Ballanche, equally concerned and jealous, strove to interest her in literature, and urged her to translate Petrarch.  Madame Recamier speedily recovered herself.  She listened graciously to the admonitions of Montmorency, and she consented to undertake Petrarch, but made little progress in the work.  Still, as far as her feelings for Chateaubriand were concerned, the efforts of her friends were in vain.  He occupied the first place in her affections, and she regulated her time and pursuits to please and accommodate him, though for a long time he but poorly repaid her devotion.  He admired and perhaps loved her, as well as he was capable of loving anybody but himself, but it was not until disappointments had sobered him that he fully appreciated her worth.  At the time their intimacy commenced he was the pet and favorite of the whole French nation.  “The Genius of Christianity” had been received with acclamations by a people just recovering from the wild skepticism of the Revolution.  The reaction had taken place, the Goddess of Reason was dethroned, and the burning words and vivid eloquence of Chateaubriand appealed at once to the heart and the imagination of his countrymen.  They did not criticise, they only admired.  Politically he was also a rising man.  The world, or at least the French world, expected great things from the writer of the pamphlet, “De Buonaparte et des Bourbons.”  His manners were courtly and distinguished, and women especially flattered and courted him.  Their attentions fostered his natural vanity, and his fancy, if not his heart, wandered from Madame Recamier, and she knew it.  The tables were turned:  she who had been so passionately beloved was now to feel some of the pangs she had all her life been unconsciously inflicting.  Wounded and jealous, she stooped to reproaches.  The following extracts from letters addressed to her by Chateaubriand while he was ambassador at London clearly betray the state of her mind.

    “I will not ask you again for an explanation, since you will not
    give it.  I have written you by the last courier a letter which
    ought to content you, if you still love me.”

* * * * *

“Do not delude yourself with the idea that you can fly from me.  I will seek you everywhere.  But if I go to the Congress, it will be an occasion to put you to the proof.  I shall see then if you keep your promises.”

* * * * *

“Allons,—­I much prefer to understand your folly than to read mysterious and angry notes.  I comprehend now, or at least I think I do.  It is apparently that woman of whom the friend of the Queen of Sweden has spoken to you.  But, tell me, have I the means to prevent Vernet, Mademoiselle Levert, who writes me declarations, and thirty artistes, men and women, from coming to England in order to get money?  And if I have been culpable, do you think that such fancies can do you the least injury,