It was impossible for Madame Recamier to live without friendship.  She could give up society and fortune, but not her friends.  The friendly circle was not large, but, as we have said, embraced the leading men of France.  Her limited means made no difference with her guests, since these were friends and admirers.  Her attraction to men and women alike did not decrease with age or poverty.

The fall of Charles X., in 1830, led of course to the political downfall of Chateaubriand, and of many of Madame Recamier’s best friends.  But there was a younger class of an opposite school who now came forward, and the more eminent of these were also frequent visitors to the old queen of society,—­Ampere, Thiers, Mignet, Guizot, De Tocqueville, Sainte-Beuve.  Nor did she lose the friendship, in her altered fortunes, of queens and nobles.  She seems to have been received with the greatest cordiality in whatever chateau she chose to visit.  Even Louis Napoleon, on his release from imprisonment in the castle of Ham, lost no time in paying his respects to the woman his uncle had formerly banished.

One of the characteristic things which this interesting lady did, was to get up a soiree in her apartments at the convent in aid of the sufferers of Lyons from an inundation of the Rhone, from which she realized a large sum.  It was attended by the elite of Paris.  Lady Byron paid a hundred francs for her ticket.  The Due de Noailles provided the refreshments, the Marquis de Verac furnished the carriages, and Chateaubriand acted as master of ceremonies.  Rachel acted in the role of “Esther,” not yet performed at the theatre, while Garcia, Rubini, and Lablache kindly gave their services.  It was a very brilliant entertainment, one of the last in which Madame Recamier presided as a queen of society.  It showed her kindness of heart, which was the most conspicuous trait of her character.  She wished to please, but she desired still more to be of assistance.  The desire to please may arise from blended vanity and good-nature; the desire to be useful is purely disinterested.  In all her intercourse with friends we see in Madame Recamier a remarkable power of sympathy.  She was not a woman of genius, but of amazing tact, kindness, and amiability.  She entered with all her heart into the private and confidential communications of her friends, and was totally free from egotism, forgetting herself in the happiness of others.  If not a woman of genius, she had extraordinary good sense, and her advice was seldom wrong.  It was this union of sympathy, kindness, tact, and wisdom which made Madame Recamier’s friendship so highly prized by the greatest men of the age.  But she was exclusive; she did not admit everybody to her salon,—­only those whom she loved and esteemed, generally from the highest social circle.  Sympathy cannot exist except among equals.  We associate Paula with Jerome, the Countess Matilda with Hildebrand, Vittoria Colonna with Michael Angelo, Hannah More with Dr. Johnson.  Friendship is neither patronage nor philanthropy; and the more exalted the social or political or literary position, the more rare friendship is and the more beautiful when it shines.