on one occasion amounted to
twenty thousand francs,--equal, perhaps, to ten thousand dollars to-day.
This adaptation of means to an end has never been disdained by the
Catholic clergy. What would be thought in Philadelphia or New York, in
an austere and solemn Presbyterian church, to see the most noted beauty
of the day handing round the plate? But such is one of the forms which
French levity takes, even in the consecrated precincts of the church.

The fashionable drive and promenade in Paris was Longchamps, now the
Champs Elysees, and it was Madame Recamier's delight to drive in an open
carriage on this beautiful avenue, especially on what are called the
holy days,--Wednesdays and Fridays,--when her beauty extorted
salutations from the crowd. Of course, such a woman excited equal
admiration in the _salons_, and was soon invited to the fetes and
parties of the Directory, through Barras, one of her admirers. There
she saw Bonaparte, but did not personally know him at that time. At one
of these fetes, rising at full length from her seat to gaze at the
General, sharing in the admiration for the hero, she at once attracted
the notice of the crowd, who all turned to look at her; which so annoyed
Bonaparte that he gave her one of his dreadful and withering frowns,
which caused her to sink into her seat with terror.

In 1798 M. Recamier bought the house which had Recamier belonged to
Necker, in what is now the Chaussee d'Antin. This led to an acquaintance
between Madame Recamier and Madame de Stael, which soon ripened into
friendship. In the following year M. Recamier, now very rich,
established himself in a fine chateau at Clichy, a short distance from
Paris, where he kept open house. Thither came Lucien Bonaparte, at that
time twenty-four years of age, bombastic and consequential, and fell in
love with his beautiful hostess, as everybody else did. But Madame
Recamier, with all her fascinations, was not a woman of passion; nor did
she like the brother of the powerful First Consul, and politely rejected
his addresses. He continued, however, to persecute her with his absurd
love-letters for a year, when, finding it was hopeless to win so refined
and virtuous a lady as Madame Recamier doubtless was,--partly because
she was a woman of high principles, and partly because she had no great
temptations,--the pompous lover, then Home Minister, ceased his
addresses.

But Napoleon, who knew everything that was going on, had a curiosit