_Cradles of the New Philosophy--Noted Salons of this Period--
Character of Mme. Geoffrin--Her Practical Education--Anecdotes of her
Husband--Composition of her Salon--Its Insidious Influence--Her Journey
to Warsaw--Her Death_
During the latter half of the eighteenth century the center of social
life was no longer the court, but the salons. They had multiplied
indefinitely, and, representing every shade of taste and thought, had
reached the climax of their power as schools of public opinion, as well
as their highest perfection in the arts and amenities of a brilliant and
complex society. There was a slight reaction from the reckless vices and
follies of the regency. If morals were not much better, manners were a
trifle more decorous. Though the great world did not take the tone of
stately elegance and rigid propriety which it had assumed under the
rule of Mme. de Maintenon, it was superficially polished, and a note
of thoughtfulness was added. Affairs in France had taken too serious an
aspect to be ignored, and the theories of the philosophers were among
the staple topics of conversation; indeed, it was the great vogue of
the philosophers that gave many of the most noted social centers their
prestige and their fame. It is not the salons of the high nobility that
suggest themselves as the typical ones of this age. It is those which
were animated by the habitual presence of the radical leaders of French
thought. Economic questions and the rights of man were discussed as
earnestly in these brilliant coteries as matters of faith and sentiment,
of etiquette and morals, had been a hundred years before. Such subjects
were forced upon them by the inexorable logic of events; and fashion,
which must needs adapt itself in some measure to the world over which
it rules, took them up. If the drawing rooms of the seventeenth century
were the cradles of refined manners and a new literature, those of the
eighteenth were literally the cradles of a new philosophy.
The practical growth and spread of French philosophy was too closely
interwoven with the history of the salons not to call for a word here.
Its innovations were faintly prefigured in the coterie of Mme. de
Lambert, where it colored almost imperceptibly the literary and critical
discussions. But its foundations were more firmly laid in the drawing
room of Mme. de Tencin, where the brilliant wit and radical theories of
Montesquieu, as well as the pronounced materialism of Helvetius, found
a congenial atmosphere. Though the mingled romance and satire of the
"Persian Letters," with their covert attack upon the state and society,
raised a storm of antagonism, they called out a burst of admiration
as well. The original and aggressive thought of men like Voltaire,
Rousseau, d'Alembert, and Diderot, with its diversity of shading, but
with the cardinal doctrine of freedom and equality pervading it all, had
found a rapidly growing audience. It no longer needed careful nursing,
in the second half of the century. It had invaded the salons of the
haute noblesse, and was discussed even in the anterooms of the court.
Mme. de Pompadour herself stole away from her tiresome lover-king to
the freethinking coterie that met in her physician's apartments in the
Entresol at Versailles, and included the greatest iconoclasts of the
age. If she had any misgivings as to the outcome of these discussions,
they were fearlessly cast aside with "Apres Nous le Deluge." "In the
depth of her heart she was with us," said Voltaire when she died.
There were clairvoyant spirits who traced the new theories to their
logical results. Mme. du Deffand speaks with prophetic vision of the
reasoners and beaux esprits "who direct the age and lead it to its
ruin." There were conservative women, too, who used their powerful
influence against them. It was in the salon of the delicate but ardent
young Princesse de Robecq that Palissot was inspired to write
the satirical comedy of "The Philosophers," in which Rousseau was
represented as entering on all fours, browsing a lettuce, and the
Encyclopedists were so mercilessly ridiculed. This spirited and heroic
daughter-in-law of the Duchesse de Luxembourg, the powerful patroness of
Rousseau, was hopelessly ill at the time, and, in a caustic reply to the
clever satire, the abbe Morellet did not spare the beautiful invalid who
desired for her final consolation only to see its first performance and
be able to say, "Now, Lord, thou lettest thy servant depart in peace,
for mine eyes have seen vengeance." The cruel attack was thought to have
hastened her death, and the witty abbe was sent to the Bastille; but
he came out in two months, went away for a time, and returned a greater
hero than ever. There is a picture, full of pathetic significance, which
represents the dying princess on her pillow, crowned with a halo of
sanctity, as she devotes her last hours to the defense of the faith she
loves. One is reminded of the sweet and earnest souls of Port Royal; but
her vigorous protest, which furnished only a momentary target for the
wit of the philosophers, was lost in the oncoming wave of skepticism.
