s the ostensible cause of her departure. What it cost her to
leave Paris may well be conjectured, and nothing is more indicative of
her power of self-control than this voluntary withdrawal from a
companionship which fascinated while it tortured her. Chateaubriand sent
letters after her full of protestations and upbraidings; but after a
while he wrote less frequently, and for a year they ceased to
correspond. To a friend who urged her to return Madame Recamier
wrote,--"If I return at present to Paris, I shall again meet with the
agitations that induced me to leave it. If Monsieur Chateaubriand were
unhappy on my account, I should be grieved; if he were not, I should
have another trouble, which I am determined henceforth to avoid. I find
here diversion in art, and a support in religion which shall shelter me
from all these storms. It is painful to me to remain absent six months
longer from my friends; but it is better to make this sacrifice, and I
confess to you that I feel it to be necessary."

There was much to make a stay in Italy attractive to Madame Recamier, if
she could have forgotten Chateaubriand, Her old admirer, the Duc de
Laval, was ambassador at Rome, and put his horses and servants at her
disposal. She renewed her acquaintance with the celebrated Duchess of
Devonshire, (Lady Elizabeth Foster,) whose career was quite as singular
as her own, while it was more open to reproach. The Duchess was a
liberal patron of the fine arts, and the devoted friend of Cardinal
Gonsalvi, from the shock of whose death she never recovered. Madame
Recamier also found at Rome the Duchess of Saint-Leu, whom she had
slightly known when she was Queen of Holland. For political reasons it
was unwise for them to visit openly, so they contrived private and
romantic interviews. Their friendship seems to have been close and
sincere. Subsequently, Madame Recamier was able, through her political
influence, to serve Hortense in many ways. She also took an interest in
her son Louis Napoleon, and visited him in prison after his
unsuccessful attempt at Strasbourg, which kindness he afterwards
acknowledged in several notes preserved by Madame Lenormant.

But while accepting all the diversions offered her by the pleasant
society at, Rome, Madame Recamier was not unmindful of Chateaubriand.
She ordered from the artist Tenerani a bas-relief, the subject to be
taken from Chateaubriand's poem of "The Martyrs." She wrote constantly
to her friends in P