If we except Chateaubriand, who was more loved than loving, Benjamin Constant stands last on the list of Madame Recamier’s conquests; for, after the author of “Atala” and of the “Genius of Christianity” crossed her path, we hear of no more flirtations, no more despairing lovers.  Chateaubriand and Madame Recamier first met, familiarly, at the death-bed of Madame de Stael, whose loss they mutually deplored.  It was not, however, until the next year, 1818, when Madame Recamier had retired to the Abbaye-aux-Bois, that the acquaintance ripened into intimacy.  A second reverse of fortune was the cause of this retirement, to which we shall briefly refer before entering upon the more complicated subject of this friendship.

New and unfortunate speculations on the part of Monsieur Recamier had not only left him penniless, but had to some extent involved his wife’s fortune, which she had confided to him.  In this emergency, Madame Recamier acted with her usual promptitude and decision.  She had two objects in view in her plans for the future,—­economy, and a separation from her husband.  An asylum in the Abbaye-aux-Bois secured to her both advantages.  She established her husband and father in the vicinity of the Convent, and they with Ballanche dined with her every day.  From Monsieur Recamier she exacted a promise to engage in no 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”