The misfortune of my friends has often weighed heavily on me, and I have never shrunk from the sacred burden: the moment of reward has arrived; a serious attachment deigns to help me to support that which the multitude of the bad days adds to their weight. As I draw near my end, it seems to me that all that has been dear to me has been dear to me in Madame Récamier, and that she was the hidden source of my affections. My memories of diverse ages, those of my dreams as well as those of my realities, have become moulded, blended, confounded into a compound of charms and sweet sufferings of which she has become the visible embodiment She regulates my sentiments, in the same way as Heaven has set happiness, order and peace into my duties.
I have followed the fair wanderer along the path which she has trodden so lightly; soon I shall go before her to a new country. As she passes in the midst of these Memoirs, in the windings of the basilica which I hasten to complete, she may come upon the chapel which here I dedicate to her; it will perhaps please her to rest in it: I have placed her image there.
[336] This book was written in Paris in 1839.—T.
[337] Madame de Staël, Corinne, ou l'Italie (Paris, 1807).—T.
[338] Florio's Montaigne, Booke I., chap. III.: Our affections are transported beyond our selves.—T.
[339] Madame Récamier, before her marriage, was Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Bernard. Of all her baptismal names, only Julie remained, transformed into Juliette. Her father, Jean Bernard, was a notary at Lyons; in 1784, he was appointed a receiver of finance in Paris.—B.
[340] And not thirteen, as the earlier editions have it.—B.
[341] Jacques Rose Récamier (1751-1830), the Paris banker. The marriage took place on the 24th of April 1793.—T.
[342] Benjamin Constant, Adolphe: anecdote trouvée dans les papiers d'un inconnu (Paris, 1816).—T.