These were the serious occupations of the Emperor's first half-year; its avocations were of a social nature--chiefly banishing the possessors of biting tongues, and arranging matrimonial alliances between what he designated as the old and the new aristocracy. Napoleon's words and mien had at last become so awe-inspiring that the accustomed quip and jest of the old nobility were uttered only in whispers behind the closed doors of their residences in the Faubourg St. Germain. The most famous society of the Consulate and early Empire was accustomed to gather in the drawing-rooms of Mme. Récamier, wife of the great banker. The wealth of her husband and the distinction of her own manners made her a personage of great importance among the returned emigrants, who flattered and caressed her. By her spirit and beauty she wielded enormous influence, but not in Napoleon's behalf, for she considered him a parvenu. She was in reality one of the most insidious, and consequently one of the most dangerous, of his foes. He tried to buy her silence, through Fouché's intermediation, by the offer not merely of a place as lady in waiting, but of the influence she might hope to exercise over himself. Her persistent refusal was really the cause of her husband's bankruptcy, for the Bank of France refused him assistance in his straits. She was not one of Mme. de Staël's intimate friends, although Necker's great daughter, when banished from Paris, had visited her at Écouen. But many of those who had frequented her salon adored that "rascally Mme. de Staël," as Napoleon, in a letter to Fouché, called the exile, who since her retirement to Switzerland had played her rôle so well as to render herself almost a divinity to her followers. These made annual pilgrimages to Coppet, returning to Mme. Récamier's drawing-room with new arrows of spite and wit to discharge against the Empire. In the end both the hostess herself and the frequenters of her husband's house were therefore visited with condign punishment, on the charge that they had excited public alarm and discredited the Bank of France. With several of her friends the great lady was banished from Paris, and later was sent into exile. From 1806 onward every word uttered about the state was apparently overheard by the police, and high and low alike suffered for any indiscretion. This made clear to the ancient aristocracy and gentry that criticism of the new court must cease; and under the influence of fear many gave their daughters in marriage to the imperial generals. The most conspicuous wedding of this sort was that of Savary: man of mystery at the Due d'Enghien's execution, conspirator suspected of complicity in the deaths of Pichegru and Captain Wright, he nevertheless married Mlle. de Coigny, a great heiress, and the daughter of a most ancient family. CHAPTER XXXIV THE WAR WITH PRUSSIA[37]