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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Women of the French Salons by
+Amelia Gere Mason
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+The Women of the French Salons
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+by Amelia Gere Mason
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+February, 2001  [Etext #2528]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Women of the French Salons by
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+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMEN OF THE FRENCH SALONS
+
+By Amelia Gere Mason
+
+PREFACE
+
+It has been a labor of love with many distinguished Frenchmen to
+recall the memories of the women who have made their society so
+illustrious, and to retouch with sympathetic insight the features
+which time was beginning to dim.  One naturally hesitates to
+enter a field that has been gleaned so carefully, and with such
+brilliant results, by men like Cousin, Sainte-Beuve, Goncourt,
+and others of lesser note.  But the social life of the two
+centuries in which women played so important a role in France is
+always full of human interest from whatever point of view one may
+regard it.  If there is not a great deal to be said that is new,
+old facts may be grouped afresh, and old modes of life and
+thought measured by modern standards.
+
+In searching through the numerous memoirs, chronicles, letters,
+and original manuscripts in which the records of these centuries
+are hidden away, nothing has struck me so forcibly as the
+remarkable mental vigor and the far-reaching influence of women
+whose theater was mainly a social one.  Though society has its
+frivolities, it has also its serious side, and it is through the
+phase of social evolution that was begun in the salons that women
+have attained the position they hold today.  However beautiful,
+or valuable, or poetic may have been the feminine types of other
+nationalities, it is in France that we find the forerunners of
+the intelligent, self-poised, clear-sighted, independent modern
+woman.  It is possible that in the search for larger fields the
+smaller but not less important ones have been in a measure
+forgotten.  The great stream of civilization flows from a
+thousand unnoted rills that make sweet music in their course, and
+swell the current as surely as the more noisy torrent.  The
+conditions of the past cannot be revived, nor are they desirable. 
+The present has its own theories and its own methods.  But at a
+time when the reign of luxury is rapidly establishing false
+standards, and the best intellectual life makes hopeless
+struggles against an ever aggressive materialism, it may be
+profitable as well as interesting to consider the possibilities
+that lie in a society equally removed from frivolity and
+pretension, inspired by the talent, the sincerity, and the moral
+force of American women, and borrowing a new element of
+fascination from the simple and charming but polite informality
+of the old salons.
+
+It has been the aim in these studies to gather within a limited
+compass the women who represented the social life of their time
+on its most intellectual side, and to trace lightly their
+influence upon civilization through the avenues of literature and
+manners.  Though the work may lose something in fullness from the
+effort to put so much into so small a space, perhaps there is
+some compensation in the opportunity of comparing, in one
+gallery, the women who exercised the greatest power in France for
+a period of more than two hundred years.  The impossibility of
+entering into the details of so many lives in a single volume is
+clearly apparent.  Only the most salient points can be
+considered.  Many who would amply repay a careful study have
+simply been glanced at, and others have been omitted altogether. 
+As it would be out of the question in a few pages to make an
+adequate portrait of women who occupy so conspicuous a place in
+history as Mme. De Maintenon and Mme. De Stael, the former has
+been reluctantly passed with a simple allusion, and the latter
+outlined in a brief resume not at all proportional to the
+relative interest or importance of the subject.
+
+I do not claim to present a complete picture of French society,
+and without wishing to give too rose-colored a view, it has not
+seemed to me necessary to dwell upon its corrupt phases.  If
+truth compels one sometimes to state unpleasant facts in
+portraying historic characters, it is as needless and unjust as
+in private life to repeat idle and unproved tales, or to draw
+imaginary conclusions from questionable data.  The conflict of
+contemporary opinion on the simplest matters leads one often to
+the suspicion that all personal history is more or less disguised
+fiction.  The best one can do in default of direct records is to
+accept authorities that are generally regarded as the most
+trustworthy.
+
+This volume is affectionately dedicated to the memory of my
+mother, who followed the work with appreciative interest in its
+early stages, hut did not live to see its conclusion.
+
+Amelia Gere Mason
+Paris, July 6, 1891
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I. SALONS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
+Characteristics of French Woman--Gallic Genius for Conversation
+--Social Conditions--Origin of the Salons--Their Power--Their
+Composition--Their Records
+
+CHAPTER II. THE HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET
+Mme. De Rambouillet--The Salon Bleu--Its Habitues--Its
+Diversions--Corneille--Balzac--Richelieu--Romance of the
+Grand Conde--the Young Bossuet--Voiture--The Duchesse de
+Longueville--Angelique Paulet--Julie d'Angennes--Les
+Precieuses Ridicules--Decline of the Salon--Influence upon
+Literature and Manners
+
+CHAPTER III. MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY AND THE SAMEDIS
+Salons of the Noblesse--"The Illustrious Sappho"--Her Romances--The
+Samedis--Bons Mots of Mme. Cornuel--Estimate of Mlle. De Scudery
+
+CHAPTER IV. LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE
+Her Character--Her Heroic Part in the Fronde--Her Exile--Literary
+Diversions of her Salon--A Romantic Episode
+
+CHAPTER V. A LITERARY SALON AT PORT ROYAL
+Mme. De Sable--Her Worldly Life--Her Retreat--Her Friends--Pascal--
+The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld--Last Days of the Marquise
+
+CHAPTER VI. MADAME DE SEVIGNE
+Her Genius--Her Youth--Her Unworthy Husband--Her Impertinent
+Cousin--Her love for her Daughter--Her Letters--Hotel de
+Carnavalet--Mme. Duplessis Guengaud--Mme. De Coulanges--The
+Curtain Falls
+
+CHAPTER VII. MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
+Her Friendship with Mme. De Sevigne--Her Education--Her
+Devotion to the Princess Henrietta--Her Salon--La Rochefoucauld-- 
+Talent as a Diplomatist--Comparison with Mme. De Maintenon--Her
+Literary Work--Sadness of her Last Days--Woman in Literature
+
+CHAPTER VIII. SALONS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
+Characteristics of the Eighteenth Century--Its Epicurean
+Philosophy--Anecdote of Mme. Du Deffand--The Salon an Engine of
+Political Power--Great Influence of Woman--Salons Defined--Literary
+Dinners--Etiquette of the Salons--An Exotic on American Soil
+
+CHAPTER IX. AN ANTECHAMBER OF THE ACADEMIE FRANCAISE
+The Marquise de Lambert--Her "Bureau d'Esprit"--Fontenelle--
+Advice to her Son--Wise Thoughts on the Education of Women--Her
+Love of Consideration--Her Generosity--Influence of Women upon
+the Academy
+
+CHAPTER X. THE DUCHESSE DU MAINE
+Her Capricious Character--Her Esprit--Mlle. De Launay--Clever
+Portrait of her Mistress--Perpetual Fetes at Sceaux--Voltaire
+and the "Divine Emilie"--Dilettante Character of this Salon
+
+CHAPTERXI. MADAME DE TENCIN AND MADAM DU CHATELET
+An Intriguing Chanoinesse--Her Singular Fascination--Her Salon--Its
+Philosophical Character--Mlle. Aisse--Romances of Mme. De
+Tencin--D'Alembert--La Belle Emilie--Voltaire--the Two Women
+Compared
+
+CHAPTER XII. MADAME GEOFFRIN AND THE PHILOSOPHERS
+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
+
+CHAPTER XIII. ULTRA PHILOSOPHICAL SALONS--MADAME D'EPINAY
+Mme. De Graffigny--Baron D'Holbach--Mme. D'Epinay's Portrait of
+Herself--Mlle. Quinault--Rousseau--La Chevrette--Grimm--Diderot--
+The Abbe Galiani--Estimate of Mme. D'Epinay
+
+CHAPTER XIV. SALONS OF THE NOBLESSE--MADAME DU DEFFAND
+La Marechale de Luxenbourg--The Temple--Comtesse de Boufflers--Mme.
+Du Dufand--Her Convent Salon--Rupture with Mlle. De Lespinasse--Her
+Friendship with Horace Walpole--Her Brilliancy
+and her Ennui
+
+CHAPTER XV. MADEMOISELLE DE LESPINASSE
+A Romantic Career--Companion of Mme. Du Deffand--Rival Salons--
+Association with the Encyclopedists--D'Alembert--A Heart Tragedy--
+Impassioned Letters--A Type Unique in her Age
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE SALON HELVETIQUE
+The Swiss Pastor's Daughter--Her Social Ambition--Her Friends  
+Mme. De Marchais--Mme. D'Houdetot--Duchesse de Lauzun--Character of
+Mme. Necker--Death at Coppet--Close of the Most Brilliant Period of
+the Salons
+
+CHAPTER XVII. SALONS OF THE REVOLUTION--MADAME ROLAND
+Change in the Character of the Salons--Mme. De Condorcet--Mme.
+Roland's Story of her Own Life--A Marriage of Reason--Enthusiasm
+for the Revolution--Her Modest Salon--Her Tragical Fate
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. MADAM DE STAEL
+Supremacy of Her Genius--Her Early Training--Her Sensibility--A
+Mariage de Convenance--Her Salon--Anecdote of Benjamin Constant--
+Her Exile--Life at Coppet--Secret Marriage--Close of a Stormy Life
+
+CHAPTER XIX. SALONS OF THE EMPIRE AND RESTORATION--MADAME RECAMIER
+A Transition period--Mme. De Montesson--Mme. De Genus--Revival
+of the Literary Spirit--Mme. De Beaumont--Mme. De Remusat--Mme. De
+Souza--Mme. De Duras--Mme. De Krudener--Fascination of
+Mme. Recamier--Her Friends--Her Convent Salon--Chateaubriand  
+Decline of the Salon
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. SALONS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
+Characteristics of French Woman--Gallic Genius for Conversation
+--Social Conditions--Origin of the Salons--Their Power--Their
+Composition--Their Records.
+
+"Inspire, but do not write," said LeBrun to women.  Whatever we
+may think today of this rather superfluous advice, we can readily
+pardon a man living in the atmosphere of the old French salons,
+for falling somewhat under the special charm of their leaders. 
+It was a charm full of subtle flattery.  These women were usually
+clever and brilliant, but their cleverness and brilliancy were
+exercised to bring into stronger relief the talents of their
+friends.  It is true that many of them wrote, as they talked, out
+of the fullness of their own hearts or their own intelligence,
+and with no thought of a public; but it was only an incident in
+their lives, another form of diversion, which left them quite
+free from the dreaded taint of feminine authorship.  Their
+peculiar gift was to inspire others, and much of the fascination
+that gave them such power in their day still clings to their
+memories.  Even at this distance, they have a perpetual interest
+for us.  It may be that the long perspective lends them a certain
+illusion which a closer view might partly dispel.  Something also
+may be due to the dark background against which they were
+outlined.  But, in spite of time and change, they stand out upon
+the pages of history, glowing with an ever-fresh vitality, and
+personifying the genius of a civilization of which they were the
+fairest flower.
+
+The Gallic genius is eminently a social one, but it is, of all
+others, the most difficult to reproduce.  The subtle grace of
+manner, the magic of spoken words, are gone with the moment.  The
+conversations of two centuries ago are today like champagne which
+has lost its sparkle.  We may recall their tangible forms--the
+facts, the accessories, the thoughts, even the words, but the
+flavor is not there.  It is the volatile essence of gaiety and
+wit that especially characterizes French society.  It glitters
+from a thousand facets, it surprises us in a thousand delicate
+turns of thought, it appears in countless movements and shades of
+expression.  But it refuses to be imprisoned.  Hence the
+impossibility of catching the essential spirit of the salons.  We
+know something of the men and women who frequented them, as they
+have left many records of themselves.  We have numerous pictures
+of their social life from which we may partially reconstruct it
+and trace its influence.  But the nameless attraction that held
+for so long a period the most serious men of letters as well as
+the gay world still eludes us.
+
+We find the same elusive quality in the women who presided over
+these reunions.  They were true daughters of a race of which Mme.
+De Graffigny wittily said that it "escaped from the hands of
+Nature when there had entered into its composition only air and
+fire.  They certainly were not faultless; indeed, some of them
+were very faulty.  Nor were they, as a rule, remarkable for
+learning.  Even the leaders of noted literary salons often lacked
+the common essentials of a modern education.  But if they wrote
+badly and spelled badly, they had an abundance of that delicate
+combination of intellect and wit which the French call ESPRIT. 
+They had also, in superlative measure, the social gifts which
+women of genius reared in the library or apart from the world,
+are apt to lack.  The close study of books leads to a knowledge
+of man rather than of men.  It tends toward habits of
+introspection which are fatal to the clear and swift vision
+required for successful leadership of any sort.  Social talent is
+distinct, and implies a happy poise of character and intellect;
+the delicate blending of many gifts, not the supremacy of one. 
+It implies taste and versatility, with fine discrimination, and
+the tact to sink one's personality as well as to call out the
+best in others.  It was this flexibility of mind, this active
+intelligence tempered with sensibility and the native instinct of
+pleasing, that distinguished the French women who have left such
+enduring traces upon their time. "It is not sufficient to be
+wise, it is necessary also to please," said the witty and
+penetrating Ninon, who thus very aptly condensed the feminine
+philosophy of her race.  Perhaps she has revealed the secret of
+their fascination, the indefinable something which is as
+difficult to analyze as the perfume of a rose.
+
+A history of the French salons would include the history of the
+entire period of which they were so prominent a factor.  It would
+make known to us its statesmen and its warriors; it would trace
+the great currents of thought; it would give us glimpses of every
+phase of society, from the diversions of the old noblesse, with
+their sprinkling of literature and philosophy, to the familiar
+life of the men of letters, who cast about their intimate
+coteries the halo of their own genius.  These salons were closely
+interwoven with the best intellectual life of more than two
+hundred years.  Differing in tone according to the rank, taste,
+or character of their leaders, they were rallying points for the
+most famous men and women of their time.  In these brilliant
+centers, a new literature had its birth.  Here was found the fine
+critical sense that put its stamp on a new poem or a new play. 
+Here ministers were created and deposed, authors and artists were
+brought into vogue, and vacant chairs in the Academie Francaise
+were filled.  Here the great philosophy of the eighteenth century
+was cradled.  Here sat the arbiters of manners, the makers of
+social success.  To these high tribunals came, at last, every
+aspirant for fame.
+
+It was to the refinement, critical taste, and oral force of a
+rare woman, half French and half Italian, that the first literary
+salons owed their origin and their distinctive character.  In
+judging of the work of Mme. De Rambouillet, we have to consider
+that in the early days of the seventeenth century knowledge was
+not diffused as it is today.  A new light was just dawning upon
+the world, but learning was still locked in the brains of
+savants, or in the dusty tomes of languages that were practically
+obsolete.  Men of letters were dependent upon the favors of noble
+but often ignorant patrons, whom they never met on a footing of
+equality.  The position of women was as inferior as their
+education, and the incredible depravity of morals was a
+sufficient answer to the oft-repeated fallacy that the purity of
+the family is best maintained by feminine seclusion.  It is true
+there were exceptions to this reign of illiteracy.  With the
+natural disposition to glorify the past, the writers of the next
+generation liked to refer to the golden era of the Valois and the
+brilliancy of its voluptuous court.  Very likely they exaggerated
+a little the learning of Marguerite de Navarre, who was said to
+understand Latin, Italian, Spanish, even Greek and Hebrew.  But
+she had rare gifts, wrote religious poems, besides the very
+secular "Heptameron" which was not eminently creditable to her
+refinement, held independent opinions, and surrounded herself
+with men of letters.  This little oasis of intellectual light,
+shadowed as it was with vices, had its influence, and there were
+many women in the solitude of remote chateaux who began to
+cultivate a love for literature.  "The very women and maidens
+aspired to this praise and celestial manna of good learning,"
+said Rabelais.  But their reading was mainly limited to his own
+unsavory satires, to Spanish pastorals, licentious poems, and
+their books of devotion.  It was on such a foundation that Mme.
+De Rambouillet began to rear the social structure upon which her
+reputation rests.  She was eminently fitted for this role by her
+pure character and fine intelligence; but she added to these the
+advantages of rank and fortune, which gave her ample facilities
+for creating a social center of sufficient attraction to focus
+the best intellectual life of the age, and sufficient power to
+radiate its light.  Still it was the tact and discrimination to
+select from the wealth of material about her, and quietly to
+reconcile old traditions with the freshness of new ideas, that
+especially characterized Mme. De Rambouillet.
+
+It was this richness of material, the remarkable variety and
+originality of the women who clustered round and succeeded their
+graceful leader, that gave so commanding an influence to the
+salons of the seventeenth century.  No social life has been so
+carefully studied, no women have been so minutely portrayed.  The
+annals of the time are full of them.  They painted one another,
+and they painted themselves, with realistic fidelity.  The lights
+and shadows are alike defined.  We know their joys and their
+sorrows, their passions and their follies, their tastes and their
+antipathies.  Their inmost life has been revealed.  They animate,
+as living figures, a whole class of literature which they were
+largely instrumental in creating, and upon which they have left
+the stamp of their own vivid personality.  They appear later in
+the pages of Cousin and Sainte-Beuve, with their radiant features
+softened and spiritualized by the touch of time.  We rise from a
+perusal of these chronicles of a society long passed away, with
+the feeling that we have left a company of old friends.  We like
+to recall their pleasant talk of themselves, of their companions,
+of the lighter happenings, as well as the more serious side of
+the age which they have illuminated.  We seem to see their faces,
+not their manner, watch the play of intellect and feeling, while
+they speak.  The variety is infinite and full of charm.
+
+Mme. de Sevigne talks upon paper, of the trifling affairs of
+every-day life, adding here and there a sparkling anecdote, a bit
+of gossip, a delicate characterization, a trenchant criticism, a
+dash of wit, a touch of feeling, or a profound thought.  All this
+is lighted up by her passionate love of her daughter, and in this
+light we read the many-sided life of her time for twenty-five
+years.  Mme. de La Fayette takes the world more seriously, and
+replaces the playful fancy of her friend by a richer vein of
+imagination and sentiment.  She sketches for us the court of
+which Madame (title given to the wife of the king's brother) is
+the central figure--the unfortunate Princes Henrietta whom she
+loved so tenderly, and who died so tragically in her arms.  She
+writes novels too; not profound studies of life, but fine and
+exquisite pictures of that side of the century which appealed
+most to her poetic sensibility.  We follow the leading characters
+of the age through the ten-volume romances of Mlle. de Scudery,
+which have mostly long since fallen into oblivion.  Doubtless the
+portraits are a trifle rose-colored, but they accord, in the
+main, with more veracious history.  The Grande Mademoiselle
+describes herself and her friends, with the curious naivete of a
+spoiled child who thinks its smallest experiences of interest to
+all the world.  Mme. de Maintenon gives us another picture, more
+serious, more thoughtful, but illuminated with flashes of
+wonderful insight.
+
+Most of these women wrote simply to amuse themselves and their
+friends.  It was only another mode of their versatile expression. 
+With rare exceptions, they were not authors consciously or by
+intention.  They wrote spontaneously, and often with reckless
+disregard of grammar and orthography.  But the people who move
+across their gossiping pages are alive.  The century passes in
+review before us as we read.  The men and women who made its
+literature so brilliant and its salons so famous, become vivid
+realities.  Prominent among the fair faces that look out upon us
+at every turn, from court and salon, is that of the Duchesse de
+Longueville, sister of the Grand Conde, and heroine of the
+Fronde.  Her lovely blue eyes, with their dreamy languor and
+"luminous awakenings," turn the heads alike of men and women, of
+poet and critic, of statesman and priest.  We trace her brief
+career through her pure and ardent youth, her loveless marriage,
+her fatal passion for La Rochefoucauld, the final shattering of
+all her illusions; and when at last, tired of the world, she bows
+her beautiful head in penitent prayer, we too love and forgive
+her, as others have done.  Were not twenty-five years of
+suffering and penance an ample expiation?  She was one of the
+three women of whom Cardinal Mazarin said that they were "capable
+of governing and overturning three kingdoms."  The others were
+the intriguing Duchesse de Chevreuse, who dazzled the age by her
+beauty and her daring escapades, and the fascinating Anne de
+Gonzague, better known as the Princesse Palatine, of whose
+winning manners, conversational charm, penetrating intellect, and
+loyal character Bossuet spoke so eloquently at her death.  We
+catch pleasant glimpses of Mme. Deshoulieres, beautiful and a
+poet; of Mme. Cornuel, of whom it was said that "every sin she
+confessed was an epigram"; of Mme. de Choisy, witty and piquante;
+of Mme. de Doulanges, also a wit and femme d'esprit.
+
+Linked with these by a thousand ties of sympathy and affection
+were the worthy counterparts of Pascal and Arnauld, of Bossuet
+and Fenelon, the devoted women who poured out their passionate
+souls at the foot of the cross, and laid their earthly hopes upon
+the altar of divine love.  We follow the devout Jacqueline Pascal
+to the cloister in which she buries her brilliant youth to die at
+thirty-five of a wounded conscience and a broken heart.  Many a
+bruised spirit, as it turns from the gay world to the mystic
+devotion which touches a new chord in its jaded sensibilities,
+finds support and inspiration in the strong and fervid sympathy
+of Jacqueline Arnauld, better known as Mere Angelique of Port
+Royal.  This profound spiritual passion was a part of the intense
+life of the century, which gravitated from love and ambition to
+the extremes of penitence and asceticism.
