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Show "VAMPS" WHO I I MADE HISTORY g By JAMES C. YOUNG. i.(c) by McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) "THE ANGEL WITH THE FROZEN HEART." IN 1793, with the French revolution at ' its height, a fifteen-year-old 1 1-1 was married to a banker almost fifty and all Paris smirked. But Paris would have been ashamed If it had known, as historians believe, that Jacques Recamier was the father of his bride, Jeanne, and married her so that she might have his powerful protection. pro-tection. ' Throughout his life he kept a paternal attitude toward her. Mine. Recamier undoubtedly was one of the most beautiful women who ever graced Paris. . An admirer said that she had a "complexion that is a bowl of milk wherein float rose leaves." Another An-other tells us of her "orange-tinted eyes" and all agreed that she was "the angel with the frozen heart." From the welter of the revolution and the reign of terror Napoleon emerged. When he had made himself him-self secure he looked about at the beautiful women of Paris aDd his fancy fan-cy fell on Mine. Recarnier. He made lazy -love to her. But she refused him. Napoleon, in a spiteful humor, ruined her husband and banished her. Then the ' two left for Italy. There Prince Augustus of Prussia fell In love with the banker's wife and wanted want-ed her to become his princess. Again she declined. Lucien Napoleon, brother broth-er of the emperor, lost his head over her. After him came the gallant General Gen-eral Bernadotte, and left disappointed. disappoint-ed. Benjamin Constant, the states-! states-! man, loved her, and she made him an I instrument of revenge against Napole-I Napole-I on. but granted Constant nothing. Gen-I Gen-I eral Moreau was next, then Murat, I king of Naples. Mme. Recamier in-I in-I veigled him into conspiracies against j his master, who fell not long afterward. after-ward. And the Recamiers went back to Paris, leaving Murat empty handed. Mine. Recamier's salon became the most brilliant center of the restoration. Recamier died and a thousand suitors suit-ors besieged his beautiful widow. When she was more than fifty she met the only man to whom her heart was not indifferent, Chateaubriand, the author, a cranky, saddened man. But even theirs was a platonic love, for it seemed that her heart could no: be warmed and won. She tended hini In his last days and died soon afterward. after-ward. Perhaps she really loved him. |
