The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-12-03
beautiful Reeamief.
Arsene Hcdssa3's Plris Lellef.

4
Madame Recamier was one of the
queehs Of the directory; the daughter
of a flotarT, she aspfred to absolute
| dominion. Who was the master q
| this woman, who was to give lessons
to all the men of genius of the
nineteenth century? 1t was Latharpe.
He was Voltalian with Bernard the
notary, and converted with Madame
Bernard. ] rather think tha Madame
Recan1ier did not take kindly to that
sterile pasture of the French mind called
LIE Cours de Literature. When hef
mother saw the wings Of fifteen years
budding at the shoulders of her datightef
she chose her a husband. Latharpe's
counsel was doubtless asked, for it was
agreed to accept the vOws-matrimOnial
style--Of NJ. Rose Recamier, who lin
gered among the asphOdels of the fifties.
SOmber auguries accumulate about the
nuptials, which were sOlemnized the 24th
of April, 1873, between two sanguinary
storms The Terror Of Madame Reca-
mier was followed by Ninth Thermidor
without the intervention of the scaffold.
Her marriage was never more than ap-
parent" says one of her historians, who
canonizes this sanity woman because she
was never wife,
NJ Recamier, proud of the beauty of
his quasi-wife, opened his salon as soon as
the son of ThermidOr announced the re-
turn of gala days, of festivals, and Athe-
nian fOllies, 50 dear to the Parisians. The
vOlcanOe was still smoking when Madame
Recamier showed her pretty foot over
the crater She was one of those neO-
Greeks who had escaped, fully clad in
their own mOdesuy, from the ruins of a
slaughtered Pompeii. Why does she say
in her memoirs that she 8" remained en-
tirely foreign to the society of the direc-
tory and had no relations with the
women who were its heroines, Madame
Tallien and the rest ?" Madame Reca-
mier haunted the salons of the directory,
and did not disdain, all panoplied in ker
virtue, to dance a cotillion with Ma
dame Tallien and the Others" The
others were doubtless Mime, de Beaubar-
mails and Nine. de Stael.
Where could Madame Recamier have
shown herself if not in the fashionable
saloons? | know that she took up col
lection at St. Roch, and that the church
was invaded and the chairs broken, and
that the police were called in. Total,
10000 francs for the poor, and 10000 ad-
mirers for her. / know that at Long
champs Nine. Recamier, dressed in the
style of Aspasia, almost in Peplum with
sandals which showed her feet on tiger
skin, her hair failing in ringIets over a
snowy neck kissed gently by the March
sun, her arms bare, except where they
were encifeled by canoes, allowed her
self to be adpfed at a distance by all the
Incrosa and all the Muscadins like
an idol an ancient temple. But it
cdliI3 haEdly have been at st. Roch or at
LbngchamIs that she could have gained
the name of the finest dancer of the Di-
rectory. Besides, here is a word from
her history She was passionately
fond of dancing during several years, and
at her debut in society she made it
point of honor to arrive at balls the first
and 30 leave the last" 1t was Madame
Tallien who taught her the chalmys
dance, which is one of the virtues of
Madame de Stael's Corinne.
The woman who danced thus was never
a wife, and her admirers canonize her
for this. Oh, noble mothers! what do
you say of this sterile prude, who Gre
ated a new salon of Precieses Ridicules-
for the famous Abbaye aux BOis was
nothing more. Madame Recamier sat at
one side of the fire, NJ. de Chateaubriand
at the other, like a king and queen child
less and bored. They had their court,
for they made academicians, and all as
pirants did homage there. Sainte-Beuve
took me there one evening. Is it not
/" he said as he went out, to
see those surviving ages?" At that mo-
ment there passed before us a pretty
young girl in all the radiance of twenty
years. " Are not youth and beauty
L answered, pointing to the |
pretty passer-by.