till the break-up of the Reign of Terror that society awoke to the recognition of its new queen and goddess. At eighteen she emerged from childhood into all the splendour of youth. Her beauty became the talk of Par1s. Her saloons, the abode of wealth and taste, and lit with her charms and wit, were the centre of the fashionable world. A graphic account of the splendours and the personages assembled there is given by Miss Berry. The Duke de Guignes, Adrien and Matthieu De Montmorency, M. de Narbonne, Madame de Staël, Camille Jordan, and others who had returned from exile, met with Barrière, Eugène Beuharnais, Fouché, Bernadotte, Masséna, Moreau, M. de la Harpe, and all rising actors of the new régime. Lucien Buonaparte first as Romeo, then openly under his own name-made fierce love to the beautiful but unimpressionable Juliette. The First Consul she met but twice, and whatever admiration her beauty may have inspired in him seems to have been lost in jealousy of her influence. Napoleon was weak enough to give out publicly, in the salon of Josephine, that he should regard as his personal enemy any foreigner who frequented the house of Madame Récamier. She was, however, successful in obtaining from him, partly through Bernadotte, her father's release, when M. Bernard was compromised in the Vendéan conspiracy. One of the fragments we have from Madame Récamier's own pen gives touching instances of her sympathy and active share in the trial of Moreau, Polignac, and George Cadoudal. In spite, however, of Napoleon's anger at her opposition, he certainly made overtures through Fouché, in the year 1805, with the view of attaching Madame Récamier to the Imperial household. Her refusal was never forgiven by him, and no doubt added weight to the motives which led, in 1811, to the decree for her exile beyond forty leagues from Paris. With the other members of the Buonaparte family she contracted a close and romantic friendship. Hortense, in every trouble and perplexity, found refuge in her sympathy and her counsels. Caroline, Madame Murat, gave her, when in exile, the warmest welcome at Naples, and a letter of .the widowed queen which forms part of the present memoir speaks of the tender affection which subsisted between these two women. When in England, the beautiful Frenchwoman received the most flattering attentions from the Prince of Wales and the highest English aristocracy, as well as from the exiled Duke of Orleans and his brothers the Princes of Beaujolais and Montpensier. By the populace she was actually mobbed, like the beautiful Gunnings in Kensington gar dens. The enthusiasm of Madame de Staël for the Duke of Wellington was far from being shared by Madame Récamier. If we can believe that the Duke said to her, on calling at her house the day after Waterloo, "I have given him a good beating," we may understand that dislike of Napoleon failed to qualify the disgust of a loyal Frenchwoman. Her door was thenceforth closed against the Duke's awkward overtures. A couple of notes from the hero speak more of his appreciation of female charms than of his mastery either of the language of France or of that of ordinary gallantry. It was at the bedside of Madame de Staël that Madame Récamier made the acquaintance of Chateaubriand, and between this variously gifted pair grew up that romantic friendship which gave its chief tone to the subsequent life of each. Her friends at first trembled for her peace of mind from the contact with so tumultuous a nature. But the serene integrity and self-control of Madame Récamier became, on the contrary, the means of purifying and chastening the passionate and disordered soul of the poet. Idolized by his contemporaries, and spoiled especially by enthusiastic women, Chateaubriand had become enamoured of himself. He had sunk, like Byron, into a morbid melancholy. To dispel the clouds that obscured his genius became the mission of Madame Récamier. And the change in his temper is soon made apparent, even from the tone of his correspondence. His selfabsorption is less conspicuous. His irritabil ity is soothed. He is telling the simple truth when he writes to his devoted friend, "You have transformed my nature." From that crisis in his life the memoirs of Madame Récamier do little more than follow the vicissitudes and struggles of Chateaubriand's career. In her retreat at the Abbaye aux Bois it was for him that she toiled to keep up her hold upon society, bringing together every lion of the literary or political world, at once to do him homage and to dispel his ennui. Thither came all the young intellects of the Restoration and the monarchy of July - Benjamin Constant, Thierry, David d'Angers, Delacroix, the Ampères fa her and son, Pasquier, Cousin, Villemain, Montalembert. Lamartine read there his Méditations, and Delphine Gay recited her first verses. Sir Humphrey Davy and his wife, Maria Edgeworth, Mary Berry, and Alexander Humboldt are among those who have left memorials of their visits. It was there that, in the summer of 1829, a brilliant assemblage heard the presiding genius read " lections afforded us by an intimate friend— an Englishwoman, Madame Möhl; beside the copious notices in the Mémoires d'outretombe, and the suggestive and touching sketch which forms one of the series of Causeries de Lundi by her friend