"Anything that offers a woman the means of exercising power is çoisRenéalways agreeable to her. Moreover, in the idea of rousing against the despotism of Bonaparte men important through their dignities and their glory there was something generous and noble which was bound to tempt Madame Récamier. She therefore lent herself to M. de Montmorency's wishes. She often threw Bernadotte and Moreau together at her house. Moreau wavered, Bernadotte spouted. Madame Récamier took Moreau's indecisive speeches for a commencement of resolution and Bernadotte's harangues as a signal for the overthrow of tyranny. The two generals, on their side, were enraptured to see their discontent pampered by so much beauty, wit and grace. There was, in fact, something romantic and poetic in that young and bewitching woman who talked to them of the liberty of their country. Bernadotte never ceased repeating to Madame Récamier that she was made to electrify the world and create fanatics."
While noting the delicacy of this portraiture by Benjamin Constant, it must be said that Madame Récamier would never have entered into political interests but for the irritation which she felt at the banishment of Madame de Staël. The future King of Sweden had a list of the generals who still held with the party of independence, but Moreau's name was not on it; it was the only one fit to be opposed to Napoleon's, only Bernadotte did not know what manner of man the Bonaparte was whose power he was attacking.
Madame Moreau[372] gave a ball: all Europe was there, excepting France, which was represented only by the Republican Opposition. In the course of this entertainment, General Bernadotte led Madame Récamier to a little drawing-room where only the sound of the music followed them to remind them where they were. Moreau passed into this drawing-room; Bernadotte said to him, after long explanations:
"You have a popular name; you are the only one of us who can put himself forward with the support of the people; see what you can do, what we can do under your leader-ship."
Moreau repeated what he had often said before, that "he felt the danger with which liberty was threatened, that they must watch Bonaparte, but that he feared civil war."