Juliette Recamier and the Punjab Sarkar

By G.S. Cheema

OF strange couplings, this must surely be the strangest, the readers will say: "What possible connection can there be between Juliette Recamier and the government of Punjab?" None, absolutely none. Except perhaps for the Montmorency link. Among our Juliette’s many suitors was one Adrien de Montmorency. A 100 years later, another member of that house, Sir Geoffery de Montmorency, would become Governor of Punjab. I have not been able to pinpoint the precise genealogical connection between the two, though, doubtless, there must have been one, for names like Montmorency are not lightly assumed (it is the name of one of the most ancient families of France).

But even if, with the assistance of Debrett and the Aimanach de Gotha, I should succeed in establishing it, it would still be a very tenuous one. However, the sight of highly ornate divan in the well appointed office of a fellow colleague immediately reminded me of that famous French beauty whose smiles must have broken a thousand hearts in the troubled years that lie between the Directorate and the final expulsion of the Bourbons from the throne of France.

To begin with, the piece of furniture which provoked that voluptuous reverie (Julie Recamier nee Bernard was always most provocative, most frustratingly so) was not a divan at all but a chaise-longue, which an enterprising furnisher had succeeded in selling to my colleague who prided himself on his good taste, and was in the fortunate position of being able to furnish a new office from scratch.

I have always regarded a chaise longue as a decidedly feminine article of furniture, it is indelibly associated in my mind with the image of that grande dame who has been portrayed by two of the most famous artists of her time — David and Gerard — reclining on two different pieces of furniture of that class.

I’m aware that the Romans of the Decadence are also frequently shown feasting and drinking while reclining on divans which bear a striking resemblance to the chaises of the 18th century, but then the roistering Romans of the Decadence are invariably coupled with equally decadent ladies (of questionable virtue), and that certainly does not give the chaise the requisite respectability; the Roman example, if anything, would utterly damn that exquisite piece of furniture, making it absolutely unsuitable for an office room, and certainly impossible under the Punjab Sarkar, a government which had banned cigarettes and tobacco from its austere and puritanical precincts long before their carcinogenic properties were fully recognised.

Anyway the long and short of it is that I succeeded in convincing my friend that the furnisher who was trying to fob him off with an expensive chaise longue under the cover of a more imaginatively designed divan could only be his worst enemy; that the offending article was ineradicably associated with ladies in decollete gowns, displaying an embarasse de cleavage, and anyone who saw that piece in his room would immediately presume that he was a debauche.

But now that I have touched upon the subject of Juliette Recamier I may be allowed the indulgence of dilating a little on that charming beauty of a bygone age, for, to be absolutely truthful, I have always been carrying a torch for her ever since (in my early adolescence)I first came across her portrait in the Encyclopaedia of the Fine Arts. And maybe I’m doing the lady an injustice after all. She may have broken a thousand hearts, but she was chaste, and even though she was married at the age of 15 to the banker Jacques-Rose Recamier of Lyons, she remained a virgin at least up till the age of 31! At least that is what her biographer claims.

There was a certain mystery about her marriage. Her husband was 27 years her senior. It was rumoured that he had been the lover of Juliette’s mother, and Juliette was his daughter. Fearing for his life (for that was the time of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror), he made sure that his fortune would pass to his daughter by marrying her. The rumour may be discounted, as may be that other rumour, spread by Merimee, that Juliette was physically incapable to losing her virginity. However, she was undoubtedly afraid to death to give herself, and Monsieur Recamier, though not the most sensitive of men, ‘respected her susceptibilities’ as he put it once.

But Juliette’s virginal beauty and charm, combined with a sensuousness, an almost voluptuous gracefulness, exerted an irresistible experience. Sentimental and frivolous in turns, playing with passion but terrified of surrendering to it, she tormented even those with whom she merely flirted — a category embracing virtually every man she knew, and who were incautious enough to allow themselves vain hopes could say of her, as did Benjamin Constant:"She has played with my happiness, my career, my life. May she be cursed!" Only one man, Chateaubriand, thought differently; but when he and Juliette met and loved, she was 40 and he 50.

Her portrait by David can be seen in Chateaubriand’s country house in the vicinity of Paris. Here is also the original chaise longue which is featured in the David portrait; it came up accidentally in an auction in the 1950s and was identified successfully as the one in the picture. The portrait by Gerard, shows a much younger Juliette; we can easily recognise in her the coquette that broke a thousand hearts. It is the pride of the Carnavalet, the museum of the city of Paris, which is housed in a 17th century hotel which was once the residence of another famous blue-stocking, that indefatigable letter-writer, Madame de Sevigne.

At first the chair on which she is so wantonly displaying her sultry charms seems curious, it seems a truncated chaise longue. And it is just that, for very often it was made in sections, consisting of two chairs and a central stool, which could be put together or separated according to one’s requirement. In this version it was called a peche mortel.

And just to establish once and for all the feminine (and nefarious, if the ladies will pardon me) character of this piece of furniture, may I also recall that the famous statue of Pauline Borghese, Napoleon’s favourite sister, sculpted by Canova and exhibited today in the Villa Borghese in Rome, also shows her reclining on a similar article of furniture? Of Napoleon’s numerous sisters, Pauline was the most scandalous; compared to Juliette her sins were scarlet, and as the visitor can see, she is virtually nude. Her scandalised brother ordered the statue to be kept under lock and key, though her husband (from whom she was separated soon after her marriage), would occasionally, as a mark of special favour, after a particularly convivial dinner, allow his friends a glimpse of it.

But why even the humble divan should be considered suitable for furnishing the rooms of senior officers is a good question. The intention surely could not have been to convey the impression of a laid-back bureaucracy, however deliciously appropriate it may seem to some. And to say the truth, not many divans will be found in offices today. But considering that they were introduced during the ministry of Partap Singh Kairon, when the Punjab administration was particularly noted for efficiency and vigour, it is certainly intriguing.