The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 12

Here a new light dawned upon Tom. Might he not work a few hundreds out of his father in some way or other for this pretended purchase, and then say that it would not be sold after all; and that he had relodged the money, or lost it, or was robbed--or--or--something? The thought was too vague as yet to take any satisfactory shape; but the result upon his mind at the moment was, that his father was too wide awake to be dealt with in that way.

"Well, father," he said, "I shall be guided by your advice in this business still, although I have done no good by taking it to-day; but listen to me now, father."

"An' welcome, Tom. I like a young man to have a mind of his own, an'

to be able to strike out a good plan; an' then, if my experience isn't able to back it up, why I spake plainly an' tell him what I think."

"My opinion is, father, that I ought to go away out of this place altogether for a while. You know I am not one that moping about the house and garden would answer at all. I must be out and going about, father, or I'd lose my senses."

This was well put, both in matter and manner, and the closing words told with crowning effect. Tom had said nothing but the fact; such were his disposition and habits that he had scarcely exaggerated the effects of a close confinement to the premises, while of sound bodily health.

"Begorra, Tom, what you say is the rale thruth; What would you think of going down to your aunt in Armagh for a start?"

"No use, father,--no use; I could be no better there than where I am.

Dublin, father, or the continent, for a month or six weeks, might do me some good."

"Bedads, Tom, that id take a power of money, wouldn't it?"

"Whether you might think so or not, father, would depend upon what you thought my health and happiness would be worth; here I cannot and will not stay, that is one sure thing."

"Well, Tom, af she doesn't c.u.m round in short, afther her father opens out upon her, we'll talk it over, and see what you would want; but my opinion is, you won't have to make yourself scarce at all--mind my words."

Here Tom fell into such a silent train of thought, that all further conversation was brought to an end. Old Mick believed his son to be really unhappy "about that impideut hussey;" and having made one or two ineffectual efforts "to rouse him," he left him to his meditations.

At the moment they were fixed upon a few of his father's closing words, "see what you'll want." "Want--want!" he repeated to himself.

"A dam' sight more than you'll fork out, old c.o.c.k."

Old Mick busied himself about the house, fidgeting in and out of the room--upstairs and downstairs; while Tom was silently arranging more than one programme of matters which must come off if he would save himself from ruin and disgrace.

His father had ceased to come into the room; indeed his step had not been heard through the house or on the stairs for some time, and it was evident he had gone to bed. But Tom sat for a full hour longer, with scarcely a change of position of even hand or foot. At length, with a sudden sort of snorting sigh, he stood up, stretched himself, with a loud and weary moan, and went to his room.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

-------- {79}

From The Dublin Review.

MADAME ReCAMIER AND HER FRIENDS.

_Souvenirs et Correspondance tires des Papiers de Madame Recamier,_ Paris: Michel Levy Freres. 1859.

We took occasion in our number of last January to trace the fortunes of that distinguished lady who became consort of the greatest, though not the best, of the kings of France. We saw her rise from obscurity to eminence, without being giddy through her elevation; resisting the fascinations of a licentious court; imbibing celestial wisdom from hidden sources in proportion to the difficulties of her position; exerting great influence without abusing the delicate trust; and at length, bowed with age, retiring into the conventual seclusion of the establishment her piety had reared, and there breathing her last amid the love and admiration, the prayers and blessings, of a thousand friends.

We have now another portrait to hang beside that of Frances de Maintenon--the portrait of one who in some respects resembled her; who, rising, like her, from an inferior condition, was courted by an emperor, and betrothed, or all but betrothed, to a royal prince; withstood innumerable temptations at a period of boundless corruption; conciliated the esteem and friends.h.i.+p of the best and wisest men, and then glided into the vale of years through the peaceful shade of the Abbaye-aux-Bois. The first of these ladies was resplendent in talents, the second in beauty; the one excelled in tact, the other in sweetness and grace; the one in the sphere of politics and public life, the other in the realm of letters and the private circle. If Madame de Maintenon was the most admired, Madame Recamier was the most loved.

