more to him than a great scholar or philosopher is to a vulgar rich man
in making up his parties.

It was in the midst of these social successes that the husband of
Madame Recamier lost his fortune. He would not have failed had he been
able to secure a loan from the Bank of France of a million of francs;
but this loan the Government peremptorily refused,--doubtless from the
hostility of Napoleon; so that the banker was ruined because his wife
chose to ally herself with the old aristocracy and refuse the favors of
the Emperor. In having pursued such a course, Madame Recamier must have
known that she was the indirect cause of her husband's failure. But she
bore the reverse of fortune with that equanimity which seems to be
peculiar to the French, and which only lofty characters, or people of
considerable mental resources, are able to assume or feel. Most rich
men, when they lose their money, give way to despondency and grief,
conscious that they have nothing to fall back upon; that without money
they are nothing. Madame Recamier at once sold her jewels and plate, and
her fine hotel was offered for sale. Neither she nor her husband sought
to retain anything amid the wreck, and they cheerfully took up their
abode in a small apartment,--which conduct won universal sympathy and
respect, so that her friends were rather increased than diminished, and
she did not lose her social prestige and influence, which she would have
lost in cities where money is the highest, and sometimes the only, test
of social position. Madame de Stael wrote letters of impassioned
friendship, and nobles and generals paid unwonted attention. The death
of her mother soon followed, so that she spent the summer of 1807 in
extreme privacy, until persuaded by her constant friend Madame de Stael
to pay her a visit at her country-seat near Geneva, where she met Prince
Frederick of Prussia, nephew of the great Frederic, who became so
enamored of her that he sought her hand in marriage. Princes, in those
days, had such a lofty idea of their rank that they deemed it an honor
to be conferred on a woman, even if married, to take her away from her
husband. For a time Madame Recamier seemed dazzled with this splendid
proposal, and she even wrote to the old banker, her husband, asking for
a divorce from him. I think I never read of a request so preposterous or
more disgraceful,--the greatest flaw I know in her character,--showing
the extreme worldliness of women of fa