On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    MADAME KECAMIER. 229

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    «¦ The Father Of Madame Recamier Was Jea...

    news of past safety or future project which they might reasonably have expected ; and when a beloved life had sunk into the grave

    , turned for help and comfort to her to whom this life had been devoted . Madame Recamier carefully destroyed all her own letters , ( with

    a very few unimportant exceptions , ) and thus hid the one clue which _might have helped our researches . Why did she do this ?

    was it genuine humility and reserve , or a coquettish calculation , or an indefinite instinct that the cloud-veil of mystery , while it

    concealed , yet served to heighten , the mysterious charm of her character ?

    Be that as it may , this last act has certainly helped to spread , even over those who never saw hersome of that peculiar fascination

    , by ., "which , all who did see her were more or less subjugated . The beauty of Madame Reeamier was incontestable ; wherever she

    appeared she excited universal admiration , and yet any description of her must of necessity be unsatisfactory . Her eyes

    were not appearance large , but singularly brilliant , her hair fell in natural chestnut curls , and her figure was slight , and remarkably graceful .

    She cannot be said to have had regular features , but the delicacy of her complexion , and the combined sweetness and archness of her

    expression , would scarcely permit the most critical and cold of _sjDectators to qualifhis admiration . She almost invariably wore white ,

    doubtless from y a consciousness that her beautiful arms and shoulders could rival in their whiteness the most snowy drapery . Pearls , for

    the same reason perhaps , were her favorite ornaments . Trying to most persons as the classical costume of those days must have been ,

    it could but serve in Madame Recamier ' s case to exhibit the perfection of her figure and the grace of her every movement .

    So soon as the churches were re-opened and divine service re-establishedMadame Recamier was applied toto quete ( or hold the .

    collection plate , as we , . should She was say almost ) at the crushed church of by St the . Roch , crowd , for who some thronge charitable d to

    gaze at her , and whose admiration so far fired their benevolence that the sum collected amo ' unted to twenty thousand francs .

    At the annual promenade at Longchamps , where the mid-day sun , so trying to many other _beaiitiesonly exhibited the freshness and

    , delicacy of her appearance , all present unanimously decreed her the palm as unrivalled in loveliness and graceand more regular and

    , classical faces failed to produce one-half the effect of hers . Madame Recamier entered , with the gaiety and enjoyment natural

    to her age , into the pleasures of the world . Her husband sanctioned her mixing in society , and occasionally accompanied her . His elder

    brother , who had also an affectionate desire to promote all her wishes , and yet at the same time to ensure her every protectionwould

    forget his age and habits , and accompany her to the Bed cle V , Opera , which at that time was frequented by ladies in good society . She

    invariably retained a dignified reserve in her manner , and even at

    these scenes of universal disguise and mystification , was generally

    Madame Kecamier. 229

    MADAME KECAMIER . 229

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1860, page 229, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121860/page/13/