Each appeared under a sort of disguise, for one spoke and acted as if she were not the wife of her own husband, and the other as if she were the wife of him who was her husband only in name. Both have had violent detractors; both are best known by their letters; and thus, where they agreed and where they differed, they remind us of each other. Of both France is proud, and both, as years pa.s.s on, are rising into purer and brighter fame. At the same time it can by no means be said of Madame Recamier, as it may most truly of Madame de Maintenon, that religion was the one animating principle of her life; yet the facts which we have to recount will show--not, indeed, that religion supplied her with the main ends of her existence, but that it enabled her in a corrupt age to follow the objects of her choice in habitual submission to G.o.d's actual commandments.

Julie Bernard, the subject of the present memoir, was born at Lyons, on the 4th of December, 1777. Her father, a notary of that city, was remarkable for his handsome face and fine figure, and Madame Bernard was a noted beauty. She had a pa.s.sion for show, and during the long illness which ended in her death in 1807, found her chief amus.e.m.e.nt in dress and ornaments. When Julie was seven years old, her father was appointed to a lucrative post in Paris, and left his little daughter at Villefranche, under the care of an aunt. Here the first of her numberless admirers, a boy of her own age, made a deep impression on her susceptible mind, and here, too, she received her earliest education in the convent of La Deserte. The memory of that hallowed spot, its clouds of incense, its processions in the garden, its hymns and flowers, abode with her, {80} she said, through life like a sweet dream, and to the lessons there taught she ascribed her retention of the faith amid the host of sceptical opinions she encountered in after years. It was not without regret and tears that she bade farewell to the abbess and sisters, and turned her face toward Paris and the attractions of her parents' home. Nothing but accomplishments were thought of to complete her education. The brilliant capital was to supersede the "Deserte" in her affections, and her mother took great pains to make Juliette as frivolous as herself. Her chief attention was given to music, she was taught to play the harp and piano by the first artists, and took lessons in singing from Boeldieu. This was a real gain, though in a different way from that which was intended. We shall see further on how the skill thus acquired was afterward employed in the service of religion, and how the habit of playing pathetic airs and pieces soothed many a sad moment when she was old and blind.

Her first contact with royalty was by accident. Her mother had taken her to see a grand banquet at Versailles, to which, as in the days of Louis XIV., the public were admitted as spectators. Juliette was very beautiful, and the queen, struck by her appearance, sent one of her ladies to ask that she might retire with the royal family. Madame Royale was just of the same age as Juliette, and the two children were measured together. Madame Royale also was a beauty, and not over-pleased, it seems, by this close comparison with a girl taken out of a crowd. How little could either foresee the strange fortunes that awaited the other!

Madame Bernard, with her love of display, took a pride also in gathering clever men around her. Laharpe, Lemontey, Barrere, and other members of the legislative a.s.sembly, frequented her drawing-room, and M. Jacques Recamier, an eminent banker of Paris, and son of a merchant at Lyons, was a constant guest. His character was easy and jovial; he wrote capital letters, spouted Latin, made plenty of money, spent it fast, and was often the dupe of his generosity and good humor. He had always been kind to Juliette, and had given her heaps of playthings.

When, therefore, in 1793, he asked her hand in marriage, she consented without any repugnance, though Madame Bernard explained to her the inconveniences which might arise from their disparity of age, habits, and tastes--M. Recamier being forty-two and Juliette only fifteen. The wedding took place; but their union is a mystery which has never been solved with certainty. To her nominal husband she was never anything but a daughter. Her niece, Madame Lenormant, says she can only attest the fact, which was well known to all intimate friends, but that she is not bound (_chargee_) to explain it. Madame M----, another biographer, believes, as did many beside, that she was in reality M.

Recamier's daughter; that, living, as every one did during the reign of terror, in fear of the guillotine, he wished to be able to leave her his fortune in case of his death, and, in the meantime, to place her in a splendid position; that Madame Recamier, made aware of her real parentage, would of course be the last to reveal and publish her mother's shame; and that this story, carefully borne in mind, explains all the anomalies of her life.

To this strange alliance, however, is due the formation of the most remarkable literary salon of the present age. It represented more perfectly than any other those of the Hotel Rambouillet and of Madame de Sable in the seventeenth century; of Madame Geoffrin, Madame d'Houdetot, and Madame Suard, in the eighteenth; [Footnote 5] and it surpa.s.sed in solid attractions those of Madame de Stael at Coppet, and of Madame d'Albany of {81} Florence, of which it was the contemporary.

