince's suit.

Juliette herself was fully alive to the honors that were proposed her.

It was no impoverished refugee that sought her hand. Though a prisoner {87} for the moment, he would, doubtless, soon be set at liberty, and he was as proud as any of his exalted rank. Yielding, therefore, to the sentiments he inspired, Madame Recamier wrote to her husband to ask his consent to a separation. This he could not refuse; but, while granting it, he seems to have appealed to her feelings with a degree of earnestness which profoundly touched her heart. He had, he said, been her friend from childhood; and, if she must form another union, he trusted it would not take place in Paris, nor even in France. His letter turned the current of her desires. She thought of his long kindness, his age, his misfortune, and resolved not to abandon him.

Religious considerations may also have weighed with her, for Prince Augustus did not hold the true faith. He had, moreover, two natural daughters, the countesses of Waldenburg, and this circ.u.mstance also may have indisposed her to the match. [Footnote 9] He had, as she once said, many fancies. Would a morganatic marriage bind his wandering heart, or could she endure the pain of being expatriated for ever? They parted without any definite engagement, but he repaired to Berlin to obtain his family's consent. Madame Recamier returned to Paris; and, though she declined the honor of his hand on the ground of her responding imperfectly to his affection, she sent him her portrait, which he treasured till the day of his death. A ring which she also gave him was buried with him, and they never ceased while on earth to correspond in terms of the warmest friends.h.i.+p. In 1815 the prince entered Paris with the victorious legions of allied Europe, having written to his friend from every city that he entered; and in 1825 they had their last interview in the Abbaye-aux-Bois.

[Footnote 9: "Madame Recamier," by Madame M----]

We must now follow her into exile. It was in the latter part of 1811 that she took up her abode in the dreary town of Chalons-sur-Marne, which happened to be just as far from Paris as she was required to live, and no further. The prefect was an amiable man, and retained his post during forty years, enjoying the confidence of each government in succession. But that which alleviated most the dulness of Chalons was its neighborhood to many beloved friends, particularly Montmorency. In June, 1812, however, she quitted it for Lyons, being unwilling to compromise those who were most ready to console her in exile. Many a chateau round had claimed the happiness of entertaining her; but to be kind to those who are suspected is always to draw suspicion on one's self. Renouncing many delights within her reach, she had sought one of the purest in playing the organ in the parish church, both during the week and on Sundays at high ma.s.s and vespers. She did the same at Albano during her stay there in the ensuing year.

Italy, and above all Rome, attracts sooner or later whatever is most cultivated in mind and taste. Thither, in 1813, Madame Recamier turned her steps. She was attended by her niece and her maid. Montmorency accompanied her as far as Chambery, and her carriage was well supplied with books, which M. Ballanche had selected to beguile the tedium of the way. This gentleman was the son of a printer at Lyons, and his genius became his fortune. His prose writings were considered a model of style, and ultimately obtained him a place in the French Academy.

Neglecting subjects of the day, he uniformly indulged his fondness for abstract speculation, and in several works ingeniously set forth his ideas on the progress of mankind through alternate periods of revival and decay. [Footnote 10] He was profoundly Christian at heart, but coupled his belief in the fall and redemption with peculiar notions respecting human perfectibility.

[Footnote 10: "_Inst.i.tutions Sociales,_" 1818. "_Palingenesis Sociale._" 1830]

{88} His mind was dreamy, his system mystical, but he realized intensely the existence of things unseen, and declared that "he was more sure of the next world than of this present." He mistrusted, indeed, the reality of material phenomena, and rested in the thought of two, and two only, luminously self-evident beings, himself and his creator. But genius is a dangerous gift to the student of theology, and perhaps Ballanche would have been more sound if he had been less clever. From the moment he saw Madame Recamier, he became ardently attached to her society. Her praise was his richest reward, and the prospect of reading his essays and poems to her more than doubled the pleasure of composing them. The first time he conversed with her a curious incident occurred. After getting over the difficulty he experienced in talking on ordinary topics, he had risen to a higher strain, and expatiated in glowing language on philosophical and literary subjects, till Madame Recamier, who had for some time been much incommoded by the smell of the detestable blacking with which his shoes had been cleaned, was obliged to tell him timidly that she really could not bear it any longer. M. Ballanche apologized humbly, left the room, and, returning a minute later without his shoes, took up the conversation where he had dropped it, and was soon in the clouds again. But his shoes were not his only drawback. He was hideously ugly, and that by a cruel mishap. A charlatan, like the one who practiced upon Scarron, had prescribed such violent remedies for his headaches that his jaw had become carious, and a part of it was removed by trepanning. A terrible inroad was made on one of his cheeks by this operation; but his magnificent eyes and lofty forehead redeemed his uncomely traits, and amid all his awkwardness and timidity his friends always discerned an expression of tenderness and often a kind of inspiration breathing from his face. Madame Recamier's talents were of a high order, for she could appreciate those of others. She soon forgot Ballanche's shoes, forgot his ungainly movements and ghastly deformity, and fixed her gaze on that inner man which was all n.o.bility and gentleness, glowing with poetry, and steeped in the dews of Hermon. Let us leave him now at Lyons; we shall meet him again before long.

