or take from you anything which I have given you?  You have been told a thousand falsehoods.  Herein I recognize my friends.  But tranquillize yourself:  the lady leaves, and will never return to England.  But perhaps you would like me to remain here on that account:  a very useless precaution; for, whatever happens, Congress or no Congress, I cannot live so long separated from you, and am determined to see you at any cost.”

The letters from which we quote are very characteristic of their author.  While protesting eternal fidelity, and declaring his intention to renounce the world and live but for Madame Recamier, he begs her at the same time to use all her influence to get him sent to the approaching Congress at Vienna as one of the French representatives,—­an appointment which would necessarily separate him still longer from her. “Songez au Congres” is the refrain to all his poetical expressions of attachment.

It is to be hoped that Madame Recamier did not perceive the inconsistency of which he was totally unconscious.  Though Chateaubriand was perpetually analyzing himself and his emotions, no man had less self-knowledge.  He was too much absorbed by his “self-study, self-wonder, and self-worship,” as one of his critics styles his egotism, to be clear-sighted.  He had generous impulses, but no uniform generosity of heart; and while glorying in the few ostentatious sacrifices he made to pet ideas, he had no perception of the nature of self-sacrifice.  Much, therefore, as he was gratified at the devotion of a woman of Madame Recamier’s position and influence, he did not value it sufficiently to make any sacrifices to secure it, and consequently she was continually annoyed and distressed.  Her life was also embittered by his political differences with Mathieu de Montmorency, to whom, by means which can scarcely be deemed honorable, he had succeeded as Minister of Foreign Affairs.  The confidential friend of both parties, her position was a very difficult one; but she was equal to the emergency.  She satisfied each, without being false to, or unmindful of, the interests of either.

But her relations to Chateaubriand were fast becoming intolerable, and she resolved to break her chains and leave Paris.  He regarded this resolution as a mere threat.  “No,” he wrote, “you have not bid farewell to all earthly joys.  If you go, you will return.”  She did go, however, taking with her Ballanche and her adopted daughter, whose delicate health was the ostensible cause of her departure.  What it cost her to leave Paris may well be conjectured, and nothing is more indicative of her power of self-control than this voluntary withdrawal from a companionship which fascinated while it tortured her.  Chateaubriand sent letters after her full of protestations and upbraidings; but after a while he wrote less frequently, and for a year they ceased to correspond.  To a friend who urged her to return Madame Recamier wrote,—­“If