She was herself its life, and diffused over it a charm no biographer can seize. So young and fair, so fascinating yet so innocent, she riveted every gaze, and attracted all hearts without yielding to any.

Like the coloring of a landscape which changes every hour, she defied description, and found no adequate reflex save in the fond esteem and faithful memory of those who knew her. Yet her nearest and dearest friends felt that she was above them; and it might be said of her, as Saint-Simon said of the d.u.c.h.ess de Bourgogne, that she walked like a G.o.ddess on clouds. Her beauty made her popular, and she was talked of everywhere; for the Parisians at this time, like refined pagans, affected the wors.h.i.+p of beauty under every form. She seemed, therefore, by general consent, to have a natural mission to restore society, which a series of revolutions had completely disorganized, and her power of drawing people together and harmonizing what party politics had unstrung, became more apparent every day. By birth she belonged to the people, by tastes and manners to the aristocracy, and had thus a double hold over those who, with republican principles, were fast returning to early a.s.sociations of rank and order.

[Footnote 5: _"Causeries du Lundi,"_ par Sainte-Beuve. Tome i, pp.

114, 115.]

It was a happy day when the churches were re-opened in Paris, and the soft swelling notes of the _O Salutaris Hostia_ filled the crowded fanes once more. It was as the paean of the faithful over the scattered army of unbelief. Madame Recamier was in request. She held the plate for some charitable object at Saint-Roch, and collected the extraordinary sum of 20,000f. The two gentlemen who attended her could scarcely cleave a way for her through the crowd. People mounted on chairs, on pillars, and the altars of the side chapels, to see her. In these days, dancing was her delight. She was the first to enter the ball-room, and the last to quit it. But this did not last long. She soon gave up the shawl-dance, for which she was famous, though nothing could be more correct and picturesque than the movements she executed while, with a long scarf in her hands, she made it by turns a sash, a veil, and a drapery--drooping, fluctuating, gliding, att.i.tudinizing, with matchless taste. Her reign was absolute. In the promenades of Longchamps, no carriage was watched like hers; and every voice p.r.o.nounced her the fairest.

Twice only in her life did she meet Bonaparte, and to most persons in her position and at that period those moments would have proved fatal.

His eye was as keen for female charms as for weak points in the enemy's line. He saw her first in 1797, during a triumphal fete given at the Luxembourg palace in his honor. He had just returned from his marvellous campaign in Italy and genius was reaping the laurels too seldom bestowed on solid worth. Madame Recamier was not insensible to his military prowess. She stood up to observe his features more plainly, and a long murmur of admiration filled the hall. The young conqueror turned his head impatiently. Who dared to divide public attention with the hero of Castiglione and Rivoli? He darted a harsh glance at his rival, and she sank into her seat. But the beautiful vision rested in his memory. He saw her once again, about two years later, and spoke with her. It was at a banquet given by his brother Lucien, then minister of the interior. Madame Recamier as usual was all in white, with a necklace and bracelets of pearls. The First Consul paid her marked attention, and his words, though insignificant in themselves, meant more than met the ear. His manners, however, were simple and pleasing, and he held a little girl of four years old, his niece, by the hand. He chid Madame Recamier for not sitting next him at dinner, fixed his gaze on her during the music, sent Fouche to express to her his admiring regard, and told her himself that he {82} should like to visit her at Clichy. But Juliette, though respectful, was discreet. Time flowed on; Napoleon became emperor, and from the giddy height of the imperial throne bethought him of the incomparable lady in white. He had a double conquest to make. Her chateau was the resort of emigrant n.o.bles who had returned to France, and whose sympathies were all with the past. To break up her circle, to gain her over to his interests, to enhance by her presence the splendor of his dissolute court, were objects well worthy of his plotting, ambitious, and unscrupulous nature. Fouche was again employed as tempter. He remonstrated with her on the species of opposition to the emperor's policy which was fostered in her salons, but found her little disposed to make concessions, or avow any liking for the despot. His genius and exploits, she admitted, had dazzled her at first, but her sentiments had entirely changed since her friends had been persecuted, the Duc d'Enghein put to death, and Madame de Stael driven into exile. In spite of these frank avowals, which were equally respectful and fearless, Fouche persisted in his design, and in the park around Madame Recamier's elegant retreat, urged her, in the emperor's name, to accept the post of _dame du palais_ to the empress. His majesty had never yet found a woman worthy of him, and it was impossible to say how deep might be his affection for one like her; how wholesome an influence she might exert over him; what services she might render to the oppressed of all cla.s.ses; and how much she might "enlighten the emperor's religion!" Madame Murat, to her shame, seconded these proposals, and expressed her earnest desire that Madame Recamier should be attached to her household, which was now put on the same footing as that of the empress. To these reiterated advances, Madame Recamier returned the most decided refusal, alleging, by way of courtesy, her love of independence as the cause. At last, foiled and irritated, Fouche--the Mephistopheles of the piece--quitted Clichy, never to return.

