is now by far a commoner pest in all the fields of southern England than almost any one of our native knotweeds, thistles, or charlocks. The Peruvian galinsoga (I apologize for its not having yet acquired an English name; our farmers will find one for it before many years) has spread immensely in Italy and the Riviera, and now grows quite commonly wild on the roadsides about Kew, whence it will swoop in time with devouring effect upon the surrounding counties. Elsewhere in the world our European thistles have usurped whole thousands of square miles in the plains of La Plata, while in Australia the South African Capeweed, a most pugnacious composite, has rendered vast areas of sheep-walk unfit for grazing. These are but a few out of thousands of instances which might easily be given of the way in which the cosmopolitan weed is driving out the native vegetation all over the world, just as the brown rat of the Lower Volga has driven out the old black rat in every civilized land, and as the European house-fly and the Asiatic cockroach have driven out the less pestiferous flies, crickets, and midges of most other countries.

Finally, let us give the devil his due. These weeds do not necessarily in every case live down all kinds of cultivated

plants; it is an open fight between them, in which victory inclines sometimes to.one side and sometimes to the other. Thus sorrel and knotweed are terrible plagues in New Zealand, but they yield at last to judicious treatment if the ground is thoroughly sown with red clover. On the other hand, though white clover is strong enough to live down all the native New Zealand weeds, if our coarsest English hawkweed once gets into the soil, with its deep taproot and its many-winged seeds, the clover is nowhere in the hopeless struggle with that most masterful composite. Once more, Mr. Wallace tells us that the Capeweed, long considered "unexterminable" in Australia, has succumbed, after many trials, to the dense herbage formed by cultivated lucerne and choice grasses. In this way man will have to fight and conquer the cosmopolitan weed all the world over when its time comes, and will succeed in the end. But his commercial and agricultural success will be but a small consolation after all to the lover of nature for that general vulgarization and equalization of the world's flora which universal culture and increased intercourse must almost of necessity bring in their train to every quarter of the habitable globe.Cornhill Magazine.

THE story of the lives of those remarkable women who, as leaders of brilliant salons, have witnessed the leading men of the day in French society, literature and politics at their feet, can never be void of interest. Many of them indeed, as described by Sydney Smith, "violated all the common duties of life, though they gave very pleasant little suppers" but in in one respect, at any rate, Madame Récamier differed widely from her predecessors, for not even at the zenith of her celebrity was the slightest breath of scandal ever associated with her name, and though the list of the conquests of Don Giovanni pales before the catalogue of her triumphs, and though half her lifetime seems to have been spent in creating the most passionate attachments, and the other half to have been passed in taming them down to the level of ordinary friend

ships, so vigilantly does she appear to have guarded her good name that she was likened to the "nymph Arethusa bearing the unmingled freshness of her stream through the waters of the Ionian Sea.”

Of bourgeois origin, and with no pretension to literary gifts or what was called esprit, it may be asked what was the nature of the spell which enabled the enchantress to exercise a sway so potent over the Parisian world? The answer to this question must be sought in the influence of pre-eminent beauty and an intense desire to please. But her story must speak for itself.

Julie Adelaide Bernard was born at Lyons, where her father was a notary. December 4, 1777. He was handsome, and married to a pretty blonde, from whom his daughter inherited the exquisite and unmatchable beauty to which she was

mainly indebted for her celebrity. Broth ers and sisters she had none, whence perhaps it arose that she was quickly withdrawn from the shelter of the convent which had been her early home, and recollections of the endless round of ceremonies and processions, the clouds of incense, the chants and flowers which had been associated with her every day existence were thenceforth but a vague, sweet dream. About the year 1784 M. Bernard obtained an appointment in Paris, where he was shortly afterward joined by the youthful Juliette. Among the most frequent visit ors at her father's house was Barrére, to whose friendly influence the family were indebted for their safety during the stormy days of the Revolution, and M. Rose Récamier, son of a hosier at Lyons, a wealthy Parisian banker, destined to become the young lady's husband. M. Récamiersomewhat of a supernumerary on the scenes to be described-seems to have been a good-looking but weak man, ready to oblige his friends while they lived, and equally ready to be separated from them by the hand of Death. During the Terror he was a constant attendant at the guillotine, and witnessed the sad end of the King and Queen, as well as many of his acquaintances, with the view of hardening himself, as he said, against the time when his own hour should likewise come. When M. Récamier proposed marriage to the child whose beauty he had watched in its development, he was forty-two years of age and she fifteen. No difficulties seemed to have been raised by the fair Juliette, who at once accepted the worthy banker without apprehension or repugnance. He had ever been kind and generous in her infant days, had given her, as she said, her prettiest dolls, what doubt therefore that he would prove himself un mari plein de complaisance. And so it be fell that at the darkest hour of the Revolution- the very year indeed that the King and Queen were put to death-these two were married; but the tie which bound them was but nominal, Madame Récamier received only her name from her husband, and the relations between the banker and his young and beautiful wife remained ever of a filial and parental character.

