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The daughter had taken the veil, and was mistress of the novices at the Abbaye-aux-Bois. When M. de Bouteville, for that was his only title then, married, he took the arms and the name of Luxembourg. He did more.
Under such circumstances, the mother had no time for the daughters, nor were the conversations at those dinners food for young, innocent girls—and innocence was the first requirement of a marriageable young woman. The great convents were the Abbaye-aux-Bois and Penthemont, where the daughters of the wealthiest and highest families were educated.
In this emergency, Madame Récamier acted with her usual promptitude and decision. She had two objects in view in her plans for the future, economy, and a separation from her husband. An asylum in the Abbaye-aux-Bois secured to her both advantages. She established her husband and father in the vicinity of the Convent, and they with Ballanche dined with her every day.
No woman has ever received more universal and uniform homage, or has been more deeply lamented. Her death left a void in French society that has never been filled. The salon, which, from its origin in the seventeenth century, was so vital an element in Paris life, no longer exists. That of the Hôtel de Rambouillet was the first; that of the Abbaye-aux-Bois the last.
One is reminded of the little salon in the Abbaye-aux-Bois, where more than a century later Chateaubriand found the pleasure and the consolation of his last days in the society of Mme. Recamier. They talk, they write, they criticize each other, they receive their friends. The Cardinal de Retz comes in, and they recall the fatal souvenirs of the Fronde.
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.
Châteaubriand and Madame Récamier first met, familiarly, at the death-bed of Madame de Staël, whose loss they mutually deplored. It was not, however, until the next year, 1818, when Madame Récamier had retired to the Abbaye-aux-Bois, that the acquaintance ripened into intimacy.
The daughter had taken the veil, and was mistress of the novices at the Abbaye-aux-Bois. When M. de Bouteville, for that was his only title then, married, he took the arms and the name of Luxembourg. He did more.
They rarely met afterward, though the Duke came once to the Abbaye-aux-Bois. Madame Récamier had at this time a much more earnest admirer in Benjamin Constant. As common friends of Madame de Staël, they had been acquainted for years, and had played together in private theatricals at Coppet.
Strangers may visit this hospital every day, and will find the detail of the regulations very interesting. A few yards eastward bring us to the Abbaye-aux-Bois, so called when it was founded in 1202 from being in the midst of the woods; this church possesses a few good pictures, amongst which are a Virgin and dead Christ, by Lebrun, and a portrait of Mlle de la Vallière.
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