Mme Récamier

Jeanne-Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier (French pronunciation: ​[ʒan fʁɑ̃.swaz ʒy.li a.de.la.id ʁe.ka.mje]) (4 December 1777 – 11 May 1849), known as Juliette (French pronunciation: ​[ʒy.ljɛt]), was a French socialite, whose salon drew Parisians from the leading literary and political circles of the early 19th century.

A native of Lyon, and known as Juliette, Jeanne-Françoise Julie Adélaïde Bernard was the only child of Jean Bernard, the King's counsellor and a notary, and his wife, the former Marie Julie Matton. Her father became, in 1784, the receiver of finance. She was educated at the Couvent de la Déserte in Lyon briefly, after which her family moved to Paris.

She was married at the age of 15, on 24 April 1793, to Jacques-Rose Récamier (1751–1830), a banker nearly 30 years her senior and a relative of the gourmet Brillat-Savarin. In relaying the news to a friend of his impending marriage, Récamier wrote, "I am not in love with her, but I feel for her a genuine and tender attachment which convinces me that this interesting creature will be a partner who will ensure the happiness of my whole life and, judging by my own desire to ensure her happiness, of which I can see she is absolutely convinced, I have no doubt that the benefit will be reciprocal .... She possesses germs of virtue and principle such as are seldom seen so highly developed at so early an age ; she is tender-hearted, affectionate, charitable and kind, beloved in her home-circle and by all who know her".

A rumour arose that he was in fact her natural father who married her to make her his heir. Although many of her biographers have given credence to this, it is unproven, and discounted by some historians. Curiously, however, Récamier wrote, again to a friend, that his relationship with Juliette's mother may have been more than merely platonic: "It may be said that my feelings for the daughter arise out of those I have had for her mother; but all those who frequent the house are well aware that what took me there was pure friendship, a friendship which had grown out of the possibly somewhat warmer feeling I may have had in the earlier days of our acquaintance. At present, having reached an age when all other pretensions are past, she only wishes to educate her child, and make her a virtuous and good woman".

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