No long time, however, elapsed ere the lady was to take her place among the reigning beauties of the day. She had indeed been prepared for such a position

At

from her earliest years; when a tiny child, a watchful neighbor who caught her climbing a fence to steal his fruit was so subdued by her charms as she sat crying on the wall that she escaped with no heavier punishment than an apronful of fruit. twelve years of age she had been singled out by Marie Antoinette from the midst of a crowd of strangers assembled to gaze on royalty at Versailles; and now, the churches being reopened after the Revolution, as she handed round the alms bag at S. Roch, the people mounted chairs, pillars, even the altars of the side chapels in order to see her, and at Longchampsthen in full vogue every voice pronounced that she was the fairest. She excelled especially in dancing, and her bewitching evolutions in the "shawl dance" served Madame de Staël as a model in "Corinne."

It was in connection with negotiations preliminary to the purchase of M. Necker's hotel in the Rue du Mont Blanc (Chaussée d'Antin) by her husband, that she was first introduced to Madame de Staël. The acquaintance rapidly ripened into inseparable friendship, so that, as Madame Hamelin laughingly observed, the most certain way to insure the presence of either of the ladies in society, was to invite them both. It was at her house that a young man, delighted at finding himself seated between Madame Récamier and Madame de Staël, complimented them by thanking his host for thus placing him between wit and beauty; the Swedish Ambassadress, who was not handsome, thereupon remarked that this was the first time in her life that she had ever been called beautiful.

In the month of December 1797, the Government resolved to celebrate the return of the young conqueror of Italy by giving a triumphant fête. In the first court of the Luxembourg palace, an altar and statue of Liberty were erected, at the foot of which sat the five Directors in full Roman costume, and in one of the seats reserved for those who had been specially invited, Madame Récamier found place. She had never seen the youthful general, and, anxious to obtain a better view of his features, she rose for that purpose. By this movement, the eyes of the crowd were attracted to her, and her surpassing loveliness was greeted by a spontaneous burst of admiration. The sound by no

to Cosway for her portrait, perhaps the most faithful resemblance of her existing, not even excepting the fine picture by Gérard, painter of kings and king of painters, in the gallery of the Louvre. Chateaubriand assures us that her portrait, engraved by Bartolozzi, was widely circulated in England, and was thence carried to the isles of Greece, and Ballanche commenting on this circumstance remarked "that it was beauty returning to the land of its birth."

Arrived once more at home, Madame Récamier was present at the trial of her friend Moreau, implicated (though she believed him wholly innocent of the accusation) in the royalist conspiracy of Pichegru and George Cadoudal. Nothing could exceed the gloom and terror which reigned at this period. Between the arrest and commencement of the proceedings, terrible events were known to have occurred the Duc d'Enghien had been seized, and after a mock trial shot at dead of night beneath his prison walls, and the spectre of Pichegru seemed as though it hovered over the heads of the accused, for he had been mysteriously strangled in his cell. Madame Récamier was attended upon this occasion by a near relation of her husband, M. Brillat Savarin, a magistrate of gastronomic fame, and the moment she raised her veil, Moreau recognized her, rose and bowed to her, and she returned his salutation, as she expresses it "with emotion and respect." But this interview-if such it may be called-was to be the last; it was deemed wiser that she should not again attend the proceedings of the court, for Napoleon was displeased by her appearance, exclaiming sharply, when he heard that she had been present, "What was Madame Récamier doing there?"

Hitherto we have followed the fortunes of Juliette Récamier floating along the flood-tide of success, but for her, as for others, were appointed times of anxiety and suffering, as well as scenes of triumph and rejoicing, and she was erelong to discover that the power whose stability she had been somewhat too prone to depreciate, could on occasion be employed to do the bidding of passions the most petty and unworthy. Her husband's banking house having become embarrassed, it was necessary to apply to the bank of France for the loan of a million of francs, by which the difficulty could be tided over.

The

accommodation, however, which needed the Emperor's sanction, was refused, the bank stopped payment (1806), and at the age of five-and-twenty, in the very zenith of her beauty and power, Madame Récamier was suddenly deprived of the fabulous luxury and splendor with which she had hitherto been surrounded. But nowise daunted, she met the disaster with the same calm resolution as characterized her in the most trying events of her life. Everything was surrendered to the creditors; plate, jewels, the bright accessories of the shrine wherein so much beauty had sat enthroned; all were sold, and Madame Récamier retired with her husband to the comparatively humble shelter of a small apartment. But even thus, she became the object of universal interest and respect. All Paris was at her door; and Junot-one of the warmest of her friends-on rejoining his Imperial master in Germany, so far allowed his zeal to get the better of his discretion as to expatiate for His Majesty's delectation on the extent of sympathy shown. "They could not have paid more honor to the widow of a Marshal of France who had lost her husband on the field of battle," was the Emperor's petulant reply.