+
+A multitude of minor figures, graceful and poetic, brilliant and
+spirituelles, flit across the canvas, leaving the fragrance of an
+exquisite individuality, and tempting one to extend the list of
+the versatile women who toned and colored the society of the
+period.  But we have to do, at present, especially with those who
+gathered and blended this fresh intelligence, delicate fancy,
+emotional wealth, and religious fervor, into a society including
+such men as Corneille, Balzac, Bossuet, Richelieu, Conde, Pascal,
+Arnault, and La Rochefoucauld--those who are known as leaders of
+more or less celebrated salons.  Of these, Mme. de Rambouillet
+and Mme. de Sable were among the best representative types of
+their time, and the first of the long line of social queens who,
+through their special gift of leadership, held so potent a sway
+for two centuries.
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET
+Mme. de Rambouillet--The Salon Bleu--Its Habitues--Its
+Diversions--Corneille--Balzac--Richelieu--Romance of the
+Grand Conde--The Young Bossuet--Voiture--The Duchesse de
+Longueville--Angelique Paulet--Julie d'Angennes--Les
+Precieuses Ridicules--Decline of the Salon--Influence upon
+Literature and Manners
+
+The Hotel de Rambouillet has been called the "cradle of polished
+society," but the personality of its hostess is less familiar
+than that of many who followed in her train.  This may be partly
+due to the fact that she left no record of herself on paper.  She
+aptly embodied the kind advice of Le Brun.  It was her special
+talent to inspire others and to combine the various elements of a
+brilliant and complex social life.  The rare tact which enabled
+her to do this lay largely in a certain self-effacement and the
+peculiar harmony of a nature which presented few salient points. 
+She is best represented by the salon of which she was the
+architect and the animating spirit; but even this is better known
+today through its faults than its virtues.  It is a pleasant task
+to clear off a little dust from its memorials, and to paint in
+fresh colors one who played so important a role in the history of
+literature and manners.
+
+Catherine de Vivonne was born at Rome in 1588.  Her father, the
+Marquis de Pisani, was French ambassador, and she belonged
+through her mother to the old Roman families of Strozzi and
+Savelli.  Married at sixteen to the Count d'Angennes, afterwards
+Marquis de Rambouillet, she was introduced to the world at the
+gay court of Henry IV.  But the coarse and depraved manners which
+ruled there were altogether distasteful to her delicate and
+fastidious nature.  At twenty she retired from these brilliant
+scenes of gilded vice, and began to gather round her the coterie
+of choice spirits which later became so famous.
+
+Filled with the poetic ideals and artistic tastes which had been
+nourished in a thoughtful and elegant seclusion, it seems to have
+been the aim of her life to give them outward expression.  Her
+mind, which inherited the subtle refinement of the land of her
+birth, had taken its color from the best Italian and Spanish
+literature, but she was in no sense a learned woman.  She was
+once going to study Latin, in order to read Virgil, but was
+prevented by ill health.  It is clear, however, that she had a
+great diversity of gifts, with a basis of rare good sense and
+moral elevation.  "She was revered, adored," writes Mme. de
+Motteville; "a model of courtesy, wisdom, knowledge, and
+sweetness."  She is always spoken of in the chronicles of her
+time as a loyal wife, a devoted mother, the benefactor of the
+suffering, and the sympathetic adviser of authors and artists. 
+The poet Segrais says: "She was amiable and gracious, of a sound
+and just mind; it is she who has corrected the bad customs which
+prevailed before her.  She taught politeness to all those of her
+time who frequented her house.  She was also a good friend, and
+kind to every one."  We are told that she was beautiful, but we
+know only that her face was fair and delicate, her figure tall
+and graceful, and her manner stately and dignified.  Her Greek
+love of beauty expressed itself in all her appointments.  The
+unique and original architecture of her hotel,--which was
+modeled after her own designs,--the arrangement of her salon,
+the pursuits she chose, and the amusements she planned, were all
+a part of her own artistic nature.  This was shown also in her
+code of etiquette, which imposed a fine courtesy upon the members
+of her coterie, and infused into life the spirit of politeness,
+which one of her countrymen has called the "flower of humanity." 
+But this esthetic quality was tempered with a clear judgment, and
+a keen appreciation of merit and talent, which led her to gather
+into her society many not "to the manner born."  Sometimes she
+delicately aided a needy man of letters to present a respectable
+appearance--a kindness much less humiliating in those days of
+patronage that it would be today.  As may readily be imagined,
+these new elements often jarred upon the tastes and prejudices of
+her noble guests, but in spite of this it was considered an honor
+to be received by her, and, though not even a duchess, she was
+visited by princesses.
+
+Adding to this spirit of noble independence the prestige of rank,
+beauty, and fortune; a temper of mingled sweetness and strength;
+versatile gifts controlled by an admirable reason; a serene and
+tranquil character; a playful humor, free from the caprices of a
+too exacting sensibility; a perfect savoir-faire, and we have the
+unusual combination which enabled her to hold her sway for so
+many years, without a word of censure from even the most scandal-
+loving of chroniclers.
+
+"We have sought in vain," writes Cousin, "for that which is
+rarely lacking in any life of equal or even less brilliancy, some
+calumny or scandal, an equivocal word, or the lightest epigram. 
+We have found only a concert of warm eulogies which have run
+through many generations. . . .  She has disarmed Tallemant
+himself.  This caricaturist of the seventeenth century has been
+pitiless towards the habitues of her illustrious house, but he
+praises her with a warmth which is very impressive from such a
+source."
+
+The modern spirit of change has long since swept away all
+vestiges of the old Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Lourvre and the time-
+honored dwellings that ornamented it.  Conspicuous among these,
+and not far from the Palais Royal, was the famous Hotel de
+Rambouillet.  The Salon Bleu has become historic.  This
+"sanctuary of the Temple of Athene," as it was called in the
+stilted language of the day, has been illuminated for us by the
+rank, beauty, and talent of the Augustan age of France.  We are
+more or less familiar with even the minute details of the
+spacious room, whose long windows, looking across the little
+garden towards the Tuileries, let in a flood of golden sunlight. 
+We picture to ourselves its draperies of blue and gold, its
+curious cabinets, its choice works of art, its Venetian lamps,
+and its crystal vases always filled with flowers that scatter the
+perfume of spring.
+
+It was here that Mme. de Rambouillet held her court for nearly
+thirty years, her salon reaching the height of its power under
+Richelieu, and practically closing with the Fronde.  She sought
+to gather all that was most distinguished, whether for wit,
+beauty, talent, or birth, into an atmosphere of refinement and
+simple elegance, which should tone down all discordant elements
+and raise life to the level of a fine art.  There was a strongly
+intellectual flavor in the amusements, as well as in the
+discussions of this salon, and the place of honor was given to
+genius, learning, and good manners, rather than to rank.  But it
+was by no means purely literary.  The exclusive spirit of the old
+aristocracy, with its hauteur and its lofty patronage, found
+itself face to face with fresh ideals.  The position of the
+hostess enabled her to break the traditional barriers, and form a
+society upon a new basis, but in spite of the mingling of classes
+hitherto separated, the dominant life was that of the noblesse. 
+Woman of rank gave the tone and made the laws.  Their code of
+etiquette was severe.  They aimed to combine the graces of Italy
+with the chivalry of Spain.  The model man must have a keen
+sense of honor, and wit without pedantry; he must be brave,
+heroic, generous, gallant, but he must also possess good breeding
+and gentle courtesy.  The coarse passions which had disgraced the
+court were refined into subtle sentiments, and women were raised
+upon a pedestal, to be respectfully and platonically adored.  In
+this reaction from extreme license, familiarity was forbidden,
+and language was subjected to a critical censorship.  It was here
+that the word PRECIEUSE was first used to signify a woman of
+personal distinction, accomplished in the highest sense, with a
+perfect accord of intelligence, good taste, and good manners. 
+Later, when pretension crept into the inferior circles which took
+this one for a model, the term came to mean a sort of
+intellectual parvenue, half prude and half pedant, who affected
+learning, and paraded it like fine clothes, for effect.
+
+"Do you remember," said Flechier, many years later, in his
+funeral oration on the death of the Duchesse de Montausier, "the
+salons which are still regarded with so much veneration, where
+the spirit was purified, where virtue was revered under the name
+of the incomparable Arthenice; where people of merit and quality
+assembled, who composed a select court, numerous without
+confusion, modest without constraint, learned without pride,
+polished without affectation?"
+
+Whatever allowance we may be disposed to make for the friendship
+of the eminent abbe, he spoke with the authority of personal
+knowledge, and at a time when the memories of the Hotel de
+Rambouillet were still fresh.  It is true that those who belonged
+to this professed school of morals were not all patterns of
+decorum.  But we cannot judge by the Anglo-Saxon standards of the
+nineteenth century the faults of an age in which a Ninon de
+L'Enclos lives on terms of veiled intimacy with a strait-laced
+Mme. de Maintenon, and, when age has given her a certain title to
+respectability, receives in her salon women of as spotless
+reputation as Mme. de La Fayette.  Measured from the level of
+their time, the lives of the Rambouillet coterie stand out white
+and shining.  The pure character of the Marquise and her
+daughters was above reproach, and they were quoted as "models
+whom all the world cited, all the world admired, and every one
+tried to imitate."  To be a precieuse was in itself an evidence
+of good conduct.
+
+"This salon was a resort not only for all the fine wits, but for
+every one who frequented the court," writes Mme. de Motteville. 
+"It was a sort of academy of beaux esprits, of gallantry, of
+virtue, and of science," says St. Simon; "for these things
+accorded marvelously.  It was a rendevous of all that was most
+distinguished in condition and in merit; a tribunal with which it
+was necessary to count, and whose decisions upon the conduct and
+reputation of people of the court and the world, had great
+weight."
+
+Corneille read most of his dramas here, and, if report be true,
+read them very badly.  He says of himself:
+
+Et l'on peut rarement m'ecouter sans ennui,
+Que quand je me produis par la bouche d'autrui.
+
+He was shy, awkward, ill at ease, not clear in speech, and rather
+heavy in conversation, but the chivalric and heroic character of
+his genius was quite in accord with the lofty and rather romantic
+standards affected by this circle, and made him one of its
+central literary figures.  Another was Balzac, whose fine
+critical taste did so much for the elegance and purity of the
+French language, and who was as noted in his day as was his
+namesake, the brilliant author of the "Comedie Humaine," two
+centuries later.  His long letters to the Marquise, on the
+Romans, were read and discussed in his absence, and it was
+through his influence, added to her own classic ideals, that
+Roman dignity and urbanity were accepted as models in the new
+code of manners; indeed, it was he who introduced the word
+URBANITE into the language.  Armand du Plessis, who aimed to be
+poet as well as statesman, read here in his youth a thesis on
+love.  When did a Frenchman ever fail to write with facility upon
+this fertile theme?  After he became Cardinal de Richelieu he
+feared the influence of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and sent a
+request to its hostess to report what was said of him there.  She
+replied with consummate tact, that her guests were so strongly
+persuaded of her friendship for his Eminence, that no one would
+have the temerity to speak ill of him in her presence.
+
+Even the Grand Conde courted the muses, and wrote verses which
+were bad for a poet, though fairly good for a warrior.  If it be
+true that every man is a poet once in his life, we may infer that
+this was about the time of his sad little romance with the pretty
+and charming Mlle. du Vigean, who was one of the youthful
+attractions of this coterie.  Family ambition stood in the way of
+their marriage, and the prince yielded to the wishes of his
+friends.  The Grande Mademoiselle tells us that this was the only
+veritable passion of the brave young hero of many battles, and
+that he fainted at the final separation.  United to a wife he did
+not love, and whom he did not scruple to treat very ill, he gave
+himself to glory and, it must be added, to unworthy intrigues. 
+The pure-hearted young girl buried her beauty and her sorrows in
+the convent of the Carmelites, and was no more heard of in the
+gay world.
+
+It is evident that the great soldier sometimes forgot the
+urbanity which was so strongly insisted upon in this society.  He
+is said to have carried the impetuosity of his character into his
+conversation.  When he had a good cause, he sustained it with
+grace and amiability.  If it was a bad one, however, his eyes
+flashed, and he became so violent that it was thought prudent not
+to contradict him.  It is related that Boileau, after yielding
+one day in a dispute, remarked in a low voice to a friend:
+"Hereafter I shall always be of the opinion of the Prince when he
+is wrong."
+
+Bossuet, when a boy of seventeen, improvised here one evening a
+sermon on a given theme, which was so eloquent that it held the
+company until near midnight.  "I have never heard any one preach
+so early and so late," remarked the witty Voiture, as he
+congratulated the youthful orator at the close.
+
+This famous bel esprit played a very prominent part here.  His
+role was to amuse, and his talents gave him great vogue, but at
+this distance his small vanities strike one much more vividly
+than the wit which flashed out with the moment, or the vers de
+societe on which his fame rests.  He owed his social success to a
+rather high-flown love letter which he evidently thought too good
+to be lost to the world.  He sent it to a friend, who had it
+printed and circulated.  What the lady thought does not appear,
+but it made the fortune of the poet.  Though the son of a wine
+merchant, and without rank, he had little more of the spirit of a
+courtier than Voltaire, and his biting epigrams were no less
+feared.  "If he were one of us, he would be insupportable," said
+Conde.  But his caprices were tolerated for the sake of his
+inexhaustible wit, and he was petted and spoiled to the end.  
+
+A list of the men of letters who appeared from time to time at
+the Hotel de Rambouillet would include the most noted names of
+the century, besides many which were famous in their day, but at
+present are little more than historical shadows.  The
+conversations were often learned, doubtless sometimes
+pretentious.  One is inclined to wonder if these noble cavaliers
+and high-born woman did not yawn occasionally over the scholarly
+discourse of Corneille and Balzac upon the Romans, the endless
+disputes about rival sonnets, and the long discussions on the
+value of a word.  "Doubtless it is a very beautiful poem, but
+also very tiresome," said Mme. de Longueville, after Chapelain
+had finished reading his "Pucelle"--a work which aimed to be the
+Iliad of France, but succeeded only in being very long and rather
+heavy.
+
+This lovely young Princess, who at sixteen had the exaltation of
+a religieuse, and was with difficulty won from her dreams of
+renunciation and a cloister, had become the wife of a man many
+years her senior, whom she did not love, and the idol of the
+brilliant world in which she lived.  La Rochefoucauld had not yet
+disturbed the serenity of her heart, nor political intrigues her
+peace of mind.  It was before the Fronde, in which she was
+destined to play so conspicuous a part, and she was still content
+with the role of a reigning beauty; but she was not at all averse
+to the literary entertainments of this salon, in which her own
+fascinations were so delightfully sung.  She found the flattering
+verses of Voiture more to her taste than the stately epic of
+Chapelain, took his side warmly against Benserade in the famous
+dispute as to the merits of their two sonnets, "Job" and "Urania,"
+and won him a doubtful victory.  The poems of Voiture lose much
+of their flavor in translation, but I venture to give a verse in
+the original, which was addressed to the charming princesse, and
+which could hardly fail to win the favor of a young and beautiful
+woman.
+
+De perles, d'astres, et de fleurs,
+Bourbon, le ciel fit tes couleurs,
+Et mit dedans tout ce melange
+L'esprit d'une ange.
+
+But the diversions were by no means always grave or literary. 
+Life was represented on many sides, one secret, doubtless, of the
+wide influence of this society.  The daughters of Mme. de
+Rambouillet, and her son, the popular young Marquis de Pisani,
+formed a nucleus of youth and gaiety.  To these we may add the
+beautiful Angelique Paulet, who at seventeen had turned the head
+of Henri IV, and escaped the fatal influence of that imperious
+sovereign's infatuation by his timely, or untimely, death.  Fair
+and brilliant, the best singer of her time, skilled also in
+playing the lute, and gifted with a special dramatic talent, she
+was always a favorite, much loved by her friends and much sung by
+the poets.  Her proud and impetuous character, her frank and
+original manners, together with her luxuriance of blonde hair,
+gained her the sobriquet of La Belle Lionne.  Nor must we forget
+Mlle. de Scudery, one of the most constant literary lights of
+this salon, and in some sense its chronicler; nor the fastidious
+Mme. de Sable.
+
+The brightest ornament of the Hotel de Rambouillet, however, was
+Julie d'Angennes, the petted daughter of the house, the devoted
+companion and clever assistant of her mother.  Her gaiety of
+heart, amiable temper, ready wit, and gracious manners surrounded
+her with an atmosphere of perpetual sunshine.  Fertile in
+resources, of fine intelligence, winning the love alike of men
+and women, she was the soul of the serious conversations, as well
+as of the amusements which relieved them.  These amusements were
+varied and often original.  They played little comedies.  They
+had mythological fetes, draping themselves as antique gods and
+goddesses.  Sometimes they indulged in practical jokes and
+surprises, which were more laughable than dignified.  Malherbe
+and Racan, the latter sighing hopelessly over the attractions of
+the dignified Marquise, gave her the romantic name of Arthenice,
+and forthwith the other members of the coterie took some nom de
+parnasse, by which they were familiarly known.  They read the
+"Astree" of d'Urfe, that platonic dream of a disillusioned lover;
+discussed the romances of Calprenede and the sentimental
+Bergeries of Racan.  Such Arcadian pictures seemed to have a
+singular fascination for these courtly dames and plumed
+cavaliers.  They tried to reproduce them.  Assuming the
+characters of the rather insipid Strephons and florimels, they
+made love in pastoral fashion, with pipe and lute--these rustic
+diversions serving especially to while away the long summer days
+in the country at Rambouillet, at Chantilly, or at Ruel.  They
+improvised sonnets and madrigals; they praised each other in
+verse; they wrote long letters on the slightest pretext.  As a
+specimen of the badinage so much in vogue, I quote from a letter
+written by Voiture to one of the daughters of Mme. de
+Rambouillet, who was an abbess, and had sent him a present of a
+cat.
+
+"Madame, I was already so devoted to you that I supposed you knew
+there was no need of winning me by presents, or trying to take me
+like a rat, with a cat.  Nevertheless, if there was anything in
+my thought that was not wholly yours, the cat which you have sent
+me has captured it."  After a eulogy upon the cat, he adds: "I
+can only say that it is very difficult to keep, and for a cat
+religiously brought up it is very little inclined to seclusion. 
+It never sees a window without wishing to jump out, it would have
+leaped over the wall twenty times if it had not been prevented,
+and no secular cat could be more lawless or more self-willed."
+
+The wit here is certainly rather attenuated, but the subject is
+an ungrateful one.  Mme. de Sevigne finds Voiture "libre, badin,
+charmant," and disposes of his critics by saying, "So much the
+worse for those who do not understand him."  One is often puzzled
+to detect this rare spirituelle quality; but it is fair to
+presume that it was of the volatile sort that evaporates with
+time. 
+
+All this sentimental masquerading and exaggerated gallantry
+suggests the vulnerable side of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and the
+side which its enemies have been disposed to make very prominent. 
+Among those who tried to imitate this salon, Spanish chivalry
+doubtless degenerated into a thousand absurdities, and it must be
+admitted that the salon itself was not free from reproach on this
+point.  It became the fashion to write and talk in the language
+of hyperbole.  Sighing lovers were consumed with artificial
+fires, and ready to die with affected languors.  Like the old
+poets of Provence, whose spirit they caught and whose phrases
+they repeated, they were dying of love they did not feel.  The
+eyes of Phyllis extinguished the sun.  The very nightingales
+expired of jealousy, after hearing the voice of Angelique.
+
+It would be difficult, perhaps, to find anywhere a company of
+clever people bent upon amusing themselves and passing every day
+more or less together, whose sayings and doings would bear to be
+exactly chronicled.  The literary diversions and poetic ideals of
+this circle, too, gave a certain color to the charge of
+affectation, among people of less refined instincts, who found
+its esprit incomprehensible, its manners prudish, and its virtue
+a tacit reproach; but the dignified and serious character of many
+of its constant habitues should be a sufficient guarantee that it
+did not greatly pass the limits of good taste and good sense. 
+The only point upon which Mme. de Rambouillet seems to have been
+open to criticism was a certain formal reserve and an over-
+fastidious delicacy; but in an age when the standards of both
+refinement and morals were so low, this implies a virtue rather
+than a defect.  Nor does her character appear to have been at all
+tinged with pretension.  "I should fear from your example to
+write in a style too elevated," says Voiture, in a letter to her. 
+But traditions are strong, and people do not readily adapt
+themselves to new models.  Character and manners are a growth. 
+That which is put on, and not ingrained, is apt to lack true
+balance and proportion.  Hence it is not strange that this new
+order of things resulted in many crudities and exaggerations.
