more
speculations, while she supplied his wants. "She anticipated his needs
with a filial affection, and until the last studied to make his life
mild and pleasant,--a singularly easy task on account of his optimism."
Monsieur Recamier had need to be a philosopher. The nominal husband of a
beautiful woman, with whom he had shared his prosperity, he had not only
to bear her indifference, but to see her form friendships and make plans
from which he was excluded. When his misfortunes left him a dependent
upon her bounty, he was a mere cipher in her household,--kindly treated,
but with a kindness that savored more of toleration than affection.
Monsieur Recamier died at the advanced age of eighty. Shortly before his
death, his wife obtained permission from the Convent to remove him to
the Abbaye, where he was tenderly cared for by her in his last moments.

The retirement forced upon Madame Recamier by her husband's reverses was
far from being seclusion. "_La petite cellule_" as Chateaubriand called
her retreat, was as much frequented as her brilliant _salons_ in Paris
had been, and she was even more highly considered. Chateaubriand visited
her regularly at three o'clock; they passed an hour alone, when other
persons favored by him were admitted. In the evening her door was open
to all. She no longer mingled in society, people came to her, and
nothing could be more delightful than her receptions. All parties and
all ranks met there, and her _salon_ gradually became a literary centre
and focus. Delphine Gay (Madame Emile de Girardin) recited her first
verses there, Rachel declaimed there, and Lamartine's "Meditations" were
read and applauded there before publication. Among distinguished
strangers who sought admittance to the Abbaye, we notice the names of
Humboldt, Sir Humphry Davy, and Maria Edgeworth. De Tocqueville,
Monsieur Ampere, and Sainte-Beuve were frequent visitors. Peace and
serenity reigned there, for Madame Recamier softened asperities and
healed dissensions by the mere magnetism of her presence. "It was
Eurydice," said Sainte-Beuve, "playing the part of Orpheus." But while
she was the presiding genius of this varied and brilliant society,
Chateaubriand was the controlling spirit. Everybody deferred to him, if
not for his sake, then for the sake of her whose greatest happiness was
to see him pleased and amused.

Madame Recamier has frequently been called cold and heartless. English
reviewers have doubted whether