The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-20

| living seven uaJlOnal powers IS SlehJ Seluoh
presented and is fearfully suggestive Of the
weakness Of authority. Born in 1777 Jeanne
Barnard married M. Recamier at the age of
| fifteen During her childhood she was present
at one of the state dinners of Louis XVI, and
was sent for by Marie Antoinette, who, struck
with her beauty, desired to see her alone.
Thrown at once, by the wealth of her husband,
into the best society of the gayest city of the
world, she was the intimate of all the moving
spirits of the Revolution, and was presented
to General Napoleon Bonaparte on his return
from Italy. She inspired Lucien Bonaparte
with violent passion, and was constantly
prosecuted by his attentions. While afiliating
with the Liberals, she saw the Republic and First
Consul sink and an Empire take their place.
She still kept her house open to all the dis
affected, and so bitter did Napoleon become
towards her that ne proclaimed that "any
foreign Minister who frequented Madame
Recamier's salons was an enemy of the En-
peror." While thus receiving and acting Us
a centre to all the Republicans of France, she
came in contact with the renowned Fouch6,
Minister of Police, who was at first not insen-
sible to her charms, but, finally irritated by
her continual correspondence with the eXiled
Madame de StaGl caused her to be sent to
personally comfort her illustrious friend. She
was banshed from Paris in 1911. At the same
time the celebrated Matthew de Montmorency
underwent a similar sentence. The imprison-
ment Of Napoleon at Elba freed her from
banishment, and she, in company with the
other enemies Of the Empire, hastened at once
to Paris. During the hundred days of the
return of the Little Corporal, she remained
unmolested at the capital and with his final
defeat became once more the reigning belle of
Paris. 1t was during the winter of 1914 that
she fascinated the Duke of Wellington, who,
notwithstanding his prestige as conqueror of her
foe, is honored with no other entry in her
journal than-'Met the Duke at Madame de
StaGl's. He pays me visit next day. Con-
tinuation of his visits. He writes me unmean-
ing notes, which all resemble each other"
Such judgment on the admiration of the
victor of the worlds victor shows how
satiated Madame RGcamier must have been
with the homage Of the great. 1t was during
the reign of Louis XVIII that she first
became intimate with Chateaubriand between
whom and Madame RGcamier there ever ex-
listed the sincerest friendship. The entire
reign Of that monarch found her life inter
mingled with those of Montmorency and
Chateaubriand; and the disgrace of the latter,
to which, to great extent, must be ascrbed
the overthrow of that monarch's policy,
estranged her from the royal family as much
as it did the disgraced Minister. The acces-
| sion of Charles X restored the late ministry
to power, and throughout all of that reign
she was in the innermost. secrets of the State
councils. Although .bearing no title, with no
literary reputation, and having lost to great
extent her SURPRISING beauty, she still exerted
a mighty influence in the affairs of France.
Her intimacy with Hortense Beauharnais,
| Queen of Sweden and mother of the present
Emperor of France, brought her into contact
| with Louis Napoleon; and after his fasco at
| Strasbourg, and when he lay in prison at the
Conciergerie, she was one of the few who
visited him and received his distracted mother
into her house. He never forgot her kindness;
and when years afterwards he was once more
in Paris as a Deputy, he called at once at her
! house. She was then sinking rapidly, and
failed to see him. In her old age, when all
| her friends had been taken from her one by
one, and Chateaubriand was the only one left
Of that brilliant galaxy of gems that sur
| rounded the throne at the Bourbon Restoration,
she became attached to the Count de Cham
| bord, heir to the French throne by right of
birth, and between them there existed until
| her death the relation of mother and son,
although they were compelled to communicate
| by correspondence, as he was not allowed to
visit France. At last, at the age of seventy
two, she expired in lS49. Had her life been
| spared year longer, she would have wit
messed an eighth change i'll the Government of
France, in the accession of the son of her
friend Hortense, of Sweden.
The life of such woman must be remarka-
ble, and it is only to be regretted that she left
no autobiography to present a connected chain
OF the remembrances Of her eventful life.
| While all the changes which her eventful life
witnessed in France were transpiring, it is
curious to note that the sister kingdom of
Great Britain had no revolution whatever,
and the unbroken succession of monarchs
| contrasts strangely with the tumult and tur-
MOL across the Straits. Her life presents one
| good lesson, as it teaches the immense infu-
ence which can be secured by tact and amia-
bility where talent is not possessed, and where
beauty has faded with the lapse of time. 1t