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There was much to make a stay in Italy attractive to Madame Récamier, if she could have forgotten Châteaubriand, Her old admirer, the Duc de Laval, was ambassador at Rome, and put his horses and servants at her disposal. The Duchess was a liberal patron of the fine arts, and the devoted friend of Cardinal Gonsalvi, from the shock of whose death she never recovered.
Madame Tallien, the all-powerful wife of one of the five directors who now swayed the destinies of France; Madame Récamier, the friend of all the eminent and distinguished men of that period; and Madame de Staël, the daughter of Necker, and the wife of the ambassador of Sweden, whose government had recognized the republic these three ladies gave to Paris its drawing-rooms, its reunions, its fêtes, its fashions, and its luxury.
Scarcely had we arrived, when an Italian musician, whom I had with me to give lessons to my daughter, began playing upon the guitar; my daughter accompanied upon the harp the sweet voice of my beautiful friend Madame Recamier; the peasants collected round the windows, astonished to see this colony of troubadours, which had come to enliven the solitude of their master.
The memorial de Sainte Helene, referring to the origin of the ill-will of the Chief of the Empire towards the society of Madame de Stael and Madame Recamier, etc., seems to reproach Madame Recamier, "accustomed," says the Memorial, "to ask for everything and to obtain everything," for having claimed nothing less than the complete reinstatement of her father.
Finally he requested, that, if Madame Récamier persisted in her project, the divorce should not take place in Paris, but out of France, where he would join her to arrange matters." This letter had the desired effect. Madame Récamier concluded not to abandon her husband, and returned to Paris, but without undeceiving the Prince, who started for Berlin.
It was in the spring of 1799 that Madame Récamier met Lucien Bonaparte at a dinner. He was then twenty-four, and she twenty-two. He asked permission to visit her at Clichy, and made his appearance there the next day.
It is hard to conceive of a more brilliant career, or of one more calculated from its singularity to give rise to contradictory impressions. This natural perplexity is much increased by the character of Madame Récamier's memoirs, published in 1859, ten years after her death. They are from the pen of Madame Lenormant, the niece of Monsieur Récamier, and the adopted daughter of his wife.
Récamier, although in date all but the contemporary of Mme.
I am very calm and resigned, and hope that we shall again meet in this world. Your affectionate mother, "HORTENSE. "Arenemberg, April 3, 1837." As we have mentioned, Queen Hortense, upon receiving news of the arrest of her son, hastened to France to do what she could to save him. Madame Récamier found her at Viry, in great anguish of spirit.
Gérard, Mme. d'Abrantès, Mme. Récamier, Mme. Nodier. Mme. Lebrun corresponds to the period when Pre-Revolutionary traditions were still in force, and when the remembrance yet subsisted of a society that had been a real and not a fictive unity. Mme.
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