With Madame de Staël disappeared a considerable portion of the time in which I had lived: many of those breaches which the fall of a superior intelligence forms in a century never close up again. Her death made on me a particular impression, with which was mingled a sort of mysterious astonishment: it was at that illustrious woman's that I had first met Madame Récamier and, after long days of separation, Madame de Staël brought together again two travelling persons who had become almost strangers to one another: she left them, at a funeral banquet, her memory and the example of her immortal attachment.
I went to see Madame Récamier in the Rue Basse-du-Rempart and, afterwards, in the Rue d'Anjou. When one has rejoined his destiny, he believes himself never to have left it: life, according to the opinion of Pythagoras, is only a reminiscence. Who does not, in the course of his days, recollect some little circumstances indifferent to all, except to him who recalls them? Belonging to the house in the Rue d'Anjou was a garden; in that garden, a bower of lime-trees, between whose leaves I saw a moonbeam when I waited for Madame Récamier: does it not seem to me as though that beam were mine and as though, if I went to look for it in the same place, I should find it? I scarce remember the sun which I have seen shine on many fore-heads.
*
The Abbaye-aux-Bois.
It was at that time that I was obliged to sell the Vallée-aux-Loups, which Madame Récamier had hired, in half shares with M. de Montmorency. More and more tried by fortune, Madame Récamier soon retired to the Abbaye-aux-Bois[475]. The Duchesse d'Abrantès speaks as follows of that abode:
"The Abbaye-aux-Bois, with all its dependencies, its beautiful gardens, its extensive cloisters, in which played young girls of all ages, with careless looks and frolicsome words, was known only as a saintly abode to which a family could safely entrust its hope; even then, it was known only to the mothers who had an interest beyond its high walls. But, once Sister Marie had closed the little gate surmounted by an attic, the boundary of the saintly domain, one crossed the great court-yard which separates the convent from the street, not only as neutral, but as foreign ground.
"To-day this is no longer so: the name of the Abbaye-aux-Bois has become popular; its renown is general and familiar to all classes. The woman who goes there for the first time and says to her footmen, 'To the Abbaye-aux-Bois' is sure not to be asked by them in which direction they have to drive....
"Whence did it, in so short a time, derive so positive a renown, so wide-spread an illustriousness? Do you see two little windows, right up at the top, in the lofts, there, above the large windows of the great stair-case? That is one of the small rooms of the house. Well, nevertheless, the fame of the Abbaye-aux-Bois took birth within its confines, came down from there, and became popular. And how could it but become popular, when all classes of society knew that, in that little room, dwelt a being who led a life disinherited of all joy and who, nevertheless, found words of consolation for every sorrow, magic words to alleviate every pain, succour for every misfortune?
"When, from the recesses of his prison, Coudert[476] caught a glimpse of the scaffold, whose pity was it that he invoked? 'Go to Madame Récamier,' he said to his brother[477] 'tell her that I am innocent before God... she will understand that evidence...' and Coudert was saved. Madame Récamier joined in her generous action a man gifted with both talent and kindness: M. Ballanche seconded her endeavours, and the scaffold devoured one victim the less.
"It might almost be described as a marvel offered to the study of the human mind, that little cell in which a woman of more than European reputation came to seek repose and a decent asylum. The world is generally inclined to forget those who no longer invite it to their banquets; it did not forget her who, formerly, in the midst of her joys, lent an even more willing ear to a complaint than to the accents of pleasure. Not only was the little room on the third floor of the Abbaye-aux-Bois the constant object of the errands of Madame Récamier's friends, but, as though a fairy's magic wand had relieved the steepness of the ascent, the same strangers who used to ask as a favour to be admitted to the elegant mansion on the Chaussée d'Antin continued to beg the same boon. For them it was a sight really as remarkable as any rarity in Paris to see, within a space of ten feet by twenty, all opinions united under one banner, marching in peace and almost hand in hand. The Vicomte de Chateaubriand told Benjamin Constant of the unknown marvels of America. Mathieu de Montmorency, with the urbanity personal to himself, the chivalrous politeness of all that bears his name, was as respectfully attentive to Madame Bernadotte[478], who was about to reign in Sweden, as he would have been to the sister[479] of Adelaide of Savoy[480], daughter of Humbert the White-handed[481], that widow of Louis the Fat[482] who married one of his ancestors[483]. And the man of the feudal times had not a single bitter word for the man of our days of liberty.
