Volume Ii Part 14 (1/2)

Madame Recamier was one of the first to hear of it. She hastened to sit beside the corpse of her revered friend, and mingled her tears with those of his mother and widow. The {95} latter, who had always been attached to her, now became her intimate companion, and, when she came to Paris, stayed at the Abbaye expressly to be near her. Even Chateaubriand, who had been Montmorency's political rival, joined the train of mourners, and composed a prayer on the occasion for Madame Recamier's use. It is somewhat inflated, and breathes the language of a poet rather than of a Christian. It ends thus: ”O miracle of goodness! I shall find again in thy bosom the virtuous friend I have lost! Through thee and in thee I shall love him anew, and my entire spirit will once more be united to that of my friend. Then our divine attachment will be shared through eternity.” These expressions are overstrained; but they ill.u.s.trate the character of Madame Recamier's affection for her male friends. Of these Chateaubriand became henceforward the chief, and his letters to her from Rome, together with his subsequent intercourse with her in Paris, form the most important part of her remaining history. Everything was summed up in him,--diplomacy, politics, literature: he was to her, and not to her only, their chief representative. His correspondence, as preserved by her niece, is sparkling and pointed, full of incident, and especially interesting to those who remember Rome during the last years of Leo XII. and the pontificate of Pius VIII. Three letters a week reached her while his emba.s.sy lasted, and he has inserted several of them in his ”_Memoires_,” though not without dressing them up a little for posterity. Veneration and regard for her is their key-note. _Mille tendres hommages_, he writes. _Que je suis heureux de vous aimer!_ But French politeness always sounds strange and fulsome when dissected in English. In May, 1829, he obtained leave to return to Paris for a time, and he was welcomed at the Abbaye by numerous admirers. There he read aloud his ”_Moise,_” in the presence of Cousin, Villemain, Lamartine, Merimee, and a host of _literati_ beside. There he expressed all his fears for the ancient dynasty under the guidance of Prince Polignac. He had no personal feeling for the minister, save that of friends.h.i.+p. But he could discern the signs of the times. He sought an audience of the king, to warn him of the reefs on which he was being steered; but he was no favorite with Charles X., and his request was refused. Yet he might, if his counsels had been listened to, have saved his master from exile and France from the revolution of July. The crown was in his idea above all things except the law. He would neither abandon the charter for the king, nor the king for the charter. The ordinances of July were subversive of the const.i.tution, but the moment they were recalled he was on the monarch's side.

It was too late to stem the tide of insurrection. A ducal democrat was called to the throne. His partisans and those of the dethroned sovereign did not usually mix in society; but the salon in the Abbaye was an exception to every rule. There and at Dieppe, in the bathing season, the royalists Grenarde and Chateaubriand constantly met Ballanche, Ampere, Lacordaire, and Villemain, who welcomed the new regime. Madame Recamier, with admirable tact, kept them in social harmony, and her efforts in this direction were the more praiseworthy because she was not indifferent to their respective bias. She had always loved the old dynasty, both because of its hereditary rights and the glorious a.s.sociations attached to it in history. She lamented the shortsightedness of the Polignac ministry; but she lamented still more the accession of Louis Philippe, which drove the greater part of her friends into the obscurity of private life.

In April, 1830, her husband died. He was then in his eightieth year, and during his last illness was removed to the Abbaye, that he might be surrounded by every sort of attention. In taste, character, and understanding he differed from Madame Recamier {96} as widely as possible. They had but one quality in common: each was good and kind.

Notwithstanding the singularity of their tie, they lived together thirty-five years without any disagreement. M. Bernard and his old friend Simonard were also gone. Madame Lenormant was married, and though the family circle that used to dine at the Abbaye was no more, some faithful friends, such as Ballanche and Paul David, met daily at the widow's hospitable board. The former of these was especially disappointed by the fall of the elder Bourbon branch. He had hoped to see its alliance with that moral, political, and social progress which was the dream of his existence. Elective monarchy now seemed to hold out better prospects of his _palingenesie sociale_.

