Arrived once more at home, Madame Récamier was present at the trial of her friend Moreau, implicated (though she believed him wholly innocent of the accusation) in the royalist conspiracy of Pichegru and George Cadoudal. Nothing could exceed the gloom and terror which reigned at this period. Between the arrest and commencement of the proceedings, terrible events were known to have occurred the Duc d'Enghien had been seized, and after a mock trial shot at dead of night beneath his prison walls, and the spectre of Pichegru seemed as though it hovered over the heads of the accused, for he had been mysteriously strangled in his cell. Madame Récamier was attended upon this occasion by a near relation of her husband, M. Brillat Savarin, a magistrate of gastronomic fame, and the moment she raised her veil, Moreau recognized her, rose and bowed to her, and she returned his salutation, as she expresses it "with emotion and respect." But this interview-if such it may be called-was to be the last; it was deemed wiser that she should not again attend the proceedings of the court, for Napoleon was displeased by her appearance, exclaiming sharply, when he heard that she had been present, "What was Madame Récamier doing there?"

Hitherto we have followed the fortunes of Juliette Récamier floating along the flood-tide of success, but for her, as for others, were appointed times of anxiety and suffering, as well as scenes of triumph and rejoicing, and she was erelong to discover that the power whose stability she had been somewhat too prone to depreciate, could on occasion be employed to do the bidding of passions the most petty and unworthy. Her husband's banking house having become embarrassed, it was necessary to apply to the bank of France for the loan of a million of francs, by which the difficulty could be tided over. The

accommodation, however, which needed the Emperor's sanction, was refused, the bank stopped payment (1806), and at the age of five-and-twenty, in the very zenith of her beauty and power, Madame Récamier was suddenly deprived of the fabulous luxury and splendor with which she had hitherto been surrounded. But nowise daunted, she met the disaster with the same calm resolution as characterized her in the most trying events of her life. Everything was surrendered to the creditors; plate, jewels, the bright accessories of the shrine wherein so much beauty had sat enthroned; all were sold, and Madame Récamier retired with her husband to the comparatively humble shelter of a small apartment. But even thus, she became the object of universal interest and respect. All Paris was at her door; and Junot-one of the warmest of her friends-on rejoining his Imperial master in Germany, so far allowed his zeal to get the better of his discretion as to expatiate for His Majesty's delectation on the extent of sympathy shown. "They could not have paid more honor to the widow of a Marshal of France who had lost her husband on the field of battle," was the Emperor's petulant reply.

It was at this juncture that Madame de Staël (exiled from Paris in 1803), becoming aware of her friend's embarrassed position, invited her to Coppet, a delightful residence which she occupied near the lake of Geneva. Incidents such as characterized her whole career awaited her here also, and a new personage makes his appearance upon the scene of her triumphs, in the shape of Prince Augustus of Prussia, who had been taken prisoner at the battle of Saalfeld (Oct. 1806), where his eldest brother, Prince Louis, was killed. Handsome, brave, chivalrous, and only twenty-four years of age, the young prince at once fell a victim to the charms of the fair inmate of Coppet, implored her to obtain

a divorce and to marry him. Touched, it may well have been, by the devotion of royalty under misfortune, and influenced, perhaps, by the favoring counsel of her hostess, Madame Récamier yielded a somewhat hesitating consent, and even wrote to her husband proposing the formal dissolution of their marriage. Récamier professed his willingness to accede to her wishes, but appealed at the same time to her better feelings, and to

M.

the memory of days gone by, ere misfortune had fallen upon his house. The remonstrance was not without its effect, the remembrance of all her husband's indulgence came back upon her, Catholic scruples and dread of quitting her country did the rest; the glamour which had been temporarily cast over her imagination passed away, and the lady returned to Paris in order to avoid the fulfilment of her promise. Yet, strange to say, the prince was not informed of her resolution; she trusted that time and absence-those two potent factors in assuaging the pangs of unrequited affection-would render less painful the destruction of his hopes; nor was it until three or four years later, when, tortured by anxieties, both public and private, he fell dangerously ill, that she summoned courage to give the coup de grâce to his expectations. Meanwhile, she had sent him her portrait, which was the brightest ornament of his home at Berlin until its return to Madame Récamier in ac cordance with his last wishes in 1845, and presented him with a ring, which, at his earnest desire, was buried with him. Albeit thus discomfited, Prince Augustus continued to correspond with Madame Récamier till the year 1815, when he entered Paris with the allied armies, at the head of the Prussian artillery, and his last interview with her took place as late as 1825, when he found her in her retreat at the Abbaye-aux-bois.

