e
contradictory elements in her own nature, and walked always among
storms. This nature, so complex, so rich, so ardent, so passionate,
could it ever have found permanent repose?

CHAPTER XIX. THE SALONS OF THE EMPIRE AND RESTORATION--MADAME RECAMIER

_A Transition Period--Mme. de Montesson--Mme. de Genlis--Revival of the
Literary Spirit--Mme. de Beaumont--Mme. de Remusat--Mme. de Souza--Mme.
de Duras--Mme. de Krudener--Fascination of Mme. Recamier--Her
Friends--Her Convent Salon-- Chateaubriand--Decline of the Salon_

In the best sense, society is born, not made. A crowd of well-dressed
people is not necessarily a society. They may meet and disperse with no
other bond of union than a fine house and lavish hospitality can give.
It may be an assembly without unity, flavor, or influence. In the
social chaos that followed the Revolution, this truth found a practical
illustration. The old circles were scattered. The old distinctions were
virtually destroyed, so far as edicts can destroy that which lies in
the essence of things. A few who held honored names were left, or had
returned from a long exile, to find themselves bereft of rank, fortune,
and friends; but these had small disposition to form new associations,
and few points of contact with the parvenus who had mounted upon the
ruins of their order. The new society was composed largely of these
parvenus, who were ambitious for a position and a life of which they had
neither the spirit, the taste, the habits, nor the mellowing traditions.
Naturally they mistook the gilded frame for the picture. Unfamiliar
with the gentle manners, the delicate sense of honor, and the chivalrous
instincts which underlie the best social life, though not always
illustrated by its individual members, they were absorbed in matters of
etiquette of which they were uncertain, and exacting of non-essentials.
They regarded society upon its commercial side, contended over questions
of precedence, and, as one of the most observing of their contemporaries
has expressed it, "bargained for a courtesy and counted visits." "I have
seen quarrels in the imperial court," she adds, "over a visit more or
less long, more or less deferred." Perhaps it is to be considered that
in a new order which has many aggressive elements, this balancing
of courtesies is not without a certain raison d'etre as a protection
against serious inroads upon time and hospitality; but the fault lies
behind all this, in the lac