Madame Recamier

First published in 1940, this is a biography of Jeanne-Francoise Julie Adelaide Recamier (1777–1849), a French socialite whose salon drew Parisians from the leading literary and political circles of the early 19th century.Known as Juliette, she was the wife of a Parisian banker 30 years her senior and one of the most prominent women of her time. Beautiful, accomplished, and with a love of literature, Juliette was shy and modest by nature. From the earliest days of the French Consulate to almost the end of the July Monarchy, her salon in Paris was one of the chief resorts of literary and political society that followed what was fashionable. The habitues of her house included many former royalists and others, such as Bernadotte (later Charles XIV of Sweden and Norway) and Gen. Jean Moreau, who were opposed to the government of Napoleon.In 1805 Napoleon's policies caused her husband major financial losses, and in the same year Napoleon ordered her exiled from Paris. She stayed with her good friend Mme de Stael, one of Napoleon I's principal opponents, in Geneva and then went to Rome (1813) and Naples, where she was on exceedingly good terms with Gen. Joachim Murat and his wife Caroline Bonaparte, who were then intriguing with the Bourbons.Following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815 she returned to Paris, where despite her reduced circumstances after 1819 she maintained her salon and continued to receive visitors at the L'Abbaye-aux-Bois, a 17th-century convent, in which she took a separate suite and to which she retired in 1819.&quote;To be beloved was the history of Mme Recamier. Beloved by all in her youth, for her astonishing beauty-beloved for her gentleness, her inexhaustible kindness, for the charm of a character which was reflected in her sweet face-beloved by young and old…such will be the renown of this charming woman!&quote;-MADAME DE HAUTEFEUILLE