On the eve of Madame Récamier's departure, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Devonshire asked leave to call on her and to bring with them some persons of their society. Music was performed. Together with the Chevalier Marin, the first harper of the time, she played variations on a theme by Mozart. This evening was mentioned in the public press as a concert which the beautiful foreigner had given, on leaving, to the Prince of Wales.
The next day, she set sail for the Hague and took three days to make a crossing of sixteen hours. She has told me that, during those days dashed with storms, she read the Génie du Christianisme straight through; I was "revealed" to her, to use her kind expression: I recognise in this the good-will which the winds and the sea have always had for me.
Near the Hague, she visited the country-house of the Prince of Orange. The Prince, having made her promise to go to see that residence, wrote her several letters in which he speaks of his reverses and of his hope to conquer them: William I. has, in fact, become a monarch[363]; at that time one intrigued to become king as nowadays to become a deputy, and those candidates for the sovereignty used to throng round the feet of Madame Récamier as though she had crowns in her gift.
The following note from Bernadotte, who reigns to-day over Sweden[364], ended Madame Récamier's journey to England:
. . . . . . . . . .
"The English papers, while calming my apprehensions for your health, have informed me of the dangers to which you have been exposed. I at first blamed the people of London for their too great assiduity, but, I confess to you, I soon excused them, for I am an interested party when it is necessary to justify persons who become indiscreet in order to admire the charms of your celestial countenance.
"Amid the lustre which surrounds you and which you deserve by such manifold rights, deign sometimes to remember that the being most devoted to you in nature is
"Bernadotte."
Madame de Staël's exil.
Madame de Staël, threatened with exile, attempted to settle down at Maffliers, a country-place eight leagues from Paris. She accepted the proposal made to her by Madame Récamier, on her return from England, to spend a few days with her at Saint-Brice; afterwards she went back to her first refuge. She relates what happened then, in the Dix années d'exil:
"I was at table," she says, "with three of my friends in a room from which one saw the high road and the entrance-door. It was at the end of September[365], at four o'clock: a man in grey, on horseback, stopped and rang; I was sure of my fate; he asked for me; I received him in the garden. As I went towards him, I was struck by the scent of the flowers and the beauty of the sun. The sensations that come to us through the combinations of society are so different from those of nature! The man told me that he was the commandant of the Versailles Gendarmery.... He showed me a letter, signed by Bonaparte, which contained the order to remove me to forty leagues from Paris, with an injunction to make me leave within twenty-four hours, while treating me, however, with all the consideration due to a woman whose name was known.... I replied to the officer of gendarmes that to set out within twenty-four hours might suit conscripts, but not a woman and children. Consequently I proposed that he should accompany me to Paris, where I had need of three days to make the necessary arrangements for my journey. I therefore got into my carriage with my children and this officer, who had been selected as being the most literary of the gendarmes. In fact, he paid me compliments on my writings.
"'You see, monsieur,' I said to him, 'what comes of being an intellectual woman. I beg you, dissuade the members of your family from it, if you have occasion to do so.'
"I tried to rouse myself with pride, but I felt the clutching at my heart.
"I stopped for a few moments at Madame Récamier's. I there found General Junot[366], who, out of devotion for her, promised to go the next day to speak to the First Consul. He did so in fact with the greatest warmth....
"On the eve of the last day given me, Joseph Bonaparte made yet one attempt....
"I was obliged to await the answer in an inn at two leagues from Paris, not daring to return to my own home in town. A day passed without the answer reaching me. Not wishing to attract attention by remaining longer at the inn where I was, I made the circuit of the walls of Paris to go to look for another, also at two leagues from Paris, but on a different road. This wandering life, at four steps from my friends and my home, caused me a grief which I cannot recall without shuddering[367]."
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