The vogue of these men received its final stamp in the admiring
patronage of the greatest sovereigns in Europe. Voltaire had his
well-known day of power at the court of Frederick the Great. Grimm and
Diderot, too, were honored guests of that most liberal of despots, and
discussed their novel theories in familiar fashion with Catherine II,
at St. Petersburg. The reply of this astute and clear-sighted empress
to the eloquent plea of Diderot may be commended for its wisdom to the
dreamers and theorists of today.
"I have heard, with the greatest pleasure, all that your brilliant
intellect has inspired you to say; but with all your grand principles,
which I comprehend very well, one makes fine books and bad business. You
forget in all your plans of reform the difference of our two positions.
You work only on paper, which permits everything; it is quite smooth and
pliant, and opposes no obstacles to your imagination nor to your pen;
while I, poor empress, I work upon the human cuticle, which is quite
sensitive and irritable."
It is needless to say that the men so honored by sovereigns were petted
in the salons, in spite of their disfavor with the Government. They
dined, talked, posed as lions or as martyrs, and calmly bided their
time. The persecution of the Encyclopedists availed little more than
satire had done, in stemming the slowly rising tide of public opinion.
Utopian theories took form in the ultra circles, were insidiously
disseminated in the moderate ones, and were lightly discussed in the
fashionable ones. Men who talked, and women who added enthusiasm, were
alike unconscious of the dynamic force of the material with which they
were playing.
Of the salons which at this period had a European reputation, the most
noted were those of Mme. du Deffand, Mlle. de Lespinasse, and Mme.
Geoffrin. The first was the resort of the more intellectual of the
noblesse, as well as the more famous of the men of letters. The two
worlds mingled here; the tone was spiced with wit and animated with
thought, but it was essentially aristocratic. The second was the
rallying point of the Encyclopedists and much frequented by political
reformers, but the rare gifts of its hostess attracted many from the
great world. The last was moderate in tone, though philosophical and
thoroughly cosmopolitan. Sainte-Beuve pronounced it "the most complete,
the best organized, and best conducted of its time; the best established
since the foundation of the salons; that is, since the Hotel de
Rambouillet."
"Do you know why La Geoffrin comes here? It is to see what she can
gather from my inventory," remarked Mme. de Tencin on her death bed.
She understood thoroughly her world, and knew that her friend wished to
capture the celebrities who were in the habit of meeting in her salon.
But she does not seem to have borne her any ill will for her rather
premature schemes, as she gave her a characteristic piece of advice:
"Never refuse any advance of friendship," she said; "for, if nine out of
ten bring you nothing, one alone may repay you. Everything is of service
in a menage if one knows how to use his tools." Mme. Geoffrin was an
apt pupil in the arts of diplomacy, and the key to her remarkable social
success may be found in her ready assimilation of the worldly wisdom of
her sage counselor. But to this she added a far kinder heart and a more
estimable character.
Of all the women who presided over famous salons, Mme. Geoffrin had
perhaps the least claim to intellectual preeminence. The secret of her
power must have lain in some intangible quality that has failed to
be perpetuated in any of her sayings or doings. A few commonplace and
ill-spelled letters, a few wise or witty words, are all the direct
record she has left of herself. Without rank, beauty, youth, education,
or remarkable mental gifts of a sort that leave permanent traces, she
was the best representative of the women of her time who held their
place in the world solely through their skill in organizing and
conducting a salon. She was in no sense a luminary; and conscious that
she could not shine by her own light, she was bent upon shining by that
of others. But, in a social era so brilliant, even this implied talent
of a high order. A letter to the Empress of Russia, in reply to a
question concerning her early education, throws a ray of light upon her
youth and her peculiar training.
