Récamier, Madame de

Récamier, Madame de

 orig. Jeanne-Françoise-Julie-Adélaïde Bernard in full Jeanne-Françoise-Julie-Adélaïde, dame de Récamier

(born Dec. 4, 1777, Lyon, France—died May 11, 1849, Paris) French hostess. Daughter of a prosperous banker, she married a wealthy banker and began to entertain widely. Her great charm and wit attracted to her salon most of the important political and literary figures of early 19th-century Paris, including many opponents of Napoleon, who exiled her in 1805. After Napoleon's defeat in 1815 she returned to Paris, where in her later years René, viscount de Chateaubriand became her companion and the central figure in her salon. Her friend Germaine de Staël created her literary portrait in the novel Corinne.