There was a vast and dreary city toward the south of Italy which had once been called Rome. It was now the capital of the department of the Tiber. Without the Caesars or the Pope, it was Rome no more. No foreigners thronged its streets and fanes, its prelates were scattered, and its scanty inhabitants looked sullenly on the Frank soldiers who turned its palaces and sanctuaries into barracks. Hither came Madame Recamier, and her apartment in the Corso was soon hailed as an oasis in the wilderness. All the strangers in the deserted capital, and many of the Romans, paid their court to this queen of society; and Canova, one of the few stars left in the twilight, visited her every evening, and wrote to her every morning. He chiselled her bust as no hand but his could chisel it, and seized ideal beauty while copying what was before him. He called it "Beatrice," and it was worthy of the name. Ballanche, too, came all the way from Lyons to visit the universal favorite. He travelled night and day, and could remain at Rome only one week. The very evening of his arrival Madame Recamier began to do the honors of the Eternal City. Three carriages full of friends drove from her house to St.

Peter's and the Coliseum, where they all alighted. Ballanche moved solemnly, with his hands beside him, overpowered by the grandeur of all around. On a sudden his _parfaite amie_ looked back. He was not without his shoes this time, but without his hat. "M. Ballanche," she said, "where is your hat?" "Ah!" replied the philosopher, "I have left it at Alexandria." And so it was--so {89} little did his thoughts dwell on external life.

From Rome the travellers proceeded to Naples. A cordial welcome awaited Madame Recamier from Caroline Bonaparte, whom she had known of old. A page from the royal palace brought her a magnificent basket of fruit and flowers immediately on her arrival, and she soon became the confidante of both king and queen. Joachim Murat sat on a usurped throne, and was reaping the bitter fruits of a false position. Duty bound him to Napoleon, interest to the allies. First he was perfidious to his master, next to his colleagues. One day he entered his wife's saloon in great agitation, and finding Madame Recamier, avowed to her that he had signed the coalition. He then asked her opinion of his act, taking it for granted that it would be favorable. But, though not an imperialist, she was a Frenchwoman. "Sire!" she replied, "you are French, and to France you should be faithful." Murat turned pale. "I am a traitor then," he exclaimed, and, opening the window in haste, pointed to the British fleet sailing into the bay. Then burying his face in his hands, he sunk upon a sofa and wept. The year after, faithless alike to Europe and to the empire, a tempest cast him on the sh.o.r.e of Pizzo, and he was taken and shot like a brigand.

A dense crowd was collected in the Piazza del Popolo to see the entry of Pius VII., after the Apollyon of kingdoms had been sent to Elba.

The Roman n.o.bles and gentleman headed the procession, and their sons drew the pontiff's carriage. In it he knelt, with his hair unsilvered by age, and his fine face expressing deep humility. His hand was extended to bless his people, but his head bowed before the almighty disposer of human events. It was the triumph of a confessor rather than of a sovereign--of a principle, not of a person. Never did such a rain of tears fall on the marble paving at St. Peter's as when at last he traversed the church and prostrated himself before the altar over the tomb of the apostles. Then the _Te Deum_ rose and echoed through those gorgeous arches, and Madame Recamier was not insensible to the affecting scene. Before leaving Rome the second time, she paid a farewell visit to General Miollis, who had commanded the French forces. He was extremely touched by this civility, and received her in a villa he had bought, and which still bears his name. He was quite alone, with an old soldier for his servant. She was, he said, the only person who had called upon him since he had ceased to govern Rome.