The att.i.tude a.s.sumed by Chateaubriand at this period was such as to command general respect. He attempted, but in vain, to procure the recognition of Henry V., and to place his rights under the protection of the Duke of Orleans. Then, declining to take the oath of allegiance to Louis Philippe, he retired from the peerage, and gave up his pension. The friends, however, from whom he differed were delighted to perceive that his cordiality with them in private was in no degree lessened. But there was a circle within the circle that frequented the Abbaye, and it was in 1832 that the Duc de Noailles became enrolled among the select few. This was owing in part to the sympathy which existed between him and Chateaubriand, and the high estimate which the latter formed of his judgment. Neither was he so dazzled by the future of society as to forget or despise its past. Both found in the history of the kings of France the sources of all subsequent improvement. The Duc de Noailles did not come alone to the Abbaye. His regard for Madame Recamier was such that he brought with him every member of his family whom he thought most worthy of her acquaintance, and invited her in turn and her friends to grace with their presence the fair domain of Maintenon. Here, surrounded by souvenirs of Louis XIV., Chateaubriand took notes for a chapter in his ”Memoirs,” which was not inserted, but given in ma.n.u.script to Madame Recamier. It fills seventeen pages, and forms one of the most striking parts of the volume under review. The writer recalls the delicious gardens he has visited in Greece, Ithaca, Grenada, Rome, and the East, and compares them with the surroundings of the chateau of Maintenon. He touches on many salient points in the history of that remarkable lady who bought it in 1675, and whose corpse had, in his own day, been dragged round the sacred enclosure of St. Cyr with a halter round the neck. He then pa.s.ses to the night spent in the chateau by Charles X., when the king, driven from the seat of government, dismissed his Swiss Guards, and placed himself almost in the condition of a prisoner. It was in Madame Recamier's drawing-room that the auto-biography for which this description was intended was first published, and that in the way so fas.h.i.+onable among the ancient Romans and still common in France--by the author's reading it aloud to an a.s.sembly of friends. Thus Statius read his ”Thebais,” [Footnote 16] thus Alfieri his tragedies, at Rome. The readings of the ”_Memoires d'outre Tombe_” spread over two years, and his fame extended so fast that it was difficult to find room for those who craved admittance. Publishers, also, were eager to purchase the ma.n.u.script, to be printed at the writer's death; and some royalist friends availed themselves of this circ.u.mstance to obtain for him a pension for life. The excitement attending the recitals relieved his ennui, and literary labor helped to pay his debts. The work itself, though intensely interesting to all who heard it and felt personally interested in the events it recorded, is too lengthy, detailed, peevish, {97} and egotistic to add much to Chateaubriand's fame. Any theme he handled was sure to call forth eloquence and genius; but himself was the very worst subject he could choose,--the worst, not, perhaps, for the entertainment of his readers, but for the reputation of the writer.

[Footnote 16: Juvenal, Sat. VII., 82-86.]

In October, 1836, Louis Napoleon made his attempt at Strasburg, and having been arrested, was brought to Paris for trial. His mother, the ex-queen Hortense, fearing lest her presence there might only add to his danger, paused at Viry, and allowed her devoted follower, Madame Salvage, to proceed. This lady, relying on Madame Recamier's fidelity to her friends, repaired immediately to the Abbaye, and, with a portfolio of treasonable correspondence, sought an asylum there. On the morrow, Madame Recamier visited the queen, or, to speak more correctly, the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Leu, at Viry, and found her in extreme distress. Her worst fears, indeed, were over. The prince's life was spared, but, before his trial was concluded, he was s.h.i.+pped off to New York. The prospect of thus losing him afflicted the d.u.c.h.ess greatly, for she had a mortal malady, and knew that her time on earth could not be long. The next year, in fact, Louis Napoleon, informed of her dangerous illness, hastened to Europe to see her once more. In 1840 he again a.s.serted, at Boulogne, his claim to the throne. He was tried by the chamber of peers, and Madame Recamier, though she had been obliged to appear and answer some questions before the _juge d'instruction_, was not deterred by this annoyance from asking permission to visit the prisoner. She saw him at the _Conciergerie_, not through attachment to his cause, but for his departed mother's sake. Two years after, when imprisoned in the fortress of Ham, he sent her his ”_Fragmens Historiques_.” In writing to her, he said: ”I have long wanted to thank you, madam, for the kind visit you paid me in the _Conciergerie_, and I am happy to have the opportunity now of expressing my grat.i.tude... . . You are so accustomed to delight those who approach you, that you will not be surprised at the pleasure I have felt in receiving a proof of your sympathy, and in learning that you feel for my misfortunes.” Enclosed in this letter was another for Chateaubriand, much longer, and highly creditable to the prince's talents and good taste. In it he declared his intention of beguiling his prison hours by writing a history of Charlemagne as soon as he should have collected the necessary materials. The prominent place which that prince held in his thoughts is strikingly brought before us in the preface to his ”Julius Caesar.” In 1848, when fortune smiled, and he arrived in Paris already elected deputy, one of his first visits was to the Abbaye-aux-Bois. It was just after the death of Chateaubriand, and Madame Recamier had not the pleasure of seeing him.