The penalty of exile which Madame Récamier now incurred for no other crime than that of paying a thirty-six hours' visit to Madame de Staël-the entire edition of whose celebrated work on Germany, which abounded with allusions to the Imperial police, had been seized, and who was contemplating departure to America-though it involved no more than prohibition to reside within one hundred and twenty miles of Paris, may be regarded as the crowning act of Napoleon's revenge. She fixed upon Châlous as her place of exile, subsequently removing to Lyons where she made the acquaintance of M. Ballanche, who, from the first day that he met her, became her abject slave. He was the son of a printer, and more favored by gifts of intellect than by external advantages. He was in fact extremely ugly, and his ugliness had been aggravated by the unskilled treatment of a charlatan, who had used such violent means for the cure of chronic headache as

to necessitate the removal of a portion of the jaw-bone; and yet it was impossible for any one to be much in his society without being attracted by the charm of his conversation and manner. An episode of the first interview between Madame Récamier and M. Ballanche seems prophetic of the nature of their whole subsequent intercourse. Exerting himself to the very utmost to prove agreeable, M. Ballanche observed the lady turn pale, and on asking the reason, Madame Récamier, who was on the point of fainting, confessed the cause of her indisposition. Poor Ballanche had caused his shoes to be new blacked in honor of the interview and the odor was insupportable to her. Without a word he quietly withdrew, deposited the offending shoes outside the door, re-entered the room as though nothing had happened and resumed the conversation exactly where he left it. Of the three whose names are most intimately associated as friends of Madame Récamier, the palm for sincerity. and devotion must be yielded to M. Ballanche. The Duke de Montmorency, shocked at her love of dissipation, was always trying to convert her, but Ballanche thought she was perfect and loved all whom she loved, not even excepting Chateaubriand with his egotism and vanity. "You are my star of destiny," he writes to her, "it is impossible that I should survive you; were you to enter your tomb of white marble, a grave must be dug at once for me, wherein I also may be laid." Ballanche died 1847 and was buried in the same tomb which was two years later to receive all that was mortal of Madame Récamier. She was then old and blind, and in her anxiety to soothe his dying moments, neglected precautions recommended to her after an operation just performed upon her eyes, and with the food of tears which she shed by his couch was lost forever all hope of recovering her sight.

At the time when Madame Récamier visited Rome in 1813, the capital of the Christian world was bereft of its Pontiff and was simply the headquarters of a French prefect who administered the department of the Tiber. She opened her salon in the Palazzo Fiano, where among others she received Canova, who almost by stealth transferred her bust to marble, and whose brother the abbé penned a daily sonnet to la bellissima Zulièta. From Rome she proceeded to Naples, where she

was received by the King and Queen with the utmost cordiality, precedence being assigned her even over all the ladies of the court. The times were critical and Murat's position was just then one of exceeding perplexity. To save his crown he had joined the coalition against the brother-inlaw to whom he owed his greatness, and it was from the balcony of Queen Caroline's apartment that Madame Récamier beheld the British fleet entering, by Murat's invitation, the bright blue waters of the lovely bay.

Three years of husband less but by no means solitary wandering were terminated by the fall of Napoleon, the gates of Paris were once more opened to her, and she immediately bent her steps homeward. Her beauty was still in full and perfect flower, and to all her other charms was now added the prestige of innocence long persecuted by the fallen power. Her mother's fortune, which amounted to four hundred thousand francs, added to the results of M. Récamier's industry, enabled her once again to surround herself with the comforts and indulgences of life. Old friends were not wanting to welcome her return, Madame de Staël was in Paris, and the widow of Moreau (who met death stricken by a French bullet when serving in the ranks of the Russian army) from whom she had been separated by ten long years of exile. Three generations of Montmorencys were to be seen in her salon, and it was on observing the impression made by Madame Récamier upon his grandson Henri, that the old duke remarked so gracefully" that though they did not die of it, all nevertheless were wounded." It was at this period, and at Madame de Staël's, that the fair Juliette first made the acquaintance of the Duke of Wellington; and it is with reference to the words in which he is said to have addressed her the first time he saw her after the crowning victory over his illustrious enemy-Je l'ai bien battu-that the somewhat dubious assertion has been hazarded that his homage was unwelcome. The truth probably was that from motives of patriotism she disliked the duke; at any rate she preserved a selection of his effusions and ridiculed him as unable to spell correctly two consecutive words of French.

