[Footnote 7: "Woman and Her Era." 2 vols. New York.]
[Footnote 8: In the "Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe.">[
The trial which Juliette bore so patiently was fatal to her mother. Madame Bernard's health had long been declining; laid on a couch, and elegantly attired, she received visits daily; but her strength gave way altogether when her daughter fell from her high estate. She little knew that Madame Récamier was on the very point of having a royal prince for her suitor. Only three months after the failure of the bank Madame Bernard passed away, deeply lamented by her loving daughter, whom filial piety made blind or indulgent to her imperfections.
Prince Augustus of Prussia was a nephew of Frederick the Great. Chivalrous, brave, and handsome, he united very ardent feelings with candor, loyalty, and love, of his country. He had, in October, 1806, been made prisoner at the battle of Saalfeld, where his brother, Prince Louis, had fallen fighting at his side. The mourning he still wore added to his dignity, and the society and scenery in the midst of which Madame Récamier first met him, deepened the charm of his presence and devoted attentions.
It was in 1807, on the banks of the lake of Geneva, hallowed to the thoughtful mind by so many historic associations, and encircled by all the gorgeous loveliness of which nature is so lavish in the valleys of the Alps. There in the château of Madame de Staël, Juliette listened during three months to his earnest conversation, and heard him propose that she should be his bride. Her marriage with M. Récamier presented no real difficulty; it was a civil marriage only; the peculiar case was one in which the Catholic Church admits of declaration of nullity; and for which, in Protestant Germany, legal divorce could very easily be obtained. Madame de Staël's imagination was kindled by this romantic incident, and she did not fail to second the prince's suit. Juliette herself was fully alive to the honors that were proposed her. It was no impoverished refugee that sought her hand. Though a prisoner [{87}] for the moment, he would, doubtless, soon be set at liberty, and he was as proud as any of his exalted rank. Yielding, therefore, to the sentiments he inspired, Madame Récamier wrote to her husband to ask his consent to a separation. This he could not refuse; but, while granting it, he seems to have appealed to her feelings with a degree of earnestness which profoundly touched her heart. He had, he said, been her friend from childhood; and, if she must form another union, he trusted it would not take place in Paris, nor even in France. His letter turned the current of her desires. She thought of his long kindness, his age, his misfortune, and resolved not to abandon him. Religious considerations may also have weighed with her, for Prince Augustus did not hold the true faith. He had, moreover, two natural daughters, the countesses of Waldenburg, and this circumstance also may have indisposed her to the match. [Footnote 9] He had, as she once said, many fancies. Would a morganatic marriage bind his wandering heart, or could she endure the pain of being expatriated for ever? They parted without any definite engagement, but he repaired to Berlin to obtain his family's consent. Madame Récamier returned to Paris; and, though she declined the honor of his hand on the ground of her responding imperfectly to his affection, she sent him her portrait, which he treasured till the day of his death. A ring which she also gave him was buried with him, and they never ceased while on earth to correspond in terms of the warmest friendship. In 1815 the prince entered Paris with the victorious legions of allied Europe, having written to his friend from every city that he entered; and in 1825 they had their last interview in the Abbaye-aux-Bois.
[Footnote 9: "Madame Récamier," by Madame M——]
We must now follow her into exile. It was in the latter part of 1811 that she took up her abode in the dreary town of Châlons-sur-Marne, which happened to be just as far from Paris as she was required to live, and no further. The prefect was an amiable man, and retained his post during forty years, enjoying the confidence of each government in succession. But that which alleviated most the dulness of Châlons was its neighborhood to many beloved friends, particularly Montmorency. In June, 1812, however, she quitted it for Lyons, being unwilling to compromise those who were most ready to console her in exile. Many a château round had claimed the happiness of entertaining her; but to be kind to those who are suspected is always to draw suspicion on one's self. Renouncing many delights within her reach, she had sought one of the purest in playing the organ in the parish church, both during the week and on Sundays at high mass and vespers. She did the same at Albano during her stay there in the ensuing year.
Italy, and above all Rome, attracts sooner or later whatever is most cultivated in mind and taste. Thither, in 1813, Madame Récamier turned her steps. She was attended by her niece and her maid. Montmorency accompanied her as far as Chambery, and her carriage was well supplied with books, which M. Ballanche had selected to beguile the tedium of the way. This gentleman was the son of a printer at Lyons, and his genius became his fortune. His prose writings were considered a model of style, and ultimately obtained him a place in the French Academy. Neglecting subjects of the day, he uniformly indulged his fondness for abstract speculation, and in several works ingeniously set forth his ideas on the progress of mankind through alternate periods of revival and decay. [Footnote 10] He was profoundly Christian at heart, but coupled his belief in the fall and redemption with peculiar notions respecting human perfectibility.
[Footnote 10: "Institutions Sociales," 1818. "Palingénésis Sociale." 1830]
[{88}] His mind was dreamy, his system mystical, but he realized intensely the existence of things unseen, and declared that "he was more sure of the next world than of this present." He mistrusted, indeed, the reality of material phenomena, and rested in the thought of two, and two only, luminously self-evident beings, himself and his creator. But genius is a dangerous gift to the student of theology, and perhaps Ballanche would have been more sound if he had been less clever. From the moment he saw Madame Récamier, he became ardently attached to her society. Her praise was his richest reward, and the prospect of reading his essays and poems to her more than doubled the pleasure of composing them. The first time he conversed with her a curious incident occurred. After getting over the difficulty he experienced in talking on ordinary topics, he had risen to a higher strain, and expatiated in glowing language on philosophical and literary subjects, till Madame Récamier, who had for some time been much incommoded by the smell of the detestable blacking with which his shoes had been cleaned, was obliged to tell him timidly that she really could not bear it any longer. M. Ballanche apologized humbly, left the room, and, returning a minute later without his shoes, took up the conversation where he had dropped it, and was soon in the clouds again. But his shoes were not his only drawback. He was hideously ugly, and that by a cruel mishap. A charlatan, like the one who practiced upon Scarron, had prescribed such violent remedies for his headaches that his jaw had become carious, and a part of it was removed by trepanning. A terrible inroad was made on one of his cheeks by this operation; but his magnificent eyes and lofty forehead redeemed his uncomely traits, and amid all his awkwardness and timidity his friends always discerned an expression of tenderness and often a kind of inspiration breathing from his face. Madame Récamier's talents were of a high order, for she could appreciate those of others. She soon forgot Ballanche's shoes, forgot his ungainly movements and ghastly deformity, and fixed her gaze on that inner man which was all nobility and gentleness, glowing with poetry, and steeped in the dews of Hermon. Let us leave him now at Lyons; we shall meet him again before long.