In another year, she had entered into her rest, and he was far on the turbulent way to an imperial throne.

We must not forget to mention among her friends one with whom we may be excused for having more sympathy than with Napoleon III. This was Frederic Ozanam. He was born in 1813, and was still a student, and in his twentieth year, when first presented by Ampere to Madame Recamier.

Chateaubriand was much struck by him, and he was present at several readings of the ”_Memoires_.” But he came to the Abbaye rarely, and when his friend Ampere asked him the reason, he replied: ”It is an a.s.sembly of persons too ill.u.s.trious for my obscurity. In seven years, when I become professor, I will avail myself of the kindness shown me.” With rare modesty, the young man kept his word. In seven years, and no less, he took his place in the renowned circle. His talents were already appreciated, and though timid and all but awkward, his conversation often {98} broke through the restraints of habit, and swept along its s.h.i.+ning course as if he were surrounded by his pupils in the lecture-room. Every year added to his celebrity. His character, his philosophy, his scholars.h.i.+p, were all Christian, and his professional life was devoted to one end. He vindicated the moral and literary attainments of the middle ages against modern detractors--against those who mean by the dark ages the ages about which they are in the dark. He traced in all his works the history of letters in barbarous times, and showed how, through successive periods of decadence and renaissance, the Church has ever been carrying forward the civilization of mankind. [Footnote 17] His publications have been edited by friends of whom he was worthy--Lacordaire and Ampere; and who would come to lay a votive wreath on Madame Recamier's tomb, without having one also for the grave of Ozanam?

[Footnote 17: ”_La Civilisation au Ve Siecle_,” etc.]

The winter of 1840-41 was a disastrous one for Lyons and its neighborhood. The swollen waters of the Rhone and Saone rising, overflowed their banks, and ravaged the surrounding country with resistless violence. The government was not slow to relieve the sufferers, and public as well as private charity poured in from every quarter. Madame Recamier felt deeply for her native city, and resolved on making an extraordinary to aid it in its distress. She organized a _soiree_ to which persons were to be admitted by tickets. These were sold at twenty francs each, but were generally paid tor at a higher rate. Lady Byron gave a hundred for hers. Rachel recited _Esther;_ Garcia, Rubini, and Lablache sang; the Marquis de Verac placed his carriages at their disposal; and the Duc de Noailles supplied refreshments, footmen, and his _maitre d'hotel_. The Russians residing in Paris were especially active in disposing of tickets; Chateaubriand from eight o'clock to the end of the _soiree_ did the honors of the saloon by which the company entered. Reschid-Pacha sat on the steps of the musician's platform, half buried beneath waves of silk and flowers. The rooms were adorned with exquisite objects of art, and 4,390 francs were received and transmitted to the mayor of Lyons.

Sixty poor families were selected by the cures to receive this bounty; Madame Recamier having requested that it might not be broken up into petty sums. In the midst of the glittering throng that a.s.sembled in the old Abbaye that evening, it is said that she eclipsed them all in beauty and grace. This may appear fabulous to many, for she was then in her sixty-third year; yet her niece would hardly a.s.sert it if it had not been the general opinion.

In 1842, Madame Recamier had the satisfaction of seeing Ballanche take his place in the French Academy. His friends, indeed, were more elated on the occasion than the philosopher himself. Literary honors were little in his eyes compared with the exertion of a moral and philosophic influence. His pa.s.sion for machinery had nearly ruined him; and his generosity was always beyond his narrow means. Like Socrates in the basket, he lived above the earth, and the trivial concerns of daily life dried up the sap of his sublime speculations.

