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Jeanne Bernard
(1777–1849)

Other names: Jeanne-Françoise-Julie-Adelaïde, Juliette Récamier, Madame Récamier

Biographical

Récamier was a French salonnière renowned in the literary and political circles of the early nineteenth century. She was married at fifteen to the banker Jacques Récamier, who was old enough to be her father. Beautiful and accomplished, with a genuine love of literature, she possessed a temperament that protected her from scandal, and from the early days of the Consulate to almost the end of the July Monarchy her salon in Paris was one of the chief resorts of literary and political society that aspired to fashion. The habitués of her house included many former royalists, alongside others, such as Bernadotte and General Moreau, who were more or less disaffected towards the government. This circumstance, together with her refusal to act as lady-in-waiting to the Empress Joséphine and her friendship with Madame de Staël, brought her under suspicion. It was through Madame de Staël that Récamier became acquainted with Benjamin Constant, whose singular political tergiversations during the last days of the Empire and the early days of the Restoration have been attributed to her persuasions. Récamier was eventually exiled from Paris by Napoleon’s orders. After a short stay in Lyons, she proceeded to Rome and finally to Naples, where she was on exceedingly good terms with Murat and his wife, who were then intriguing with the Bourbons. She persuaded Constant to plead Murat’s claims in a memorandum addressed to the Congress of Vienna and also induced him to take a decided attitude in opposition to Napoleon during the Hundred Days. Her husband had sustained heavy losses in 1805, and she visited Madame de Staël at Coppet in Switzerland. There was a project for her divorce so that she might marry Prince Augustus of Prussia, but although her husband was willing, it was not arranged. In her later years she lost most of the remainder of her fortune, but she continued to receive visitors at the Abbaye-aux-Bois, the old Paris convent to which she retired in 1814. Here Chateaubriand was a constant visitor and, in a sense, master of the house, but even in old age, ill health, and reduced circumstances, Récamier never lost her attraction. She seems to have been incapable of any serious attachment, and although she numbered among her admirers Mathieu de Montmorency, Lucien Bonaparte, Prince Augustus of Prussia, Ballanche, J. J. Ampère, and Constant, none of them exerted over her so great an influence as did Chateaubriand, though she suffered much from his imperious temper. If she had any genuine affection, it seems to have been for Prosper de Barante, whom she met at Coppet.

Place of birth: Lyons
Place of death: Paris

Daughter of Jean Bernard, a notary, and Juliette Matton, she married Jacques Récamier in 1793, with no issue.