Chateaubriand's obsequies were performed in the church of the _Missions étrangères_, where a large concourse assembled, notwithstanding the city and the state were still in the agony of a social crisis. But his ashes were transferred to his own Brittany, where a solitary rock in the bay had long before been granted him by the municipality of St. Malo, as a place of burial. More than 50,000 persons were present at this strange and solemn interment. They seemed to represent France mourning his loss. The sea was covered with boats; the roofs of the houses, and the shores beneath, were crowded with spectators; banners floated from rock and tower; while mournful canticles and booming cannon broke the stillness of the air. The coffin was laid in a recess of the steep cliff, and surmounted by a granite cross. Ampère was deputed by the French Academy to pronounce his eulogy on the occasion; and he concluded his report to that body in these {101} words: "It would seem that the genius of the incomparable painter had been stamped on this last magnificent spectacle; and that to him alone among men it had been given to add, even after death, a splendid page to the immortal poem of his life." On Easter day in the following year Madame Récamier was persuaded to remove from the Abbaye-aux-Bois to the National Library, where her niece and nephew resided. The cholera had broken out in the neighborhood of the Abbaye; and though she did not fear death, she had a peculiar horror of that dreadful pestilence. But her flight was vain; the scourge pursued her, and fell with sadden violence on her enfeebled frame. The day before, Ampère and Madame Salvage had dined with her, and on the morning of her seizure her niece's daughter Juliette had been reading to her the memoirs of Madame de Motteville. During twelve hours she suffered extreme torture, but spoke with her confessor, and received the sacrament of extreme unction. Continual vomiting prevented the administration of the eucharist. Ampère, Paul David, the Abbé de Cazalès, her relations and servants, knelt around her bed to join in the prayers for the dying. Sobs and tears choked their voices, and "Adieu, adieu, we shall meet again; we shall see each other again," were the only words her agony allowed her to utter. Madame Récamier breathed her last on the 11th of May, 1849. The terrible epidemic, which generally leaves hideous traces behind, spared her lifeless frame, and left it like a beautiful piece of sculptured marble. Achille Devéria took a drawing of her as she lay in her cold sleep, and his faithful sketch expresses at the same time suffering and repose.