B OOK S.
MADAME RECAMIER.* :Mn ht*** seems in this charming little work to have pro-
posed a twofold object to herself; to define the position of French as opposed to that of English women, and to clear the fair fame of Madame Retamier from charges, which, as one of her few surviving intimates, she knew to be untrue. She brings to her task a pleasant style, vast knowledge of individuals, and that sympathy with French thought which is so seldom found in Englishwomen, and which is so essential to a just view of the lives of these queens of conversation. She comprehends as no mere Englishwoman can a state of society in which conversation is the recognized medium of cultivation, in which a woman may be very excellent yet without a domestic taste, and in which, above all, men and women can be on terms of romantic friend- ship yet leave no occasion for scandal and feel no apprehension of ridicule. She has, too, and it is the sine rano,: of French memoir writers, as of all really good talkers, that cultivated fearlessness which can tread over questionable ground without shrinking, yet without leaving behind the slightest impression of a gross taste. Nothing can be more repulsive to men who know history at all, than to see the personages of a court, for example that of Henry the Fourth, described in the tone "adapted to the young of both sexes," and nothing so difficult as in such biographies to fell all the truth yet add nothing to the already voluminous litterature bleue. Madame M.1141 can accomplish this, or even the more difficult task of sug- gesting that in the world's history there may have been times when' what seems to us an immoral state of society tended directly towards the rehabilitation of sound morality, without also suggesting that she despises the existing code. We shall not follow her through her defence of Provencal and feudal civilization, which, subtly acute as it is, needs a wider basis of demonstrable fact, but confine ourselves to her pictures of woman in modern society and her account of Madame Recamier.
Woman, says Madame M***, occupies in France an entirety different position from that of her sisters in England. There she is valuable to society, here only to her husband.. The Englishman goes to his club for society, the German to the drinking-room, the Frenchman alone seeks female conversation. It is there alone that women are sought for the sake of mental companionship, and that " A-t-elle de Pesprit P" is the first question asked of a new member of society:
"Whatever the cause may be, the effect is certain. I do not say that women are not politely treated in English society ; on the contrary, I have often been struck with the patronizing and kindly manner with which a gentleman approaches a lady and endeavours to draw her Out; but he does so entirely from good feeling, and so little for his own satisfaction that she ought to be the more obliged. It is almost touching to watch the care an English gentleman will take of his wife or daughter, or any lady confided to his care, in travelling. All the kindness of his nature, the old chivalrous feelings of protecting the delicate and helpless are called out; he will give up every comfort, resign his great-coats and plaids, and bear the cold and the rain in order to preserve the ladies from a breath of wind ; but, when he gets back, he runs to his club for society and conversation. A real English gentleman will be as attentive, perhaps more so, than a French one to any woman he meets in distress or embarrassment, for in England revolutions have not destroyed certain habits of aristocratic good breeding ; yet his chivalrous kindness will be entirely owing to the good will and good feeling he entertains towards the weaker sex. But a selfish man in France, though he may do far less for an unprotected female, will, if he spies a look of intelligence, try to converse with her for his own pleasure, and, if her conversation is piquante, he will be her humble servant as long as he can. The English gentleman will avoid all communication except for purposes useful to her; and who has a right to blame him ? Ile has done more than his duty. He cannot help it if he finds no charm in her society.
"This difference in the French imagination is a plain fact, and explains why women in France have done things they could not have accomplished elsewhere. It is in consequence of this sympathy for the sort of mind that women have, when cultivated, that the middle-aged and the old women retain the same relative value in France that men have. The appellation of 'old woman,' applied to a man because he is a fool of a certain twaddling description, is there unknown. Old women are thought as capable of wisdom as old men."
We must not forget that the France which admitted women first to supremacy in the salons and then to seats in the Jacobin Club, exiled them in the first stage, and guillotined them in the second, but the dis- tinction drawn is nevertheless as accurate as it is subtle. The cause of the difference will be differently rendered by every different mind. The woman-hater will ask whether in Europe it is the strong minds or the weak which seek so much for female society, whether, in fact, the clergy everywhere have not a marked tendency to such intimacies. They are scarcely among the strong, and it is just possible that, the misogynist will argue, that the preference for women's talk, with its want of solidity and logical force, is simply a proof of mental feeble- ness. More candid observers, again will suspect that the real cause is simply the comparative importance of conversation. Wherever public life is very free and very vivid, conversation as an art loses its importance, and the influence of women is exercised over individuals instead of over society. France, with short intervalo has never been free, and as conversation has been the oiJtY medium possible for the free interchange of thought, and, m re- over, the only mode of communicating intelligence, it has been el- tivated just as the art of writing is cultivated in England. It swats during the years which succeeeded 1831 when the press bectkme r-17-- • Madame Ricamivr. By Madame de M. Chapman and Half. ' really free that rart de faire le salon began to disappear, and but for the revival of the Empire it would have become extinct. As it is, the salon has revived, and with it the influence of women and the execu- tive force of a good bon mot. Winch is the better state of society we may be allowed to doubt, while conceding frankly to Madame M*** which is the better for her sex.
