The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-10-24
BEAUTIFUL RECAMIER.
(Arsene Houssaye's Paris Letter to the N. Y
Tribune.1

1 1T1DuQe.l
Madame Recamier was one of the queens
of the Directory; the daughter of q notary
she aspired to absolute dominion. Who was
the master Of this woman, who was to give
lessons to all the men of genius of the nine
teenth century? 1t was Laharpe. He was 9
Voltarian with Bernard the notary, and con.
verted with Madame Bernard. / rather think
that NJ .dame Recamier did not take kindly
| to that sterile pasture of the French mind
called LIE Cours de Literature. When hel
mother saw the wings of fifteen years budding
at the shoulders of her daughter she chose
her husband.
Laharpe's counsel was doubtless asked, f I
it was agreed to accept the vows-matrimo-
NAL style-of NJ. Rose Recamier, who lin
gered among the asphodels of the fifties.
Somber auguries accumulated about the nup.
tials, which were solemnized on the 9th Of
April, 1898, between two sAnguinary storms.
The Terror of Madame Recamier was fol-
lowed by Ninth Thermidor without the in.
tervention of the s,affold. "Her marriage
was never m ore than apparent" says one of
her historians, who canonizes this sanity
woman because she was never q wife.
NJ. Rscamier, proud of the beauty of his
quasi-wife, opened his salon as soon as the
sun of Thermidor announced the return of
gala days, of festivals, and Athenian follies, so
dear to Parisians. The volcano was still
smoking when Nine. Recamier showed her
pretty foot over the crater. She was one of
those neo- Greeks who had escaped, fully clad
in their own modesty, from the ruins of a
slaughtered Pompeii. Why does she say in
her memoirs that she /" remained entirely for
eign to the society of the Directory and had
no relations with the women who were its
heroines, Nine. Tallien and the rest 2"
Madame Recamier haunted the salons of
the Directory, and did not disdain, all piano.
piled in her virtue, to dance a cotillon with
Madame Tallien and the others" The others
were doubtless Mme. de Beauharnais and
Nine. de Stael. Where could Madame Re
camier have shown herself if not in the
fashionable salons? know that she took up
collection at ST. Roch, and that the church
was invaded and the chairs broken, and that
the police were called in. Total, &c, 900 francs
for the poor, and 20, 600 admirers for her. 1
know that at Longchamps Mme Recamier,
peplum with sandals which showed her
feet on tiger skin, her hair falling
in ringlets over q snowy neck kiss I'D
gently by the March sun, her arms bare, ex-
cept where they we're encircled by canoes,
allowed herself to be adored at a distance by
all the Incroyables and all the Muscadlns
like an idol of an ancient temple. But it
could hardly have been at st. Roch or at Ling
champs that she could have gained the name
of the finest dancer of the Directory. Be-
sides, here is a word from her history: "She
was passionately fond of dancing during sew
eral years, and at her debut in society she
made it point OF honor to arrive at balls the
first and to leave the last" 1t was Madame
T alien who taught her the chlamys dance,
which is one of the virtues of Madame de
Stael's Corinne.
The woman WAC danced thus was never .
wife, and her admirers csnonizs her for this.
Oh, noble mothers what do you Say of this
sterile prude, who created new salon for
Prscteuses Ridicules-for the famous Alb
oaye aux Bots was nothing more. Madame
Rscamier sat at one side of the fire, M. de
Jhateaubriand at the other, like king and
queen, childless and bored. They had their
court, for they made Academicians, and all
.spirants did homage there. Sainte- Beuve
ook me there one evening. ''Is it not beau
iful, he said as we went out "to see these
surviving ages?" At that moment there |
passed before us pretty young girl in all the
Alliance of twenty years. 'Are not youth |
md beauty beautiful" answered, pointing |
o the pretty passer-by.