It was not long before the death of Madame de Staël in 1818, that the intimacy between Chateaubriand and Juliette Ré

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camier commenced while she was living in a hotel, Rue d'Anjou, which she had purchased and fitted up and wherein she hoped to pass the rest of her life in peace and security. But a fresh reverse of fortune occurring in 1820, she resolved no longer to form part of her husband's family, but while engaging to maintain him out of the wreck of her own fortune, she determined to withdraw entirely from the world, and hired apartments from the nuns of the Abbaye-aux-bois, a little convent which lay somewhat withdrawn from the street in the midst of the fashionable Faubourg S. Germain. This then was the final retreat which she rendered famous by thirty years of residence. In her cell" she lived alone, but she dutifully procured a lodging for her husband (who died in 1830) in the neighborhood, and provided him and Ballanche with their daily dinner. But though her salon ever remained a temple, the object of worship, by degrees, was changed, the idol of former days became the priestess, while Chateaubriand who had quickly won the first place, if not in the heart, at least in the imagination of Madame Récamier, occupied the shrine and was worshipped, as it has been said, like the Grand Lama himself. When he deigned to talk, everybody was bound to listen, when he was moderately tired of a speaker, he stroked an ugly cat, placed purposely in a chair by his side, when he was tired beyond endurance he began playing with a bell-rope which lay conveniently within his reach, and then Ma dame Récamier would immediately rush to the rescue. Now and then the hostess, who sat on one side of the fireplace, the rest round in a circle, wouid relate some anecdote connected with earlier days; one such relating to Joseph Bonaparte has come down to us. 66 I was standing one day," said Madame Récamier, at the door of the Spanish ambassador's hotel, conversing with the King; the royal carriage was in waiting, and the prince, who was always very gallant, had just taken leave of me, when I heard a gruff voice muttering something close to my ear, I turned round, and beheld a grenadier, a thorough' vieux de la vieille,' who had posted himself by the footway as a sort of amateur sentinel. 'Citizen,' he blurted out, addressing King Joseph, thy equipage is ready,' then changing his tone after a moment's reflection, he added, 'Whenever it may please

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your Majesty to step in.' "Every day at the same hour, says one of his biographers, exact as the clock, the inhabitants of the Rue de Sêvres saw Chateaubriand pass, elegantly dressed, in his short redingote, a riding whip in his hand, in the direction of the grille of the Abbaye aux-bois. But when the infirmities of age began to beset him-when instead of walking to the Abbaye, he was compelled to go there in a carriage-when, after having long climbed the stairs lightly enough, he came at last to employ the support of a stick-and when finally he was carried there in an armchair by his servants—this decay caused him to abandon himself to profound and incurable melancholy. As his faculties became gradually weaker, he fell back more and more on himself, and, unwilling that others should perceive how his mind partook with his body the pressure of years, he condemned himself to silence, and hardly spoke any more. His attachment to Juliette Récamier, however, survived his power of enjoyment, and after the death of his wife, he offered her marriage, and would scarce pardon her gentle refusal. Chateaubriand expired July 4th, 1848, wholly exhausted and discontented with himself and the world; the cannon of Revolution roared round the bed of the dying man who had lost all powers of speech, but his parting agony was hidden from the sightless orbs of Madame Récamier; silence and darkness thus meetly preluding an eternal separation. His remains were interred in Grand Bey, a lonely islet off the coast of Brittany.

Such briefly was the personage on whom Madame Récamier lavished the sympathy of her declining years. Hard as might have been the task of amusing a being who

What

was no longer amusable, the difficulty was by no means lessened from the political rivalry which subsisted between M. de Montmorency and Chateaubriand. wonder that the salon of the Abbaye-auxbois was likened by one of the wittiest Frenchmen of the day to a "Happy Family," such as occasionally perambulated the streets of London, consisting of a cat, a dog, a mouse, a rabbit and other animals equally dissimilar in their natures and which may nevertheless be seen living in the same cage in apparent amity.