After three years' absence she returned to Paris, and, still radiant with beauty and overflowing with gladness, resumed her undisputed empire over polite society. Her husband had regained his lost ground, and was again a prosperous banker, while she possessed in her own right a fortune inherited from her mother. The restoration of Louis XVIII. had changed the face of her salon and of society in general.

Her friends were once more in power, and those who had vexed her and them were banished or forgotten. The Duke of Wellington often visited her, and she presented him to Queen Hortense. He shocked her, however, after the battle of Waterloo, by saying of Napoleon, "I have well beaten him!" She had no love for the ex-emperor; but France was her country, and she could not exult over its defeat. Her niece declares that Wellington was not free from intoxication with his success, and that nothing but the indignant murmurs of the pit prevented him from entering the royal box with his aides-de-camp. [Footnote 11] Madame de Stael died in 1817, and her friend, Mathieu de Montmorency, gathered up with piety and hope every indication of a religious spirit which she had left behind. She never raised her eyes to heaven without thinking of him, and she believed that {90} in his prayers his spirit answered hers. [Footnote 12] Prayer, she wrote, was the bond which united all religious beings in one, and the life of the soul. Sin and suffering were inseparable, and she had never done wrong without falling into trouble. During the long sleepless nights of her last illness she repeated constantly the Lord's prayer to calm her mind, and she learned to enjoy the "Imitation of Jesus Christ."

[Footnote 11: "_Souvenirs de Madame Recamier_," vol. i., p.268.]

[Footnote 12: "_Dix annees d'Exil._" ]

The void she left in Madame Recamier's circle was filled by one whose writings were, the talk and admiration of Europe. This was Chateaubriand. Professor Robertson has lately brought him very agreeably to our remembrance in his able and interesting lectures on modern history. The Duc de Noailles, that contemporary, as he has been called, of Louis XIV., p.r.o.nounced his eulogy when taking his place in the French Academy, and he has left us his biography in the most charming form in which that of any one can be read, viz., written by himself. The portrait a man draws of himself in writing rarely deceives; for the very attempt to falsify would betray the real character. Chateaubriand's vanity escapes him in his memoirs as frequently as it did in his conversation, yet there cannot be a doubt that he had great qualities, and has built himself an enduring name.

That extreme refinement of thought which is inseparable from genius makes him difficult to appreciate, and the phases of society through which he pa.s.sed were so conflicting as to be fatal to the consistency of almost all public men. Yet he was on the whole faithful through life to his first principles. At one time he defended monarchy, at another freedom, pleading most eloquently for that which for the moment seemed most in danger. He knew the value of their mutual support, and, like all who move on a double line, he was often misunderstood. Born of an ancient and n.o.ble family, he chose at the same time the profession of arts and arms. The popular excesses of 1791 drove him from Paris, and he embarked for America. There, in the immense forests and savannas of Canada and the Floridas, often living among savages, he stored up materials for his early romances, and acquired that grandeur and depth of coloring in descriptions of natural scenery for which he is so remarkable. He was near the tropics, in the land of the fire-fly and hummingbird, when he heard of the flight of Louis XVI. and his arrest at Varennes. Hastening back to rejoin the standard of his royal master, he again took arms, and was seriously wounded at the siege of Thionville. From Jersey he was transported to London, where he lived in extreme want, taught French, and translated for publishers. Here, too, he produced his first work, which was tainted with the infidelity of the day. The death of his pious mother recalled him to a better mind, and awakened in him a train of thought which issued at length in the "_Genie du Christianisme._" "_Atala_" and "Rene," likewise under the form of romance, serving as episodes to his great work, avenged the cause of religion, and powerfully aided in producing a reaction in favor of Christianity. The First Consul hailed the rising star, and attached him as secretary to Cardinal Fesch's emba.s.sy at Rome. In 1804 he had just been appointed to represent France in the republic of Valais, when he heard of the odious execution of the Duc d'Enghien, and immediately sent in his resignation. He could serve a ruler who had brought order out of chaos, but not an a.s.sa.s.sin. From that day he never ceased to be hostile to the empire. After wandering, as Ampere did later, along the cla.s.sic sh.o.r.es of Greece and the monuments of Egypt, and kissing the footprints of his Redeemer on the mount of Calvary, he returned to France, and in the Vallee-aux-Loups composed his prose poem, the "Martyrs," in {91} which, as in "Fabiola" and "Callista," the glowing imagery of pagan art is blended with the ethical grandeur of the religion of Christ. A place was awarded him in the French Academy, which he was not permitted to take till the Bourbons were restored. Their return filled him with joy, and a pamphlet he had written against Bonaparte was said by Louis XVIII. to have been worth an army to his cause. On the escape of Napoleon from Elba he accompanied the king to Ghent, and, on re-entering Paris, was raised to the peerage and made minister of state. In 1816, having published his "Monarchy according to the Charter," he lost the royal favor and his honorary t.i.tle. His work, however, continues to this day "a textbook of French const.i.tutional law." [Footnote 13]

