Madame Recamier, whose birth, though respectable, gave her none of the advantages of rank or opulence, was bred up at the abbey of the _Desert_, near the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone at Lyons. Her parents, however, resided at Paris; and they having brought her home at the age of twelve years, she was at that tender age married to M. Recamier, a rich banker, almost four times her own age, whose immense transactions, which entirely absorbed his time and attention, left him no leisure to attend either to the education or occupations of his infantine and beautiful wife. But though thus left to herself, surrounded by admirers, and with every luxury which wealth could purchase at her command, she was never led astray. Benjamin Constant, who knew her well from her earliest years, has left the following interesting portrait of what may be called her infantine married life:-- "She whom I paint emerged pure and brilliant from that corrupted atmosphere, which elsewhere withered where it did not actually corrupt. Infancy was at first her safeguard. Libertinism shrunk from approaching the asylum of so much innocence. Removed from the world in a solitude embellished by the arts, she spent her time in the sweet occupation of those charming and poetical studies which usually constitute the delight of a more advanced age. "Often, also, surrounded by her young companions, she abandoned herself to the amusements suited to her tender years. 'Swift as Atalanta in the race,' she outran all her companions: often, in playing Hide-and-seek, she bandaged those eyes which were destined one day to fascinate every beholder. Her look, now so expressive and penetrating, and which seems to indicate mysteries of which she herself is unconscious, then shone only with the animated and playful gaiety of childhood. Her beautiful hair, which could not be undone without causing emotion, fell in natural curls on her shoulders. A hearty and prolonged laugh often burst from these infantine circles, but already you could perceive in her that fine and rapid observation which seizes the salient points of ridicule--that sportive raillery which diverted itself without injuring any one: above all, that exquisite sense of elegance and propriety, of purity and taste, that true nobility of mind, which are given only to a few privileged beings.