of her elegant carriage, which advanced slowly, she thanked each
for his admiration by a motion of the head and a smile."

As an instance of the effect she produced, Madame Lenormant gives the
testimony of a contemporary, Madame Regnauld de Saint-Jean d'Angely,
who, talking over her own beauty and that of other women of her youth,
named Madame Recamier. "Others," she said, "were more truly beautiful,
but none produced so much effect. I was in a drawing-room where I
charmed and captivated all eyes. Madame Recamier entered. The brilliancy
of her eyes, which were not, however, very large, the inconceivable
whiteness of her shoulders, crushed and eclipsed everybody. She was
resplendent. At the end of a moment, however, the true amateurs returned
to me."

It was not her own countrymen alone who raved about her beauty. The
sober-minded English people were quite as much impressed. When she
visited England during the short peace of Amiens, she created intense
excitement. The journals recorded her movements, and on one occasion in
Kensington Gardens the crowd was so great that she narrowly escaped
being crushed. At the Opera she was obliged to steal away early to avoid
a similar annoyance, and then barely succeeded in reaching her carriage.
Chateaubriand tells us that her portrait, engraved by Bartolozzi, and
spread throughout England, was carried thence to the isles of Greece.
Ballanche, remarking on this circumstance, said that it was "beauty
returning to the land of its birth."

Years after, when the allied sovereigns were in Paris, and Madame
Recamier thirty-eight years old, the effect of her beauty was just as
striking. Madame de Kruedener, celebrated for her mysticism and the power
she exerted over the Emperor Alexander, then held nightly reunions,
beginning with prayer and ending in a more worldly fashion. Madame
Recamier's entrance always caused distraction, and Madame de Kruedener
commissioned Benjamin Constant to write and beseech her to be less
charming. As this piquant note will lose its flavor by translation, we
give it in the original.

"Je m'acquitte avec un peu d'embarras d'une commission que Mme. de
Kruedener vient de me donner. Elle vous supplie de venir la moins belle
que vous pourrez. Elle dit que vous eblouissez tout le monde, et que par
la toutes les ames sont troublees, et toutes les attentions impossibles.
Vous ne pouvez pas deposer votre charme, mais ne le rehaussez pas."

Madame Recamier's personal