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Close Friend Madame: In 1793, when not yet 16, she married the wealthy banker Jacques Recamier (d. 1830), almost three times her age, and established a salon to which her great charm, her talents, and her beauty attracted the literary and political celebrities of the day. She declined an appointment as lady in waiting in the imperial household, and was among those opposed to Napoleon as emperor. In 1805 Napoleon ruined her husband financially, and for a short time she joined her close friend Madame de Stael at Coppet, near Geneva, then a part of France. Mme. de Stael has given us her portrait in the novel Corinne, written at this time.
Madame Morin informed the company that I had a red spot on the left hip due to a longing for cherries which had come upon my mother in Aunt Chausson's garden before I was born. Whereat old Dr. Fournier, who had a great contempt for all such popular superstitions, remarked that it was lucky Madame Noziere had kept her desires within such modest limits during the period of gestation, since, if she had allowed herself to hanker after feathers, trinkets, a cashmere shawl, a coach and four, a town house, a country mansion and a park, there wouldn't have been skin enough on the whole of my poor body to hold the record of such inordinate ambitions.*
Soon after (1678) he was appointed, along with Boileau, historiographer to the king, whom he accompanied in his campaign in Flanders. About this time Racine became reconciled with his relations and former friends at Port Royal. His marriage belongs to the same period. It was happy and he was the father of seven children. From then on Racine played, with considerable success, the part of a courtier. After a silence of 12 years Racine, at the solicitation of Madame de Maintenon, added two other pieces to the list of his dramatic works—Esther (1689) and Athalie (1691), the latter often spoken of by French critics as the most perfect of his works. They were both intended for the pupils of Saint-Cyr, the institution founded by Madame de Main-tenon. |
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