+
+It is not worth while to criticize too severely the plumed
+knights who took the heroes of Corneille as models, played the
+harmless lover, and paid the tribute of chivalric deference to
+women.  The strained politeness may have been artificial, and the
+forms of chivalry very likely outran the feeling, but they served
+at least to keep it alive, while the false platonism and ultra-
+refined sentiment were simply moral protests against the coarse
+vices of the time.  The prudery which reached a satirical climax
+in "Les Precieuses Ridicules" was a natural reaction from the
+sensuality of a Marguerite and a Gabrielle.  Mme. de Rambouillet
+saw and enjoyed the first performance of this celebrated play,
+nor does it appear that she was at all disturbed by the keen
+satire which was generally supposed to have been directed toward
+her salon.  Moliere himself disclaims all intention of attacking
+the true precieuse; but the world is not given to fine
+discrimination, and the true suffers from the blow aimed at the
+false.  This brilliant comedian, whose manners were not of the
+choicest, was more at home in the lax and epicurean world of
+Ninon and Mme. de la Sabliere--a world which naturally did not
+find the decorum of the precieuses at all to its taste; the
+witticism of Ninon, who defined them as the "Jansenists of love,"
+is well known.  It is not unlikely that Moliere shared her
+dislike of the powerful and fastidious coterie whose very virtues
+might easily have furnished salient points for his scathing wit.
+
+But whatever affectations may have grown out of the new code of
+manners, it had a more lasting result in the fine and stately
+courtesy which pervaded the later social life of the century.  We
+owe, too, a profound gratitude to these women who exacted and
+were able to command a consideration which with many shades of
+variation has been left as a permanent heritage to their sex.  We
+may smile at some of their follies; have we not our own which
+some nineteenth century Moliere may serve up for the delight and
+possible misleading of future generations?
+
+There is a warm human side to this daily intercourse, with its
+sweet and gracious courtesies.  The women who discuss grave
+questions and make or unmake literary reputations in the salon,
+are capable of rare sacrifices and friendships that seem quixotic
+in their devotion.  Cousin, who has studied them so carefully and
+so sympathetically, has saved from oblivion many private letters
+which give us pleasant glimpses of their everyday life.  As we
+listen to their quiet exchange of confidences, we catch the smile
+that plays over the light badinage, or the tear that lurks in the
+tender words.
+
+A little son of Mme. de Rambouillet has the small pox, and his
+sister Julie shares the care of him with her mother, when every
+one else has fled.  At his death, she devotes herself to her
+friend Mme. de Longueville, who soon after her marriage is
+attacked with the same dreaded malady.  Mme. de Sable is afraid
+of contagion, and refuses to see Mlle. de Rambouillet, who writes
+her a characteristic letter.  As it gives us a vivid idea of her
+esprit as well as of her literary style, I copy it in full,
+though it has been made already familiar to the English reader by
+George Eliot, in her admirable review of Cousin's "Life of Mme. De
+Sable."
+
+Mlle de Chalais (Dame de compagnie to the Marquise) will please
+read this letter to Mme. la Marquise, out of the wind.
+
+Madame, I cannot begin my treaty with you too early, for I am
+sure that between the first proposition made for me to see you,
+and the conclusion, you will have so many reflections to make, so
+many physicians to consult, and so many fears to overcome, that I
+shall have full leisure to air myself.  The conditions which I
+offer are, not to visit you until I have been three days absent
+from the Hotel de Conde, to change all my clothing, to choose a
+day when it has frozen, not to approach you within four paces,
+not to sit down upon more than one seat.  You might also have a
+great fire in your room, burn juniper in the four corners,
+surround yourself with imperial vinegar, rue, and wormwood.  If
+you can feel safe under these conditions, without my cutting off
+my hair, I swear to you to execute them religiously; and if you
+need examples to fortify you, I will tell you that the Queen saw
+M. de Chaudebonne when he came from Mlle. de Bourbon's room, and
+that Mme. d'Aiguillon, who has good taste and is beyond criticism
+on such points, has just sent me word that if I did not go to see
+her, she should come after me.
+
+Mme. de Sable retorts in a satirical vein, that her friend is too
+well instructed in the needed precautions, to be quite free from
+the charge of timidity, adding the hope that since she
+understands the danger, she will take better care of herself in
+the future.
+
+This calls forth another letter, in which Mlle. de Rambouillet
+says, "One never fears to see those whom one loves.  I would have
+given much, for your sake, if this had not occurred."  She closes
+this spicy correspondence, however, with a very affectionate
+letter which calms the ruffled temper of her sensitive companion.
+
+Mme. de Sable has another friend, Mlle. d'Attichy, who figures
+quite prominently in the social life of a later period, as the
+Comtesse de Maure.  "This lady was just leaving Paris to visit
+her in the country, when she learned that Mme. de Sable had
+written to Mme. de Rambouillet that she could conceive of no
+greater happiness than to pass her life alone with Julie
+d'Angennes.  This touches her sensibilities so keenly that she
+changes her plans, and refuses to visit one who could find her
+pleasure away from her.  Mme. de Sable tries in vain to appease
+her exacting friend, who replies to her explanations by a long
+letter in which she recalls their tender and inviolable
+friendship, and closes with these words:
+
+Malheurteuse est l'ignorance,
+Et plus malheureux le savoir.
+
+Having thus lost a confidence which alone rendered life
+supportable to me, I cannot dream of taking the journey so much
+talked of; for there would be no propriety in traveling sixty
+leagues at this season, in order to burden you with a person so
+uninteresting to you, that after years of a passion without
+parallel you cannot help thinking that the greatest pleasure
+would consist in passing life without her.  I return then into my
+solitude, to examine the faults which cause me so much
+unhappiness, and unless I can correct them, I should have less
+joy than confusion in seeing you.  I kiss your hands very humbly.
+
+How this affair was adjusted does not appear, but as they
+remained devoted friends through life, unable to live apart, or
+pass a day happily without seeing each other, it evidently did
+not end in a serious alienation.  It suggests, however, a
+delicacy and an exaltation of feeling which we are apt to accord
+only to love, and which go far toward disproving the verdict of
+Mongaigne, that "the soul of a woman is not firm enough for so
+durable a tie as friendship."
+
+We like to dwell upon these inner phases of a famous and powerful
+coterie, not only because they bring before us so vividly the
+living, moving, thinking, loving women who composed it, letting
+us into their intimate life with its quiet shadings, its
+fantastic humors, and its wayward caprices, but because they lead
+us to the fountain head of a new form of literary expression.  We
+have seen that the formal letters of Balzac were among the early
+entertainments of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and that Voiture had
+a witty or sentimental note for every occasion.  Mlle. de Scudery
+held a ready pen, and was in the habit of noting down in her
+letters to absent friends the conversation, which ran over a
+great variety of topics, from the gossip of the moment to the
+gravest questions.  There was no morning journal with its columns
+of daily news, no magazine with its sketches of contemporary
+life, and these private letters were passed from one to another
+to be read and discussed.  The craze for clever letters spread. 
+Conversations literally overflowed upon paper.  A romantic
+adventure, a bit of scandal, a drawing room incident, or a
+personal pique, was a fruitful theme.  Everybody aimed to excel
+in an art which brought a certain prestige.  These letters, most
+of which had their brief day, were often gathered into little
+volumes.  Many have long since disappeared, or found burial in
+the dust of old libraries from which they are occasionally
+exhumed to throw fresh light upon some forgotten nook and by way
+of an age whose habits and manners, virtues and follies, they so
+faithfully record.  A few, charged with the vitality of genius,
+retain their freshness and live among the enduring monuments of
+the society that gave them birth.  The finest outcome of this
+prevailing taste was Mme. de Sevigne, who still reigns as the
+queen of graceful letter writers.  Although her maturity belongs
+to a later period, she was familiar with the Rambouillet circle
+in her youth, and inherited its best spirit.
+
+The charm of this literature is its spontaneity.  It has no
+ulterior aim, but delights in simple expression.  These people
+write because they like to write.  They are original because they
+sketch from life.  There is something naive and fresh in their
+vivid pictures.  They give us all the accessories.  They tell us
+how they lived, how they dressed, how they thought, how they
+acted.  They talk of their plans, their loves, and their private
+piques, with the same ingenuous frankness.  They condense for us
+their worldly philosophy, their sentiments, and their experience. 
+The style of these letters is sometimes heavy and stilted, the
+wit is often strained and far-fetched, but many of them are
+written with an easy grace and a lightness of touch as
+fascinating as inimitable.
+
+The marriage of Julie d'Angennes, in 1645, deprived the Hotel de
+Rambouillet of one of its chief attractions.  It was only through
+the earnest wish of her family that, after a delay of thirteen
+years, she yielded at last to the persevering suit of the
+Marquis, afterwards the Duc de Montausier, and became his wife. 
+She was then thirty-eight, and he three years younger.  The
+famous "Guirlande de Julie," which he dedicated and presented to
+her, still exists, as the unique memorial of his patient and
+enduring love.  This beautiful volume, richly bound, decorated
+with a flower exquisitely painted on each of the twenty-nine
+leaves and accompanied by a madrigal written by the Marquis
+himself or by some of the poets who frequented her house, was a
+remarkable tribute to the graces of the woman whose praises were
+so delicately sung.  The faithful lover, who was a Protestant,
+gave a crowning proof of his devotion, in changing his religion. 
+So much adoration could hardly fail to touch the most capricious
+and obdurate of hearts.
+
+We cannot dismiss this woman, whom Cousin regards as the most
+accomplished type of the society she adorned, without a word
+more.  Though her ambition was gratified by the honors that fell
+upon her husband, who after holding many high positions was
+finally entrusted with the education of the Dauphin; and though
+her own appointment of dame d'honneur to the Queen gave her an
+envied place at court, we trace with regret the close of her
+brilliant career.  As has been already indicated, she added to
+much esprit a character of great sweetness, and manners facile,
+gracious, even caressing.  With less elevation, less
+independence, and less firmness than her mother, she had more of
+the sympathetic quality, the frank unreserve, that wins the
+heart.  No one had so many adorers; no one scattered so many
+hopeless passions; no one so gently tempered these into
+friendships.  She knew always how to say the fitting word, to
+charm away the clouds of ill humor, to conciliate opposing
+interests.  But this spirit of complaisance which, however
+charming it may be, is never many degrees removed from the spirit
+of the courtier, proved to be the misfortune of her later life. 
+Too amiable, perhaps too diplomatic, to frown openly upon the
+King's irregularities, she was accused, whether justly or
+otherwise, of tacitly favoring his relations with Mme. De
+Montespan.  The husband of this lady took his wife's infidelity
+very much to heart, and, failing to find any redress, forced
+himself one day into the presence of Madam de Montausier, and
+made a violent scene which so affected her that she fell into a
+profound melancholy and an illness from which she never rallied. 
+There is always an air of mystery thrown about this affair, and
+it is difficult to fathom the exact truth; but the results were
+sufficiently tragical to the woman who was quoted by her age as a
+model of virtue and decorum.
+
+In 1648, the troubles of the Fronde, which divided friends and
+added fuel to petty social rivalries, scattered the most noted
+guests of the Hotel de Rambouillet.  Voiture was dead; Angelique
+Paulet died two years later.  The young Marquis de Pisani, the
+only son and the hope of his family, had fallen with many brave
+comrades on the field of Nordlingen.  Of the five daughters,
+three were abbesses of convents.  The health of the Marquise,
+which had always been delicate, was still further enfeebled by
+the successive griefs which darkened her closing years.  Her
+husband, of whom we know little save that he was sent on various
+foreign missions, and "loved his wife always as a lover," died in
+1652.  She survived him thirteen years, living to see the death
+of her youngest daughter, Angelique, wife of the Comte de Grignan
+who was afterwards the son-in-law of Mme. de Sevigne.  She
+witnessed the elevation of her favorite Julie, but was spared the
+grief of her death which occurred five or six years after her
+own.  The aged Marquise, true to her early tastes, continued to
+receive her friends in her ruelle, and her salon had a brief
+revival when the Duchesse de Montausier returned from the
+provinces, after the second Fronde; but its freshness had faded
+with its draperies of blue and gold.  The brilliant company that
+made it so famous was dispersed, and the glory of the Salon Bleu
+was gone.
+
+There is something infinitely pathetic in the epitaph this much-
+loved and successful woman wrote for herself when she felt that
+the end was near:
+
+Ici git Arthenice, exempte des rigueurs
+Don't la rigueur du sort l'a touours poursuivie.
+Et si tu veux, passant, compter tous ses malheurs,
+Tu n'aura qu'a, compter les moments de sa vie.
+
+The spirit of unrest is there beneath the calm exterior.  It may
+be some hidden wound; it may be only the old, old weariness, the
+inevitable burden of the race.  "Mon Dieu!" wrote Mme. de
+Maintenon, in the height of her worldly success, "how sad life
+is!  I pass my days without other consolation than the thought
+that death will end it all."
+
+Mme. de Rambouillet had worked unconsciously toward a very
+important end.  She found a language crude and inelegant, manners
+coarse and licentious, morals dissolute and vicious.  Her
+influence was at its height in the age of Corneille and
+Descartes, and she lived almost to the culmination of the era of
+Racine and Moliere, of Boileau and La Bruyere, of Bossuet and
+Fenelon, the era of simple and purified language, of refined and
+stately manners, and of at least outward respect for morality. 
+To these results she largely contributed.  Her salon was the
+social and literary power of the first half of the century.  In
+an age of political espionage, it maintained its position and its
+dignity.  It sustained Corneille against the persecutions of
+Richelieu, and numbered among its habitues the founders of the
+Academie Francaise, who continued the critical reforms begun
+there.
+
+As a school of politeness, it has left permanent traces.  This
+woman of fine ideals and exalted standards exacted of others the
+purity of character, delicacy of thought, and urbanity of manner,
+which she possessed in so eminent a degree herself.  Her code was
+founded upon the best instincts of humanity, and whatever
+modifications of form time has wrought its essential spirit
+remains unchanged.  "Politeness does not always inspire goodness,
+equity, complaisance, gratitude," says La Bruyere, "but it gives
+at least the appearance of these qualities, and makes man seem
+externally what he ought to be internally."
+
+It was in this salon, too, that the modern art of conversation,
+which has played so conspicuous a part in French life, may be
+said to have had its birth.  Men and women met on a footing of
+equality, with similar tastes and similar interests.  Different
+ranks and conditions were represented, giving a certain
+cosmopolitan character to a society which had hitherto been
+narrow in its scope and limited in its aims.  Naturally
+conversation assumed a new importance, and was subject to new
+laws.  To quote again from LaBruyere, who has so profoundly
+penetrated the secrets of human nature: "The esprit of
+conversation consists much less in displaying itself than in
+drawing out the wit of others . . .  Men do not like to admire
+you, they wish to please; they seek less to be instructed or even
+to be entertained, than to be appreciated and applauded, and the
+most delicate pleasure is to make that of others."  "To please
+others," says La Rochefoucauld, "one must speak of the things
+they love and which concern them, avoid disputes upon indifferent
+maters, ask questions rarely, and never let them think that one
+is more in the right than themselves."
+
+Many among the great writers of the age touch in the same tone
+upon the philosophy underlying the various rules of manners and
+conversation which were first discussed at the Hotel de
+Rambouillet, and which have passed into permanent though
+unwritten laws--unfortunately a little out of fashion in the
+present generation.
+
+It is difficult to estimate the impulse given to intelligence and
+literary taste by this breaking up of old social
+crystallizations.  What the savant had learned in his closet
+passed more or less into current coin.  Conversation gave point
+to thought, clearness to expression, simplicity to language. 
+Women of rank and recognized ability imposed the laws of good
+taste, and their vivid imaginations changed lifeless abstractions
+into something concrete and artistic.  Men of letters, who had
+held an inferior and dependent position, were penetrated with the
+spirit of a refined society, while men of the world, in a circle
+where wit and literary skill were distinctions, began to aspire
+to the role of a bel esprit, to pride themselves upon some
+intellectual gift and the power to write without labor and
+without pedantry, as became their rank.  Many of them lacked
+seriousness, dealing mainly with delicate fancies and trivial
+incidents, but pleasures of the intellect and taste became the
+fashion. Burlesques and chansons disputed the palm with madrigals
+and sonnets.  A neatly turned epigram or a clever letter made a
+social success.
+
+Perhaps it was not a school for genius of the first order. 
+Society favors graces of form and expression rather than profound
+and serious thought.  No Homer, nor Aeschylus, nor Milton, nor
+Dante is the outgrowth of such a soil.  The prophet or seer
+shines by the light of his own soul.  He deals with problems and
+emotions that lie deep in the pulsing heart of humanity, but he
+does not best interpret his generation.  It is the man living
+upon the level of his time, and finding his inspiration in the
+world of events, who reflects its life, marks its currents, and
+registers its changes.  Matthew Arnold has aptly said that "the
+qualities of genius are less transferable than the qualities of
+intelligence, less can be immediately learned and appropriated
+from their product; they are less direct and stringent
+intellectual agencies, though they may be more beautiful and
+divine."  It was this quality of intelligence that eminently
+characterized the literature of the seventeenth century.  It was
+a mirror of social conditions, or their natural outcome.  The
+spirit of its social life penetrated its thought, colored its
+language, and molded its forms.  We trace it in the letters and
+vers de societe which were the pastime of the Hotel de
+Rambouillet and the Samedis of Mlle. de Scudery, as well as in
+the romances which reflected their sentiments and pictured their
+manners.  We trace it in the literary portraits which were the
+diversion of the coterie of Mademoiselle, at the Luxembourg, and
+in the voluminous memoirs and chronicles which grew out of it. 
+We trace it also in the "Maxims" and "Thoughts" which were polished
+and perfected in the convent salon of Mme. de Sable, and were the
+direct fruits of a wide experience and observation of the great
+world.  It would be unfair to say that anything so complex as the
+growth of a new literature was wholly due to any single
+influence, but the intellectual drift of the time seems to have
+found its impulse in the salons.  They were the alembics in which
+thought was fused and crystallized.  They were the schools in
+which the French mind cultivated its extraordinary clearness and
+flexibility.
+
+As the century advanced, the higher literature was tinged and
+modified by the same spirit.  Society, with its follies and
+affectations, inspired the mocking laughter of Moliere, but its
+unwritten laws tempered his language and refined his wit.  Its
+fine urbanity was reflected in the harmony and delicacy of
+Racine, as well as in the critical decorum of Boileau.  The
+artistic sentiment rules in letters, as in social life.  It was
+not only the thought that counted, but the setting of the
+thought.  The majestic periods of Bossuet, the tender
+persuasiveness of Fenelon, gave even truth a double force.  The
+moment came when this critical refinement, this devotion to form,
+passed its limits, and the inevitable reaction followed.  The
+great literary wave of the seventeenth century reached its
+brilliant climax and broke upon the shores of a new era.  But the
+seeds of thought had been scattered, to spring up in the great
+literature of humanity that marked the eighteenth century.
+
+
+CHAPTER III. MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY AND THE SAMEDIS
+Salons of the Noblesse--"The Illustrious Sappho"--Her Romances-- 
+The Samedis--Bon Mots of Mme. Cornuel--Estimate of Mlle. de Scudery
+
+There were a few contemporary salons among the noblesse, modeled
+more or less after the Hotel de Rambouillet, but none of their
+leaders had the happy art of conciliating so many elements.  They
+had a literary flavor, and patronized men of letters, often
+doubtless, because it was the fashion and the name of a well-
+known litterateur gave them a certain eclat; but they were not
+cosmopolitan, and have left no marked traces.  One of the most
+important of these was the Hotel de Conde, over which the
+beautiful Charlotte de Montmorency presided with such dignity and
+grace, during the youth of her daughter, the Duchesse de
+Longueville.  Another was the Hotel de Nevers, where the gifted
+Marie de Gonzague, afterward Queen of Poland, and her charming
+sister, the Princesse Palatine, were the central attractions of a
+brilliant and intellectual society.  Richelieu, recognizing the
+power of the Rambouillet circle, wished to transfer it to the
+salon of his niece at the Petit Luxembourg.  We have a glimpse of
+the young and still worldly  Pascal, explaining here his
+discoveries in mathematics and his experiments in physics.  The
+tastes of this courtly company were evidently rather serious, as
+we find another celebrity, of less enduring fame, discoursing
+upon the immortality of the soul.  But the rank, talent, and
+masterful character of the Duchesse d'Aiguillon did not suffice
+to give her salon the wide influence of its model; it was tainted
+by her own questionable character, and always hampered by the
+suspicion of political intrigues.
+
+There were smaller coteries, however, which inherited the spirit
+and continued the traditions of the Hotel de Rambouillet. 
+Prominent among these was that of Madeleine de Scudery, who held
+her Samedis in modest fashion in the Marais.  These famous
+reunions lacked the prestige and the fine tone of their model,
+but they had a definite position, and a wide though not
+altogether favorable influence.  As the forerunner of Mme. de La
+Fayette and Mme. de Sevigne, and one of the most eminent literary
+women of the century with which her life ran parallel, Mlle. de
+Scudery has a distinct interest for us and it is to her keen
+observation and facile pen that we are indebted for the most
+complete and vivid picture of the social life of the period. 
