making a noise, he had none of the fundamental qualities of a statesman.  By the inspiration of his genius, he could seize the right moment for making a telling speech, or he could promulgate in a pamphlet a striking truth, calculated to electrify and convince.  But he could not be calmly deliberate.  Always enthusiastic, he was never temperate.  He was the slave of his partialities and prejudices.  Harriet Martineau, who for keen analysis and nice discrimination of character has few equals among historians, characterizes him as “the wordy Chateaubriand,” and Guizot says of him, “It was his illusion to think himself the equal of the most consummate statesmen, and his soul was filled with bitterness because men would not admit him to be the rival of Napoleon as well as of Milton.”  It was this bitterness with which Madame Recamier had to contend, for his literary successes did not console him for his political disappointments, and his temper, never very equable, was now more variable and uncertain.

After an absence of eighteen months she returned to Paris.  She apprised Chateaubriand of her arrival by a note.  He came immediately to see her, and was rapturous with delight.  No word of reproach passed between them, and he fell at once into his old habits.  From this time his behavior was respectful and devoted.  Absence and his disappointments had taught him the inestimable value of such a friend.  She daily became more and more necessary to him.  After his resignation of the Roman embassy in 1829, which had been secured to him through her instrumentality, he no longer engaged actively in politics, and, deprived of the stimulus of ambition, he looked to her for excitement.  She encouraged his literary exertions, drew him out from his fits of depression, and soothed his wounded self-love.  This was no light task; for Chateaubriand’s self-complacency was not of that imperturbable sort which, however intolerable to others, has at least the merit of keeping its possessor content and tranquil.  With him it partook more of the nature of egotism than of self-conceit, and it therefore made him always restless and continually dissatisfied.  But no effort was too great for Madame Recamier’s devotion.  Her friends looked upon her sacrifices with feelings of mingled regret and admiration, but she herself was unconscious of them.  They were simply a labor of love; and much as her tranquillity must have been disturbed at times by the caprices and exactions of this moody, melancholy man, she was probably happy in being allowed to sacrifice herself.  Of the success of her efforts Sainte-Beuve thus gracefully speaks:—­“Madame de Maintenon was never more ingenious in amusing Louis XIV. than Madame Recamier in interesting Chateaubriand.  ‘I have always remarked,’ said Boileau, on returning from Versailles, ’that, when the conversation does not turn on himself, the King directly gets tired, and is either ready to yawn or to go away.’  Every great poet, when he is growing old, is a little like Louis XIV. in this respect.  Madame Recamier had each day a thousand pleasant contrivances to excite and flatter him.  She assembled from all quarters friends for him,—­new admirers.  She chained us all to the feet of her idol with links of gold.”