"Par la voix des vieillards tu louais la beauté[351].
"And independently of that beauty you are çoisRenécharming."
During the short Peace of Amiens[352], Madame Récamier took a journey to London with her mother. She had letters of introduction from the old Duc de Guignes, who had been Ambassador to England thirty years before. He had kept up a correspondence with the most brilliant women of the time: the Duchess of Devonshire[353], Lady Melbourne[354], the Marchioness of Salisbury[355], the Margravine of Anspach, with whom he had been in love. His embassy was still celebrated, his memory green among those respectable ladies.
Such is the power of novelty in England that, on the morning after her arrival, the newspapers were full of the foreign beauty. Madame Récamier received visits from nearly all the persons to whom she had sent letters. Among these persons, the most remarkable was the Duchess of Devonshire, then between forty-five and fifty years of age. She was still in vogue and beautiful, although she had lost one eye, which she concealed behind a lock of her hair. The first time that Madame Récamier appeared in public, it was in her company. The duchess took her to the Opera in her box, in which were the Prince of Wales, the Duc d'Orléans and his brothers the Duc de Montpensier[356] and the Comte de Beaujolais[357]: the first two were to become kings; one was on the verge of the throne, the other was still separated from it by an abyss[358].
Eyes and opera-glasses were turned on the duchess' box. The Prince of Wales said to Madame Récamier that, if she did not want to be suffocated, she must leave before the end of the performance. Scarcely was she on her feet, before the doors of the boxes opened precipitously; she escaped nothing, and was carried by the tide of the crowd to her carriage.
The next day, Madame Récamier went to Kensington Gardens, accompanied by the Marquess of Douglas, later Duke of Hamilton[359], who has since received Charles X. at Holyrood[360], and by his sister the Duchess of Somerset[361]. The crowd flung itself on the fair foreigner's footsteps. This effect was repeated each time she showed herself in public; the newspapers resounded with her name; her portrait, engraved by Bartolozzi[362], was spread broadcast through England. The author of Antigone, M. Ballanche, adds that ships carried it as far as the isles of Greece: beauty returned to the spots where its image had been invented. We have a sketch of Madame Récamier by David, a full-length portrait by Gérard, a bust by Canova. The portrait is Gérard's master-piece; but it does not please me, because I recognise the model's features in it without recognising the expression.