Montmorency's death was the fitting sequel of a holy and useful life. It happened in 1826. He had recently been elected one of the forty of the French Academy, and had also been appointed governor to the Duc de Bordeaux, the grandson and heir of Charles X. He had gone to the church of St. Thomas d'Aquin on Good Friday, apparently in perfect health, and was kneeling before the altar and the "faithful cross on which the world's salvation hung," when his head bowed lower, and in a moment the bitterness of death was past.
Laharpe was another distinguished man to be numbered among the lovers of Madame Récamier's society. He had known her from a child, and when his exquisite taste in literature had obtained for him the title of the French with his regard was not lessened for one whose reputation was as flourishing as his own. He passed weeks at Clichy, and when he reopened his course of lectures on French literature at the Atheneum she had a place reserved for her near his chair. The letters she received from him are equally affectionate and respectful. He too had been converted through the excesses of that revolution which he had in the first instance encouraged. After suffering imprisonment in 1794, his ideas and conduct underwent a total change, and he resolved to devote his pen for the rest of his days to the service of religion. [{84}] The energy with which he denounced "philosophers" and demagogues drew upon him proscription, and it was only by concealing himself that he escaped being transported. Of all revolutions, that of France in the last century has, by the horror it excited and the reaction it produced, tended more than any other to consolidate monarchy, discredit scepticism, and promote the salvation of souls. It is a beacon-fire kindled to warn nations of the rocks and shoals—the faults of rule and the crimes of misrule—by which society may suddenly be broken up and civilization retarded.
Montmorency was a statesman, Laharpe a man of letters; let us now turn to another friend of Madame Récamier's, who from a private soldier rose to be a king and leave a dynasty behind him. This was Bernadotte. In 1802, M. Bernard was postmaster-general, and suspected of complicity in a royalist correspondence that menaced the government. Madame Récamier was one day entertaining a few guests at dinner, and Eliza Bonaparte, afterward Grand Duchess of Tuscany, was present by her own invitation. On rising from table a note was placed in the hands of the hostess announcing the arrest and imprisonment of M. Bernard. To whom should she have recourse at such a moment but to the First Consul's sister? She must see him, she said, that very evening. Would Madame Bacciocchi procure her an interview? The princess was cold. She would advise Madame Récamier to see Fouché first. "And where shall I find you again, madam, if I do not succeed?" asked Madame Récamier. "At the Théâtre Français," was the reply; "in my box with my sister."
Nothing could be gained from Fouché except the alarming information that the affair was a very serious one, and that unless Madame Récamier could see the First Consul that night it would be too late. In the utmost consternation she drove to the Théâtre to remind Madame Bacciochi of her promise. "My father is lost," she said, "unless I can speak with the First Consul to-night." "Well, wait till the tragedy is over," replied the princess, with an air of indifference, "and then I shall be at your service." Happily there was one in the box whose dark eyes, fixed on the agonized daughter, expressed clearly the interest he felt in her position. He leant forward, and explaining to the princess that Madame Récamier appeared quite ill, offered to conduct her to the chief of the government. Madame Bacciocchi readily assented, and gladly resigned the suppliant to Bernadotte's charge. Again and again he promised to obtain that the proceedings against M. Bernard should be stopped, and repaired immediately to the Tuileries. The same night he returned to Madame Récamier, who was counting the moments till he re-appeared. His suit had been successful, and he soon after procured the prisoner's release. Madame Récamier accompanied him to the Temple on the day M. Bernard was delivered. He was deprived of his post, for, though pardoned, he had undoubtedly been guilty of a treasonable correspondence with the Chouans.
This was the foundation of Bernadotte's friendship with Madame Récamier. "Neither time," he wrote to her, when adopted by Charles XIII., as his son and heir—"neither time nor northern ice will ever cool my regard for you." He had many noble qualities, and did much for Sweden. We could forgive him for joining the coalition against France, if he had not embraced Lutheranism for the sake of a crown.
During the short peace of Amiens, in 1802, Madame Récamier visited England, where she received the kindest attentions from the Duchess of Devonshire, Lord Douglas, the Prince of Wales, and the Duc d'Orleans, afterward king of the French. Those who can refer to the English newspapers of that year will find that [{85}] all the movements of the beautiful stranger were regularly gazetted.
But where is Madame de Staël? 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 Récamier, 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 années 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 Récamier's life. She, with Madame de Staël 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 château 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 Récamier, 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 illustrious exile. Her book on Germany did not contain a line directly against the emperor; but it was enough that the authoress'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. Réne Taillandier, p. 229.]
The limits allowed us in this article do not admit of our tracing the events of Madame Récamier'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 mass together many things which had better be kept apart.
One day, in the autumn of 1806, Monsieur Récamier 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 Récamier was made over, with all its liabilities, to the hands of its creditors. So cruel a reverse was enough to try the fortitude of the most Christian. Nor was Madame Récamier 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 sex. [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 friendships 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 Staël 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?