[Footnote 13: Robertson's "Lectures," p. 291.]

Such was the statesman, apologist, philosopher, and poet who, in his forty-ninth year, obtained an ascendancy over Madame Recamier's imagination so complete that the religious Montmorency trembled, and the thoughtful Ballanche dreamed some ill. They thought, too, that her manners changed toward them, but she soon restored their confidence.

It would be vain, indeed, to deny that her regard for Chateaubriand caused her many anxious thoughts and secret tears, particularly when, after a few years, he neglected her for the din of political debate and the society of beings less exalted and pure. But this estrangement was only temporary, and both before it and after it, till he died, her daily task was to soothe the irritability to which poets are said to be especially subject; to amuse him herself, as Madame de Maintenon amused Louis XIV.; and to surround him with those who, for her sake as well as for his, labored for the same charitable end.

Another reverse befel her in 1819. M. Recamier fouled again, and 4,000, which his wife had invested in his bank, went with the rest.

Trusting in the security of his position, she had shortly before purchased a house in the Rue d'Anjou and furnished it handsomely.

There was a garden belonging to it, and an alley of linden-trees, where Chateaubriand tells us he used to walk with Madame Recamier. But the house and garden were sold, and the occupant removed to a small apartment in the quaint old Abbaye-aux-Bois. She placed her husband and M. Bernard with M. Bernard's aged friend in the neighborhood, and dined with them, her niece, Ballanche, and Paul David every day. In the evening she received company, and her cell soon became the fas.h.i.+on, if not the rage. It was an incommodious room, with a brick floor, on the third story. The staircase was irregular; and Chateaubriand complains of being out of breath when he reached the top. A piano, a harp, books, a portrait of Madame de Stael, and a view of Coppet by moonlight, adorned it. Flower-pots stood in the windows; and in the green garden beneath nuns and boarders were seen walking to and fro. The top of an acacia rose to a level with the eye, tall spires stood out against the sky, and the hills of Sevres bounded the distant horizon. The setting sun used to gild the picture and pierce through the open cas.e.m.e.nts. Birds nestled in the Venetian blinds, and the hum of the great city scarce broke the silence.

Here Madame Recamier received every morning a note from Chateaubriand, and here he came at three o'clock so regularly that the neighbors, it is said, used to set their watches by his approach. Few persons were allowed to meet him, for he was singular and exclusive; but, when evening closed, the _elite_ of France and half the celebrities of Europe found their way here by turns. The d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re and Sir Humphrey Davy, Maria Edgeworth, Humboldt, Villemain, Montalembert, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Sainte-Beuve were frequent guests, and so also was one who {92} deserves more special notice, Jean Jacques Ampere.

It was on the 1st of January, 1820, that his ill.u.s.trious father presented him, then in his twentieth year, to the circle of friends who met at the Abbaye-aux-Bois. [Footnote 14] The enthusiasm with which he spoke, the gentleness of his disposition, the n.o.bility of his sentiments, and the brilliancy of his talents, soon secured him a high place in Madame Recamier's esteem. He attached himself to her with an ardor that never cooled, and that appeared quite natural to the elder guests who had long experienced her magical influence. During the career of fame which he ran her counsels were his guide, and her goodness his theme. However deep his studies, however distant his wanderings, among the surges of the Categat or the pyramids of the Pharaohs, his thoughts always reverted to her, and letters full of respect and devotion proved how amiable was his character, how observant and gifted his mind.

[Footnote 14: _Le Correspondant_, Mai, 1864, p. 46.]