[Footnote 18] Chateaubriand used to call him the hierophant; for he had a small sect of followers whom he initiated in his mysticism.

[Footnote 18: Aristophanes. ”The Clouds.” ]

A cloud was gathering over his existence, and over the gladness of all who frequented the Abbaye. Since the year 1839, Madame Recamier's health had been growing feebler, and a cataract was perceived slowly forming on her eyes. She bore the affliction with her usual calm, and the fear of becoming less able to amuse Chateaubriand was her chief distress. When her blindness became confirmed, her eyes were still brilliant; and her ear being {99} fine, she knew all who approached her by their voice. The valet took care to set everything in her apartment in its fixed place, so that she could move about without stumbling. In this way she often dissembled her loss of sight, and many who visited her came away with the impression that she saw pretty well. Long intercourse with Chateaubriand had made her habits as methodical as his. He still came to her daily at half-past two. They took tea together, and talked for an hour. Then the door opened to visitors, and the good Ballanche was always the first. This would have been mere dissipation, but for the more serious occupations of the morning. She rose early, had the papers read to her rapidly, then the choicest of new works, and afterward some standard author. Modern literature had always been her delight; and it cheered her even in her darkness. When she drove out, it was generally with some charitable purpose; for the time was pa.s.sed for paying other visits. Never, since Montmorency had recommended it, did she forget to read or hear read, daily some work of piety; and as age advanced and sorrow weighed more heavily, she derived from the practice increasing solace and strength.

Now came what Ballanche called ”the dispersion,” from which afterward he dated his letters. Prince Augustus of Prussia died in 1845, and charged Humboldt to execute his last commands with regard to her whom he had never ceased to respect and love. Her portrait, by Gerard, which she had given him, and her letters, were returned when he could no longer treasure them. His death affected her deeply; for other flowers also were fading from life's garden, and the winter of age was freezing everything but her affections. From Maintenon she pa.s.sed into Normandy with her niece and Ampere, who had just returned from Egypt, weary and sick with travel. Wherever she went, the blind beauty of the first empire wanted no one claim to respectful and devoted attention.

By the use of belladonna, she sometimes dilated the pupil, and acquired for a few hours the sense of sight. In this way she saw and admired Ary Scheffer's beautiful picture of St. Augustine, which he brought from the exhibition to the Abbaye-aux-Bois, on purpose that Chateaubriand and herself might inspect it. But such brief enjoyment only made returning darkness more gloomy; and an operation offered the best prospect of permanent relief. Meanwhile, Chateaubriand having broken his collar-bone in stepping from his carriage, a delay occurred. Madame Recamier would not deprive herself of the pleasure of diverting him during his confinement to the house. Her friends often a.s.sembled under his roof; and when he visited the Abbaye again, he was always carried into the roam by two domestics. Indeed, he never walked any more. Nor in her case did the operation for cataract succeed, for the patient did not enjoy that composure which was indispensable for a cure. Ballanche had been seized with pleurisy, and was dangerously ill. The blind lady to whom he had so long been devoted, breaking through all her surgeon's instructions, and braving the light she should have shunned, crossed the street which separated her from the dying man, and sat by his pillow to the last.

One who has often looked on death declares that she never saw it present so grand a spectacle as in Ballanche. All his philosophy was heightened into faith; all his poetry was wrapt into devotion.

Serenely trusting in the divine goodness, he realized intensely the mysteries of the unseen world; and, with the holy viatic.u.m on his lips, quitted his earthly tabernacle with joy, whilst she who watched at his side lost all hope of sight in her streaming tears. Ballanche's mortal remains lie in the vault of the Recamier family; and his life has been written by Ampere. He and Madame Recamier {100} together selected the choicest pa.s.sages from his works; and beneath the shade of beech-trees, amid the calm of nature, her niece's daughters read aloud to her Ballanche's long-treasured letters. She would scarcely have survived her grief had not Chateaubriand's infirmities still given a scope to her existence. Madame de Chateaubriand died in the winter of 1846-7. She abounded in charitable works, and the poor loved her name. The desolate widower proposed that Madame Recamier should take her place. He pressed his suit, but she persisted in her refusal.

She thought the little variety caused by his daily visits to her essential for his comfort; and that if she were always with him, he would be less consoled. ”What end,” she asked, ”could marriage answer?

