Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier
Encyclopedia
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
society leader, whose salon drew Parisians from the leading literary and political circles of the early 19th century.
Biography
Born in Lyon, France, and known as Juliette, she was married at fifteen to Jacques Récamier (d. 1830), a rich banker more than 30 years her senior. It is believed that he was in fact her natural father who married her to make her his heir.Beautiful, accomplished, and with a real love for literature, she possessed at the same time a temperament which protected her from scandal, and from the early days of the French Consulate
French Consulate
The Consulate was the government of France between the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804...
to almost the end of the July Monarchy
July Monarchy
The July Monarchy , officially the Kingdom of France , was a period of liberal constitutional monarchy in France under King Louis-Philippe starting with the July Revolution of 1830 and ending with the Revolution of 1848...
, her salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
was one of the chief resorts of literary and political society that followed what was fashionable. The habitués of her house included many former royalists, with others, such as General Bernadotte
Charles XIV John of Sweden
Charles XIV & III John, also Carl John, Swedish and Norwegian: Karl Johan was King of Sweden and King of Norway from 1818 until his death...
and General Moreau
Jean Victor Marie Moreau
Jean Victor Marie Moreau was a French general who helped Napoleon Bonaparte to power, but later became a rival and was banished to the United States.- Early life :Moreau was born at Morlaix in Brittany...
, more or less disaffected to the government. This circumstance, together with her refusal to act as lady-in-waiting to Empress consort Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Her first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she had been imprisoned in the Carmes prison until her release five days after Alexandre's...
and her friendship for Germaine de Staël
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein , commonly known as Madame de Staël, was a French-speaking Swiss author living in Paris and abroad. She influenced literary tastes in Europe at the turn of the 19th century.- Childhood :...
, brought her under suspicion. In 1800 Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...
began his portrait
Portrait of Madame Récamier
Portrait of Madame Récamier is an 1800 portrait of Juliette Récamier by Jacques Louis David showing her reclining on an empire style sofa in an empire line dressed as a modern vestal virgin...
of her, but left it unfinished on learning François Gérard
François Gerard
François Pascal Simon, Baron Gérard was a French painter born in Rome, where his father occupied a post in the house of the French ambassador. His mother was Italian. As a baron of the Empire he is sometimes referred to as Baron Gérard.-Life:François Gérard was born in Rome, on 12 March 1770, to...
had been commissioned to paint a portrait before he had (shown above) - Gerard's was completed in 1802.
Benjamin Constant
Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque was a Swiss-born French nobleman, thinker, writer and politician.-Biography:...
, whose singular political tergiversations during the last days of the Empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
and the first of the Restoration
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
have been attributed to her persuasions. Mme Récamier was eventually exiled from Paris by the orders of Napoleon I
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
. After a short stay at her native Lyon, she proceeded to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, and finally to Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. There Mme de Récamier was on exceedingly good terms with Joachim Murat
Joachim Murat
Joachim-Napoléon Murat , Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815...
and his wife Caroline Bonaparte
Caroline Bonaparte
Maria Annunziata Carolina Murat , better known as Caroline Bonaparte, was the seventh surviving child and third surviving daughter of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino and a younger sister of Napoleon I of France...
, who were then intriguing with the Bourbons
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
. She persuaded Constant to plead the claims of Murat in a memorandum addressed to the Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
, and also induced him to take up a decided attitude in opposition to Napoleon during the Hundred Days
Hundred Days
The Hundred Days, sometimes known as the Hundred Days of Napoleon or Napoleon's Hundred Days for specificity, marked the period between Emperor Napoleon I of France's return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815...
.
Her husband had sustained heavy financial losses in 1805, and she visited Mme de Staël at Coppet
Coppet
Coppet is a municipality in the district of Nyon in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.-History:Coppet is first mentioned in 1294 as Copetum. In 1347 it was mentioned as Copet.-Geography:...
in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. There was a project for her divorce, in order that she might marry Prince Augustus of Prussia
Prince Augustus of Prussia
Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich August of Prussia , known in English as Prince Augustus, was a Prussian general...
, but, though her husband was willing, it was not arranged. In her later days she lost most of what was left of her fortune; but she continued to receive visitors in her apartment at L'Abbaye-aux-Bois, a 17th-century convent (demolished in 1907) situated 16 rue de Sèvres in Paris, to which she retired in 1819. François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...
was a constant visitor of her salon and, in a manner, master of the house. Even in old age, ill-health (she became almost blind) and reduced circumstances, Mme Récamier never lost her attraction. She seems to have been incapable of any serious attachment, and although she numbered among her admirers the duc de Montmorency
Mathieu de Montmorency
Mathieu Jean Felicité de Montmorency, duc de Montmorency-Laval was a prominent French statesman during the French Revolution and Bourbon Restoration.-Early life:...
, Lucien Bonaparte
Lucien Bonaparte
Lucien Bonaparte, Prince Français, 1st Prince of Canino and Musignano , born Luciano Buonaparte, was the third surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and his wife Letizia Ramolino....
, Prince Augustus of Prussia, Pierre-Simon Ballanche
Pierre-Simon Ballanche
Pierre-Simon Ballanche was a French writer and counterrevolutionary philosopher, who elaborated a theology of progress that possessed considerable influence in French literary circles in the beginning of the nineteenth century...
, Jean-Jacques Ampère
Jean-Jacques Ampère
Jean-Jacques Ampère was a French philologist and man of letters.Born in Lyon, he was the only son of the physicist André-Marie Ampère. Jean-Jacques' mother died while he was an infant....
and Constant, none of them obtained over her so great an influence as did Chateaubriand, though she suffered much from his imperious temper. If she had any genuine affection, it seems to have been for the baron de Barante, whom she met at Coppet.
In 1859, Souvenirs et correspondances tirés des papiers de Madame Récamier was edited by Madame Lenormant. See Mme Lenormant's Madame Récamier, les amis de sa jeunesse et sa correspondance intime (1872); Mme Mohl, Madame Récamier, with a sketch of the history of society in France (1821 and 1862); also François Guizot
François Guizot
François Pierre Guillaume Guizot was a French historian, orator, and statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics prior to the Revolution of 1848, a conservative liberal who opposed the attempt by King Charles X to usurp legislative power, and worked to sustain a constitutional...
in the Revue des deux mondes
Revue des deux mondes
The Revue des deux Mondes is a French language monthly literary and cultural affairs magazine that has been published in Paris since 1829....
for December 1859 and February 1873; H Noel Williams, Madame Récamier, and her Friends (London, 1901); E Herriott (Engl. trans., by Alys Hallard), Madame Récamier et ses amis (1904) (elaborate and exhaustive).
Juliette Récamier died in 1849 of cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
at the age of 71 and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Montmartre, at the time a village north of Paris.
A type of sofa
Couch
A couch, also called a sofa, is an item of furniture designed to seat more than one person, and providing support for the back and arms. Typically, it will have an armrest on either side. In homes couches are normally found in the family room, living room, den or the lounge...
on which she liked to recline, the récamier, was named after her.
See also
- Jean Anthelme Brillat-SavarinJean Anthelme Brillat-SavarinJean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin was a French lawyer and politician, and gained fame as an epicure and gastronome: "Grimod and Brillat-Savarin...
It is believed by a number of scholars that Madame Recamier suffered from a physical condition which made the act of sex excruciatingly painful and it was for this, and not psychological reasons on her part, that prevented her from having physical relationships with men. This, however, did not stop such individuals as Rene de Chateaubriand from having an intense emotional relationship, reciprocated by her, that lasted until death separated the two.