In November, 1823, he and the faithful Ballanche accompanied her to Italy. Her niece, whom she treated as a daughter, was suffering from a pulmonary complaint, and change was thought desirable for her.

Chateaubriand's visits had grown less frequent. A political rivalry also had sprung up between her dearest friends, Chateaubriand having, in December, 1822, accepted the office of minister of foreign affairs vacant by the resignation of Mathieu de Montmorency. They disdained alike riches and honors, but each was bent on the triumph of a conviction, and on linking his name with a public act. Many thorns beset her path in consequence of their disunion, and absence for a time from France seemed to offer several advantages. She fully possessed the confidence of Madame de Chateaubriand, and all who knew the _capricieux immorel,_ as that lady called her husband, were of opinion that by going to Italy she might avoid many occasions of bitterness, and recall him to a calmer and n.o.bler frame.

Nearly a month was pa.s.sed in the journey from Paris to Rome. The travellers paused in every town, and explored its monuments, churches, and libraries. During the halt at midday, and again in the evening, they talked over all they had seen, and read aloud by turns. Ballanche and his young friend Ampere discussed questions of history and philosophy, and Madame Recamier gave an air of elegance to an apartment in the meanest inn. She had her own table-cloth to spread, together with books and flowers; and her presence alone, so dignified, so graceful, invested every place with the charm of poetry. Ballanche and Ampere projected a guide-book, and thus the latter was unconsciously laying up stores for that graphic "Histoire Romaine a Rome," [Footnote 15] on which his reputation as an author mainly rests. The year was just closing when they arrived in Rome. It was here that he met Prince Louis Bonaparte, the present emperor, who was then a boy, and here he had long and frequent conversations with Prince Napoleon, his elder brother, while Queen Hortense, then called the d.u.c.h.ess of Saint-Leu, was walking with Madame Recamier in the Coliseum, or the campagna around the church of St. John Lateran or the tomb of Cecilia Metella. Rome was then the asylum of the Bonapartes, as it has ever been the home of the outcast and the consolation of the wretched. The aspect was greatly changed since the former visit Pius VII. had lately yielded up his saintly spirit to G.o.d, and Leo XII. sat on his throne. The fetes and ceremonies that attended his elevation were all over except that of the pontifical blessing given from the balcony of St Peter's. Madame Recamier took her place beside the d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re in joint sovereignty over society at Rome. {93} The Duc de Laval, Montmorency's cousin, who was then the French amba.s.sador, placed his house, horses, and servants at her disposal, and began or ended every evening with her. The d.u.c.h.ess just mentioned was in her sixty-fourth year, and preserved the traces of remarkable beauty. Her eyes were full of fire, her skin was smooth and white. She was tall, erect, queenly, and thin as an apparition. Her skeleton hands and arms were like ivory, and she covered them with bracelets and rings. Her manners were distinguished, and she seemed at the same time very affectionate and rather sad.

[Footnote 15: Published in the _Revue des Deux Mondes,_ 1866-67.]

The long friends.h.i.+p which subsisted between this English Protestant lady and Cardinal Consalvi was not the least singular feature in her history. Her intimacy with Adrien and Mathieu de Montmorency was such that they always called her the _d.u.c.h.esse-cousine_, though they were not related to her at all. The Duc de Laval, whom she had known in England, writes thus of her to Madame Recamier, in May, 1823:

"The d.u.c.h.ess and I are agreed in admiring you. She possesses some of your qualities, and they have been the cause of her success though life. She is of all women the most attaching. She rules by gentleness, and is always obeyed. What she did in her youth in London, that she now recommences here. She has all Rome at her disposal--ministers, cardinals, painters, sculptors, society, all are at her feet."

Her days, however, were dwindling to a close, as were those also of Cardinal Consalvi. Just seven months after the decease of Pius VII.

that eminent statesman followed him to the tomb. All Rome went to see him laid in state--all except Madame Recamier, who, full of the sorrow which the d.u.c.h.ess would feel for his loss, and imagining that she would only be pained by such idle curiosity, drove to the solitude of the villa Borghese. On alighting from her carriage, she saw the tall and elegant figure of the d.u.c.h.ess in deep mourning, and looking the picture of despair. To her astonishment the latter proposed that they should go and see the lifeless cardinal. It was, indeed, a solemn scene. The chaplains had retired for a brief s.p.a.ce to dine, and the public were excluded. The ladies only entered to take their last look of human greatness. There he lay--the steady foe of the French revolution and the imperial despot, the minister of two popes during five-and-thirty years, the able and successful nuncio at the congress of Vienna. There he lay in the sleep of death, with his purple round him, and with his features still beautiful, calm, and severe.

