One of her most successful efforts in amusing him was the reading of “Les Memoires d’Outre-Tombe” to a select and admiring audience at the Abbaye.  He first read them in private to Madame Recamier, who passed judgment upon them, and they were then read aloud by M. Charles Lenormant.  This device worked like a charm; everybody applauded, and the author was content.  The personal interest attached to the chief parties concerned, no doubt, made these readings very delightful.  But it would now be impossible for any reader to be enthusiastic about the Memoirs themselves.  Out of France it would be difficult to find a more egotistical piece of self-portraiture.  Chateaubriand is not quite so ostentatious in his egotism as the Prince de Ligne, who headed the chapters in his “Memoires et Melanges,” “De moi pendant le jour,” “De moi pendant la nuit,” “De moi encore,” “Memoirs pour mon coeur”; still he parades himself on every possible occasion, and not always to his own advantage.  His conduct in passing himself off as a single man in an English family who were kind to him during his exile, thereby engaging the daughter’s affections, is entirely inexcusable.  That a person of Madame Recamier’s good judgment did not perceive the discredit that must attach to such revelations is only to be accounted for by supposing her blind to Chateaubriand’s follies.  But with all her partiality, it is still surprising that she should have given her sanction to his deliberate and cold analysis of the character of his parents, and his equally heartless and selfish reflections on his marriage.

Chateaubriand married simply to please his sisters, feeling that he “had none of the qualifications of a husband,” and for years he seemed entirely oblivious of his wife’s existence.  After he gave up his wandering life, and became distinguished, he treated her with more consideration.  Madame de Chateaubriand was a pretty, delicate woman, of quick natural intelligence.  M. Danielo, Chateaubriand’s secretary, has written an interesting sketch of her, which is affixed to her husband’s memoirs.  She was a person of eccentric habits, but of a warm heart and lively sensibilities, and was devoted to her religious duties and the Infirmary of Maria Theresa.  She professed a great contempt for literature, and asserted that she had never read a line of her husband’s works; but this was regarded as an affectation.  Madame de Chateaubriand was not an amiable person, but very frank and sincere.  She often reproached herself for her faults and love of contradiction.  Though she appears to have loved her husband, she was not blind to his weaknesses, and he was afraid of her sallies.  So vain and sensitive a man could not feel comfortable in the society of a woman of her keen penetration, and her wit was not always tempered by discretion.  Madame Recamier gained by the contrast.  She believed in him, and “there are few things so pleasant,” says a writer in Fraser, “as to have a woman at hand that believes