M. Sainte-Beuve. Guizot, Lemoine, Madame d'Hautefeuille, and others who knew her well have contributed many traits of character. But the work of Madame Lenormant is fuller of details, and gives the most complete narrative of Madame Récamier's career. The original work itself was indeed faulty in execution, the arrangement of materials confused, and the style in places rambling and obscure. In presenting it in an English dress, primarily for the sake of the American public, Mrs. Luyster has done well in rendering it more methodical and compact, without interfering with its integrity or with the individuality of its authorship. his tragedy of Moses. In her journeys in search of health, the first thought of Madame Récamier was how to take him with her, When that was impossible she pined with solitude on his behalf, while her shortest absence filled him with despair. Even his wife's first eager question was, "What will be done then? What is to become of M. de Chateaubriand? As years run on, there begins to be even something of the ludicrous In this couple of old folks alternately cosseting and complimenting each other. We almost forget the minor satellites who circled round the central glow of Madame Récamier's friendship. Poor Ballanche himself-her faithful shadow, the "hierophant," as Chateaubriand patronizingly called him, of the little sect that gathered round her altar -seems to shrink into nothingness; while we have so long lost sight of M. Récamier that we scarcely become sensible of the fact of his death till the decease of Madame de Chateaubriand leaves the poet free to offer his hand to the idol of his heart. "But why should we marry?" was the sensible reply of Madame Récamier, who probably felt the ridicule that might attach to such an union. There was no impropriety in her taking care of him. Years, and the blindness that had of late been stealing over her, seemed to confer that right. For his sake indeed she twice submitted, though uselessly, to an operation for the recovery of her sight. At his bedside, on the 4th of July, 1848, her anguish was intensified by the thought that she could not see his dying looks. In losing him the mainspring of her life was gone. She could still speak of him as but momentarily absent, and at the daily hour of his visits, her niece tells us, she would still tremble with the sense of his presence. The friends were but a few months divided. The cholera, of which she had a perpetual dread, carried her off, after a short but severe struggle, on the 11th of May, 1849. All Madame Récamier's beauty, strange to say, returned after death. 'There were no traces of suffering - no wrinkles, or signs of age, to mar her features. Her expression was grave and angelic. She looked like a beautiful statue. The grace and sweetness of her last sleep seemed to be the ineffaceable impress of that spirit of tenderness and love which during life had acted like a talisman upon every heart. There is not much in the scanty and fragmentary memoirs compiled by her niece, to. let us into the secret workings of Madame Récamier's mind and character. In that respect we owe perhaps more to the recol No. 1203. Fourth Series, No. 64. 22 June, 1867. POETRY: Sakya Mouni at Bodhimanda, 738. An English Eclogue, 793. Just Published at this Office THE STARLING. By Norman Macleod, D.D. 38 cents. Reduced Prices: THE CLAVERINGS. 50 cents instead of 75. VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 25 cents instead of 38. Preparing for Publication OLD SIR DOUGLAS. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton; and NEW BOOKS. A PAINTER'S CAMP. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. In Three Books. 1. In England. 2. In Scotland. 3. In France. Boston: Roberts Brothers. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay a commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second " The Complete work 20 " 32 88 50 46 80 46 220 "" Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. SAKYA MOUNI AT BODHIMANDA.* YES, life's long strife is o'er; The waves and billows all are overpast; Has its due meed of blessing at the last. Vigil and fast were right, Each came with power to purify and bless ; I sink and fail in utter Nothingness. Oh, bliss beyond compare, Hushed every sound of harmony or strife; Not-being, with the memory of life! Just as in haschisch dreams When visions glorious yield to slumbers deep, The soul's ecstatic trance Finds its high bliss in everlasting sleep. Just as when music floats, Its subtlest, sweetest notes, And is this, then, the end? Half hushed to silence, thrill through ear and On knowing that we are not what we seem ? brain, So the intensest bliss Is when we know but this Is there no deeper joy A sleep in which we dream not that we dream? Is this, for all who live, The best boon Heaven can give, To enter on the drear and darksome night; Were it not better far To know not that we are, To lose the very sense of Being's pain, Yes, the true Wisdom's way, Is pure Not-being, Nothing absolute; * At Bodhimanda is the sacred fig-tree, the " tree And the vast orb lies motionless and mute. of wisdom," which all Buddhists reverence as hav ing witnessed their founder's attainment of Nirvana, and his consequent identification with Buddha, or the Supreme Intelligence. Contemporary Review, E. H. PLUMPTRE. |