Fais Ce Que Dois, Advienne Que Pourra
June 25th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
(Other Writ, Art, High Germany)
After dinner, no one went out, because of the excessive heat; the company assembled in the gallery for music, until the hour for walking. A portable harp, of very elegant shape, was placed on the knees of Juliette. After several brilliant chords and harmonious sounds of enchanting sweetness, she sang to her own accompaniment a charming air by the Queen of Holland: “Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra” ( Do what thou must, come what may ). The relation between these words and the situation of the illustrious exile, the charm, the beauty of Juliette’s voice, the grace of her attitude, caused an admiration which was expressed with enthusiasm. The prince listened with rapture, and when she had finished singing, he looked at her with inexpressible emotion and cried. “And talents also !” The exclamation expressed so many things, it was pronounced in accents so penetrating that it made Juliette quiver.
***
The proximity of Germaine de Staël at this time was fatal to Juliette’s native commonsense. Germaine advised her to seek a divorce from the unworthy M. Récamier and begin her life anew, while she still had beauty. She must not in later years be like herself: an aging blue-stocking who was never really loved by the men she loved, and whose one great fear — she says so herself — was that of not being loved. “And look, divine Juliette, you have a spotless reputation, you can wear your crown of orange-blossom“. The lovers exchanged vows, and Auguste wrote the following declaration :
“I swear by honour and by love to preserve in all its purity the feeling which binds me to Juliette Récamier, to take all the steps allowed by duty to bind me to her by the ties of marriage and to possess no wife as long as I will have the hope of uniting my destiny with hers. Auguste, Prince of Prussia,
Coppet, October the 28th, 1807.”
Juliette, on her part, wrote:
“I swear by the salvation of my soul to preserve in all its purity the feeling which binds me to the P.A. of Pr., to do all that honour permits to annul my marriage, to entertain neither love nor coquetry for any other man, to see him as soon as possible, and, whatever the future might bring, to confide my destiny to his honour and to his love. J.R.”
The prince gave Juliette a gold bracelet and a chain with a ruby heart. Then he left for Prussia, where he hoped to win over the royal family to a marriage, and to make plans for bringing Juliette to Prussia after the annulment.
The prince had induced Juliette to write to her husband to ask for her freedom. It is extremely unlike Juliette, in whom “pity was a sort of passion”, to propose thus to desert an ageing man who had now lost all his money. She must have been blinded by passion even to think of it. The reply came at last: she took it with trembling hands and slipped away to her little flowered room to read it. She locked the door and flung herself on that sofa where she had sat dreaming happy thoughts at night, after days of love. And now she read this very moving letter with tears streaming down her cheeks.
Jacques Récamier replied that he consented to the annulment of their marriage if such was her wish, but he appealed “to all the feelings of the noble heart to which he addressed himself”, reminding her of the affection he had cherished for her since her childhood. He expressed the regret that he had respected the “susceptibilities and repugnances” — the translation is literal — without which a closer bond would not have allowed this thought of separation. Then he put aside his own disillusion and bitterness, and, in a fatherly way, pointed out all the pitfalls of the situation to her: one recalls that he had chosen her dolls when she was a child.
The chateau of Coppet seemed very empty now that the prince had gone. The guests were leaving rapidly before the roads became hopeless for winter travelling. Madame de Stael herself was planning to go to Vienna. Juliette was at Coppet for a fortnight after the prince’s departure, and, as she listened to the swirl of the autumn leaves in the park, she read his love-letters which arrived by every post.
“You alone, my dear Juliette, have made me know true love which . . . ignores the limits of time.” Or again: “To me you have become something to worship, something to which religious ideas are allied; for, is not beauty, is not goodness the most lovely image of God on earth ? . . .”
In mid-November, Juliette left Coppet and started homewards. When she arrived in Paris, one can imagine that her husband’s tenderness, his lack of reproachfulness, awakened her remorse still more fully. Quietly, in fatherly tones, he told her again how unhappy she might be in that narrow little Prussian Court, in a subordinate position because of her middle-class birth, tattled about because she was a Catholic and had divorced her husband. Had not all the fashionable German papers been full of envious and wicked prattling about her, until her German friends Reichardt and Kotzebue had given them the lie ? The place would be crammed with malicious and envious women who would see to it that she did not receive the homage and consideration which were her due and to which she had always been accustomed. Her position in Paris had been unique: all Europe had been at her feet. And now, she was proposing to bury herself in that heavy court of Berlin, to lose her glorious right of calling herself a Frenchwoman, for the sake of a Prussian, six years her junior, who had a very bad reputation with women and who might tire of her.
Juliette saw her mistake and decided not to marry the prince. Unhappily, instead of telling him so at once, she had the great unkindness of letting him guess her decision, by spacing out her replies to his letters. His love-letters are genuine, and one feels very sorry for him. He writes: “Sacrifice a man who adores you, who wishes to consecrate all his life to you and who has already given you the greatest proofs of his love, to sacrifice all this to the idea of causing perhaps a few disagreeable moments to a person whom you don’t love . . . and who has already made you lose twelve of the most beautiful years of life, that would be an act of cruelty of which I would not think you capable.”
A few days later, the unfortunate man writes, “I beg you to remember, very often, not to flirt.” In despair, he swears he will write no more. Five days later he starts again, and there are a hundred letters since that date ! Early in 1808, he realizes that she is wretched about it all, when she says “happiness is far from her“. He is extremely unkind when he writes: “The enjoyments of pride could still, for a certain time, give you an illusion on your situation; but they won’t last long.” It must have been the first time a man had told Juliette that her beauty’s reign was fleeting. “In what sad isolation you will find yourself one day if you give up the bonds which make the happiness of youth, the charm of one’s riper years and the consolation of old age.” Yes, something indeed was lacking in him: a Frenchman would never have said that.
In February he writes: “You have been unconscious for several hours and you say that this often happens to you. The sorrows of the heart which make you unhappy are also undermining your health and, in spite of that, dear Juliette, you do not want to put an end to these sorrows.” In one letter, he is very charming in a childlike way: “Why don’t you use the seal on which is written ‘for ever‘ ? ( May the first letter that I receive from you, dear Juliette, be closed by that seal, I implore you. )” There is no doubt that Juliette suffered profoundly during that time, and that the sadness which had sometimes tinged her life now promised to become a permanent veil of melancholy from which, unlearned as she was, she knew of no escape. In March she decided to release the prince from his vow, and she made promises — which she never kept — of meeting him later. This “perfidy” did much to make him realize that all was hopeless. In the autumn, she refused a gift of pearls he wished to make her, but accepted instead some amber ornaments. She sent him a ring with this inscription: “I will see him again“, and he promised to wear it in the grave. In the tomb where he now lies, Auguste, Prince of Prussia, still wears the ring given him by Juliette Récamier.
Margaret Trouncer : Madame Récamier