"I lost my father and mother," she writes, "in the cradle. I was brought
up by an aged grandmother, who had much intelligence and a well-balanced
head. She had very little education; but her mind was so clear, so
ready, so active, that it never failed her; it served always in the
place of knowledge. She spoke so agreeably of the things she did not
know that no one wished her to understand them better; and when her
ignorance was too visible, she got out of it by pleasantries which
baffled the pedants who tried to humiliate her. She was so contented
with her lot that she looked upon knowledge as a very useless thing for
a woman. She said: 'I have done without it so well that I have never
felt the need of it. If my granddaughter is stupid, learning will make
her conceited and insupportable; if she has talent and sensibility, she
will do as I have done--supply by address and with sentiment what she
does not know; when she becomes more reasonable, she will learn that for
which she has the most aptitude, and she will learn it very quickly.'
She taught me in my childhood simply to read, but she made me read much;
she taught me to think by making me reason; she taught me to know men
by making me say what I thought of them, and telling me also the opinion
she had formed. She required me to render her an account of all my
movements and all my feelings, correcting them with so much sweetness
and grace that I never concealed from her anything that I thought or
felt; my internal life was as visible as my external. My education was
continual."
The daughter of a valet de chambre of the Duchess of Burgundy, who gave
her a handsome dowry, Marie Therese Rodet became, at fourteen, the wife
of a lieutenant-colonel of the National Guard and a rich manufacturer of
glass. Her husband did not count for much among the distinguished guests
who in later years frequented her salon, and his part in her life seems
to have consisted mainly in furnishing the money so essential to her
success, and in looking carefully after the interests of the menage. It
is related that some one gave him a history to read, and when he called
for the successive volumes the same one was always returned to him. Not
observing this, he found the work interesting, but "thought the author
repeated a little." He read across the page a book printed in two
columns, remarking that "it seemed to be very good, but a trifle
abstract." One day a visitor inquired for the white-haired old gentleman
who was in the habit of sitting at the head of the table. "That was my
husband," replied Mme. Geoffrin; "he is dead."
But if her marriage was not an ideal one, it does not appear that it was
unhappy. Perhaps her bourgeois birth and associations saved her youth
from the domestic complications which were so far the rule in the great
world as to have, in a measure, its sanction. At all events her life
was apparently free from the shadows that rested upon many of her
contemporaries.
"Her character was a singular one," writes Marmontel, who lived for ten
years in her house, "and difficult to understand or paint, because it
was all in half-tints and shades; very decided nevertheless, but without
the striking traits by which one's nature distinguishes and defines
itself. She was kind, but had little sensibility; charitable, without
any of the charms of benevolence; eager to aid the unhappy, but without
seeing them, for fear of being moved; a sure, faithful, even officious
friend, but timid and anxious in serving others, lest she should
compromise her credit or her repose. She was simple in her taste, her
dress, and her furniture, but choice in her simplicity, having the
refinements and delicacies of luxury, but nothing of its ostentation nor
its vanity; modest in her air, carriage, and manners, but with a touch
of pride, and even a little vainglory. Nothing flattered her more
than her intercourse with the great. At their houses she rarely saw
them,--indeed she was not at her ease there,--but she knew how to
attract them to her own by a coquetry subtly flattering; and in the
easy, natural, half-respectful and half-familiar air with which she
received them, I thought I saw remarkable address."
In a woman of less tact and penetration, this curious vein of hidden
vanity would have led to pretension. But Mme. Geoffrin was preeminently
gifted with that fine social sense which is apt to be only the fruit of
generations of culture. With her it was innate genius. She was mistress
of the amiable art of suppressing herself, and her vanity assumed the
form of a gracious modesty. "I remain humble, but with dignity," she
writes to a friend; "that is, in depreciating myself I do not suffer
others to depreciate me." She had the instinct of the artist who knows
how to offset the lack of brilliant gifts by the perfection of details,
the modesty that disarms criticism, and a rare facility in the art of
pleasing.