+
+The "illustrious Sappho," as she was pleased to be called,
+certainly did not possess the beauty popularly accorded to her
+namesake and prototype.  She was tall and thin, with a long,
+dark, and not at all regular face;  Mme. Cornuel said that one
+could see clearly "she was destined by Providence to blacken
+paper, as she sweat ink from every pore."  But, if we may credit
+her admirers, who were numerous, she had fine eyes, a pleasing
+expression, and an agreeable address.  She evidently did not
+overestimate her personal attractions, as will be seen from the
+following quatrain, which she wrote upon a portrait made by one
+of her friends.
+
+Nanteuil, en faisant mon image,
+A de son art divin signale le pouvoir;
+Je hais mes yeux dans mon miroir,
+Je les aime dans son ouvrage.
+
+She had her share, however, of small but harmless vanities, and
+spoke of her impoverished family, says Tallemant, "as one might
+speak of the overthrow of the Greek empire."  Her father belonged
+to an old and noble house of Provence, but removed to Normandy,
+where he married and died, leaving two children with a heritage
+of talent and poverty.  A trace of the Provencal spirit always
+clung to Madeleine, who was born in 1607, and lived until the
+first year of the following century.  After losing her mother,
+who is said to have been a woman of some distinction, she was
+carefully educated by an uncle in all the accomplishments of the
+age, as well as in the serious studies which were then unusual. 
+According to her friend Conrart she was a veritable encyclopedia
+of knowledge both useful and ornamental.  "She had a prodigious
+imagination," he writes, "an excellent memory, an exquisite
+judgment, a lively temper, and a natural disposition to
+understand everything curious which she saw done, and everything
+laudable which she heard talked of.  She learned the things that
+concern agriculture, gardening, housekeeping, cooking, and a life
+in the country; also the causes and effects of maladies, the
+composition of an infinite number of remedies, perfumes, scented
+waters and distillations useful or agreeable.  She wished to play
+the lute, and took some lessons with success."  In addition to
+all this, she mastered Spanish and Italian, read extensively and
+conversed brilliantly.  At the death of her uncle and in the
+freshness of her youth, she went to Paris with her brother who
+had some pretension as a poet and dramatic writer.  He even posed
+as a rival of Corneille, and was sustained by Richelieu, but time
+has long since relegated him to comparative oblivion.  His
+sister, who was a victim of his selfish tyranny, is credited with
+much of the prose which appeared under his name;  indeed, her
+first romances were thus disguised.  Her love for conversation
+was so absorbing, that he is said to have locked her in her room,
+and refused her to her friends until a certain amount of writing
+was done.  But, in spite of this surveillance, her life was so
+largely in the world that it was a mystery when she did her
+voluminous work.
+
+Of winning temper and pleasing address, with this full equipment
+of knowledge and imagination, versatility and ambition, she was
+at an early period domesticated in the family of Mme. de
+Rambouillet as the friend and companion of Julie d'Angennes.  Her
+graces of mind and her amiability made her a favorite with those
+who frequented the house, and she was thus brought into close
+contact with the best society of her time.  She has painted it
+carefully and minutely in the "Grand Cyrus," a romantic allegory in
+which she transfers the French aristocracy and French manners of
+the seventeenth century to an oriental court.  The Hotel de
+Rambouillet plays an important part as the Hotel Cleomire.  When
+we consider that the central figures were the Prince de Conde and
+his lovely sister the Duchesse de Longueville, also that the most
+distinguished men and women of the age saw their own portraits,
+somewhat idealized but quite recognizable through the thin
+disguise of Persians, Greeks, Armenians, or Egyptians, it is easy
+to imagine that the ten volumes of rather exalted sentiment were
+eagerly sought and read.  She lacked incident and constructive
+power, but excelled in vivid portraits, subtle analysis, and fine
+conversations.  She made no attempt at local color; her plots
+were strained and unnatural, her style heavy and involved.  But
+her penetrating intellect was thoroughly tinged with the romantic
+spirit, and she had the art of throwing a certain glamour over
+everything she touched.  Cousin, who has rescued the memory of
+Mlle. de Scudery from many unjust aspersions, says that she was
+the "creator of the psychological romance."  Unquestionably her
+skill in character painting set the fashion for the pen portraits
+which became a mania a few years later.
+
+She depicts herself as Sapppho, whose opinions may be supposed to
+reflect her own.  In these days, when the position of women is
+discussed from every possible point of view, it may be
+interesting to know how it was regarded by one who represented
+the thoughtful side of the age in which their social power was
+first distinctly asserted.  She classes her critics and enemies
+under several heads.  Among them are the "light and coquettish
+women whose only occupation is to adorn their persons and pass
+their lives in fetes and amusements--women who think that
+scrupulous virtue requires them to know nothing but to be the
+wife of a husband, the mother of children, and the mistress of a
+family; and men who regard women as upper servants, and forbid
+their daughters to read anything but their prayer books."
+
+"One does not wish women to be coquettes," she writes again, "but
+permits them to learn carefully all that fits them for gallantry,
+without teaching them anything which can fortify their virtue or
+occupy their minds.  They devote ten or a dozen years to learning
+to appear well, to dress in good style, to dance and sing, for
+five or six; but this same person, who requires judgment all her
+life and must talk until her last sigh, learns nothing which can
+make her converse more agreeably, or act with more wisdom."
+
+But she does not like a femme savante, and ridicules, under the
+name of Damophile, a character which might have been the model
+for Moliere's Philaminte.  This woman has five or six masters, of
+whom the least learned teaches astrology.  She poses as a Muse,
+and is always surrounded with books, pencils, and mathematical
+instruments, while she uses large words in a grave and imperious
+tone, although she speaks only of little things.  After many long
+conversations about her, Sappho concludes thus: "I wish it to be
+said of a woman that she knows a hundred things of which she does
+not boast, that she has a well-informed mind, is familiar with
+fine works, speaks well, writes correctly, and knows the world;
+but I do not wish it to be said of her that she is a femme
+savante.  The two characters have no resemblance."  She evidently
+recognized the fact that when knowledge has penetrated the soul,
+it does not need to be worn on the outside, as it shines through
+the entire personality.
+
+After some further discussion, to the effect that the wise woman
+will conceal superfluous learning and especially avoid pedantry,
+she defines the limit to which a woman may safely go in knowledge
+without losing her right to be regarded as the "ornament of the
+world, made to be served and adored."
+
+One may know some foreign languages and confess to reading Homer,
+Hesiod, and the works of the illustrious Aristee (Chapelain),
+without being too learned.  One may express an opinion so
+modestly that, without offending the propriety of her sex, she
+may permit it to be seen that she has wit, knowledge, and
+judgment.  That which I wish principally to teach women is not to
+speak too much of that which they know well, never to speak of
+that which they do not know at all, and to speak reasonably.
+
+We note always a half-apologetic tone, a spirit of compromise
+between her conscious intelligence and the traditional prejudice
+which had in no wise diminished since Martial included, in his
+picture of a domestic menage, a wife not too learned..."  She is
+not willing to lose a woman's birthright of love and devotion,
+but is not quite sure how far it might be affected by her ability
+to detect a solecism.  Hence, she offers a great deal of subtle
+flattery to masculine self-love.  With curious naivete she says:
+
+Whoever should write all that was said by fifteen or twenty women
+together would make the worst book in the world, even if some of
+them were women of intelligence.  But if a man should enter, a
+single one, and not even a man of distinction, the same
+conversation would suddenly become more spirituelle and more
+agreeable.  The conversation of men is doubtless less sprightly
+when there are no women present; but ordinarily, although it may
+be more serious, it is still rational, and they can do without us
+more easily than we can do without them.
+
+She attaches great importance to conversation as "the bond of
+society, the greatest pleasure of well-bred people, and the best
+means of introducing, not only politeness into the world, but a
+purer morality."  She dwells always upon the necessity of "a
+spirit of urbanity, which banishes all bitter railleries, as well
+as everything that can offend the taste, " also of a certain
+"esprit de joie."
+
+We find here the code which ruled the Hotel de Rambouillet, and
+the very well-defined character of the precieuse.  But it may be
+noted that Mlle. de Scudery, who was among the avant-coureurs of
+the modern movement for the advancement of women, always
+preserved the forms of the old traditions, while violating their
+spirit.  True to her Gallic instincts, she presented her
+innovations sugar-coated.  She had the fine sense of fitness
+which is the conscience of her race, and which gave so much power
+to the women who really revolutionized society without
+antagonizing it.
+
+Her conversations, which were full of wise suggestions and showed
+a remarkable insight into human character, were afterwards
+published in detached form and had a great success.  Mme. de
+Sevigne writes to her daughter: "Mlle. De Scudery has just sent
+me two little volumes of conversations; it is impossible that
+they should not be good, when they are not drowned in a great
+romance."
+
+When the Hotel de Rambouillet was closed, Mlle. de Scudery tried
+to replace its pleasant reunions by receiving her friends on
+Saturdays.  These informal receptions were frequented by a few
+men and women of rank, but the prevailing tone was literary and
+slightly bourgeois.  We find there, from time to time, Mme. de
+Sable, the Duc and Duchesse de Montausier, and others of the old
+circle who were her lifelong friends.  La  Rochefoucauld is there
+occasionally, also Mme. de. La Fayette, Mme. de Sevigne, and the
+young Mme. Scarron whose brilliant future is hardly yet in her
+dreams.  Among those less known today, but of note in their age,
+were the Comtesse de la Suze, a favorite writer of elegies, who
+changed her faith and became a Catholic, as she said, that she
+"might not meet her husband in this world or the next;" the
+versatile Mlle. Cheron who had some celebrity as a poet,
+musician, and painter; Mlle. de la Vigne and Mme. Deshoulieres,
+also poets; Mlle. Descartes, niece of the great philosopher; and,
+at rare intervals, the clever Abbess de Rohan who tempered her
+piety with a little sage worldliness.  One of the most brilliant
+lights in this galaxy of talent was Mme. Cornuel, whose bons mots
+sparkle from so many pages in the chronicles of the period.  A
+woman of high bourgeois birth and of the best associations, she
+had a swift vision, a penetrating sense, and a clear intellect
+prompt to seize the heart of a situation.  Mlle. De Scudery said
+that she could paint a grand satire in four words.  Mme. de
+Sevigne found her admirable, and even the grave Pomponne begged
+his friend not to forget to send him all her witticisms.  Of the
+agreeable but rather light Comtesse de Fiesque, she said: "What
+preserves her beauty is that it is salted in folly."  Of James II
+of England, she remarked, "The Holy Spirit has eaten up his
+understanding."  The saying that the eight generals appointed at
+the death of Turenne were "the small change for Turenne" has been
+attributed to her.  It is certainly not to a woman of such keen
+insight and ready wit that one can attach any of the affectations
+which later crept into the Samedis.
+
+The poet Sarasin is the Voiture of this salon.  Conrart, to whose
+house may be traced the first meetings of the little circle of
+lettered men which formed the nucleus of the Academie Francaise,
+is its secretary; Pellisson, another of the founders and the
+historian of the same learned body, is its chronicler.  Chapelain
+is quite at home here, and we find also numerous minor authors
+and artists whose names have small significance today.  The
+Samedis follow closely in the footsteps of the Hotel de
+Rambouillet.  It is the aim there to speak simply and naturally
+upon all subjects grave or gay, to preserve always the spirit of
+delicacy and urbanity, and to avoid vulgar intrigues.  There is a
+superabundance of sentiment, some affectation, and plenty of
+esprit.
+
+They converse upon all the topics of the day, from fashion to
+politics, from literature and the arts to the last item of
+gossip.  They read their works, talk about them, criticize them,
+and vie with one another in improvising verses.  Pellisson takes
+notes and leaves us a multitude of madrigals, sonnets, chansons
+and letters of varied merit.  He says there reigned a sort of
+epidemic of little poems.  "The secret influence began to fall
+with the dew.  Here one recites four verses; there, one writes a
+dozen.  All this is done gaily and without effort.  No one bites
+his nails, or stops laughing and talking.  There are challenges,
+responses, repetitions, attacks, repartees.  The pen passes from
+hand to hand, and the hand does not keep pace with the mind.  One
+makes verses for every lady present."  Many of these verses were
+certainly not of the best quality, but it would be difficult, in
+any age, to find a company of people clever enough to divert
+themselves by throwing off such poetic trifles on the spur of the
+moment.
+
+In the end, the Samedis came to have something of the character
+of a modern literary club, and were held at different houses. 
+The company was less choice, and the bourgeois coloring more
+pronounced.  These reunions very clearly illustrated the fact
+that no society can sustain itself above the average of its
+members.  They increased in size, but decreased in quality, with
+the inevitable result of affectation and pretension. 
+Intelligence, taste, and politeness were in fashion.  Those who
+did not possess them put on their semblance, and, affecting an
+intellectual tone, fell into the pedantry which is sure to grow
+out of the effort to speak above one's altitude.  The fine-spun
+theories of Mlle. de Scudery also reached a sentimental climax in
+"Clelie," which did not fail of its effect.  Platonic love and the
+ton galant were the texts for innumerable follies which finally
+reacted upon the Samedis.  After a few years, they lost their
+influence and were discontinued.  But Mlle. de Scudery retained
+the position which her brilliant gifts and literary fame had
+given her, and was the center of a choice circle of friends until
+a short time before her death at the ripe age of ninety-four. 
+Even Tallemant, writing of the decline of these reunions, says,
+"Mlle. De Scudery is more considered than ever."  At sixty-four
+she received the first Prix D'Eloquence from the Academie
+Francaise, for an essay on Glory.  This prize was founded by
+Balzac, and the subject was specified.  Thus the long procession
+of laureates was led by a woman.
+
+In spite of her subtle analysis of love, and her exact map of the
+Empire of Tenderness, the sentiment of the "Illustrious Sappho"
+seems to have been rather ideal.  She had numerous adorers, of
+whom Conrart and Pellisson were among the most devoted.  During
+the long imprisonment of the latter for supposed complicity with
+Fouquet, she was of great service to him, and the tender
+friendship ended only with his life, upon which she wrote a
+touching eulogy at its close.  But she never married.  She feared
+to lose her liberty.  "I know," she writes, "that there are many
+estimable men who merit all my esteem and who can retain a part
+of my friendship, but as soon as I regard them as husbands, I
+regard them as masters, and so apt to become tyrants that I must
+hate them from that moment; and I thank the gods for giving me an
+inclination very much averse to marriage."
+
+It was the misfortune of Mlle. de Scudery to outlive her literary
+reputation.  The interminable romances which had charmed the
+eloquent Flechier, the Grand Conde in his cell at Vincennes, the
+ascetic d'Andilly at Port Royal, as well as the dreaming maidens
+who signed over their fanciful descriptions and impossible
+adventures, passed their day.  The touch of a merciless criticism
+stripped them of their already fading glory.  Their subtle
+analysis and etherealized sentiment were declared antiquated, and
+fashion ran after new literary idols.  It was Boileau who gave
+the severest blow.  "This Despreaux," said Segrais, "knows how to
+do nothing else but talk of himself and criticize others; why
+speak ill of Mlle. de Scudery as he has done?"
+
+There has been a disposition to credit the founder of the Samedis
+with many of the affectations which brought such deserved
+ridicule upon their bourgeois imitators, and to trace in her the
+original of Moliere's "Madelon."  But Cousin has relieved her of
+such reproach, and does ample justice to the truth and sincerity
+of her character, the purity of her manners, and the fine quality
+of her intellect.  He calls her "a sort of French sister of
+Addison."  Perhaps her resemblance to one of the clearest,
+purest, and simplest of English essayists is not quite apparent
+on the surface; but as a moralist and a delineator of manners she
+may have done a similar work in her own way.
+
+Sainte-Beuve, who has left so many vivid and exquisite portraits
+of his countrywomen, does not paint Mlle. de Scudery with his
+usual kindly touch.  He admits her merit, her accomplishments,
+her versatility, and the perfect innocence of her life; but he
+finds her didactic, pedantic, and tiresome as a writer, and
+without charm or grace as a woman.  Doubtless one would find it
+difficult to read her romances today.  She lacks the genius which
+has no age and belongs to all ages.  Her literary life pertains
+to the first half of the seventeenth century, when style had not
+reached the Attic purity and elegance of a later period.  She was
+teacher rather than artist; but no one could be farther from a
+bas bleu, or more severe upon pedantry or pretension of any sort. 
+She takes the point of view of her time, and dwells always upon
+the wisdom of veiling the knowledge she claims for her sex behind
+the purely feminine graces.  How far she practiced her own
+theories, we can know only from the testimony of her
+contemporaries.  It is not possible to perpetuate so indefinable
+a thing as personal charm, but we are told repeatedly that she
+had it in an eminent degree.  It is certain that no woman without
+beauty, fortune, or visible rank, living simply and depending
+mainly upon her own talents, could have retained such powerful
+and fastidious friends, during a long life, unless she had had
+some rare attractions.  That she was much loved, much praised,
+and much sought, we have sufficient evidence among the writers of
+her own time.  She was familiarly spoken of as the tenth Muse,
+and she counted among her personal friends the greatest men and
+women of the century.  Leibnitz sought her correspondence.  The
+Abbe de Pure, who was not friendly to the precieuses and made the
+first severe attack upon them, thus writes of her: "One may call
+Mlle. de Scudery the muse of our age and the prodigy of her sex. 
+It is not only her goodness and her sweetness, but her intellect
+shines with so much modesty, her sentiments are expressed with so
+much reserve, she speaks with so much discretion, and all that
+she says is so fit and reasonable, that one cannot help both
+admiring and loving her.  Comparing what one sees of her, and
+what one owes to her personally, with what she writes, one
+prefers, without hesitation, her conversation to her works. 
+Although she has a wonderful mind, her heart outweighs it.  It is
+in the heart of this illustrious woman that one finds true and
+pure generosity, an immovable constancy, a sincere and solid
+friendship."
+
+The loyalty of her character was conspicuously shown in her brave
+devotion to the interests of the Conde family, through all the
+reverses of the Fronde.  In one of her darkest moments Mme. de
+Longueville received the last volume of the "Grand Cyrus," which
+was dedicated to her, and immediately sent her own portrait
+encircled with diamonds, as the only thing she had left worthy of
+this friend who, without sharing ardently her political
+prejudices, had never deserted her waning fortunes.  The same
+rare quality was seen in her unwavering friendship for Fouquet,
+during his long disgrace and imprisonment.  Mme. de Sevigne,
+whose satire was so pitiless toward affectation of any sort,
+writes to her in terms of exaggerated tenderness.
+
+"In a hundred thousand words, I could tell you but one truth,
+which reduces itself to assuring you, Mademoiselle, that I shall
+love you and adore you all my life; it is only this word that can
+express the idea I have of your extraordinary merit.  I am happy
+to have some part in the friendship and esteem of such a person. 
+As constancy is a perfection, I say to myself that you will not
+change for me; and I dare to pride myself that I shall never be
+sufficiently abandoned of God not to be always yours . . .  I
+take to my son your conversations.  I wish him to be charmed with
+them, after being charmed myself."
+
+Mlle. de Scudery is especially interesting to us as marking a
+transition point in the history of women; as the author of the
+first romances of any note written by her sex; as a moral teacher
+in an age of laxity; and as a woman who combined high
+aspirations, fine ideals, and versatile talents with a pure and
+unselfish character.  She aimed at universal accomplishments  
+from the distillation of a perfume to the writing of a novel,
+from the preparation of a rare dish to fine conversation, from
+playing the lute to the dissection of the human heart.  In this
+versatility she has been likened to Mme. de Genlis, whom she
+resembled also in her moral teaching and her factitious
+sensibility.  She was, however, more genuine, more amiable, and
+far superior in true elevation of character.  She was full of
+theories and loved to air them, hence the people who move across
+the pages of her novels are often lost in a cloud of speculation. 
+But she gave a fresh impulse to literature, adding a fine quality
+of grace, tenderness, and pure though often exaggerated
+sentiment.  Mme. de La Fayette, who had more clearness of mind as
+well as a finer artistic sense, gave a better form to the novel
+and pruned it of superfluous matter.  The sentiment which casts
+so soft and delicate a coloring over her romances was more subtle
+and refined.  It may be questioned, however, if she wrote so much
+that has been incorporated in the thought of her time.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE
+Her Character--Her Heroic Part in the Fronde--Her Exile--
+Literary Diversions of her Salon--A Romantic Episode
+
+There are certain women preeminently distinguished by diversity
+of gifts, who fail to leave behind them a fame at all
+commensurate with their promise.  It may be from a lack of unity,
+resulting from a series of fragmentary efforts, no one of which
+is of surpassing excellence; it may be that the impression of
+power they give is quite beyond any practical manifestation of
+it; or it may be that talents in themselves remarkable are cast
+into the shade by some exceptional brilliancy of position.  The
+success of life is measured by the harmony between its ideals and
+its attainments.  It is the symmetry of the temple that gives the
+final word, not the breadth of its foundations nor the wealth of
+its material.
