d dissects, but a sympathy that
cheered and tranquillized. There could be but little in common between
two such women, though they were on friendly terms; and when
Chateaubriand left his wife in Paris, he always commended her to Madame
Recamier's care. On one occasion he writes,--"I must again request you
to go and see Madame de Chateaubriand, who complains that she has not
seen you. What would you have? Since you have become associated in my
life, it is necessary to share it fully."

There is nothing to indicate Madame Recamier's sentiments toward the
wife of her friend, except a significant passage in one of
Chateaubriand's letters:--"Your judgments are very severe on the Rue du
Bac.[D] But think of the difference of habit. If you look upon her
occupations as trifles, she may on her side think the same with regard
to yours. It is only necessary to change the point of view."

Madame de Chateaubriand died in February, 1847, from the effects of
dieting. A few months after her death her husband offered himself in
marriage to Madame Recamier, who rejected him. "Why should we marry?"
she said. "There can be no impropriety in my taking care of you at our
age. If you find solitude oppressive, I am willing to live with you. The
world, I am confident, will do justice to the purity of our friendship,
and sanction all my efforts to render your old age comfortable and
happy. If we were younger, I would not hesitate,--I would accept with
joy the right to consecrate my life to you. Tears and blindness have
given me that right. Let us change nothing."

We have heard this refusal of Madame Recamier's urged as a proof that
she did not love Chateaubriand; but when we consider their respective
ages at the time, this objection has little weight. Chateaubriand was
seventy-nine; Madame Recamier seventy. The former was tottering on the
brink of the grave. He had lost the use of his limbs, and his mind was
visibly failing. Madame Recamier was keenly sensible of the decay of his
faculties, though she succeeded so well in concealing the fact from
others that few of the habitual visitors at the Abbaye recognized its
extent. The reason she gave to her friends for refusing him was
undoubtedly the true one. She said that his daily visit to her was his
only diversion, and he would lose that, if she married him.

The record of these last years of Madame Recamier's life is
inexpressibly touching, telling as it does of self-denial, patient
sufferin