There was an air of refinement and simple elegance in her personality
that commanded respect. Tall and dignified, with her silvery hair
concealed by her coif, she combined a noble presence with great
kindliness of manner. She usually wore somber colors and fine laces,
for which she had great fondness. Her youth was long past when she came
before the world, and that sense of fitness which always distinguished
her led her to accept her age seriously and to put on its hues. The
"dead-leaf mantle" of Mme. de Maintenon was worn less severely perhaps,
but it was worn without affectation. Diderot gives us a pleasant glimpse
of her at Grandval, where they were dining with Baron d'Holbach. "Mme.
Geoffrin was admirable," he wrote to Mlle. Volland. "I remark always the
noble and quiet taste with which this woman dresses. She wore today a
simple stuff of austere color, with large sleeves, the smoothest and
finest linen, and the most elegant simplicity throughout."
In her equanimity and her love of repose she was a worthy disciple
of Fontenelle. She carefully avoided all violent passions and all
controversies. To her lawyer, who was conducting a suit that worried
her, she said, "Wind up my case. Do they want my money? I have some, and
what can I do with money better than to buy tranquillity with it?" This
aversion to annoyance often reached the proportions of a very amiable
selfishness. "She has the habit of detesting those who are unhappy,"
said the witty Abbe Galiani, "for she does not wish to be so, even by
the sight of the unhappiness of others. She has an impressionable heart;
she is old; she is well; she wishes to preserve her health and her
tranquillity. As soon as she learns that I am happy she will love me to
folly."
But her generosity was exceptional. "Donner et pardonner" was her
device. Many anecdotes are related of her charitable temper. She had
ordered two marble vases of Bouchardon. One was broken before reaching
her. Learning that the man who broke it would lose his place if it were
known, and that he had a family of four children, she immediately sent
word to the atelier that the sculptor was not to be told of the loss,
adding a gift of twelve francs to console the culprit for his fright.
She often surprised her impecunious friends with the present of some bit
of furniture she thought they needed, or an annuity delicately bestowed.
"I have assigned to you fifteen thousand francs," she said one day to
the Abbe Morellet; "do not speak of it and do not thank me." "Economy is
the source of independence and liberty" was one of her mottoes, and she
denied herself the luxuries of life that she might have more to spend in
charities. But she never permitted any one to compromise her, and often
withheld her approbation where she was free with her purse. To do all
the good possible and to respect all the convenances were her cardinal
principles. Marmontel was sent to the Bastille under circumstances that
were rather creditable than otherwise; but it was a false note, and
she was never quite the same to him afterwards. She wept at her own
injustice, schemed for his election to the Academy, and scolded him for
his lack of diplomacy; but the little cloud was there. When the Sorbonne
censured his Belisarius her friendship could no longer bear the strain,
and, though still received at her dinners, he ceased to live in her
house.
Her dominant passion seems to have been love of consideration, if a calm
and serene, but steadily persistent, purpose can be called a passion. No
trained diplomatist ever understood better the world with which he had
to deal, or managed more adroitly to avoid small antagonisms. It was
her maxim not to create jealousy by praising people, nor irritation by
defending them. If she wished to say a kind word, she dwelt upon good
qualities that were not contested. She prided herself upon ruling her
life by reason. Sainte-Beuve calls her the Fontenelle of women, but it
was Fontenelle tempered with a heart.
This "foster-mother of philosophers" evidently wished to make sure of
her own safety, however matters might turn out in the next world. She
had a devotional vein, went to mass privately, had a seat at the Church
of the Capucins, and an apartment for retreat in a convent. During her
last illness the Marquise de la Ferte-Imbault, who did not love her
mother's freethinking friends, excluded them, and sent for a confessor.
Mme. Geoffrin submitted amiably, and said, smiling, "My daughter is like
Godfrey of Bouillon; she wishes to defend my tomb against the infidels."
Into the composition of her salon she brought the talent of an artist.
We have a glimpse of her in 1748 through a letter from Montesquieu.
