One is
tempted to linger in these temples of a goddess half-dethroned. One
would like to study these women who added to the social gifts of their
race a character that had risen superior to many storms, hearts that
were mellowed and purified by premature sorrow, and intellects that had
taken a deeper and more serious tone from long brooding over the great
problems of their time. But only a glance is permitted us here. Most of
them have been drawn in living colors by Saint-Beuve, from whom I gather
here and there a salient trait.

Who that is familiar with the fine and exquisite thought of Joubert can
fail to be interested in the delicate and fragile woman whom he met
in her supreme hour of suffering, to find in her a rare and permanent
friend, a literary confidante, and an inspiration? Mme. de Beaumont--the
daughter of Montmorin, who had been a colleague of Necker in the
ministry--had been forsaken by a worthless husband, had seen father,
mother, brother, perish by the guillotine, and her sister escape it only
by losing her reason, and then her life, before the fatal day. She, too,
had been arrested with the others, but was so ill and weak that she was
left to die by the roadside en route to Paris--a fate from which she
was saved by the kindness of a peasant. It was at this moment that
Joubert befriended her. These numerous and crushing sorrows had
shattered her health, which was never strong, but during the few
brief years that remained to her she was the center of a coterie more
distinguished for quality than numbers. Joubert and Chateaubriand were
its leading spirits, but it included also Fontanes, Pasquier, Mme. de
Vintimille, Mme. de Pastoret, and other friends who had survived the
days in which she presided with such youthful dignity over her father's
salon. The fascination of her fine and elevated intellect, her gentle
sympathy, her keen appreciation of talent, and her graces of manner lent
a singular charm to her presence. Her character was aptly expressed
by this device which Rulhiere had suggested for her seal: "Un souffle
m'agite et rien ne m'ebrante." Chateaubriand was enchanted with a nature
so pure, so poetic, and so ardent. He visited her daily, read to her
"Atala" and "Rene," and finished the "Genius of Christianity" under her
influence. He was young then, and that she loved him is hardly doubtful,
though the friendship of Joubert was far truer and more loyal than the
passing devotion of this capricious