There is one, however, whose salon gathered into itself the last rays of the old glory, and whose fame as a social leader has eclipsed that of all her contemporaries. Mme. Recamier, "the last flower of the salons," is the woman of the century who has been, perhaps, most admired, most loved, and most written about.
It has been so much the fashion to dwell upon her marvelous beauty, her kindness, and her irresistible fascination, that she has become, to some extent, an ideal figure invested with a subtle and poetic grace that folds itself about her like the invisible mantle of an enchantress. Her actual relations to the world in which she lived extended over a long period, terminating only on the threshold of our own generation. Without strong opinions or pronounced color, loyal to her friends rather than to her convictions, of a calm and happy temperament, gentle in character, keenly appreciative of all that was intellectually fine and rare, but without exceptional gifts herself, fascinating in manner, perfect in tact, with the beauty of an angel and the heart of a woman--she presents a fitting close to the long reign of the salons.
We hear of her first in the bizarre circles of the Consulate, as the wife of a man who was rather father than husband, young, fresh, lovely, accomplished, surrounded by the luxuries of wealth, and captivating all hearts by that indefinable charm of manner which she carried with her to the end of her life. Both at Paris and at her country house at Clichy she was the center of a company in which the old was discreetly mingled with the new, in which enmities were tempered, antagonisms softened, and the most discordant elements brought into harmonious rapport, for the moment, at least, by her gracious word or her winning smile.
Here we find Adrien and Mathieu de Montmorency, who already testified the rare friendship that was to outlive years and misfortunes; Mme. de Stael before her exile; Narbonne, Barrere, Bernadotte, Moreau, and many distinguished foreigners. Lucien Bonaparte was at her feet; LaHarpe was devoted to her interests;
Napoleon was trying in vain to draw her into his court, and treasuring up his failure to another. The salon of Mme. Recamie was not in any sense philosophical or political, but after the cruel persecution of LaHarpe, the banishment or Mme. de Stael, and the similar misfortunes of other friends, her sympathies were too strong for her diplomacy, and it gradually fell into the ranks of the opposition. It was well known that the emperor regarded all who went there as his enemies, and this young and innocent woman was destined to feel the full bitterness of his petty displeasure. We cannot trace here the incidents of her varied career, the misfortunes of the father to whom she was a ministering angel, the loss of her husband's fortune and her own, the years of wandering and exile, the second period of brief and illusive prosperity, and the swift reverses which led to her final retreat. She was at the height of her beauty and her fame in the early days of the Restoration, when her salon revived its old brilliancy, and was a center in which all parties met on neutral ground. Her intimate relations with those in power gave it a strong political influence, but this was never a marked feature, as it was mainly personal.
But the position in which one is most inclined to recall Mme.
Recamier is in the convent of Abbaye-aux-Bois, where, divested of fortune and living in the simplest manner, she preserved for nearly thirty years the fading traditions of the old salons.
Through all the changes which tried her fortitude and revealed the latent heroism of her character, she seems to have kept her sweet serenity unbroken, bending to the passing storms with the grace of a facile nature, but never murmuring at the inevitable.
One may find in this inflexible strength and gentleness of temper a clue to the subtle fascination which held the devoted friendship of so many gifted men and women, long after the fresh charm of youth was gone.
The intellectual gifts of Mme. Recamier, as has been said before, were not of a high or brilliant order. She was neither profound nor original, nor given to definite thought. Her letters were few, and she has left no written records by which she can be measured. She read much, was familiar with current literature, also with religious works. But the world is slow to accord a twofold superiority, and it is quite possible that the fame of her beauty has prevented full justice to her mental abilities.
Mme. de Genlis tells us that she has a great deal of esprit. It is certain that no woman could have held her place as the center of a distinguished literary circle and the confidante and adviser of the first literary men of her time, without a fine intellectual appreciation. "To love what is great," said Mme.
Necker "is almost to be great one's self." Ballanche advised her to translate Petrarch, and she even began the work, but it was never finished. "Believe me," he writes, "you have at your command the genius of music, flowers, imagination, and elegance.
. . . Do not fear to try your hand on the golden lyre of the poets." He may have been too much blinded by a friendship that verged closely upon a more passionate sentiment to be an altogether impartial critic, but it was a high tribute to her gifts that a man of such conspicuous talents thought her capable of work so exacting. Her qualities were those of taste and a delicate imagination rather than of reason. Her musical accomplishments were always a resource. She sang, played the harp and piano, and we hear of her during a summer at Albano playing the organ at vespers and high mass. She danced exquisitely, and it was her ravishing grace that suggested the shawl dance of "Corinne" to Mme. de Stael and of "Valerie" to Mme. de Krudener. One can fancy her, too, at Coppet, playing the role of the angel to Mme. de Stael's Hagar--a spirit of love and consolation to the stormy and despairing soul of her friend.