She was then about fifty, and had gathered about her a more or less
distinguished company, which was enlarged after the death of Mme. de
Tencin, in the following year. She gave dinners twice a week--one on
Monday for artists, among whom were Vanloo, Vernet, and Boucher; and one
on Wednesday for men of letters. As she believed that women were apt
to distract the conversation, only one was usually invited to dine with
them. Mlle. de Lespinasse, the intellectual peer and friend of these
men, sat opposite her, and aided in conducting the conversation into
agreeable channels. The talent of Mme. Geoffrin seems to have consisted
in telling a story well, in a profound knowledge of people, ready tact,
and the happy art of putting every one at ease. She did not like heated
discussions nor a too pronounced expression of opinion. "She was
willing that the philosophers should remodel the world," says one of her
critics, "on condition that the kingdom of Diderot should come without
disorder or confusion." But though she liked and admired this very free
and eloquent Diderot, he was too bold and outspoken to have a place at
her table. Helvetius, too, fell into disfavor after the censure which
his atheistic DE L'esprit brought upon him; and Baron d'Holbach was
too apt to overstep the limits at which the hostess interfered with her
inevitable "Voila qui est bien." Indeed, she assumed the privilege
of her years to scold her guests if they interfered with the general
harmony or forgot any of the amenities. But her scoldings were very
graciously received as a slight penalty for her favor, and more or
less a measure of her friendship. She graded her courtesies with fine
discrimination, and her friends found the reflection of their success
or failure in her manner of receiving them. Her keen, practical mind
pierced every illusion with merciless precision. She defined a popular
abbe who posed for a bel esprit, as a "fool rubbed all over with wit."
Rulhiere had read in her salon a work on Russia, which she feared might
compromise him, and she offered him a large sum of money to throw it
into the fire. The author was indignant at such a reflection upon
his courage and honor, and grew warmly eloquent upon the subject. She
listened until he had finished, then said quietly, "How much more do you
want, M. Rulhiere?"
The serene poise of a character without enthusiasms and without
illusions is very well illustrated by a letter to Mme. Necker. After
playfully charging her with being always infatuated, never cool and
reserved, she continues:
"Do you know, my pretty one, that your exaggerated praises confound
me, instead of pleasing and flattering me? I am always afraid that your
giddiness will evaporate. You will then judge me to be so different from
your preconceived opinion that you will punish me for your own mistake,
and allow me no merit at all. I have my virtues and my good qualities,
but I have also many faults. Of these I am perfectly well aware, and
every day I try to correct them.
"My dear friend, I beg of you to lessen your excessive admiration.
I assure you that you humiliate me; and that is certainly not your
intention. The angels think very little about me, and I do not trouble
myself about them. Their praise or their blame is indifferent to me, for
I shall not come in their way; but what I do desire is that you should
love me, and that you should take me as you find me."
Again she assumes her position of mentor and writes: "How is it possible
not to answer the kind and charming letter I have received from you?
But still I reply only to tell you that it made me a little angry. I see
that it is impossible to change anything in your uneasy, restless, and
at the same time weak character."
Horace Walpole, who met her during his first visit to Paris, and before
his intimacy with Mme. du Deffand had colored his opinions, has left a
valuable pen-portrait of Mme. Geoffrin. In a letter to Gray, in 1766, he
writes:
"Mme. Geoffrin, of whom you have heard much, is an extraordinary woman,
with more common sense than I almost ever met with, great quickness in
discovering characters, penetrating and going to the bottom of them,
and a pencil that never fails in a likeness, seldom a favorable one.
She exacts and preserves, spite of her birth and their nonsensical
prejudices about nobility, great court and attention. This she acquires
by a thousand little arts and offices of friendship, and by a freedom
and severity which seem to be her sole end for drawing a concourse to
her. She has little taste and less knowledge, but protects artisans
and authors, and courts a few people to have the credit of serving her
dependents. In short, she is an epitome of empire, subsisting by rewards
and punishments."
Later, when he was less disinterested, perhaps, he writes to another
friend: "Mme. du Deffand hates the philosophers, so you must give them
up to her. She and Mme. Geoffrin are no friends; so if you go thither,
don't tell her of it--Indeed you would be sick of that house whither
all the pretended beaux esprits and false savants go, and where they are
very impertinent and dogmatic."