It was at this juncture that Madame de Staël (exiled from Paris in 1803), becoming aware of her friend's einbarrassed position, invited her to Coppet, a delightful residence which she occupied near the lake of Geneva. Incidents such as characterized her whole career awaited her here also, and a new personage makes his appearance upon the scene of her triumphs, in the shape of Prince Augustus of Prussia, who had been taken prisoner at the battle of Saalfeld (Oct. 1806), where his eldest brother, Prince Louis, was killed. Handsome, brave, chivalrous, and only twenty-four years of age, the young prince at once fell a victim to the charms of the fair inmate of Coppet, implored her to obtain a divorce and to marry him. Touched, it may well have been, by the devotion of royalty under misfortune, and influenced, perhaps, by the favoring counsel of her hostess, Madame Récamier yielded a somewhat hesitating consent, and even wrote to her husband proposing the formal dissolution of their marriage. M. Récamier professed his willingness to accede to her wishes, but appealed at the same time to her better feelings, and to

means escaped the ears of the hero of the day. Turning to see what object could possibly have served to divert public attention from the victor of Castiglione and Rivoli, his eye fell upon a young woman dressed in white; and the frown with which he greeted her was of such unendurable severity that she hastily resumed her seat. Such was the first meeting between Madame Récamier and Napoleon. It was perhaps a couple of years later, when Lucien Bonaparte, at the time about twenty-four years of age and married, became passionately enamored of the greatest beauty of the time, and hesitated not to express his feelings in a series of vehe. ment and vulgar love letters, written in the character of Romeo. Madame Récamier appealed to her husband, who seems to have pointed out the danger of coming to an open rupture with a man in so influential a position as the brother of General Bonaparte, and to have suggested the adoption of some middle course between encouragement and total rejection. Though Lucien withdrew discomfited, Madame Récamier continued to frequent his house, and there it was that she once again encountered the First Consul at a ball. Dressed, as was her custom, entirely in white, with necklace and bracelets of pearls, she was the object of universal ad miration. Why did you not come and sit next me?" demanded Napoleon, on rising from the table. She replied that she could not, unauthorized, have presumed upon taking such a liberty. "You did wrong," said Bonaparte, "it was your place."

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In the year 1805, while Madame Récamier was residing at the Château de Clichy, her country house near Paris, whose beautiful park stretched down to the banks of the Seine, the Consul, meanwhile become Emperor, once more bethought him of the lady with whose attractions he had been so deeply impressed, and whether deeming it politic to form an alliance with so fascinating an opponent, or coveting her beauty as an ornament to his new-made court, or perhaps, as has been suggested, for ends still viler, despatched Fouché, the crafty Minister of Police, the savage proconsul of Nevers strange bearer of a love tale-to urge upon Madame Recamier's acceptance the post of lady of honor. Futile in result, however, was this requisition, and a refusal, though

couched in terms the least offensive, and even breathing the honeyed accents of gratitude, paved the way for persecution relentless as it was petty.

The circle of Madame Récamier's acquaintance at this time embraced elements the most diverse and discordant in the newly formed society of Paris-the remnant of the old noblesse returned from exile, combined with the new men who were indebted to talent and military glory for the rank to which they had recently attained. Thus among those who frequented her soirées, were the Duc de Guignes, Barrére, Lucien, Eugène Beauharnais, Fouché, Bernadotte, Massena (who wore her white favor on his arm throughout the siege of Genoa), Moreau, who had married her cousin, besides literary men such as M. de la Harpe-the French Quintilian-whose lectures she attended at the Athenæum. But amid the crowd of her admirers none shone more pre-eminent than Duke Mathieu de Montmorency, who, upward of twenty years later, represented France at the congress of Verona, with whom an intimacy was established which was only terminated twenty-seven years later by the touching and impressive death of the duke, who suddenly fell backward and expired while kneeling in the attitude of prayer in church, Good Friday 1826. Ever devoted and disinterested, he was fully alive to the danger to which Madame Récamier was especially exposed, and his counsels preserved her from many a youthful folly : but when Chateaubriand the monopolist took first place in her affections, he retired somewhat into the background.

During the brief interval of the peace of Amiens (1802) Madame Récamier, recommended to English society by introductions from one of her adorers, the veteran Duc de Guiche who had been ambassador in England some thirty years before, availed herself of the opportunity to visit this country. The fame of her beauty and fashion, of veils à l'Iphigénie harmonizing with the perfect oval of her face, and hair worn off one eyebrow à la Récamier, had preceded her; and when she appeared in Kensington Gardens with a companion, "both in white, with white veils and violet-colored parasols," such was the curiosity and rudeness of the mob by which they were hustled that the ladies were terribly frightened and with difficulty regained their carriage. During this visit she sat