Society at the Abbaye.
"Seated side by side on the same divan, the duchess of the Faubourg Saint-Germain became polite to the duchess of the Empire; nothing seemed to shock in that unique room. When I saw Madame Récamier again in that room, I had just returned to Paris, after a long absence. I had a service to ask of her, and went to her with confidence. I well knew, through common friends, to how great a measure of strength her courage had risen, but I myself lacked it when I saw her there, under the loft, as peaceful and calm as in the gilded drawing-rooms of the Rue du Mont-Blanc.
"'What!' said I to myself. 'Nothing but sufferings!'
"And my moist eye fixed itself upon her with an expression which she must have understood. Alas, my memories passed back over the years and recaptured the past! Ever beaten by the storm, that woman, whom fame had placed at the very top of the wreath of flowers of the age, had, for the last ten years, seen her life surrounded by sorrows, the shock of which was striking repeated blows at her heart and killing her!...
"When, guided by old memories and a constant attraction, I selected the Abbaye-aux-Bois as my refuge, the little room on the third storey was no longer inhabited by her whom I should have gone to seek there; Madame Récamier at that time occupied a more spacious apartment. It was there that I saw her again. Death had thinned the ranks of the combatants around her, and, of all those political champions, M. de Chateaubriand was almost the only one among her friends who had survived. But for him too the hour struck of hope deceived and royal ingratitude. He was wise; he bade farewell to those false pretenses of happiness, and relinquished the uncertain power of the tribune to grasp one more practical.
"You have already seen that, in this drawing-room at the Abbaye-aux-Bois, there was question of other interests besides literary interests, and that those who suffer may turn towards it a look full of hope, Constantly occupied as I have, for some months, been with all that relates to the family of the Emperor, I have found a few documents which do not seem to be devoid of interest at this moment.
"The Queen of Spain[484] found herself under an absolute necessity to return to France. She wrote to Madame Récamier to beg her to interest herself in the request which she was making to be allowed to come to Paris. M. de Chateaubriand was at that time in office, and the Queen of Spain, knowing the loyalty of his character, had every confidence in the success of her appeal. Nevertheless, the thing was difficult, because there was a law which affected all that unhappy family, even in its most virtuous members. But M. de Chateaubriand had in him that feeling of a noble pity for misfortune, which later made him write those touching words:
Sur le compte des grands je ne suis pas suspect:
Leurs malheurs seulement attirent mon respect.
Je hais ce Pharaon, que l'éclat environne;
Mais s'il tombe, à l'instant j'honore sa couronne;
Il devient, à mes yeux, roi par l'adversité;
Des pleurs je reconnais l'auguste autorité:
Courtisan du malheur, etc., etc.[485]
"M. de Chateaubriand lent an ear to the interests of a person in distress; he examined his duty, which did not lay upon him the fear of dreading a weak woman, and, two days after the request was made, he wrote to Madame Récamier that Madame Joseph Bonaparte might return to France, asking where she was, in order that he might send her, through M. Durand de Moreuil, then our Minister to Brussels[486], permission to come to France under the name of the Comtesse de Villeneuve. He wrote at the same time to M. de Fagel[487].
"I have related this fact with so much the more pleasure as it honours both her who asked and the minister who obliged her: the one through her noble confidence, the other through his noble humanity[488]."
Madame d'Abrantès praises my conduct far too highly: it was not worth even the trouble of remark; but, as she does not tell all there is to tell about the Abbaye-aux-Bois, I will supply what she has forgotten or omitted.
Captain Roger.