The real power of this woman may be difficult to define, but a glance
at her society reveals, at least partly, its secret. Nowhere has the
glamour of a great name more influence than at Paris. A few celebrities
form a nucleus of sufficient attraction to draw all the world, if
they are selected with taste and discrimination. After the death of
Fontenelle, d'Alembert, always witty, vivacious, and original, in spite
of the serious and exact nature of his scientific studies, was perhaps
the leading spirit of this salon. Among its constant habitues were
Helvetius, who put his selfishness into his books, reserving for his
friends the most amiable and generous of tempers; Marivaux, the novelist
and dramatist, whose vanity rivaled his genius, but who represented only
the literary spirit, and did not hesitate to ridicule his companions the
philosophers; the caustic but brilliant and accomplished Abbe Morellet,
who had "his heart in his head and his head in his heart;" the severe
and cheerful Mairan, mathematician, astronomer, physician, musical
amateur, and member of two academies, whose versatile gifts and courtly
manners gave him as cordial a welcome in the exclusive salon at the
Temple as among his philosophical friends; the gay young Marmontel, who
has left so clear and simple a picture of this famous circle and
its gentle hostess; Grimm, who combined the SAVANT and the courtier;
Saint-Lambert, the delicate and scholarly poet; Thomas, grave and
thoughtful, shining by his character and intellect, but forgetting the
graces which were at that time so essential to brilliant success; the
eloquent Abbe Raynal; and the Chevalier de Chastellux, so genial, so
sympathetic, and so animated. To these we may add Galiani, the smallest,
the wittiest, and the most delightful of abbes, whose piercing insight
and Machiavellian subtlety lent a piquant charm to the stories with
which for hours he used to enliven this choice company; Caraccioli,
gay, simple, ingenuous, full of Neapolitan humor, rich in knowledge and
observation, luminous with intelligence and sparkling with wit; and the
Comte de Crentz, the learned and versatile Swedish minister, to whom
nature had "granted the gift of expressing and painting in touches of
fire all that had struck his imagination or vividly seized his soul."
Hume, Gibbon, Walpole, indeed every foreigner of distinction who visited
Paris, lent to this salon the eclat of their fame, the charm of their
wit, or the prestige of their rank. It was such men as these who gave it
so rare a fascination and so lasting a fame.
A strong vein of philosophy was inevitable, though in this circle of
diplomats and litterateurs there were many counter-currents of opinion.
It was her consummate skill in blending these diverse but powerful
elements, and holding them within harmonious limits, that made the
reputation of the autocratic hostess. The friend of savants and
philosophers, she had neither read nor studied books, but she had
studied life to good purpose. Though superficial herself, she had the
delicate art of putting every one in the most advantageous light by a
few simple questions or words. It was one of her maxims that "the way
not to get tired of people is to talk to them of themselves; at the same
time, it is the best way to prevent them from getting tired of you."
Perhaps Mme. Necker was thinking of her when she compared certain women
in conversation to "light layers of cotton wool in a box packed with
porcelain; we do not pay much attention to them, but if they were taken
away everything would be broken."
Mme. Geoffrin was always at home in the evening, and there were simple
little suppers to which a few women were invited. The fare was usually
little more than "a chicken, some spinach, and omelet." Among the most
frequent guests were the charming, witty, and spirituelle Comtesse
d'Egmont, daughter of the Duc de Richelieu, who added to the vivacious
and elegant manners of her father an indefinable grace of her own, and a
vein of sentiment that was doubtless deepened by her sad little romance;
the Marquise de Duras, more dignified and discreet; and the beautiful
Comtesse de Brionne, "a Venus who resembled Minerva." These women, with
others who came there, were intellectual complements of the men; some
of them gay and not without serious faults, but adding beauty, rank,
elegance, and the delicate tone of esprit which made this circle so
famous that it was thought worth while to have its sayings and doings
chronicled at Berlin and St. Petersburg. Perhaps its influence was the
more insidious and far reaching because of its polished moderation. The
"let us be agreeable" of Mme. Geoffrin was a potent talisman.