Madame Recamier and her niece fell on their knees, praying fervently for the departed, and still more so for the lonely friend beside them, who had survived all the affections of her youth. She did not long survive. In March, 1824, she expired after a few days' illness. No one had been allowed to approach her till the last moment and for this extraordinary exclusion different reasons are a.s.signed. Madame Recamier and the Duc de Laval believed that it was through fear lest she should declare herself a Catholic. They were admitted just before the vital spark was extinguished, and she died while they knelt beside her, and Madame Recamier held her wan hand, and bathed it with tears.

After again visiting Naples, after excursions round the gulf, and reading as she went the glowing descriptions of Chateaubriand and de Stael, while the ardent Ampere and the meditative Ballanche supplied their living comments, Madame Recamier returned to spend her second winter in Rome, and enjoy the society of the Duc de Noailles and Madame Swetchine. The duke was in his twenty-third year, and she used to say that he was the last and youngest of those whom she called her real friends. His subsequent history of Madame de Maintenon proves how just a claim he had to be so regarded.

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Madame Swetchine, when she arrived in Rome, was imbued with some prejudices against Madame Recamier, but they vanished at the first interview, and the love that sprang up between them was of the holiest kind:

"I feel the want of you (she wrote in 1825) as if we had pa.s.sed a long time together, as if we had old a.s.sociations in common. How strange that I should feel so impoverished by losing what a short time since I did not possess! Surely there is something of eternity in certain emotions. There are souls--and I think yours and mine are among the number--which no sooner come in contact with each other than they throw off the conditions of their mortal existence, and obey the laws of a higher and better world."

After an absence of eighteen months, Madame Recamier returned to Paris. It was in May, 1825. Charles X. was being consecrated at Rheims, and both Chateaubriand and Montmorency were there for the ceremony. When the former received a line to inform him that the cell in the Abbaye was again occupied, he lost no time in paying his usual visit at the same hour as before. Madame Recamier's residence in Italy had produced the desired effect on him. His fitful mood was over. Not a word of explanation or reproach was heard, and from that day to his death, twenty-three years later, the purest and most perfect harmony existed between them. He had again fallen from power, and had been rudely dismissed. His only crime had been silence. He would not advocate the reduction of interest on the public debt, which appeared to him an act of injustice. How many would be half ruined by the change from five to three per cent! He abstained from voting. De Villele was incensed, and a heartless note informed one of the greatest men in France that his services were no longer needed. By a strange mishap he did not receive it at the right time, went to the Tuileries, attended a levee, and was going to take his place at a cabinet council, when he was told that he was no longer admissible. He had ordered his carriage for a later hour, and was now obliged to walk back in his full court robes through the streets of Paris. He long and bitterly remembered this ungenerous treatment. In his opposition to the Villele ministry he displayed prodigious talent; and in January, 1828, it gave place to that of Martignae, and he was himself appointed amba.s.sador at Rome.

Among the letters he wrote during his emba.s.sy, there is one very brief and touching, addressed to the little Greek Canaris, then educated in Paris by the h.e.l.lenic committee. The emanc.i.p.ation of the Christians of the East, whether Catholic or schismatic, was an object dear to Chateaubriand's heart, as well as to the royalists in general. The question was not embarra.s.sed by those false views of freedom which make many who love it afraid to speak its praise lest they should seem to countenance its abuse. "My dear Canaris," he says, "I ought to have written to you long ago. Pardon me, for I am full of business. My advice to you is this: Love Madame Recamier. Never forget that you were born in Greece, and that my country has shed its blood for the freedom of yours. Above all, be a good Christian; that is, an honest man submitting to the will of G.o.d. Thus, my dear little friend, you will keep your name on the list of those famous Greeks of yore where your ill.u.s.trious father has already inscribed it. I embrace you.--Chateaubriand." How delighted must the young Athenian have been to carry this note to the Abbaye-aux-Bois the next time he went to visit Madame Recamier, as he did on almost every holiday!

We have already spoken of Mathieu de Montmorency's singular death.