+
+It was this lack of harmony and fine proportion which marred the
+career of a woman who played a very conspicuous part in the
+social and political life of her time, and who belongs to my
+subject only through a single phase of a stormy and eventful
+history.  No study of the salons would be complete without that
+of the Grande Mademoiselle, but it was not as the leader of a
+coterie that she held her special claim to recognition.  By the
+accident of birth she stood apart, subject to many limitations
+that modified the character of her salon and narrowed its scope,
+though they emphasized its influence.  It was only an incident of
+her life, but through the quality of its habitues and their
+unique diversions it became the source of an important
+literature.
+
+Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans, Duchesse de Montpensier, has left a
+very distinct record of herself in letters, romances, memoirs and
+portraits, written out of an abounding fullness of nature, but
+with infinite detail and royal contempt for precision and
+orthography.  She talks naively of her happy childhood, of her
+small caprices, of the love of her grandmother, Marie de Medicis,
+of her innocent impressions of the people about her.  She dwells
+with special pleasure upon a grand fete at the Palais Royal, in
+which she posed as an incipient queen.  She was then nineteen. 
+"They were three entire days in arranging my costume," she
+writes.  "My robe was covered with diamonds, and trimmed with
+rose, black, and white tufts.  I wore all the jewels of the crown
+and of the Queen of England, who still had some left.  No one
+could be better or more magnificently attired than I was that
+day, and many people said that my beautiful figure, my imposing
+mien, my fair complexion, and the splendor of my blonde hair did
+not adorn me less than all the riches which were upon my person." 
+She sat resplendent upon a raised dais, with the proud
+consciousness of her right and power to grace a throne.  Louis
+XIV, than a child, and the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles
+II, were at her feet.  The latter was a devoted suitor.  "My
+heart as well as my eyes regarded the prince de haut en bas," she
+says.  "I had the spirit to wed an emperor."
+
+There were negotiations for her marriage with the Emperor of
+Austria, and she thought it wise to adapt herself in advance to
+his tastes.  She had heard that he was religious, and immediately
+began to play the part of a devote so seriously, that she was
+seized with a violent desire to become a veritable religieuse and
+enter the convent of the Carmelites.  She could neither eat nor
+sleep, and it was feared that she would fall dangerously ill.  "I
+can only say that, during those eight days, the empire was
+nothing to me," she writes.  But she confesses to a certain
+feeling of vanity at her own spirit of self-sacrifice, and the
+sensibility which made her weep at the thought of leaving those
+she loved.  This access of piety was of short duration, however,
+as her father quickly put to flight all her exalted visions of a
+cloister.  Her dreams of an emperor for whom she lost a
+prospective king were alike futile.
+
+"She had beauty, talent, wealth, virtue, and a royal birth," says
+Mme. de Motteville.  "Her face was not without defects, and her
+intellect was not one which always pleases.  Her vivacity
+deprived all her actions of the gravity necessary to people of
+her rank, and her mind was too much carried away by her feelings. 
+As she was fair, had fine eyes, a pleasing mouth, was of good
+height, and blonde, she had quite the air of a great beauty." 
+But it was beauty of a commanding sort, without delicacy, and
+dependent largely upon the freshness of youth.  The same
+veracious writer says that "she spoiled all she went about by the
+eagerness and impatience of her temper.  She was always too hasty
+and pushed things too far."  What she may have lacked in grace
+and charm, she made up by the splendors of rank and position.
+
+A princess by birth, closely related to three kings, and glowing
+with all the fiery instincts of her race, the Grand Mademoiselle
+curiously blended the courage of an Amazon with the weakness of a
+passionate and capricious woman.  As she was born in 1627, the
+most brilliant days of her youth were passed amid the excitements
+of the Fronde.  She casts a romantic light upon these trivial
+wars, which were ended at last by her prompt decision and
+masculine force. We see her at twenty-five, riding victoriously
+into the city of Orleans at the head of her troops and, later,
+ordering the cannon at the Bastile turned against the royal
+forces, and opening the gates of Paris to the exhausted army of
+Conde.  This adventure gives us the key-note to her haughty and
+imperious character.  She would have posed well for the heroine
+of a great drama; indeed, she posed all her life in real dramas.
+
+At this time she had hopes of marrying the Prince de Conde, whom
+she regarded as a hero worthy of her.  His wife, an amiable woman
+who was sent to a convent after her marriage to learn to read and
+write, was dangerously ill, and her illustrious husband did not
+scruple to make tacit arrangements to supply her place. 
+Unfortunately for these plans, and fortunately perhaps for a
+certain interesting phase of literature, she recovered.  Soon
+afterwards, Mademoiselle found the reward of her heroic
+adventures in a sudden exile to her estates at Saint Fargeau. 
+The country life, so foreign to her tastes, pressed upon her very
+heavily at first, the more so as she was deserted by most of her
+friends.  "I received more compliments than visits," she writes. 
+"I had made everybody ill.  All those who did not dare send me
+word that they feared to embroil themselves with the court
+pretended that some malady or accident had befallen them."  By
+degrees, however, she adapted herself to her situation, and in
+her loneliness and disappointment betook herself to pursuits
+which offered a strong contrast to the dazzling succession of
+magnificent fetes and military episodes which had given variety
+and excitement to her life at the Tuileries.  When she grew tired
+of her parrots, her dogs, her horses, her comedians and her
+violin, she found solace in literature, beginning the "Memoirs,"
+which were finished thirty years later, and writing romances,
+after the manner of Mlle. de Scudery.  The drift of the first
+one, "Les Nouvelles Francaises et les Divertissements de la
+Princesse Aurelie," is suggested by its title.  It was woven from
+the little stories or adventures which were told to amuse their
+solitude by the small coterie of women who had followed the
+clouded fortunes of Mademoiselle.  A romance of more pretension
+was the "Princesse de Paphlagonie," in which the writer pictures
+her own little court, and introduces many of its members under
+fictitious names.  These romances have small interest for the
+world today, but the exalted position of their author and their
+personal character made them much talked of in their time.
+
+It was in quite another fashion, however, that the Grande
+Mademoiselle made her most important contribution to literature. 
+One day in 1657, while still in the country, she proposed to her
+friends to make pen portraits of themselves, and set the fashion
+by writing her own, with a detailed description of her physical,
+mental, and moral qualities.  This was followed by carefully
+drawn pictures of others, among whom were Louis XIV, Monsieur,
+and the Grand Conde.  All were bound in honor to give the lights
+and shadows with the same fidelity, though it would be hardly
+wise to call them to too strict an account on this point.  As may
+be readily imagined, the result was something piquant and
+original.  That the amusement was a popular one goes without
+saying.  People like to talk of themselves, not only because the
+subject is interesting, but because it gives them an opportunity
+of setting in relief their virtues and tempering their foibles. 
+They like also to know what others think of them--at least, what
+others say of them.  It is too much to expect of human nature,
+least of all, of French human nature, that an agreeable modicum
+of subtle flattery should not be added under such conditions.
+
+When Mademoiselle opened her salon in the Luxembourg, on her
+return from exile, these portraits formed one of its most marked
+features.  The salon was limited mainly to the nobility, with the
+addition of a few men of letters.  Among those who frequented it
+on intimate terms were the Marquise de Sable, the Comtesse de
+Maure, the beautiful and pure-hearted Mme. de Hautefort, the dame
+d'honneur of Anne of Austria, so hopelessly adored by Louis XIII,
+and Mme. de Choisy, the witty wife of the chancellor of the Duc
+d'Orleans.  Its most brilliant lights were Mme. de Sevigne, Mme.
+de La Fayette, and La Rochefoucauld.  It was here that Mme. de La
+Fayette made the vivid portrait of her friend Mme. de Sevigne. 
+"It flatters me," said the latter long afterwards, "but those who
+loved me sixteen years ago may have thought it true."  The
+beautiful Comtesse de Bregy, who was called one of the muses of
+the time, portrayed the Princess Henrietta and the irrepressible
+Queen Christine of Sweden.  Mme. de Chatillon, known later as the
+Duchesse de Mecklenbourg, who was mingled with all the intrigues
+of this period, traces a very agreeable sketch of herself, which
+may serve as a specimen of this interesting diversion.  After
+minutely describing her person, which she evidently regards with
+much complacence, she continues:
+
+"I have a temper naturally cheerful and a little given to
+raillery; but I correct this inclination, for fear of
+displeasing.  I have much esprit, and enter agreeably into
+conversation.  I have a pleasant voice and a modest air.  I am
+very sincere and do not fail my friends.  I have not a trifling
+mind, nor do I cherish a thousand small malices against my
+neighbor.  I love glory and fine actions.  I have heart and
+ambition.  I am very sensitive to good and ill, but I never
+avenge myself for the ill that has been done me, although I might
+have the inclination; I am restrained by self-love.  I have a
+sweet disposition, take pleasure in serving my friends, and fear
+nothing so much as the petty drawing-room quarrels which usually
+grow out of little nothings.  I find my person and my temper
+constructed something after this fashion; and I am so satisfied
+with both, that I envy no one.  I leave to my friends or to my
+enemies the care of seeking my faults."
+
+It was under this stimulating influence that La Rochefoucauld
+made the well-known pen-portrait of himself.  "I will lack
+neither boldness to speak as freely as I can of my good
+qualities," he writes, "nor sincerity to avow frankly that I have
+faults."  After describing his person, temper, abilities,
+passions, and tastes, he adds with curious candor: "I am but
+little given to pity, and do not wish to be so at all. 
+Nevertheless there is nothing I would not do for an afflicted
+person; and I sincerely believe one should do all one can to show
+sympathy for misfortune, as miserable people are so foolish that
+this does them the greatest good in the world; but I also hold
+that we should be content with expressing sympathy, and carefully
+avoid having any.  It is a passion that is wholly worthless in a
+well-regulated mind, that only serves to weaken the heart, and
+should be left to people, who, never doing anything from reason,
+have need of passion to stimulate their actions.  I love my
+friends; and I love them to such an extent that I would not for a
+moment weigh my interest against theirs.  I condescend to them, I
+patiently endure their bad temper.  But I do not make much of
+their caresses, and I do not feel great uneasiness at their
+absence."
+
+It would be interesting to quote in full this sample of the close
+and not always flattering self-analysis so much in fashion, but
+its length forbids.  Its revelation of the hidden springs of
+character is at least unique.
+
+The poet Segrais, who was attached to Mademoiselle's household,
+collected these graphic pictures for private circulation, but
+they were so much in demand that they were soon printed for the
+public under the title of "Divers Portraits."  They served the
+double purpose of furnishing to the world faithful delineations
+of many more or less distinguished people and of setting a
+literary fashion.  The taste for pen-portraits, which originated
+in the romances of Mlle. de Scudery, and received a fresh impulse
+from this novel and personal application, spread rapidly among
+all classes.  It was taken up by men of letters and men of the
+world, the nobility, and the bourgeoisie.  There were portraits
+of every grade of excellence and every variety of people, until
+they culminated, some years later in "Les Caracteres" of La
+Bruyere, who dropped personalities and gave them the form of
+permanent types.  It is a literature peculiarly adapted to the
+flexibility and fine perception of the French mind, and one in
+which it has been preeminent, from the analytic but diffuse Mlle.
+de Scudery, and the clear, terse, spirited Cardinal de Retz, to
+the fine, penetrating, and exquisitely finished Sainte-Beuve, the
+prince of modern critics and literary artists.  It was this skill
+in vivid delineation that gave such point and piquancy to the
+memoirs of the period, which are little more than a series of
+brilliant and vigorous sketches of people outlined upon a
+shifting background of events.  In this rapid characterization
+the French have no rivals.  It is the charm of their fiction as
+well as of their memoirs.  Balzac, Victor Hugo, and Daudet, are
+the natural successors of La Bruyere and Saint-Simon.
+
+The marriage of Louis XIV shattered one of the most brilliant
+illusions of the Grande Mademoiselle, and it was about this time
+that she wrote a characteristic letter to Mme. de Motteville,
+picturing an Arcadia in some beautiful forest, where people are
+free to do as they like.  The most ardent apostle of socialism
+could hardly dream of an existence more democratic or more
+Utopian.  These favored men and women lead a simple, pastoral
+life.  They take care of the house and the garden, milk the cows,
+make cheese and cakes, and tend sheep on pleasant days.  But this
+rustic community must have its civilized amusements.  They visit,
+drive, ride on horseback, paint, design, play on the lute or
+clavecin, and have all the new books sent to them.  After reading
+the lives of heroes and philosophers, the princess is convinced
+that no one is perfectly happy, and that Christianity is
+desirable, as it gives hope for the future.  Her platonic and
+Christian republic is composed of "amiable and perfect people,"
+but it is quite free from the entanglements of love and the
+"vulgar institution of marriage."  Mme. de Motteville replies
+very gracefully, accepting many of these ideas, but as it is
+difficult to repress love altogether, she thinks "one will be
+obliged to permit that error which an old custom has rendered
+legitimate, and which is called marriage."  This curious
+correspondence takes its color from the Spanish pastorals which
+tinged the romantic literature of the time as well as its social
+life.  The long letters, carefully written on large and heavy
+sheets yellow with age, have a peculiarly old-time flavor, and
+throw a vivid light upon the woman who could play the role of a
+heroine of Corneille or of a sentimental shepherdess, as the
+caprice seized her.
+
+A tragical bit of romance colored the mature life of the Grande
+Mademoiselle.  She had always professed a great aversion to love,
+regarding it as "unworthy of a well-ordered soul."  She even went
+so far as to say that it was better to marry from reason or any
+other thing imaginable, dislike included, than from passion that
+was, in any case, short-lived.  But this princess of intrepid
+spirit, versatile gifts, ideal fancies, and platonic theories,
+who had aimed at an emperor and missed a throne; this amazon,
+with her penchant for glory and contempt for love, forgot all her
+sage precepts, and at forty-two fell a victim to a violent
+passion for the Comte de Lauzun.  She has traced its course to
+the finest shades of sentiment.  Her pride, her infatuation, her
+scruples, her new-born humility--we are made familiar with them
+all, even to the finesse of her respectful adorer, and the
+reluctant confession of love which his discreet silence wrings
+from her at last..  Her royal cousin, after much persuasion,
+consented to the unequal union.  The impression this affair made
+upon the world is vividly shown in a letter written by Mme. de
+Sevigne to her daughter:
+
+I am going to tell you a thing the most astonishing, the most
+surprising, the most marvelous, the most miraculous, the most
+triumphant, the most astounding, the most unheard of, the most
+singular, the most extraordinary, the most incredible, the most
+unexpected, the grandest, the smallest, the rarest, the most
+common, the most dazzling, the most secret even until today, the
+most brilliant, the most worthy of envy . . . .  a thing in fine
+which is to be done Sunday, when those who see it will believe
+themselves dazed; a thing which is to be done Sunday and which
+will not perhaps have been done Monday . . .  M. de Lauzun
+marries Sunday, at the Louvre--guess whom? . . .  He marries
+Sunday at the Louvre, with the permission of the King,
+Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle de, Mademoiselle; guess the name; he
+marries Mademoiselle, MA FOI, PAR MA FOI, MA FOI JUREE,
+Mademoiselle, la grande Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, daughter of
+the late Monsieur, Mademoiselle, grand-daughter of Henry IV,
+Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle de
+Montpensier, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, Mademoiselle, cousin of the
+king, Mademoiselle, destined to the throne, Mademoiselle, the
+only parti in France worthy of Monsieur.  VOILA a fine subject
+for conversation.  If you cry out, if you are beside yourself, if
+you say that we have deceived you, that it is false, that one
+trifles with you, that it is a fine bit of raillery, that it is
+very stupid to imagine, if, in fine, you abuse us, we shall find
+that you are right; we have done as much ourselves.
+
+In spite of the prudent warnings of her friends, the happy
+princess could not forego the eclat of a grand wedding, and
+before the hasty arrangements were concluded, the permission was
+withdrawn.  Her tears, her entreaties, her cries, her rage, and
+her despair, were of no avail.  Louis XIV took her in his arms,
+and mingled his tears with hers, even reproaching her for the two
+or three days of delay; but he was inexorable.  Ten years of
+loyal devotion to her lover, shortly afterward imprisoned at
+Pignerol, and of untiring efforts for his release which was at
+last secured at the cost of half her vast estates, ended in a
+brief reunion.  A secret marriage, a swift discovery that her
+idol was of very common clay, abuse so violent that she was
+obliged to forbid him forever her presence, and the
+disenchantment was complete.  The sad remnant of her existence
+was devoted to literature and to conversation; the latter she
+regarded as "the greatest pleasure in life, and almost the only
+one."  When she died, the Count de Lauzun wore the deepest
+mourning, had portraits of her everywhere, and adopted
+permanently the subdued colors that would fitly express the
+inconsolable nature of his grief.
+
+Without tact or fine discrimination, the Grande Mademoiselle was
+a woman of generous though undisciplined impulses, loyal
+disposition, and pure character; but her egotism was colossal. 
+Under different conditions, one might readily imagine her a
+second Joan of Arc, or a heroine of the Revolution.  She says of
+herself: "I know not what it is to be a heroine; I am of a birth
+to do nothing that is not grand or elevated.  One may call that
+what one likes.  As for myself, I call it to follow my own
+inclination and to go my own way.  I am not born to take that of
+others."  She lacked the measure, the form, the delicacy of the
+typical precieuse; but her quick, restless intellect and ardent
+imagination were swift to catch the spirit of the Hotel de
+Rambouillet, and to apply it in an original fashion.  Though many
+subjects were interdicted in her salon, and many people were
+excluded, it gives us interesting glimpses into the life of the
+literary noblesse, and furnishes a complete gallery of pen-
+portraits of more or less noted men and women.  With all the
+brilliant possibilities of her life, it was through the diversion
+of her idle hours that this princess, author, amazon, prospective
+queen, and disappointed woman has left the most permanent trace
+upon the world.
+
+
+CHAPTER V. A LITERARY SALON AT PORT ROYAL
+Mme. de Sable--Her Worldly Life--Her Retreat--Her Friends--
+Pascal--The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld--Last Days of the Marquise
+
+The transition from the restless character and stormy experiences
+of the Grande Mademoiselle, to the gentler nature and the convent
+salon of her friend and literary confidante, Mme. de Sable, is a
+pleasant one.  Perhaps no one better represents the true
+precieuse of the seventeenth century, the happy blending of
+social savoir-faire with an amiable temper and a cultivated
+intellect.  Without the genius of Mme. de Sevigne or Mme. de La
+Fayette, without the force or the rare attractions of Mme. de
+Longueville, without the well-poised character and catholic
+sympathies of Mme. de Rambouillet, she played an important part
+in the life of her time, through her fine insight and her
+consummate tact in bringing together the choicest spirits, and
+turning their thoughts into channels that were fresh and unworn. 
+Born in 1599, Madeleine de Souvre passed her childhood in
+Touraine, of which province her father was governor.  In the
+brilliancy of her youth, we find her in Paris among the early
+favorites of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and on terms of lifelong
+intimacy with its hostess and her daughter Julie.  Beautiful,
+versatile, generous, but fastidious and exacting in her
+friendships, with a dash of coquetry--inevitable when a woman is
+fascinating and French--she repeated the oft-played role of a
+mariage de convenance at sixteen, a few brilliant years of
+social triumphs marred by domestic neglect and suffering, a
+period of enforced seclusion after the death of her unworthy
+husband, a brief return to the world, and an old age of mild and
+comfortable devotion.
+
+"The Marquise de Sable," writes Mme. de Motteville, "was one of
+those whose beauty made the most sensation when the Queen (Anne
+of Austria) came into France.  But if she was amiable, she
+desired still more to appear so.  Her self-love rendered her a
+little too sensible to that which men professed for her.  There
+was still in France some remnant of the politeness which
+Catherine de Medicis had brought from Italy, and Mme. de Sable
+found so much delicacy in the new dramas, as well as in other
+works, in prose and verse, which came from Madrid, that she
+conceived a high idea of the gallantry which the Spaniards had
+learned from the Moors.  She was persuaded that men may without
+wrong have tender sentiments for women; that the desire of
+pleasing them leads men to the greatest and finest actions,
+arouses their spirit, and inspires them with liberality and all
+sorts of virtues; but that, on the other side, women, who are the
+ornaments of the world, and made to be served and adored, ought
+to permit only respectful attentions.  This lady, having
+sustained her views with much talent and great beauty, gave them
+authority in her time."
+
+The same writer says that she has "much light and sincerity,"
+with "penetration enough to unfold all the secrets of one's
+heart."