At our age there is no service I may not reasonably render you. The world allows the purity of our attachment; let it remain unaltered. If we were younger, I would not hesitate a moment to become your wife, and so consecrate my life to you.”

A second operation was performed, with no better result than before.

The hope of being enabled to serve Chateaubriand more effectually alone induced her to submit to it. His end was fast approaching, and society itself seemed about to be dissolved. Without were contests; within were fears. The revolution of February, 1848, undid the revolution of July, 1830. The streets of the capital flowed with blood, and the roar of cannon in the insurrection of June shook the chamber of the expiring poet, and brought tears to his eyes. He heard with keen interest of the death of Monseigneur Affre, the good shepherd who gave his life for his sheep. The intrepid courage of that glorious martyr lent fresh nerve to his jaded spirit; and though his brilliant intellect had for some time past lost its l.u.s.tre, his thoughts were perfectly collected to the last. He was heard to mutter to himself the words he had written in 1814: ”No; I will never believe that I write on the tomb of France.” The chill waters of the river of death could not extinguish the patriotism that burned in his breast.

The Abbe Guerry, his confessor and friend, stood near him with the consolations of religion; his nephew, Louis de Chateaubriand, and the superioress of the convent of Marie-Therese, which he and his wife had founded. After receiving the blessed sacrament, he never spoke again; but his eyes followed Madame Recamier with an expression of anguish whenever she left the room. This was her crowning sorrow, that she could not see the sufferer she sought to relieve. When the worst was over, the calm of despair spread over her face, and a deathly paleness, which nothing could remove. She gratefully a.s.sented to everything which was proposed for her comfort; but her sad smile proved how vain was the effort to restore her to gladness. Those affectionate beings alone who live on friends.h.i.+p can comprehend the extent of her desolation.

Chateaubriand's obsequies were performed in the church of the _Missions etrangeres_, where a large concourse a.s.sembled, notwithstanding the city and the state were still in the agony of a social crisis. But his ashes were transferred to his own Brittany, where a solitary rock in the bay had long before been granted him by the munic.i.p.ality of St. Malo, as a place of burial. More than 50,000 persons were present at this strange and solemn interment. They seemed to represent France mourning his loss. The sea was covered with boats; the roofs of the houses, and the sh.o.r.es beneath, were crowded with spectators; banners floated from rock and tower; while mournful canticles and booming cannon broke the stillness of the air. The coffin was laid in a recess of the steep cliff, and surmounted by a granite cross. Ampere was deputed by the French Academy to p.r.o.nounce his eulogy on the occasion; and he concluded his report to that body in these {101} words: ”It would seem that the genius of the incomparable painter had been stamped on this last magnificent spectacle; and that to him alone among men it had been given to add, even after death, a splendid page to the immortal poem of his life.”

On Easter day in the following year Madame Recamier was persuaded to remove from the Abbaye-aux-Bois to the National Library, where her niece and nephew resided. The cholera had broken out in the neighborhood of the Abbaye; and though she did not fear death, she had a peculiar horror of that dreadful pestilence. But her flight was vain; the scourge pursued her, and fell with sadden violence on her enfeebled frame. The day before, Ampere and Madame Salvage had dined with her, and on the morning of her seizure her niece's daughter Juliette had been reading to her the memoirs of Madame de Motteville.

During twelve hours she suffered extreme torture, but spoke with her confessor, and received the sacrament of extreme unction. Continual vomiting prevented the administration of the eucharist. Ampere, Paul David, the Abbe de Cazales, her relations and servants, knelt around her bed to join in the prayers for the dying. Sobs and tears choked their voices, and ”Adieu, adieu, we shall meet again; we shall see each other again,” were the only words her agony allowed her to utter.

Madame Recamier breathed her last on the 11th of May, 1849. The terrible epidemic, which generally leaves hideous traces behind, spared her lifeless frame, and left it like a beautiful piece of sculptured marble. Achille Deveria took a drawing of her as she lay in her cold sleep, and his faithful sketch expresses at the same time suffering and repose.

Such was the end of her who, without the prestige of authors.h.i.+p, was regarded by her contemporaries as one of the most remarkable women of her time. We will not indulge in any exaggerated statement of her piety. Great numbers, no doubt, have attained to more interior perfection. Her ambition to please was undoubtedly a weakness.