Excerpt - Despair

 

 

 
 

In Paris, the modest Récamier residence on Rue Basse-du-Rempart was strangely mute. No guests had been invited for the evening and Jacques-Rose was out of the city seeking to rebuild his financial resources. The mistress of the town house had dismissed her small staff of servants and was alone as dusk encroached.

Juliette Récamier stood motionless, with the bearing of a goddess. She was dressed in white . . . all white . . . a long, simple gossamer gown, flat satin slippers, a narrow ribbon holding back black curls, releasing a halo of ringlets that fell softly about her pale face. The only color was in the deep pink of her lips and the violet of her luminous eyes. When Juliette moved, she floated from room to room like a celestial being worshipping at altars in a temple. The slender candle she carried in a ponze holder cast shimmering shadows and lighted the way for this ethereal maiden who paused piefly before a painting, a small sculpture, a porcelain epergne and the few other treasures she had retained from her precious collection.
At the entrance to her bed chamber, Madame Récamier hesitated, turned, glanced back at the dimming hallway behind her, then reluctantly, as if fearing what lay behind the door, pushed it open and entered. She glided past the ivory carved wood bed, the one superb concession to luxury in the room . . . it stood on a carpeted dais, one step up from the polished floor. Her body slipped compliantly into the chair at the bureau plat on which Juliette placed the candle. She drew out a phial from the drawer, removed the stopper and emptied the contents . . . a profusion of opium pills. . . onto the lace handkerchief she spread on the writing pad. She started to count, stopping at thirty, there were at least as many more. She scooped them up, cupping the fatal dose in her palm as she raised them to her lips.
Not yet, she murmured. She held the capsules over the opening of the bottle, let them trickle back, one by one, then returned the cap.
The candle sputtered, startling her. She sighed, relieved that no one had interfered with her ritual, took a quill from the stand, dipped it in the inkwell and began to write:
My Dear Jacques:
I am determined to leave this life and wish to tell you that till my last heartbeat, I shall keep the memory of your kindness and the regret that I have not been all to you that I should have been. I count upon your friendship, of which you have given me so many proofs, to carry out my last wishes. I wish that my death should not peak the ties which unite you to my family and that you will be as generous and helpful to them as you have always been.
I have contributed with some of my friends to an orphanage. I desire that you should do as much as you can for this establishment. I commend to you those who are fond of me.
I leave to you the consoling thought that I owe you all the happiness that I have found in this life.
Juliette
Madame Récamier placed the letter in an envelope, took another sheet of ivory vellum from the neat stack at her elbow and began again.
Dearest Germaine . . .
Juliette stared at the blank page. Words would not come. How could she explain to her friend that she chose to take her life rather than face making a decision between two men to whom she felt equally and intractably bound? She gazed into the flame of the candle seeking an answer in its clarifying pilliance. Her head began to pound. Her heart beat so rapidly that Juliette placed her hand on her bosom to subdue the throbbing.
Why should the resolution to this dilemma be more difficult than her decision to reject the advances of Bonaparte? Then, there had been much at stake . . . the possibility of financial ruin. The alternative . . . mistress to the Emperor . . . had been unthinkable. There had been no choice . . . doubt as to her course had never entered her mind. She had gambled and lost . . . lost her material possessions. Though she had lost, she had won. Together with her husband, she had maintained their social position and friends . . . and she had preserved her dignity.
Now, alas! This impasse was her own fault . . . her own doing . . . her own weakness.
She had betrayed two kind, tender, forbearing men. Her husband, who for years had surrounded her with luxury, respected her privacy and tolerated her innocent flirtations without question. And Prince Augustus, who, in good faith, offered her his love and an exalted position at his side through marriage into the imperial family of Prussia.
Neither man deserved to suffer the humiliation and injury she would inflict on him if she chose the other. Only through death could she free them. . . because for them, sorrow would be easier to bear than rejection.
But Germaine . . . for her, Juliette’s death would be more than rejection. Dear God! How could she impose more grief on the woman whom she loved so dearly!
The struggle for decision seemed greater now than Madame Récamier first determined to take her life. She reached out, fumbling for the phial of opium and knocked it over . . . the bottle rolled off the edge and fell to the floor.
Madame Récamier gripped the desk, pushed herself away and sank to the floor crawling about in search of the container. Finding it, she clutched it tightly and threw herself across the bed.
Juliette lay back, at first unable to control her trembling. Her mind went blank. Then the pain lifted, somehow, and she slipped into a deep, peaceful sleep.
When she awakened, the chamber was dark. The taper had burned itself out. She felt strangely relieved and refreshed. Her mind was clear. The decision made. She felt absolute confidence and contentment in what she had to do.
—Back—