+
+Mlle. de Scudery introduces her in the "Grand Cyrus," as Parthenie,
+"a tall and graceful woman, with fine eyes, the most beautiful
+throat in the world, a lovely complexion, blonde hair, and a
+pleasant mouth, with a charming air, and a fine and eloquent
+smile, which expresses the sweetness or the bitterness of her
+soul."  She dwells upon her surprising and changeful beauty, upon
+the charm of her conversation, the variety of her knowledge, the
+delicacy of her tact, and the generosity of her tender and
+passionate heart.  One may suspect this portrait of being
+idealized, but it seems to have been in the main correct.
+
+Of her husband we know very little, excepting that he belonged to
+the family of Montmorency, passed from violent love to heart-
+breaking indifference, and died about 1640, leaving her with four
+children and shattered fortunes.  To recruit her failing health,
+and to hide her chagrin and sorrow at seeing herself supplanted
+by unworthy rivals, she had lived for some time in the country,
+where she had leisure for the reading and reflection which fitted
+her for her later life.  But after the death of her husband she
+was obliged to sell her estates, and we find her established in
+the Place Royale with her devoted friend, the Comtesse de Maure,
+and continuing the traditions of the Hotel de Rambouillet.  Her
+tastes had been formed in this circle, and she had also been
+under the instruction of the Chevalier de Mere, a litterateur and
+courtier who had great vogue, was something of an oracle, and
+molded the character and manners of divers women of this period,
+among others the future Mme. de Maintenon.  His confidence in his
+own power of bringing talent out of mediocrity was certainly
+refreshing.  Among his pupils was the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres,
+who said to him one day, "I wish to have esprit."--"Eh bien,
+Madame," replied the complaisant chevalier, "you shall have it."
+
+How much Mme. de Sable may have been indebted to this modest bel
+esprit we do not know, but her finished manner, fine taste,
+exquisite tact, cultivated intellect, and great experience of the
+world made her an authority in social matters.  To be received in
+her salon was to be received everywhere.  Cardinal Mazarin
+watched her influence with a jealous eye.  "Mme. de Longueville
+is very intimate with the Marquise de Sable," he writes in his
+private note book.  "She is visited constantly by D'Andilly, the
+Princesse de Guemene, d'Enghien and his sister, Nemours, and many
+others.  They speak freely of all the world.  It is necessary to
+have some one who will advise us of all that passes there."
+
+But the death of her favorite son--a young man distinguished for
+graces of person, mind, heart, and character, who lost his life
+in one of the battles of his friend and comrade, the Prince de
+Conde--together with the loss of her fortune and the fading of
+her beauty, turned the thoughts of the Marquise to spiritual
+things.  We find many traces of the state of mind which led her
+first into a mild form of devotion, serious but not too ascetic,
+and later into pronounced Jansenism.  In a note to a friend who
+had neglected her, she dwells upon "the misery and nothingness of
+the world," recalls the strength of their long friendship, the
+depth of her own affection, and tries to account for the
+disloyalty to herself, by the inherent weakness and emptiness of
+human nature, which renders it impossible for even the most
+perfect to do anything that is not defective.  All this is very
+charitable, to say the least, as well as a little abstract.  Time
+has given a strange humility and forgivingness to the woman who
+broke with her dearest friend, the unfortunate Duc de
+Montmorency, because he presumed to lift his eyes to the Queen,
+saying that she "could not receive pleasantly the regards which
+she had to share with the greatest princess in the world."
+
+The fashion of the period furnished a peaceful and dignified
+refuge for women, when their beauty waned and the "terrible
+forties" ended their illusions.  To go into brief retreat for
+penitence and prayer was at all times a graceful thing to do,
+besides making for safety.  It was only a step further to retire
+altogether from the scenes of pleasure which had begun to pall. 
+The convent offered a haven of repose to the bruised heart, a
+fresh aim for drooping energies, a needed outlet for devouring
+emotions, and a comfortable sense of security, not only for this
+world, but for the next.  It was the next world which was
+beginning to trouble Mme. de Sable.  She had great fear of death,
+and after many penitential retreats to Port Royal, she finally
+obtained permission to build a suite of apartments within its
+precincts, and retired there about 1655 to prepare for that
+unpleasant event which she put off as long as possible by the
+most assiduous care of her health.  "If she was not devoted, she
+had the idea of becoming so," said Mademoiselle.  But her
+devotion was in quite a mundane fashion.  Her pleasant rooms were
+separate and independent, thus enabling her to give herself not
+only to the care of her health and her soul, but to a select
+society, to literature, and to conversation.  She never practiced
+the severe asceticism of her friend, Mme. de Longueville.  With a
+great deal of abstract piety, the iron girdle and the hair shirt
+were not included.  She did not even forego her delicate and
+fastidious tastes.  Her elegant dinners and her dainty comfitures
+were as famous as ever.  "Will the anger of the Marquise go so
+far, in your opinion, as to refuse me her recipe for salad?"
+writes Mme. de Choisy at the close of a letter to the Comtesse de
+Maure, in which she has ridiculed her friend's Jansenist
+tendencies; "If so, it will be a great inhumanity, for which she
+will be punished in this world and the other."  She had great
+skill in delicate cooking, and was in the habit of sending cakes,
+jellies, and other dainties, prepared by herself, to her intimate
+friends.  La Rochefoucauld says, "If I could hope for two dishes
+of those preserves, which I did not deserve to eat before, I
+should be indebted to you all my life."  Mme. de Longueville, who
+is about to visit her, begs her not to give a feast as she has
+"scruples about such indulgence."
+
+This spice of worldliness very much tempered the austerity of her
+retreat, and lent an added luster to its intellectual
+attractions.  But the Marquise had many conflicts between her
+luxurious tastes and her desire to be devout.  Her dainty and
+epicurean habits, her extraordinary anxiety about her health, and
+her capricious humors were the subject of much light badinage
+among her friends.  The Grande Mademoiselle sketches these traits
+with a satiric touch in the "Princesse de Paphlagonie," where she
+introduces her with the Comtesse de Maure.  "There are no hours
+when they do not confer together upon the means of preventing
+themselves from dying, and upon the art of rendering themselves
+immortal," she writes.  "Their conferences are not like those of
+other people; the fear of breathing an air too cold or too hot,
+the apprehension that the wind may be too dry or too damp, a
+fancy that the weather is not as moderate as they judge necessary
+for the preservation of their health--these are sufficient
+reasons for writing from one room to another . . . .  If one
+could find this correspondence, one might derive great advantages
+in every way; for they were princesses who had nothing mortal,
+except the knowledge of being so . . .  Of Mme. de Sable she
+adds: "The Princess Parthenie had a taste as dainty as her mind;
+nothing equaled the magnificence of her entertainments; all the
+viands were exquisite, and her elegance was beyond anything that
+one could imagine."  The fastidious Marquise suffered, with all
+the world, from the defects of her qualities.  Her extreme
+delicacy and sensibility appear under many forms and verge often
+upon weakness; but it is an amiable weakness that does not
+detract greatly from her fascination.  She was not cast in a
+heroic mold, and her faults are those which the world is pleased
+to call essentially feminine.
+
+The records of her life were preserved by Conrart, also by her
+friend and physician, Valant.  They give us a clear picture of
+her character, with its graces and its foibles, as well as of her
+pleasant intercourse and correspondence with many noted men and
+women.  They give us, too, interesting glimpses of her salon.  We
+find there the celebrated Jansenists Nicole and Arnauld, the
+eminent lawyer Domat, Esprit, sometimes Pascal, with his sister,
+Mme. Perier; the Prince and Princesse de Conti, the Grand Conde,
+La Rochefoucauld, the penitent Mme. de Longueville, Mme. de La
+Fayette, and many others among the cultivated noblesse, who are
+attracted by its tone of bel esprit and graceful, but by no means
+severe, devotion.  The Duc d'Orleans and the lovely but
+unfortunate Madame were intimate and frequent visitors.
+
+In this little world, in which religion, literature, and fashion
+are curiously blended, they talk of theology, morals, physics,
+Cartesianism, friendship, and love.  The youth and gaiety of the
+Hotel de Rambouillet have given place to more serious thoughts
+and graver topics.  The current which had its source there is
+divided.  At the Samedis, in the Marais, they are amusing
+themselves about the same time with letters and Vers de Societe. 
+At the Luxembourg, a more exclusive coterie is exercising its
+mature talent in sketching portraits.  These salons touch at many
+points, but each has a channel of its own.  The reflective nature
+of Mme. de Sable turns to more serious and elevated subjects, and
+her friends take the same tone.  They make scientific
+experiments, discuss Calvinism, read the ancient moralists, and
+indulge in dissertations upon a great variety of topics.  Mme. de
+Bregy, poet, dame d'honneur and femme d'esprit, who amused the
+little court of Mademoiselle with so many discreetly flattering
+pen-portraits, has left two badly written and curiously spelled
+notes upon the merits of Socrates and Epictetus, which throw a
+ray of light upon the tastes of this aristocratic and rather
+speculative circle.  Mme. de Sable writes an essay upon the
+education of children, which is very much talked about, also a
+characteristic paper upon friendship.  The latter is little more
+than a series of detached sentences, but it indicates the drift
+of her thought, and might have served as an antidote to the
+selfish philosophy of La Rochefoucauld.  It calls out an
+appreciative letter from d'Andilly, who, in his anchorite's cell,
+continues to follow the sayings and doings of his friends in the
+little salon at Port Royal.
+
+"Friendship," she writes, "is a kind of virtue which can only be
+founded upon the esteem of people whom one loves--that is to
+say, upon qualities of the soul, such as fidelity, generosity,
+discretion, and upon fine qualities of mind."
+
+After insisting that it must be reciprocal, disinterested, and
+based upon virtue, she continues: "One ought not to give the name
+of friendship to natural inclinations because they do not depend
+upon our will or our choice; and, though they render our
+friendships more agreeable, they should not be the foundation of
+them.  The union which is founded upon the same pleasures and the
+same occupations does not deserve the name of friendship because
+it usually comes from a certain egotism which causes us to love
+that which is similar to ourselves, however imperfect we may be." 
+She dwells also upon the mutual offices and permanent nature of
+true friendship, adding, "He who loves his friend more than
+reason and justice, will on some other occasion love his own
+pleasure and profit more than his friend."
+
+The Abbe Esprit, Jansenist and academician, wrote an essay upon
+"Des Amities en Apparence les Plus Saints des Hommes avec les
+Femmes," which was doubtless suggested by the conversations in
+this salon, where the subject was freely discussed.  The days of
+chivalry were not so far distant, and the subtle blending of
+exalted sentiment with thoughtful companionship, which revived
+their spirit in a new form, was too marked a feature of the time
+to be overlooked.  These friendships, half intellectual, half
+poetic, and quite platonic, were mostly formed in mature life, on
+a basis of mental sympathy.  "There is a taste in pure friendship
+which those who are born mediocre do not reach," said La Gruyere. 
+Mme. de Lambert speaks of it as "the product of a perfect social
+culture, and, of all affections, that which has most charm."
+
+The well-known friendship of Mme. de La Fayette and La
+Rochefoucauld, which illustrates the mutual influence of a
+critical man of intellect and a deep-hearted, thoughtful woman
+who has passed the age of romance, began in this salon.  Its
+nature was foreshadowed in the tribute La Rochefoucauld paid to
+women in his portrait of himself.  "Where their intellect is
+cultivated," he writes, :"I prefer their society to that of men. 
+One finds there a gentleness one does not meet with among
+ourselves; and it seems to me, beyond this, that they express
+themselves with more neatness, and give a more agreeable turn to
+the things they talk about."
+
+Mme. de Sable was herself, in less exclusive fashion, the
+intimate friend and adviser of Esprit, d'Andilly, and La
+Rochefoucauld.  The letters of these men show clearly their warm
+regard as well as the value they attached to her opinions. 
+"Indeed," wrote Voiture to her many years before, "those who
+decry you on the side of tenderness must confess that if you are
+not the most loving person in the world, you are at least the
+most obliging.  True friendship knows no more sweetness than
+there is in your words."  Her character, so delicately shaded and
+so averse to all violent passions, seems to have been peculiarly
+fitted for this calm and enduring sentiment which cast a soft
+radiance, as of Indian summer, over her closing years.
+
+At a later period, the sacred name of friendship was
+unfortunately used to veil relations that had lost all the purity
+and delicacy of their primitive character.  This fact has
+sometimes been rather illogically cited, as an argument not only
+against the moral influence of the salons but against the
+intellectual development of women.  There is neither excuse nor
+palliation to be offered for the Italian manners and the
+recognized system of amis intimes, which disgraced the French
+society the next century.  But, while it is greatly to be
+deplored that the moral sense has not always kept pace with the
+cultivation of the intellect, there is no reason for believing
+that license of manners is in any degree the result of it.  There
+is striking evidence to the contrary, in the incredible ignorance
+and laxity that found its reaction in the early salons; also in
+the dissolute lives of many distinguished women of rank who had
+no pretension to wit or education.  The fluctuation of morals,
+which has always existed, must be traced to quite other causes. 
+Virtue has not invariably accompanied intelligence, but it has
+been still less the companion of ignorance.
+
+It was Mme. de Sable who set the fashion of condensing the
+thoughts and experiences of life into maxims and epigrams.  This
+was her specific gift to literature; but her influence was felt
+through what she inspired others to do rather than through what
+she did herself.  It was her good fortune to be brought into
+contact with the genius of a Pascal and a La Rochefoucauld,--men
+who reared immortal works upon the pastime of an idle hour.  One
+or two of her own maxims will suffice to indicate her style as
+well as to show the estimate she placed upon form and measure in
+the conduct of life:
+
+A bad manner spoils everything, even justice and reason.  The HOW
+constitutes the best part of things, and the air which one gives
+them gilds, modifies, and softens the most disagreeable.
+
+There is a certain command in the manner of speaking and acting,
+which makes itself felt everywhere, and which gains, in advance,
+consideration and respect.
+
+We find here the spirit that underlies French manners, in which
+form counts for so much.
+
+There is another, which suggests the delicate flavor of sentiment
+then in vogue:
+
+Wherever it is, love is always the master.  It seems truly that
+it is to the soul of the one who loves, what the soul is to the
+body it animates.
+
+Among the eminent men who lent so much brilliancy to this salon
+was the great jurist Domat.  He adds his contribution and falls
+into the moralizing vein:
+
+A little fine weather, a good word, a praise, a caress, draws me
+from a profound sadness from which I could not draw myself by any
+effort of meditation.  What a machine is my soul, what an abyss
+of misery and weakness!
+
+Here is one by the Abbe d'Ailly, which foreshadows the thought of
+the next century:
+
+Too great submission to books, and to the opinions of the
+ancients, as to the eternal truths revealed of God, spoils the
+head and makes pedants.
+
+The finest and most vigorous of these choice spirits was Pascal,
+who frequented more or less the salon of Mme. de Sable previous
+to his final retirement to the gloom and austerity of the
+cloister.  His delicate platonism and refined spirituality go far
+towards offsetting the cold cynicism of La Rochefoucauld.  Each
+gives us a different phase of life as reflected in a clear and
+luminous intelligence.  The one led to Port Royal, the other
+turned an electric light upon the selfish corruption of courts. 
+Many of the pensees of Pascal were preserved among the records of
+this salon, and Cousin finds reason for believing that they were
+first suggested and discussed here; he even thinks it possible,
+if not probable, that the "Discours sur les Passions de L'amour,"
+which pertains to his mundane life, and presents the grave and
+ascetic recluse in a new light, had a like origin.
+
+But the presiding genius was La Rochefoucauld.  He complains that
+the mode of relaxation is fatiguing, and that the mania for
+sentences troubles his repose.  The subjects were suggested for
+conversation, and the thoughts were condensed and reduced to
+writing at leisure.  "Here are all the maxims I have," he writes
+to Mme. de Sable; "but as one gives nothing for nothing, I demand
+a potage aux carottes, un ragout de mouton, etc."
+
+"When La Rochefoucauld had composed his sentences," says Cousin,
+"he talked them over before or after dinner, or he sent them at
+the end of a letter.  They were discussed, examined, and
+observations were made, by which he profited.  One could lessen
+their faults, but one could lend them no beauty.  There was not a
+delicate and rare turn, a fine and keen touch, which did not come
+from him."
+
+After availing himself of the general judgment in this way, he
+took a novel method of forestalling crtiticism before committing
+himself to publication.  Mme. de Sable sent a collection of the
+maxims to her friends, asking for a written opinion.  One is
+tempted to make long extracts from their replies.  The men
+usually indorse the worldly sentiments, the women rarely.  The
+Princesse de Guemene, who, in the decline of her beauty, was
+growing devout, and also had apartments for penitential retreat
+at Port Royal, responds: "I was just going to write to beg you
+to send me your carriage as soon as you had dined.  I have yet
+seen only the first maxims, as I had a headache yesterday; but
+those I have read appear to me to be founded more upon the
+disposition of the author than upon the truth, for he believes
+neither in generosity without interest, nor in pity; that is, he
+judges every one by himself.  For the greater number of people,
+he is right; but surely there are those who desire only to do
+good."  The Countesse de Maure, who does not believe in the
+absolute depravity of human nature, and is inclined to an
+elevated Christian philosophy quite opposed to Jansenism, writes
+with so much severity that she begs her friend not to show her
+letter to the author.  Mme. de Hautefort expresses her
+disapproval of a theory which drives honor and goodness out of
+the world.  After many clever and well-turned criticisms, she
+says: "But the maxim which is quite new to me, and which I
+admire, is that idleness, languid as it is, destroys all the
+passions.  It is true, and he had searched his heart well to find
+a sentiment so hidden, but so just . . .  I think one ought, at
+present, to esteem idleness as the only virtue in the world,
+since it is that which uproots all the vices.  As I have always
+had much respect for it, I am glad it has so much merit."  But
+she adds wisely: "If I were of the opinion of the author, I would
+not bring to the light those mysteries which will forever deprive
+him of all the confidence one might have in him."
+
+There is one letter, written by the clever and beautiful Eleonore
+de Rohan, Abbess de Malnoue, and addressed to the author, which
+deserves to be read for its fine and just sentiments.  In closing
+she says:
+
+The maxim upon humility appears to me perfectly beautiful; but I
+have been so surprised to find it there, that I had the greatest
+difficulty in recognizing it in the midst of all that precedes
+and follows it.  It is assuredly to make this virtue practiced
+among your own sex, that you have written maxims in which their
+self-love is so little flattered.  I should be very much
+humiliated on my own part, if I did not say to myself what I have
+already said to you in this note, that you judge better the
+hearts of men than those of women, and that perhaps you do not
+know yourself the true motive which makes you esteem them less. 
+If you had always met those whose temperament had been submitted
+to virtue, and in whom the senses were less strong than reason,
+you would think better of a certain number who distinguish
+themselves always from the multitude; and it seems to me that
+Mme. de La Fayette and myself deserve that you should have a
+better opinion of the sex in general.
+
+Mme. de La Fayette writes to the Marquise: "All people of good
+sense are not so persuaded of the general corruption as is M. de
+La Rochefoucauld.  I return to you a thousand thanks for all you
+have done for this gentleman."--At a later period she said: "La
+Rochefoucauld stimulated my intellect, but I reformed his heart." 
+It is to be regretted that he had not known her sooner.
+
+At his request Mme. de Sable wrote a review of the maxims, which
+she submitted to him for approval.  It seems to have been a fair
+presentation of both sides, but he thought it too severe, and she
+kindly gave him permission to change it to suit himself.  He took
+her at her word, dropped the adverse criticisms, retained the
+eulogies, and published it in the "Journal des Savants" as he
+wished it to go to the world.  The diplomatic Marquise saved her
+conscience and kept her friend.
+
+The maxims of La Rochefoucauld, which are familiar to all, have
+extended into a literature.  That he generalized from his own
+point of view, and applied to universal humanity the motives of a
+class bent upon favor and precedence, is certainly true.  But
+whatever we may think of his sentiments, which were those of a
+man of the world whose observations were largely in the
+atmosphere of courts, we are compelled to admit his unrivaled
+finish and perfection of form.  Similar theories of human nature
+run through the maxims of Esprit and Saint Evremond, without the
+exquisite turn which makes each one of La Rochefoucauld's a gem
+in itself.  His tone was that of a disappointed courtier, with a
+vein of sadness only half disguised by cold philosophy and bitter
+cynicism.  La Bruyere, with a broader outlook upon humanity, had
+much of the same fine analysis, with less conciseness and
+elegance of expression.  Vauvenargues and Joubert were his
+legitimate successors.  But how far removed in spirit!
+
+"The body has graces," writes Vauvenargues, "the mind has
+talents; has the heart only vices?  And man capable of reason,
+shall he be incapable of virtue?"
+
+With a fine and delicate touch, Joubert says: "Virtue is the
+health of the soul.  It gives a flavor to the smallest leaves of
+life."
+
+These sentiments are in the vein of Pascal, who represents the
+most spiritual element of the little coterie which has left such
+a legacy of condensed thought to the world.
