In her youth, the first wish of Madame Récamier was the wish to please; and she was, no doubt, a little too coquettish, not enough considerate of the masculine hearts she damaged, and the feminine hearts she pained. The Duke de Laval said, "The gift of involuntary and powerful fascination was her talisman." Not, sometimes, to make a voluntary use of that talisman, she must have been more than human. As years and trials deepened her nature, she sought rather to make happy than merely to please. She always cared more to be respected than to be flattered, to be loved than to be admired. Admiration and sympathy were stronger in her than vanity and love of pleasure: reason and justice were strongest of all. Her judgment was as clear, her conscience as commanding, her sincerity, courage, and firmness as admirable, as her heart was rich and good. When Fouche said to her, in her misfortunes and exile, "The weak ought to be amiable," she instantly replied, "And the strong ought to be just." Her exquisite symmetry of form, her dazzling purity of complexion, her graciousness of disposition, her perfect health, her desire to please, and generous delight in pleasing, composed an all-potent philter, which the sympathy of every spectator drank with intoxicating effect. She discriminated, with perfect truthfullness, the various degrees of acquaintance and friendship. She made all feel self-complacent, by her unaffected attention causing them to perceive that she wished their happiness and valued their good opinion. Ballanche tells her, "You feel yourself the impression you make on others, and are enveloped in the incense they burn at your feet." Wherever she went, as if a celestial magnet passed, all faces drifted towards her with admiring love and pleasure. By her lofty integrity and her matchless sweetness and skill, as by a rare alchemy, she transmuted her fugitive lovers into permanent friends. Her talents were as attractive as her features: little by little her conversation made the listener forget even her loveliness. Saint-Beuve says, "As her beauty slowly retreated, the mind it had eclipsed gradually shone forth, as on certain days, towards twilight, the evening star appears in the quarter of the heaven opposite to the setting sun." Her voice was remarkably fresh, soft, and melodious. Her politeness never forsook her: with an extreme ease of manner, she had a horror of familiarity, as well as of all excess and violence. Her moderation of thought, serenity of soul, and velvet manner, were as unwearying as reason and harmony. Without pretence of any sort, she hid, under the full bloom of her beauty and her fame, like humble violets, modesty and disinterestedness. At the time of her death, Guizot, when a distinguished American lady asked him what was the marvel of her fascination, replied, with great emotion, "Sympathy, sympathy, sympathy." She had none of that aridity of heart which regular coquetry either presupposes or produces. Deprived by destiny of those relations which usually fill the heart of woman, she carried into the only sentiment allowed her, an ardor, a faithfullness, and a delicacy, which were unequalled; and the veracity of her soul, joined with her singular discretion, gave her friends a most enjoyable sense of security. Ballanche called her "the genius of devotedness;" and Montalembert, "the genius of confidence."