Thus left alone in her darkness-her occupation gone-Madame Récamier did not long survive the comrades of her life. She would indeed often speak of them as though they were only absent for awhile, and at certain moments she was wont to say that she experienced a thought of them so vivid, that it seemed to her almost like an apparition. Her early impressions of soft conventual devotion had never been effaced, and though to all her other trials, blindness was, as in the case of Madame du Deffand, superadded, she nevertheless enjoyed a measure of serenity and contentment, which contrasted favorably with the ennui wherewith Horace Walpole's "dear old woman" was so eternally beset. Thus she lived, and thus, in May 1849, she died of cholera-a disease of which she had ever entertained a special dread—at the age of seventy-two; and by a last and singularly happy privilege, the terrible scourge which usually leaves such saddening traces behind it spared the form whence the spirit had fled, and in the repose of death her features resumed for awhile the original and extraordinary beauty which in life she had so highly prized.—Temple Bar.

IF any species or race desires a continued existence, then above all things it is necessary that that species or race should go on reproducing itself.

This, I am aware, is an obvious platitude; but I think it was John Stuart Mill who once said there were such things in the world as luminous platitudes. Some truths are so often taken for granted in

silence, that we are in danger at times of quite losing sight of them. And as some good friends of mine have lately been accusing me of "barren paradoxes," I am anxious in this paper to avoid all appearance of paradox, barren or fertile, and to confine myself strictly to the merest truisms. Though the truisms, to be sure, are of a particular sort too much over

looked in controversy nowadays by a certain type of modern lady writers.

Let us look then briefly at the needful conditions under which alone the human race can go on reproducing itself.

If every woman married, and every woman had four children, population would remain just stationary. Or rather, if every marriageable adult man and woman in a given community were to marry, and if every marriage proved fertile, on the average, to the extent of four children, then, under favorable circumstances, that community, I take it, would just keep up its numbers, neither increasing nor decreasing from generation to generation. If less than all the adult men and women married, or if the marriages proved fertile on the average to a less degree than four children apiece, then that community would grow smaller and smaller. In order that the community may keep up to its normal level, therefore, either all adults must marry and produce to this extent, or else, fewer marrying, those few must have families exceeding on the average four children, in exact proportion to the rate of abstention. And if the community is to increase (which on Darwinian principles I believe to be a condition precedent of national health and vigor), then either all adults must marry and produce more than four children apiece, or else, fewer marrying, those few must produce as many more as will compensate for the abstention of the remainder and form a small surplus in each generation.

In Britain, at the present day, I believe I am right in deducing (after Mr. F. Galton) that an average of about six children per marriage (not per head of female inhabitants) is necessary in order to keep the population just stationary. And the actual number of children per marriage is a little in excess of even that high figure, thus providing for the regular increase from census to census and for overflow by emigration.

These facts, all platitudes as they are, look so startling at first sight that they will probably need for the unstatistical reader a little explanation and simplification.

Well, suppose, now, every man and every woman in a given community were to marry; and suppose they were in each case to produce two children, a boy and a girl; and suppose those children were in every case to attain maturity: why, then,

the next generation would exactly reproduce the last, each father being represented by his son, and each mother by her daughter, ad infinitum. (I purposely omit, for simplicity's sake, the complicating factor of the length and succession of generations, which by good luck in the case of the human species practically cancels itself.) But as a matter of fact, all the children do not attain maturity on the contrary, nearly half of them die before reaching the age of manhood-in some conditions of life, indeed, and in some countries, more than half. Roughly speaking, therefore (for I don't wish to become a statistical bore), it may be said that in order that two children may attain maturity and be capable of marriage, even under the most favorable circumstances, four must be born. The other two must be provided to cover risks of infant or adolescent mortality, and to insure against infertility or incapacity for marriage in later life. They are wanted to make up the categories of soldiers, sailors, imbeciles, cripples, and incapables generally. So that even if every possible person married, and if every married pair had four children, we should only just keep up the number of our population from one age to another.

Now, I need hardly say that not every possible person does marry, and that we do actually a good deal more than keep up the number of our population. Therefore it will at once be clear that each actual marriage is fertile to considerably more than the extent of four children. That is, indeed, a heavy burden to lay upon women. One aim, at least, of social reformers should certainly be to lighten it as much as possible.

Nevertheless, I think, it will be abundantly apparent from these simple considerations that in every community, and to all time, the vast inajority of the women must becomes wives and mothers, and must bear at least four children apiece. If some women shirk their natural duties, then a heavier task must be laid upon the remainder. But in any case almost all must become wives and mothers, and almost all must bear at least four or five children. In our existing state six are the very fewest that our country can do with.

Moreover, it is pretty clear that the bestordered community will be one where as large a proportion of the women as possi