+
+The crowning act of the life of Mme. de Sable was her defense of
+Port Royal.  She united with Mme. de Longueville in protecting
+the persecuted Jansenists, Nicole and Arnauld, but she had
+neither the courage, the heroism, nor the partisan spirit of her
+more ardent companion.  With all her devotion she was something
+of a sybarite and liked repose.  She had the tact, during all the
+troubles which scattered her little circle, to retain her
+friends, of whatever religious color, though not without a few
+temporary clouds.  Her diplomatic moderation did not quite please
+the religieuses of Port Royal, and chilled a little her pleasant
+relations with d'Andilly.
+
+Toward the close of her life, the Marquise was in the habit of
+secluding herself for days together, and declining to see even
+her dearest friends.  The Abbe de la Victoire, piqued at not
+being received, spoke of her one day as "the late Mme. la
+Marquise de Sable."
+
+La Rochefoucauld writes to her, "I know no more inventions for
+entering your house; I am refused at the door every day."  Mme.
+de La Fayette declares herself offended, and cites this as a
+proof of her attachment, saying, "There are very few people who
+could displease me by not wishing to see me."  But the friends of
+the Marquise are disposed to treat her caprices very leniently. 
+As the years went by and the interests of life receded, Mme. de
+Sable became reconciled to the thought that had inspired her with
+so much dread.  When she died at the advanced age of seventy-
+nine, the longed-for transition was only the quiet passing from
+fevered dreams to peaceful sleep.
+
+It is a singular fact that this refined, exclusive, fastidious
+woman, in whom the artistic nature was always dominant to the
+extent of weakness, should have left a request to be buried,
+without ceremony, in the parish cemetery with the people, remote
+alike from the tombs of her family and the saints of Port Royal.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. MADAME DE SEVIGNE
+Her Genius--Her Youth--Her unworthy Husband--Her impertinent
+Cousin--Her love for her Daughter--Her Letters--Hotel de
+Carnavalet--Mme. Duiplessis Guenegaud--Mme. de Coulanges--The
+Curtain Falls
+
+Among the brilliant French women of the seventeenth century, no
+one is so well-known today as Mme. de Sevigne.  She has not only
+been sung by poets and portrayed by historians, but she has left
+us a complete record of her own life and her own character.  Her
+letters reflect every shade of her many-sided nature, as well as
+the events, even the trifling incidents, of the world in which
+she lived; the lineaments, the experiences, the virtues, and the
+follies of the people whom she knew.  We catch the changeful
+tints of her mind that readily takes the complexion of those
+about her, while retaining its independence; we are made familiar
+with her small joys and sorrows, we laugh with her at her own
+harmless weaknesses, we feel the inspiration of her sympathy, we
+hear the innermost throbbings of her heart.  No one was ever less
+consciously a woman of letters.  No one would have been more
+surprised than herself at her own fame.  One is instinctively
+sure that she would never have seated herself deliberately to
+write a book of any sort whatever.  While she was planning a form
+for her thoughts, they would have flown.  She was essentially a
+woman of the great world, for which she was fitted by her
+position, her temperament, her esprit, her tastes, and her
+character.  She loved its variety, its movement, its gaiety; she
+judged leniently even its faults and its frailties.  If they
+often furnished a target for her wit, behind her sharpest
+epigrams one detects an indulgent smile.
+
+The natural outlet for her full mind and heart was in
+conversation.  When she was alone, they found vent in
+conversation of another sort.  She talks on paper.  Her letters
+have the unstudied freedom, the rapidity, the shades, the
+inflections of spoken words.  She gives her thoughts their own
+course, "with reins upon the neck," as she was fond of saying,
+and without knowing where they will lead her.  But it is the
+personal element that inspires her.  Let her heart be piqued, or
+touched by a profound affection, and her mind is illuminated; her
+pen flies.  Her nature unveils itself, her emotions chase one
+another in quick succession, her thoughts crystallize with
+wonderful brilliancy, and the world is reflected in a thousand
+varying colors.  The sparkling wit, the swift judgment, the
+subtle insight, the lightness of touch, the indefinable charm of
+style--these belong to her temperament and her genius.  But the
+clearness, the justness of expression, the precision, the
+simplicity that was never banal--such qualities nature does not
+bestow.  One must find their source in careful training, in wise
+criticism, in early familiarity with good models.
+
+Living from 1626 to 1696, Mme. de Sevigne was en rapport with the
+best life of the great century of French letters.  She was the
+granddaughter of the mystical Mme. de Chantal, who was too much
+occupied with her convents and her devotions to give much
+attention to the little Marie, left an orphan at the age of six
+years.  The child did not inherit much of her grandmother's
+spirit of reverence, and at a later period was wont to indulge in
+many harmless pleasantries about her pious ancestress and "our
+grandfather, St. Francois de Sales."  Deprived so early of the
+care of a mother, she was brought up by an uncle, the good Abbe
+de Coulanges--the "Bien-Bon"--whose life was devoted to her
+interests.  Though born in the Place Royale, that long-faded
+center of so much that was brilliant and fascinating two
+centuries ago, much of her youth was passed in the family chateau
+at Livry, where she was carefully educated in a far more solid
+fashion than was usual among the women of her time.  She had an
+early introduction to the Hotel de Rambouillet, and readily
+caught its intellectual tastes, though she always retained a
+certain bold freedom of speech and manners, quite opposed to its
+spirit.
+
+Her instructors were Chapelain and Menage, both honored habitues
+of that famous salon.  The first was a dull poet, a profound
+scholar, somewhat of a pedant, and notoriously careless in his
+dress--le vieux Chapelain, his irreverent pupil used to call
+him.  When he died of apoplexy, years afterwards, she wrote to
+her daughter: "He confesses by pressing the hand; he is like a
+statue in his chair.  So God confounds the pride of
+philosophers."  But he taught her Latin, Spanish, and Italian,
+made her familiar with the beauties of Virgil and Tasso, and gave
+her a critical taste for letters.
+
+Menage was younger, and aspired to be a man of the world as well
+as a savant.  Repeating one day the remark of a friend, that out
+of ten things he knew he had learned nine in conversation, he
+added, "I could say about the same thing myself"--a confession
+that savors more of the salon than of the library.  He had a good
+deal of learning, but much pretension, and Moliere has given him
+an undesirable immortality as Vadius in "Les Femmes Savantes," in
+company with his deadly enemy, the Abbe Cotin, who figures as
+"Trissotin."  It appears that the susceptible savant lost his heart
+to his lively pupil, and sighed not only in secret but quite
+openly.  He wrote her bad verses in several languages, loaded her
+with eulogies, and followed her persistently.  "The name of Mme.
+de Sevigne," said the Bishop of Laon, "is in the works of Menage
+what Bassan's dog is in his portraits.  He cannot help putting it
+there."  She treated him in a sisterly fashion that put to flight
+all sentimental illusions, but she had often to pacify his
+wounded vanity.  One day, in the presence of several friends, she
+gave him a greeting rather more cordial than dignified.  Noticing
+the looks of surprise, she turned away laughing and said, "So
+they kissed in the primitive church."  But the wide knowledge and
+scholarly criticism of Menage were of great value to the
+versatile woman, who speedily surpassed her master in style if
+not in learning.  Evidently she appreciated him, since she
+addressed him in one of her letters as "friend of all friends,
+the best."
+
+At eighteen the gay and unconventional Marie de Rabutin-Chantal
+was married to the Marquis de Sevigne; but her period of
+happiness was a short one.  The husband, who was rich, handsome,
+and agreeable, proved weak and faithless.  He was one of the
+temporary caprices of the dangerous Ninon, led a dashing,
+irresponsible life, spent his fortune recklessly, and left his
+pretty young wife to weep alone at a convenient distance, under
+the somber skies of Brittany.  Fortunately for her and for
+posterity, his career was rapid and brief.  For some trifling
+affair of so-called honor--a quality of which, from our point of
+view, he does not seem to have possessed enough to be worth the
+trouble of defending--he had the kindness to get himself killed
+in a duel, after seven years of marriage.  His spirited wife had
+loved him sincerely, and first illusions die slowly.  She shed
+many bitter and natural tears, but she never showed any
+disposition to repeat the experiment.  Perhaps she was of the
+opinion of another young widow who thought it "a fine thing to
+bear the name of a man who can commit no more follies."  But it
+is useless to speculate upon the reasons why a woman does or does
+not marry.  It is certain that the love of her two children
+filled the heart of Mme. de Sevigne; her future life was devoted
+to their training, and to repairing a fortune upon which her
+husband's extravagance had made heavy inroads.
+
+But the fascinating widow of twenty-five had a dangerous path to
+tread.  That she lived in a society so lax and corrupt,
+unprotected and surrounded by distinguished admirers, without a
+shadow of suspicion having fallen upon her fair reputation is a
+strong proof of her good judgment and her discretion.  She was
+not a great beauty, though the flattering verses of her poet
+friends might lead one to think so.  A complexion fresh and fair,
+eyes of remarkable brilliancy, an abundance of blond hair, a face
+mobile and animated, and a fine figure--these were her visible
+attractions.  She danced well, sang well, talked well, and had
+abounding health.  Mme. de La Fayette made a pen-portrait of her,
+which was thought to be strikingly true.  It was in the form of a
+letter from an unknown man.  A few extracts will serve to bring
+her more vividly before us.
+
+"Your mind so adorns and embellishes your person, that there is
+no one in the world so fascinating when you are animated by a
+conversation from which constraint is banished.  All that you say
+has such a charm, and becomes you so well, that the words attract
+the Smiles and the Graces around you; the brilliancy of your
+intellect gives such luster to your complexion and your eyes,
+that although it seems that wit should touch only the ears, yours
+dazzles the sight.
+
+"Your soul is great and elevated.  You are sensitive to glory and
+to ambition, and not less so to pleasures; you were born for them
+and they seem to have been made for you . . .  In a word, joy is
+the true state of your soul, and grief is as contrary to it as
+possible.  You are naturally tender and impassioned; there was
+never a heart so generous, so noble, so faithful . . .  You are
+the most courteous and amiable person that ever lived, and the
+sweet, frank air which is seen in all your actions makes the
+simplest compliments of politeness seem from your lips
+protestations of friendship."
+
+Mlle. de Scudery sketches her as the Princesse Clarinte in
+"Clelie," concluding with these words: "I have never seen together
+so many attractions, so much gaiety, so much coquetry, so much
+light, so much innocence and virtue.  No one ever understood
+better the art of having grace without affectation, raillery
+without malice, gaiety without folly, propriety without
+constraint, and virtue without severity."
+
+Her malicious cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, who was piqued by her
+indifference, and basely wished to avenge himself, said that her
+"warmth was in her intellect;" that for a woman of quality she
+was too badine, too economical, too keenly alive to her own
+interests; that she made too much account of a few trifling words
+from the queen, and was too evidently flattered when the king
+danced with her.  This opinion of a vain and jealous man is not
+entitled to great consideration, especially when we recall that
+he had already spoken of her as "the delight of mankind,:" and
+said that antiquity would have dressed altars for her and she
+would "surely have been goddess of something."  The most
+incomprehensible page in her history is her complaisance towards
+the persistent impertinences of this perfidious friend.  The only
+solution of it seems to lie in the strength of family ties, and
+in her unwillingness to be on bad terms with one of her very few
+near relatives.  Bussy-Rabutin was handsome, witty, brilliant, a
+bel esprit, a member of the Academie Francaise, and very much in
+love with his charming cousin, who clearly appreciated his
+talents, if not his character.  "You are the fagot of my
+intellect," she says to him; but she forbids him to talk of love. 
+Unfortunately for himself, his vanity got the better of his
+discretion.  He wrote the "Histoire Amoureuse des Gauls," and
+raised such a storm about his head by his attack upon many fair
+reputations, that, after a few months of lonely meditation in the
+Bastille, he was exiled from Paris for seventeen years.  Long
+afterwards he repented the unkind blow he had given to Mme. de
+Sevigne, confessed its injustice, apologized, and made his peace. 
+But the world is less forgiving, and wastes little sympathy upon
+the base but clever and ambitious man who was doomed to wear his
+restless life away in the uncongenial solitude of his chateau.
+
+Among the numerous adorers of Mme. de Sevigne were the Prince de
+Conti, the witty Comte de Lude, the poet Segrais, Fouquet, and
+Turenne.  Her friendship for the last two seems to have been the
+most lively and permanent.  We owe to her sympathetic pen the
+best account of the death of Turenne.  Her devotion to the
+interests of Fouquet and his family lasted though the many years
+of imprisonment that ended only with his life.  There was nothing
+of the spirit of the courtier in her generous affection for the
+friends who were out of favor.  The loyalty of her character was
+notably displayed in her unwavering attachment to Cardinal de
+Retz, during his long period of exile and misfortune, after the
+Fronde.
+
+But one must go outside the ordinary channels to find the
+veritable romance of Mme. de Sevigne's life.  Her sensibility
+lent itself with great facility to impressions, and her gracious
+manners, her amiable character, her inexhaustible fund of gaiety
+could not fail to bring her a host of admirers.  She had
+doubtless a vein of harmless coquetry, but it was little more
+than the natural and variable grace of a frank and sympathetic
+woman who likes to please, and who scatters about her the flowers
+of a rich mind and heart, without taking violent passions too
+seriously, if, indeed, she heeds them at all.  Friendship, too,
+has its shades, its subtleties, its half-perceptible and quite
+unconscious coquetries.  But the supreme passion of Mme. de
+Sevigne was her love for her daughter.  It was the exaltation of
+her mystical grandmother, in another form.  "To love as I love
+you makes all other friendships frivolous," she writes.  Whatever
+her gifts and attractions may have been, she is known to the
+world mainly through this affection and the letters which have
+immortalized it.  Nowhere in literature has maternal love found
+such complete and perfect expression.  Nowhere do we find a
+character so clearly self-revealed.  Others have professed to
+unveil their innermost lives, but there is always a suspicion of
+posing in deliberate revelations.  Mme. De Sevigne has portrayed
+herself unconsciously.  It is the experience of yesterday, the
+thought of today, the hope of tomorrow, the love that is at once
+the joy and sorrow of all the days, that are woven into a
+thousand varying but living forms.  One naturally seeks in the
+character of the daughter a key to the absorbing sentiment which
+is the inspiration and soul of these letters; but one does not
+find it there.  More beautiful than her mother, more learned,
+more accomplished, she lacked her sympathetic charm.  Cold,
+reserved, timid, and haughty, without vivacity and apparently
+without fine sensibility, she was much admired but little loved
+by the world in which she lived.  "When you choose, you are
+adorable," wrote her mother; but evidently she did not always so
+choose.  Bussy-Rabutin says of her, "This woman has esprit, but
+it is esprit soured and of insupportable egotism.  She will make
+as many enemies as her mother makes friends and adorers."  He did
+not like her, and one must again take his opinion with reserve;
+but she says of herself that she is "of a temperament little
+communicative."  In her mature life she naively writes: "At first
+people thought me amiable enough, but when they knew me better
+they loved me no more."  "The prettiest girl in France," whose
+beauty was expected to "set the world on fire," created a mild
+sensation at court; was noticed by the king, who danced with her,
+received her share of adulation, and finally became the third
+wife of the Comte de Grignan, who carried her off to Provence, to
+the lasting grief of her adoring mother, and to the great
+advantage of posterity, which owes to this fact the series of
+incomparable letters that made the fame of their writer, and
+threw so direct and vivid a light upon an entire generation. 
+
+The world has been inclined to regard the son of Mme. de Sevigne
+as the more lovable of her two children, but she doubtless
+recognized in his light and inconsequent character many of the
+qualities of her husband which had given her so much sorrow
+during the brief years of her marriage.  Amiable, affectionate,
+and not without talent, he was nevertheless the source of many
+anxieties and little pride.  He followed in the footsteps of his
+father, and became a willing victim to the fascinations of Ninon;
+he frequented the society of Champmesle, where he met habitually
+Boileau and Racine.  He recited well, had a fine literary taste,
+much sensibility, and a gracious ease of manner that made him
+many friends.  "He was almost as much loved as I am," remarked
+the brilliant Mme. de Coulanges, after accompanying him on a
+visit to Versailles.  He appealed to Mme. de La Fayette to use
+her influence with his mother to induce her to pay his numerous
+debts.  There is a touch of satire in the closing line of the
+note in which she intercedes for him.  "The great friendship you
+have for Mme. de Grignan," she writes, "makes it necessary to
+show some for her brother."--But we have glimpses of his
+weakness and instability in many of his mother's intimate
+letters.  In the end, however, having exhausted the pleasures of
+life and felt the bitterness of its disappointments, he took
+refuge in devotion, and died in the odor of sanctity, after the
+example of his devout ancestress.
+
+Mme. de Grignan certainly offered a more solid foundation for her
+mother's confidence and affection.  It is quite possible, too,
+that her reserve concealed graces of character only apparent on a
+close intimacy.  But love does not wait for reasons, and this
+one had all the shades and intensities of a passion, with few of
+its exactions.  D'Andilly called the mother a "pretty pagan,"
+because she made such an idol of her daughter.  She sometimes has
+her own misgivings on the score of religion.  "I make this a
+little Trappe," she wrote from Livry, after the separation.  "I
+wish to pray to God and make a thousand reflections; but, Ma
+pauvre chere, what I do better than all that is to think of you.
+. .  I see you, you are present to me, I think and think again of
+everything; my head and my mind are racked; but I turn in vain, I
+seek in vain; the dear child whom I love with so much passion is
+two hundred leagues away.  I have her no more.  Then I weep
+without the power to help myself."  She rings the changes upon
+this inexhaustible theme.  A responsive word delights her; a
+brief silence terrifies her; a slight coldness plunges her into
+despair.  "I have an imagination so lively that uncertainty makes
+me die," she writes.  If a shadow of grief touches her idol, her
+sympathies are overflowing.  "You weep, my very dear child; it is
+an affair for you; it is not the same thing for me, it is my
+temperament."
+
+But though this love pulses and throbs behind all her letters, it
+does not make up the substance of them.  To amuse her daughter
+she gathers all the gossip of the court, all the news of her
+friends; she keeps her au courant with the most trifling as well
+as the most important events.  Now she entertains her with a
+witty description of a scene at Versailles, a tragical adventure,
+a gracious word about Mme. Scarron, "who sups with me every
+evening," a tender message from Mme. de La Fayette; now it is a
+serious reflection upon the death of Turenne, a vivid picture of
+her own life, a bit of philosophy, a spicy anecdote about a dying
+man who takes forty cups of tea every morning, and is cured.  A
+few touches lay bare a character or sketch a vivid scene.  It is
+this infinite variety of detail that gives such historic value to
+her letters.  In a correspondence so intimate she has no interest
+to conciliate, no ends to gain.  She is simply a mirror in which
+the world about her is reflected.
+
+But the most interesting thing we read in her letters is the life
+and nature of the woman herself.  She has a taste for society and
+for seclusion, for gaiety and for thought, for friendship and for
+books.  For the moment each one seems dominant.  "I am always of
+the opinion of the one heard last," she says, laughing at her own
+impressibility.  It is an amiable admission, but she has very
+fine and rational ideas of her own, notwithstanding.  In books,
+for which she had always a passion, she found unfailing
+consolation.  Corneille and La Fontaine were her favorite
+traveling companions.  "I am well satisfied to be a substance
+that thinks and reads," she says, finding her good uncle a trifle
+dull for a compagnon de voyage.  Her tastes were catholic.  She
+read Astree with delight, loved Petrarch, Ariosto, and Montaigne;
+Rabelais made her "die of laughter," she found Plutarch
+admirable, enjoyed Tacitus as keenly as did Mme. Roland a century
+later, read Josephus and Lucian, dipped into the history of the
+crusades and of the iconoclasts, of the holy fathers and of the
+saints.  She preferred the history of France to that of Rome
+because she had "neither relatives nor friends in the latter
+place."  She finds the music of Lulli celestial and the preaching
+of Bourdaloue divine.  Racine she did not quite appreciate.  In
+his youth, she said he wrote tragedies for Champmesle and not for
+posterity.  Later she modified her opinion, but Corneille held
+always the first place in her affection.  She had a great love
+for books on morals, read and reread the essays of Nicole, which
+she found a perpetual resource against the ills of life -- even
+rain and bad weather.  St. Augustine she reads with pleasure, and
+she is charmed with Bossuet and Pascal; but she is not very
+devout, though she often tries to be.  There is a serious naivete
+in all her efforts in this direction.  She seems to have always
+one eye upon the world while she prays, and she mourns over her
+own lack of devotion.  "I wish my heart were for God as it is for
+you," she writes to her daughter.  "I am neither of God nor of
+the devil," she says again; "that state troubles me though,
+between ourselves, I find it the most natural in the world."  Her
+reason quickly pierces to the heart of superstition; sometimes
+she cannot help a touch of sarcasm.  "I fear that this trappe,
+which wishes to pass humanity, may become a lunatic asylum," she
+says.  She believes little in saints and processions.  Over the
+high altar of her chapel she writes SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA. 
+"It is the way to make no one jealous," she remarks.