Madame Recarnier was, during a most eventful period, among the foremost, if not, the foremost, of these leaders of French society, and her character has been for years a subject of speculation. Only nominally married to a man whose illegitimate daughter she was sus- pected to be, and who in the worst days of the revolution signed the civil contract as the only means of assuring her his fortune, she passed through life occupied in keeping her society together, and in platonic friendships, of which the world understood only half. For eight years under the first Empire, throughout the Restoration, and for eighteen years under the Monarchy of July she remained, now mistress of a wealthy mansion, then a resident of a cell in the Abbaye- an-Bois, and then again with a salon of her own, the centre and charm of a highly cultivated society. For years reputed the most beau- tiful woman in France, notoriously no wife, and always surrounded witk worshippers, she was always forming close but blameless friendships with the opposite sex.. Naturally enough she was accused at once of hypocrisy and utter coldness, and opinion finally settled upon the latter hypothesis, and it is this charge Madame M.*" seeks to refute. She has, we think, succeeded. That Madame Recamier was cautious and passionless to a fault may be allowed. She flung away the devotion of Prince Augustus of Prussia, after accepting him and writing to M. Reeamier for a divorce, without an assigned reason ; so attached Benjamin Constant to herself as to crush his spirit without any return of his ardour ; and shifted her devoted friend Mathieu de Montmorency aside to make room for M. de Chateau- briand, with as little compunction as she would a favourite cat. But that she was capable of the most real and devoted friendship her con- duct to M. de Chateaubriand suffieiently proves. For thirty years, through every vicissitude of fortune, long after M. de Chateaubriand had ceased to be a personage, she devoted her life to one of the most exigeant and—with alldeference to French susceptibilities be it spoken —one of the feeblest of mankind. Her habit of life was to hold a reception every day, devoted to two ends—conversation, and the glorifieetion of her friend. At two M. de Chateaubriand visited, and read, and talked to her ; then at four every one was admitted; " Tete-a-rites in a low yoke were entirely discouraged. If any of the younger habitues took this liberty, they received a gentle chiding in a real me-a-teie when everybody was gone. There were generally from six to twelve persons. Madame Ricamier sat on one side of the fireplace, the others round in a circle. Two or three stood against the chimney-piece, and spoke loud enough to be heard by all. Whoever had an observation to make contributed it to the common stock. Madame Recamier spoke little, but threw in an occasional word; or if a new person entered who happened to know anything of the subject going on she would instantly question him, that the others might be aware of it ; otherwise it was his place to try and understand. If any one in the circle was likely to have any special knowledge, she would appeal to hint with an air of deference; if he chanced to be unknown and shy, her manner raised his spirits. Some, who before they frequented the Abbaya could only talk to one or two persons, soon learnt to put their ideas into the compact form fitted for several. The number who were thus drawn into the conversation secured this advantage, that tATking of the weather or of one's health, or any other egotistical topic, could scarcely be indulged in long. Sometimes a chance visitor would come in occasionally, if a lady, she would sit down by Madame Recamier, and in a low voice tell her something extremely un- worthy of so much mystery. Meantime the circular conversation was going on, and Madame Ricamier could not attend to it. On one occasion of this sort, after the lady was gone she complained of having lost the thread; some one said, of the whisperer, 'No doubt it was from timidity.' 'When people are too timid to speak they should be modest enough to listen,' was her answer—which ought to become an axiom.
"The talent for narration is much cultivated in Paris. Sometimes one of the habitues, standing up, would tell his story; it was short and pithy. A wise or witty remark would shoot forth from one of the circle ; then a quick repartee rose up like a rocket from another side. If a mot was par- ticularly happy, Madame Recarnier would take it up and show it to the audience as a connoisseur shows a picture. She was not fond of talking. If she knew an anecdote apropos of something, she would call on any one else who knew- it also to relate it, though no one narrated, better than herself."
The society admitted consisted of every one who pleased M. de Chateaubriand. "If any one praised him in any book or newspaper, advances were always made to him. If Madame Recamier remarked that one of these new corners had the power of amusing M. de Chateaubriand (who, like Louis IV., was unamusable), he was encouraged, invited, made a friend."
"No doubt Madame Recamier greatly enjoyed Ampere's conversation her- self; but she used all her powers of fascination to make her friends devote themselves, not to her—that would have been easy—but to M. de Chateau- briand, whom they thought selfish ; and so completely did she succeed, that they were all as deferential to him as if they had loved him as she did."
In his old age, when his faculties were nearly gone, he asked her to marry him. She declined, but " To a friend she said with perfect simplicity 'If I had thought he would be happier, I would not have refused; but the only cheerful moments le has in the day are when be comes to the Abbaye. I am convinced that If. I lived with him, that slight excitement which give a little variety to lexistence would be lost."
Ibtl only regret she seemed to feel at the blindness which stole upon 11(1- was, that she could not see if M. de Chateaubriand looked 110y or not, and anxiety to see him made her twice undergo an alaluz-i 'Hopeless operation. For years her whole interest in life lay in coneealingthe gradual decay of her friend's powers from other eyes, and when, in ISIS, he died, her life seemed withered away. A more touching instance of that affection which, except among relatives, is so rare, the love which, though perfect, is passionless, has been seldom seen, and the woman who could feel it, and never even see the selfishness of one so utterly selfish as M. de Chateaubriand, must have had, despite years of a bad position, a really tender heart. That she seemed indifferent to her friends was owing, probably, to the two facts—that she never really loved any but M. de Chateaubriand, and that her manner gave to every one hope of a possible preference. She really worked to please, and a natural kindliness and " velvetiness " of manner made her effort almost invariably successful. We do not admire Madame Ricamier, for the position in which her relation to her nominal parents, nominal husband, and nominal lovers placed her throughout life, seems to us radically unhealthy, and if not absolutely evil in its effect on herself, to contain the possibilities of frightful evils for society. Nor do we venerate hex, for we believe conversation, so far from being a great art, to be one which arrives at perfection only when freedom seas refuge in sarcasm, and human beings grow intimate because all are alike oppressed. But Madame M*** has none the less succeeded admirably in rescuing one whom she loved from an apparently plausible charge of heartlessness.
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