châtelaine of Coppet had been drawn to Juliette in an intense amitié
amoureuse, in which Juliette was like a younger sister or perhaps
something more to Germaine (there may have been homoerotic undertones
to the relationship), and while Prosper de Barante had pined for her,
Constant had remained immune to Madame Récamier’s mysterious power
to disturb people’s lives.^36 She was now 37 and although she had kept her
good looks, her intellect had not developed noticeably over the years. Not
only that, but she was instinctively a royalist and moved in political circles
with which Constant had little sympathy. She now asked a favour of him,
that of using such influence as he had to ensure that her friend Joachim
Murat remained on the throne of Naples where Napoleon had put him,
together with his consort, Caroline. Although, as Françoise Wagener’s
recent biography of Madame Récamier has pointed out (redressing the
traditional estimate of her somewhat), Juliette was a woman of good sense
and refined taste, there was little about her to suggest that she might make
a suitable partner for a man like Constant. Which is perhaps why the
‘explosion’ of passion in him when it came (Ephraïm Harpaz’s term and
hardly an exaggeration
37
) was of such cataclysmic force in his life.
In the calm which preceded it, Constant’s life went on as before: a pamphlet was
revised and printed, and he began to give public readings of his novel, the as yet untitled
Adolphe:
23 July 1814: Read my novel to Madame Laborie. The women who
were there all burst into tears....
24 July 1814: Reading at Madame de Catelan’s. Success.^38On 11 August to his great dismay the government passed a law limiting
press freedom. Nevertheless, despite the threat now looming of what in
effect was a counter-revolution in France, Constant’s diary is full of dinner
parties and discussions with friends and political figures—Guizot, with
whom he argued, Talleyrand, Barante, Garat, and on 29 August a
heartwarming reunion with Sir James Mackintosh. Then on 31 August it
happened: ‘Madame Récamier. Really! Have I taken leave of my
senses?’
39
During early September 1814 Constant attempted to make light of his infatuation:
Juliette in no way corresponded to his type, this was an amusement, no more. He
gambled to take his mind off her, and unusually he won two days running. At this stage
he was still confident of success with her:
Benjamin constant 224