Arrayed in her divine charms; armed with irresistible goodness and archness; enriched with equal wisdom and uprightness, every movement a mixture of grace and dignity; protected by an aureole of purity which always surrounded her; walking among common mortals, "like a goddess on a cloud," she made it the business of her life to soften the asperities, listen to the' plans, sympathize with the disappointments, stimulate the powers, encourage the efforts, praise the achievements, and enjoy the triumphs, of her friends. No wonder they loved her, and thronged around her alike in prosperity and in adversity. To appreciate her character is a joy; to portray her example, a duty. She was a kind of saint of the world.
The single fault which Saint-Beuve finds with the spirit of the society she formed, and governed so long with her irresistible sceptre, is that there was too much of complaisance and charity in it. Stern truth suffered, and character was enervated, while courtesy and taste flourished: "The personality or self-love of all who came into the charmed circle was too much caressed." One can scarcely help lamenting that so gracious a fault is not oftener to be met in the selfish and satirical world. For the opposite fault of a harsh carelessness is so much more frequent as to make this seem almost a virtue. Cast in an angel's mould, and animated with an angel's spirit, her consciousness vacant of self, vacant also of an absorbing aim, ever ready to install the aim of any worthy person who came before her, she was such a woman as Dante would have adored. It seems impossible not to recognize how much fitter a type of womanhood she is for her sex to admire than those specimens who spend their days in publicly ventilating their vanity, feverishly courting notoriety and power; or those who, without cultivation, without expansion, without devotion, without aspiration, lead a life of monotonous drudgery, with not a single interest beyond their own homes.
A certain Madame Ancelot has written a book, in which, doubtless under the pain of some galling memory--she attacks Madame Récamier as a selfish coquette, enamored only of admiration, fame, and power. Her chief weapon, as this woman asserts, was a skilful application of deliberate unprincipled flattery to the pride and vanity of everybody she met. The conduct attributed to Madame Récamier in the odious examples fabricated by this slanderer, would have been insufferably repulsive even to average persons. To persons of such insight, refinement, and elevation as marked all her most intimate associates, it would have been unutterably disgusting. The whole representation, while awakening the indignation of the reader, shows what a degrading caricature noble souls undergo when reflected in the minds of base observers. Contrast with the view of this Madame Ancelot what is said with unquestionable authority, after the intimacy of a lifetime, by the gifted and illustrious Countess de Boigne. "Amidst the overwhelming reverses of her husband's fortunes, I found Madame Récamier so calm, so noble, so simple, lifted so far above all the vain shows of her former life, that I was extremely struck; and I date from that moment the vivid affection which subsequent events have served only to confirm. No portrait does her justice. All praise her incomparable beauty, her active beneficence, her sweet urbanity. Many declare her great talents; but few have discerned, through the habitual ease of her intercourse, the loftiness of her heart, the independence of her character, the impartiality of her judgment, and the fairness of her soul!" These are the words of one absolutely competent to judge, intrinsically incapable of falsifying; and also when death had removed every motive for flattery.