The old statesman and historian soon after died, broken in mind and body, living long enough to see the fall of Louis Philippe.  In losing this friend of thirty years Madame Recamier felt that the mainspring of her life was broken.  She shed no tears in her silent and submissive grief, nor did she repel consolation or the society of friends, “but the sad smile which played on her lips was heart-rending....  While witnessing the decline of this noble genius, she had struggled, with singular tenderness, against the terrible effect of years upon him; but the long struggle had exhausted her own strength, and all motives for life were gone.”

Though now old and blind, yet, like Mme. du Deffand at eighty, Madame Recamier’s attractions never passed away.  The great and the distinguished still visited her, and pronounced her charming to the last.  Her vivacity never deserted her, nor her desire to make every one happy around her.  She was kept interesting to the end by the warmth of her affections and the brightness of her mind.  As it is the soul which is the glory of a woman, so the soul sheds its rays of imperishable light on the last pathway of existence.  No beauty ever utterly passes away when animated by what is immortal.

Madame Recamier died at last of cholera, that disease which of all others she had ever most dreaded and avoided.  On the 11th of May, 1849, amid weeping relatives and kneeling servants and sacerdotal prayers, this interesting woman passed away from earth.  To her might be applied the eulogy of Burke on Marie Antoinette.

Madame Recamier’s place in society has never since been filled with equal grace and fascination.  She adopted the customs of the Hotel de Rambouillet,—­certain rules which good society has since observed.  She discouraged the tete-a-tete in a low voice in a mixed company; if any one in her circle was likely to have especial knowledge, she would appeal to him with an air of deference; if any one was shy, she encouraged him; if a mot was particularly happy, she would take it up and show it to the company.  Presiding in her own salon, she talked but little herself, but rather exerted herself to draw others out; without being learned, she exercised great judgment in her decisions when appeals were made to her as the presiding genius; she discouraged everything pedantic and pretentious; she dreaded exaggerations; she kept her company to the subject under discussion, and compelled attention; she would allow no slang; she insisted upon good-nature and amiability, which more than anything else marked society in the eighteenth century.