Récamier, MADAME (née JEANNE FRANÇOISE JULIE ADÉLAÏDE BERNARD), a famous Frenchwoman, was born at Lyons, 4th December 1777. She grew up a girl of remarkable grace and beauty, and at fifteen she was married to M. Jacques Récamier, a rich banker about thrice her own age. Her salon was soon filled with the brightest wits of the literary and political circles of the day, but fortunately for herself Madame Récamier possessed a temperament that saved her from temptation and almost scandal. For Madame de Staël she had a warm affection that survived the exile required by the jealousy of Napoleon. Soon after this her husband was completely ruined, and Madame Récamier visited Madame de Staël at Coppet in Switzerland (1806). Here she met Prince August of Prussia, who alone of all her innumerable admirers is supposed to have touched her heart. Indeed a marriage was arranged, provided M. Récamier would consent to a divorce. The good man did not refuse, but his kindness was too much for the generous heart of Madame Récamier, who declared she could not leave him in his adversity. The most distinguished friend of her later years was M. de Chateaubriand. In 1846 he became a widower, and he then wished to marry Madame Récamier, whose husband had been dead since 1830, but the lady declined the honour without interrupting the current of their friendship. Chateaubriand died 4th July 1848, and she followed him to the grave on 11th May 1849.
See Souvenirs et Correspondance tirés des Papiers de Madame Récamier, edited by her niece, Madame Lenormant (1859), and Madame Récamier, by the same (1872); also the biography by Brunier (1875), and the Letters of Benjamin Constant to her, at length published in 1881.