"Paris, 13 January.
"I confess, madame, that I do not much regret that business will prevent me from calling on you after dinner, because, every time I see you, I leave you more impressed with your charms and less disposed to give my attention to politics!!!
"I will call on you to-morrow on my return from the Abbé Sicard's, in case you should be in, and in spite of the effect which those dangerous visits produce on me.
"Your most faithful servant,
"Wellington."
On his return from Waterloo, entering Madame Récamier's drawing-room, the Duke of Wellington exclaimed:
"I have beaten him soundly!"
In a French heart, his success would have made him lose the victory, had he ever been able to lay claim to it.
End of Madame de Staël.
It was at a sad time for the glory of France that I met Madame Récamier again; it was at the time of the death of Madame de Staël. Returning to Paris after the Hundred Days, the author of Delphine had fallen ill again; I had met her at her house and at Madame la Duchesse de Duras'. Gradually, her condition growing worse, she was obliged to keep her bed. One morning, I went to her in the Rue Royale; the shutters of her windows were two-thirds closed; the bed, pushed towards the wall at the back of the room, left only a space on the left; the curtains, drawn back on metal rods, formed two columns at the head of the bed. Madame de Staël, half sitting up, was propped up by pillows. I approached and, when my eyes had grown a little accustomed to the darkness, I distinguished the patient. A burning fever fired her cheeks. Her bright glance met me in the dimness, and she said to me:
"Good morning, my dear Francis[473]. I suffer, but that does not prevent me from loving you."
She held out her hand, which I pressed and kissed. As I raised my head, I saw on the opposite side of the bed, against the wall, something which rose up white and thin: it was M. de Rocca, with an emaciated countenance, hollow cheeks, bloodshot eyes and a sallow complexion; he was dying. I had never seen him, and I never saw him again. He did not open his mouth; he bowed as he passed before me; the sound of his footsteps was inaudible: he went away like a shadow. Stopping for a moment at the door, "the vaporous idol twitching its fingers" turned back towards the bed to wave adieu to Madame de Staël. Those two ghosts looking at one another in silence, one erect and pale, the other seated and coloured with a blood ready to flow down again and to congeal at the heart, made one shudder.
A few days afterwards, Madame de Staël changed her lodging. She invited me to dine with her, in the Rue Neuve-des-Mathurins: I went; she was not in the drawing-room and was unable even to come in to dinner; but she did not know that the fatal hour was so nigh. We sat down to table. I found myself sitting by Madame Récamier. It was twelve years since I had met her, and then I had seen her for but a moment. I did not look at her, she did not look at me: we did not exchange a word. When, towards the end of dinner, she timidly addressed a few words to me on Madame de Staël's illness, I turned my head a little and raised my eyes. I should fear to profane to-day through the mouth of my years a sentiment which preserves all its youth in my memory and whose charm increases as life withdraws. I separate my old days to discover behind those days celestial apparitions, to hear from the bottom of the abyss the harmonies of a happier region.
Madame de Staël died[474]. The last note which she wrote to Madame de Duras was traced in big crazy letters, like a child's. It contained an affectionate word for "Francis." The talent which expires impresses one more painfully than the individual who dies: it is a general desolation that strikes society; every one at the same moment suffers the same loss.