The consular episode in Madame Recamier's life has made us antic.i.p.ate some important events. We must return to the first years of her marriage. It was in 1798 that some negotiations between her husband and M. Necker, the ex-minister of Louis XVI., brought her in contact with that statesman's celebrated daughter, Madame de Stael. At their first interview a sympathy sprung up between the two ladies, which ended in a lasting friends.h.i.+p. Madame Recamier lived in her friends, and her circle was a host ever increasing, for she always talked much and fondly of the friends of former years. She could say, like the Cid, "five hundred of my friends." Yet she had her degrees of attachment. They were, to use the beautiful simile of Hafiz, like the pearls of a necklace, and she the silken cord on which they lay. The chief of this favored circle were four--Madame de Stael among womankind, and for the rest Chateaubriand, Ballanche, and Montmorency.

M. Necker's hotel in the Rue du Mont-Blanc having been purchased by M.

Recamier, no cost was spared in its decoration. It was a model of elegance, and every object of furniture down to the minutest ornament was designed and executed expressly for it. Here the opulent husband was installed, while the fair hostess held her court at the chateau of Clichy. M. Recamier dined with her daily, and in the evening returned to Paris. No political distinction prevailed in her a.s.semblies, but the restored emigrants were peculiarly welcome. Like Madame de Stael, Chateaubriand, and almost all reflective persons in our age, she thought monarchy had better be limited by a parliament than, as Talleyrand said, by a.s.sa.s.sination. Yet revolutionary generals and military dukes gathered round her, side by side with the Duc de Guignes, Adrien and {83} Mathieu de Montmorency, and other representatives of the fallen aristocracy. In her presence they forgot their difference at least for awhile, and lost insensibly the asperity of party prejudice.

Duc Mathieu de Montmorency was Madame Recamier's senior by seventeen years. He had served in America in the regiment of Anvergne, of which his father was colonel, and on his return to France abandoned himself to all the pleasures and fas.h.i.+ons of the world. His residence in the land of Penn and Was.h.i.+ngton had imbued him with republican notions, which he shared with a clique of young n.o.blemen like himself. Such persons, as is well known, were among the earliest victims of the revolution they hurried on. Duc Mathieu emigrated in 1792, and soon afterward learned in Switzerland that his brother, the Abbe de Laval, whom he tenderly loved, had been beheaded. Remorse filled his breast, and drove him almost to madness. He charged himself with his brother's death. It was he who had proposed in the states general the abolition of the privileges of n.o.bility, approved the sequestration of church property, and strengthened the hands of Mirabeau and the power of that a.s.sembly which paved the way for regicide and the reign of terror.

Madame de Stael was his intimate friend. She had shared his political enthusiasm, and did all in her power to soothe him. But religion alone could pour balm into his smarting wounds. His conversion was complete and lasting. The impetuous, seductive, and frivolous young man became known to all as a fervent and strict Christian. Sainte-Beuve speaks of him as a "saint." Extreme delicacy of language indicated the inward discipline he underwent; while the warmth of his feelings and the solidity of his judgment inspired at the same time confidence and regard. His friends.h.i.+p for Madame de Stael continued, though their religious convictions differed, and he was alive to the imperfections of her character. He hoped one day to see her triumph over herself, and his solicitude for Madame Recamier was equal, though in another way. Over her he watched continually like a loving parent. He trembled lest she should at last fall a victim to the gay world which so much admired her, and which she sought to please. To s.h.i.+ne without sinning is difficult indeed. Montmorency's letters prove the depth and purity of his affection. His intimacy with his _amiable amie_ lasted unbroken during seven-and-twenty years, and ended only with his death.

Montmorency's death was the fitting sequel of a holy and useful life.