Among the guests at one time was Stanislas Poniatowski, afterwards King
of Poland. Hearing that he was about to be imprisoned by his creditors,
Mme. Geoffrin came forward and paid his debts. "When I make a statue
of friendship, I shall give it your features," he said to her; "this
divinity is the mother of charity." On his elevation to the throne he
wrote to her, "Maman, your son is king. Come and see him." This led to
her famous journey when nearly seventy years of age. It was a series of
triumphs at which no one was more surprised than herself, and they were
all due, she modestly says, "to a few mediocre dinners and some petits
soupers." One can readily pardon her for feeling flattered, when the
emperor alights from his carriage on the public promenade at Vienna and
pays her some pretty compliments, "just as if he had been at one of our
little Wednesday suppers." There is a charm in the simple naivete with
which she tells her friends how cordially Maria Theresa receives her at
Schonbrunn, and she does not forget to add that the empress said she had
the most beautiful complexion in the world. She repeats quite naturally,
and with a slight touch of vanity perhaps, the fine speeches made to
her by the "adorable Prince Galitzin" and Prince Kaunitz, "the first
minister in Europe," both of whom entertained her. But she would have
been more than a woman to have met all this honor with indifference. No
wonder she believes herself to be dreaming. "I am known here much better
than in the Rue St. Honore," she writes, "and in a fashion the most
flattering. My journey has made an incredible sensation for the last
fifteen days." To be sure, she spells badly for a woman who poses as the
friend of litterateurs and savants, and says very little about anything
that does not concern her own fame and glory. But she does not cease to
remember her friends, whom she "loves, if possible, better than ever."
Nor does she forget to send a thousand caresses to her kitten.
A messenger from Warsaw meets her with everything imaginable that can
add to the comfort and luxury of her journey, and on reaching there
she finds a room fitted up for her like her own boudoir in the Rue
St. Honore. She accepts all this consideration with great modesty and
admirable good sense. "This tour finished," she writes to d'Alembert,
"I feel that I shall have seen enough of men and things to be convinced
that they are everywhere about the same. I have my storehouse of
reflections and comparisons well furnished for the rest of my life. All
that I have seen since leaving my Penates makes me thank God for having
been born French and a private person."
The peculiar charm which attracted such rare and marked attentions to
a woman not received at her own court, and at a time when social
distinctions were very sharply defined, eludes analysis, but it seems
to have lain largely in her exquisite sense of fitness, her excellent
judgment, her administrative talent, the fine tact and penetration which
enabled her to avoid antagonism, an instinctive knowledge of the art of
pleasing, and a kind but not too sensitive heart. These qualities are
not those which appeal to the imagination or inspire enthusiasm. We
find in her no spark of that celestial flame which gives intellectual
distinction. In her amiability there seems to be a certain languor of
the heart. Her kindness has a trace of calculation, and her friendship
of self-consciousness. Of spontaneity she has none. "She loved nothing
passionately, not even virtue," says one of her critics. There was a
certain method in her simplicity. She carried to perfection the art of
savoir vivre, and though she claimed freedom of thought and action, it
was always strictly within conventional limits.
She suffered the fate of all celebrities in being occasionally attacked.
The role assigned to her in the comedy of "The Philosophers" was not a
flattering one, and some criticisms of Montesquieu wounded her so deeply
that she succeeded in having them suppressed. She did not escape the
shafts of envy, nor the sneers of the grandes dames who did not relish
her popularity. But these were only spots on the surface of a singularly
brilliant career. Calm, reposeful, charitable, without affectation or
pretension, but not untouched by ennui, the malady of her time, she held
her position to the end of a long life which closed in 1777.
"Alas," said d'Alembert, who had been in the habit of spending his
mornings with Mlle. de Lespinasse until her death, and his evenings with
Mme. Geoffrin, "I have neither evenings nor mornings left."
"She has made for fifty years the charm of her society," said the Abbe
Morellet. "She has been constantly, habitually virtuous and benevolent."
Her salon brought authors and artists into direct relation with
distinguished patrons, especially foreigners, and thus contributed
largely to the spread of French art and letters. It was counted among
"the institutions of the eighteenth century."