It happened in 1826. He had recently been elected one of the forty of the French Academy, and had also been appointed governor to the Duc de Bordeaux, the grandson and heir of Charles X. He had gone to the church of St. Thomas d'Aquin on Good Friday, apparently in perfect health, and was kneeling before the altar and the "faithful cross on which the world's salvation hung," when his head bowed lower, and in a moment the bitterness of death was past.

Laharpe was another distinguished man to be numbered among the lovers of Madame Recamier's society. He had known her from a child, and when his exquisite taste in literature had obtained for him the t.i.tle of the French with his regard was not lessened for one whose reputation was as flouris.h.i.+ng as his own. He pa.s.sed weeks at Clichy, and when he reopened his course of lectures on French literature at the Atheneum she had a place reserved for her near his chair. The letters she received from him are equally affectionate and respectful. He too had been converted through the excesses of that revolution which he had in the first instance encouraged. After suffering imprisonment in 1794, his ideas and conduct underwent a total change, and he resolved to devote his pen for the rest of his days to the service of religion.

{84} The energy with which he denounced "philosophers" and demagogues drew upon him proscription, and it was only by concealing himself that he escaped being transported. Of all revolutions, that of France in the last century has, by the horror it excited and the reaction it produced, tended more than any other to consolidate monarchy, discredit scepticism, and promote the salvation of souls. It is a beacon-fire kindled to warn nations of the rocks and shoals--the faults of rule and the crimes of misrule--by which society may suddenly be broken up and civilization r.e.t.a.r.ded.

Montmorency was a statesman, Laharpe a man of letters; let us now turn to another friend of Madame Recamier's, who from a private soldier rose to be a king and leave a dynasty behind him. This was Bernadotte.

In 1802, M. Bernard was postmaster-general, and suspected of complicity in a royalist correspondence that menaced the government.

Madame Recamier was one day entertaining a few guests at dinner, and Eliza Bonaparte, afterward Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Tuscany, was present by her own invitation. On rising from table a note was placed in the hands of the hostess announcing the arrest and imprisonment of M.

Bernard. To whom should she have recourse at such a moment but to the First Consul's sister? She must see him, she said, that very evening.

Would Madame Bacciocchi procure her an interview? The princess was cold. She would advise Madame Recamier to see Fouche first. "And where shall I find you again, madam, if I do not succeed?" asked Madame Recamier. "At the Theatre Francais," was the reply; "in my box with my sister."

Nothing could be gained from Fouche except the alarming information that the affair was a very serious one, and that unless Madame Recamier could see the First Consul that night it would be too late.

In the utmost consternation she drove to the Theatre to remind Madame Bacciochi of her promise. "My father is lost," she said, "unless I can speak with the First Consul to-night." "Well, wait till the tragedy is over," replied the princess, with an air of indifference, "and then I shall be at your service." Happily there was one in the box whose dark eyes, fixed on the agonized daughter, expressed clearly the interest he felt in her position. He leant forward, and explaining to the princess that Madame Recamier appeared quite ill, offered to conduct her to the chief of the government. Madame Bacciocchi readily a.s.sented, and gladly resigned the suppliant to Bernadotte's charge.

Again and again he promised to obtain that the proceedings against M.

Bernard should be stopped, and repaired immediately to the Tuileries.

The same night he returned to Madame Recamier, who was counting the moments till he re-appeared. His suit had been successful, and he soon after procured the prisoner's release. Madame Recamier accompanied him to the Temple on the day M. Bernard was delivered. He was deprived of his post, for, though pardoned, he had undoubtedly been guilty of a treasonable correspondence with the _Chouans_.

This was the foundation of Bernadotte's friends.h.i.+p with Madame Recamier. "Neither time," he wrote to her, when adopted by Charles XIII., as his son and heir--"neither time nor northern ice will ever cool my regard for you." He had many n.o.ble qualities, and did much for Sweden. We could forgive him for joining the coalition against France, if he had not embraced Lutheranism for the sake of a crown.

During the short peace of Amiens, in 1802, Madame Recamier visited England, where she received the kindest attentions from the d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re, Lord Douglas, the Prince of Wales, and the Duc d'Orleans, afterward king of the French. Those who can refer to the English newspapers of that year will find that {85} all the movements of the beautiful stranger were regularly gazetted.