+
+She was rather inclined toward Jansenism, but she could not
+fathom all the subtleties of her friends the Port Royalists, and
+begged them to "have the kindness, out of pity for her, to
+thicken their religion a little as it evaporated in so much
+reasoning."  As she grows older the tone of seriousness is more
+perceptible.  "If I could only live two hundred years," she
+writes, "it seems to me that I might be an admirable person." 
+The rationalistic tendencies of Mme. de Grignan give her some
+anxiety, and she rallies her often upon the doubtful philosophy
+of her PERE DESCARTES.  She could not admit a theory which
+pretended to prove that her dog Marphise had no soul, and she
+insisted that if the Cartesians had any desire to go to heaven,
+it was out of curiosity.  "Talk to the Cardinal (de Retz) a
+little of your MACHINES; machines that love, machines that have a
+choice for some one, machines that are jealous, machines that
+fear.  ALLEZ, ALLEZ, you are jesting!  Descartes never intended
+to make us believe all that."
+
+In her youth Mme. de Sevigne did not like the country because it
+was windy and spoiled her beautiful complexion; perhaps, too,
+because it was lonely.  But with her happy gift of adaptation she
+came to love its tranquillity.  She went often to the solitary
+old family chateau in Brittany to make economies and to retrieve
+the fortune which suffered successively from the reckless
+extravagance of her husband and son, and from the expensive
+tastes of the Comte de Grignan, who was acting governor of
+Provence, and lived in a state much too magnificent for his
+resources.  Of her life at The Rocks she has left us many
+exquisite pictures.  "I go out into the pleasant avenues; I have
+a footman who follows me; I have books, I change place, I vary
+the direction of my promenade; a book of devotion, a book of
+history; one changes from one to the other; that gives diversion;
+one dreams a little of God, of his providence; one possesses
+one's soul, one thinks of the future."
+
+She embellishes her park, superintends the planting of trees, and
+"a labyrinth from which one could not extricate one's self
+without the thread of Ariadne;" she fills her garden with orange
+trees and jessamine until the air is so perfumed that she
+imagines herself in Provence.  She sits in the shade and
+embroiders while her son "reads trifles, comedies which he plays
+like Moliere, verses, romances, tales; he is very amusing, he has
+esprit, he is appreciative, he entertains us."  She notes the
+changing color of the leaves, the budding of the springtime.  "It
+seems to me that in case of need I should know very well how to
+make a spring," she writes.  She loves too the "fine, crystal
+days of autumn."  Sometimes, in the evening, she has "gray-brown
+thoughts which grow black at night," but she never dwells upon
+these.  Her "habitual thought--that which one must have for God,
+if one does his duty"--is for her daughter.  "My dear child,"
+she writes, "it is only you that I prefer to the tranquil repose
+I enjoy here."
+
+If her own soul is open to us in all its variable and charming
+moods, we also catch in her letters many unconscious reflections
+of her daughter's character.  She offers her a little needed
+worldly advice.  "Try, my child," she says, "to adjust yourself
+to the manners and customs of the people with whom you live;
+adapt yourself to that which is not bad; do not be disgusted with
+that which is only mediocre; make a pleasure of that which is not
+ridiculous."  She entreats her to love the little Pauline and not
+to scold her, nor send her away to the convent as she did her
+sister Marie-Blanche.  With what infinite tenderness she always
+speaks of this child, smiling at her small outbursts of temper,
+soothing her little griefs, and giving wise counsels about her
+education.  Evidently she doubted the patience of the mother. 
+"You do not yet too well comprehend maternal love," she writes;
+"so much the better, my child; it is violent."
+
+Unfortunately this adoring mother could not get on very well with
+her daughter when they were together.  She drowned her with
+affection, she fatigued her with care for her health, she was
+hurt by her ungracious manner, she was frozen by her indifference
+  in short, they killed each other.  It is not a rare thing to
+make a cult of a distant idol, and to find one's self unequal to
+the perpetual shock of the small collisions which diversities of
+taste and temperament render inevitable in daily intercourse.  In
+this instance, one can readily imagine that a love so interwoven
+with every fiber of the mother's life, must have been a little
+over-sensitive, a little exacting, a trifle too demonstrative for
+the colder nature of the daughter; but that it was the less
+genuine and profound, no one who has at all studied the character
+of Mme. de Sevigne can for a moment imagine.  How she suffers
+when it becomes necessary for Mme. de Grignan to go back to
+Provence!  How the tears flow!  How readily she forgives all,
+even to denying that there is anything to forgive.  "A word, a
+sweetness, a return, a caress, a tenderness, disarms me, cures me
+in a moment," she writes.  And again: "Would to God, my daughter,
+that I might see you once more at the Hotel de Carnavalet, not
+for eight days, nor to make there a penitence, but to embrace you
+and to make you see clearly that I cannot be happy without you,
+and that the chagrins which my friendship for you might give me
+are more agreeable than all the false peace of a wearisome
+absence."  In spite of these little clouds, the old love is never
+dimmed; we are constantly bewildered with the inexhaustible
+riches of a heart which gives so lavishly and really asks so
+little for itself.
+
+The Hotel de Carnavalet was one of the social centers of the
+latter part of the century, but it was the source of no special
+literature and of no new diversions.  Mme. de Sevigne was herself
+luminous, and her fame owes none of its luster to the reflection
+from those about her.  She was original and spontaneous.  She
+read because she liked to read, and not because she wished to be
+learned.  She wrote as she talked, from the impulse of the
+moment, without method or aim excepting to follow where her rapid
+thought led her.  Her taste for society was of the same order. 
+Her variable and sparkling genius would have broken loose from
+the formal conversations and rather studied brilliancy that had
+charmed her youth at the Hotel de Rambouillet.  The onerous
+duties of a perpetual hostess would not have suited her
+temperament, which demanded its hours of solitude and repose. 
+But she was devoted to her friends, and there was a delightful
+freedom in all her intercourse with them.  She has not chronicled
+her salon, but she has chronicled her world, and we gather from
+her letters the quality of her guests.  She liked to pass an
+evening in the literary coterie at the Luxembourg; to drop in
+familiarly upon Mme. de La Fayette, where she found La
+Rochefoucauld, Cardinal de Retz, sometimes Segrais, Huet, La
+Fontaine, Moliere, and other wits of the time; to sup with Mme.
+de Coulanges and Mme. Scarron.  She is a constant visitor at the
+old Hotel de Nevers, where Marie de Gonzague and the Princesse
+Palatine had charmed an earlier generation, and where Mme.
+Duplessis Guenegaud, a woman of brilliant intellect, heroic
+courage, large heart, and pure character, whom d'Andilly calls
+one of the great souls, presided over a new circle of young poets
+and men of letters, reviving the fading memories of the Hotel de
+Rambouillet.  Mme. De Sevigne, who had fine dramatic talent,
+acted here in little comedies.  She heard Boileau read his
+satires and Racine his tragedies.  She met the witty Chevalier de
+Chatillon, who asked eight days to make an impromptu, and
+Pomponne, who wrote to his father that the great world he found
+in this salon did not prevent him from appearing in a gray habit. 
+In a letter from the country house of Mme. Duplessis, at Fresnes,
+to the same Pomponne, then ambassador to Sweden, Mme. de Sevigne
+says: "I have M. d'Andilly at my left, that is, on the side of my
+heart; I have Mme. de La Fayette at my right; Mme. Duplessis
+before me, daubing little pictures; Mme. De Motteville a little
+further off, who dreams profoundly; our uncle de Cessac, whom I
+fear because I do not know him very well."
+
+It is this life of charming informality; this society of lettered
+tastes, of wit, of talent, of distinction, that she transfers to
+her own salon.  Its continuity is often broken by her long
+absences in the country or in Provence, but her irresistible
+magnetism quickly draws the world around her, on her return.  In
+addition to her intimate friends and to men of letters like
+Racine, Boileau, Benserade, one meets representatives of the most
+distinguished of the old families of France.  Conde, Richelieu,
+Colberg, Louvois, and Sully are a few among the great names, of
+which the list might be indefinitely extended.  We have many
+interesting glimpses of the Grande Mademoiselle, the "adorable"
+Duchesse de Chaulnes, the Duc and Duchesse de Rohan, who were
+"Germans in the art of savoir-vivre," the Abbess de Fontevrault,
+so celebrated for her esprit and her virtue, and a host of others
+too numerous to mention.  The sculptured portals and time-stained
+walls of the Hotel de Carnavalet are still alive with the
+memories of these brilliant reunions and the famous people who
+shone there two hundred years ago.
+
+Among those who exercised the most important influence upon the
+life of Mme. de Sevigne was Corbinelli, the wise counselor, who,
+with a soul untouched by the storms of adversity through which he
+had passed, devoted his life to letters and the interests of his
+friends.  No one had a finer appreciation of her gifts and her
+character.  Her compared her letters to those of Cicero, but he
+always sought to temper her ardor, and to turn her thoughts
+toward an elevated Christian philosophy.  "In him," said Mme. de
+Sevigne, "I defend one who does not cease to celebrate the
+perfections and the existence of God; who never judges his
+neighbor, who excuses him always; who is insensible to the
+pleasures and delights of life, and entirely submissive to the
+will of Providence; in fine, I sustain the faithful admirer of
+Sainte Therese, and of my grandmother, Sainte Chantal."  This
+gentle, learned, and disinterested man, whose friendship deepened
+with years, was an unfailing resource.  In her troubles and
+perplexities she seeks his advice; in her intellectual tastes she
+is sustained by his sympathy.  She speaks often of the happy days
+in Provence, when, together with her daughter, they translate
+Tacitus, read Tasso, and get entangled in endless discussions
+upon Descartes.  Even Mme. de Grignan, who rarely likes her
+mother's friends, in the end gives due consideration to this
+loyal confidant, though she does not hesitate to ridicule the
+mysticism into which he finally drifted.
+
+After Mme. de La Fayette, the woman whose relations with Mme. de
+Sevigne were the most intimate was Mme. de Coulanges, who merits
+here more than a passing word.  Her wit was proverbial, her
+popularity universal.  The Leaf, the Fly, the Sylph, the Goddess,
+her friend calls her in turn, with many a light thrust at her
+volatile but loyal character.  This brilliant, spirituelle,
+caustic woman was the wife of a cousin of the Marquis de Sevigne,
+who was as witty as herself and more inconsequent.  Both were
+amiable, both sparkled with bons mots and epigrams, but they
+failed to entertain each other.  The husband goes to Italy or
+Germany or passes his time in various chateaux, where he is sure
+of a warm welcome and good cheer.  The wife goes to Versailles,
+visits her cousin Louvois, the Duchesse de Richelieu, and Mme. de
+Maintenon, who loves her much; or presides at home over a salon
+that is always well filled.  "Ah, Madame," said M. de Barillon,
+"how much your house pleases me!  I shall come here very evening
+when I am tired of my family."  "Monsieur," she replied, "I
+expect you tomorrow."  When she was ill and likely to die, her
+husband had a sudden access of affection, and nursed her with
+great tenderness.  Mme. de Coulanges dying and her husband in
+grief, seemed somehow out of the order of things.  "A dead
+vivacity, a weeping gaiety, these are prodigies," wrote Mme. de
+Sevigne.  When the wife recovered, however, they took their
+separate ways as before.
+
+"Your letters are delicious," she wrote once to Mme. de Sevigne,
+"and you are as delicious as your letters."  Her own were as much
+sought in her time, but she had no profound affection to
+consecrate them and no children to collect them, so that only a
+few have been preserved.  There is a curious vein of philosophy
+in one she wrote to her husband, when the pleasures of life began
+to fade.  "As for myself, I care little for the world; I find it
+no longer suited to my age; I have no engagements, thank God, to
+retain me there.  I have seen all there is to see.  I have only
+an old face to present to it, nothing new to show nor to discover
+there.  Ah!  What avails it to recommence every day the visits,
+to trouble one's self always about things that do not concern us?
+. . . .  My dear sir, we must think of something more solid." 
+She disappears from the scene shortly after the death of Mme. De
+Sevigne.  Long years of silence and seclusion, and another
+generation heard one day that she had lived and that she was
+dead.
+
+The friends of Mme. de Sevigne slip away one after another; La
+Rochefoucauld, De Retz, Mme. de La Fayette are gone.  "Alas!" she
+writes, "how this death goes running about and striking on all
+sides." The thought troubles her.  "I am embarked in life without
+my consent," she says; "I must go out of it--that overwhelms me. 
+And how shall I go?  Whence: By what door?  When will it be?  In
+what disposition: How shall I be with God?  What have I to
+present to him?  What can I hope?--Am I worthy of paradise?  Am
+I worthy of hell?  What an alternative!  What a complication!  I
+would like better to have died in the arms of my nurse."
+
+The end came to her in the one spot where she would most have
+wished it.  She died while on a visit to her daughter in
+Provence.  Strength and resignation came with the moment, and she
+faced with calmness and courage the final mystery.  To the last
+she retained her wit, her vivacity, and that eternal youth of the
+spirit which is one of the rarest of God's gifts to man.  "There
+are no more friends left to me," said Mme. de Coulanges; and
+later she wrote to Mme. de Grignan, "The grief of seeing her no
+longer is always fresh to me.  I miss too many things at the
+Hotel de Carnavalet."
+
+The curtain falls upon this little world which the magical pen of
+Mme. de Sevigne has made us know so well.  The familiar faces
+retreat into the darkness, to be seen no more.  But the picture
+lives, and the woman who has outlined it so clearly, and colored
+it so vividly and so tenderly, smiles upon us still, out of the
+shadows of the past, crowned with the white radiance of immortal
+genius and immortal love.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
+Her Friendship with Mme. de Sevigne--Her Education--Her
+Devotion to the Princess Henrietta--Her Salon--La Rochefoucauld
+--Talent as a Diplomatist--Comparison with Mme. de Maintenon  
+Her Literary Work--Sadness of her Last Days--Woman in Literature
+
+"Believe me, my dearest, you are the person in the world whom I
+have most truly loved," wrote Mme. de La Fayette to Mme. de
+Sevigne a short time before her death.  This friendship of more
+than forty years, which Mme. de Sevigne said had never suffered
+the least cloud, was a living tribute to the mind and heart of
+both women.  It may also be cited for the benefit of the
+cynically disposed who declare that feminine friendships are
+simply "pretty bows of ribbon" and nothing more.  These women
+were fundamentally unlike, but they supplemented each other.  The
+character of Mme. de La Fayette was of firmer and more serious
+texture.  She had greater precision of thought, more delicacy of
+sentiment, and affections not less deep.  But her temperament was
+less sunny, her genius less impulsive, her wit less sparkling,
+and her manner less demonstrative.  "She has never been without
+that divine reason which was her dominant trait," wrote her
+friend.  No praise pleased her so much as to be told that her
+judgment was superior to her intellect, and that she loved truth
+in all things.  "She would not have accorded the least favor to
+any one, if she had not been convinced it was merited," said
+Segrais; "this is why she was sometimes called hard, though she
+was really tender."  As an evidence of her candor, he thinks it
+worth while to record that "she did not even conceal her age, but
+told freely in what year and place she was born." But she
+combined to an eminent degree sweetness with strength,
+sensibility with reason, and it was the blending of such diverse
+qualities that gave so rare a flavor to her character.  In this,
+too, lies the secret of the vast capacity for friendship which
+was one of her most salient points.  It is through the records
+which these friendships have left, through the literary work that
+formed the solace of so many hours of sadness and suffering, and
+through the letters of Mme. de Sevigne, that we are able to trace
+the classic outlines of this fine and complex nature, so noble,
+so poetic, so sweet, and yet so strong.
+
+Mme. de La Fayette was eight years younger than Mme. de Sevigne,
+and died three years earlier; hence they traversed together the
+brilliant world of the second half of the century of which they
+are among the most illustrious representatives.  The young Marie-
+Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne had inherited a taste for letters
+and was carefully instructed by her father, who was a field-
+marshal and the governor of Havre, where he died when she was
+only fifteen.  She had not passed the first flush of youth when
+her mother contracted a second marriage with the Chevalier Renaud
+de Sevigne, whose name figures among the frondeurs as the ardent
+friend of Cardinal de Retz, and later among the devout Port
+Royalists.  It is a fact of more interest to us that he was an
+uncle of the Marquis de Sevigne, and the best result of the
+marriage to the young girl, who was not at all pleased and whose
+fortunes it clouded a little, was to bring her into close
+relations with the woman to whom we owe the most intimate details
+of her life.
+
+The rare natural gifts of Mlle. De La Vergne were not left
+without due cultivation.  Rapin and Menage taught her Latin. 
+"That tiresome Menage," as she lightly called him, did not fail,
+according to his custom, to lose his susceptible heart to the
+remarkable pupil who, after three months of study, translated
+Virgil and Horace better than her masters.  He put this amiable
+weakness on record in many Latin and Italian verses, in which he
+addresses her as Laverna, a name more musical than flattering, if
+one recalls its Latin significance. She received an education of
+another sort, in the salon of her mother, a woman of much
+intelligence, as well as a good deal of vanity, who posed a
+little as a patroness of letters, gathering about her a circle of
+beaux esprits, and in other ways signaling the taste which was a
+heritage from her Provencal ancestry.  On can readily imagine the
+rapidity with which the young girl developed in such an
+atmosphere.  The abbe Costar, "most gallant of pedants and most
+pedantic of gallants," who had an equal taste for literature and
+good dinners, calls her "the incomparable," sends her his books,
+corresponds with her, and expresses his delight at finding her
+"so beautiful, so spirituelle, so full of reason."  The poet
+Scarron speaks of her as "toute lumineuse, toute precieuse."
+
+The circle she met in the salon of her godmother, the Duchesse
+d'Aiguillon, had no less influence in determining her future
+fortunes.  With her rare reputation for beauty and esprit, as
+well as learning, she took her place early in this brilliant and
+distinguished society in which she was to play so graceful and
+honored a part.  She was sought and admired not only by the men
+of letters who were so cordially welcomed by the favorite niece
+of Richelieu, but by the gay world that habitually assembled at
+the Petit Luxembourg.  It was here that she perfected the tone of
+natural elegance which always distinguished her and made her
+conspicuous even at court, where she passed so many years of her
+life.
+
+She was not far from twenty-one when she became the wife of the
+Comte de La Fayette, of whom little is known save that he died
+early, leaving her with two sons.  He is the most shadowy of
+figures, and whether he made her life happy or sad does not
+definitely appear, though there is a vague impression that he
+left something to be desired in the way of devotion.  A certain
+interest attaches to him as the brother of the beautiful Louise
+de La Fayette, maid of honor to Anne of Austria, who fled from
+the compromising infatuation of Louis XIII, to hide her youth and
+fascinations in the cloister, under the black robe and the
+cherished name of Mere Angelique de Chaillot.
+
+The young, brilliant, and gifted comtesse goes to the convent to
+visit her gently austere sister-in-law, and meets there the
+Princess Henrietta of England, than a child of eleven years.  The
+attraction is mutual and ripens into a deep and lasting
+friendship.  When this graceful and light-hearted girl becomes
+the Duchesse d'Orleans, and sister-in-law of the king, she
+attaches her friend to her court and makes her the confidante of
+her romantic experiences.  "Do you not think," she said to her
+one day, "that if all which has happened to me, and the things
+relating to it, were told it would make a fine story?  You write
+well; write; I will furnish you good materials."  The interesting
+memorial, to which madame herself contributes many pages, is
+interrupted by the mysterious death of the gay and charming woman
+who had found so sympathetic and so faithful a chronicler.  She
+breathed her last sigh in the arms of this friend.  "It is one of
+those sorrows for which one never consoles one's self, and which
+leave a shadow over the rest of one's life," wrote Mme. de La
+Fayette.  She had no heart to finish the history, and added only
+the few simple lines that record the touching incidents which
+left upon her so melancholy and lasting an impression.  She did
+not care to remain longer at court, where she was constantly
+reminded of her grief, and retired permanently from its gaieties;
+but in these years of intimacy with one of its central figures,
+she had gained an insight into its spirit and its intrigues,
+which was of inestimable value in the memoirs and romances of her
+later years.
+
+The natural place of Mme. de La Fayette was in a society of more
+serious tone and more lettered tastes.  In her youth she had been
+taken by her mother to the Hotel de Rambouillet, and she always
+retained much of its spirit, without any of its affectations.  We
+find her sometimes at the Samedis, and she belonged to the
+exclusive coterie of the Grande Mademoiselle, at the Luxembourg,
+where her facile pen was in demand for the portraits so much in
+vogue.  She was also a frequent visitor in the literary salon of
+Mme. de Sable, at Port Royal.  It was here that her friendship
+with La Rochefoucauld glided imperceptibly into the intimacy
+which became so important a feature in her life.  This intimacy
+was naturally a matter of some speculation, but the world made up
+its mind of its perfectly irreproachable character.  "It appears
+to be only friendship," writes Mme. de Scudery to Bussy-Rabutin;
+"in short the fear of God on both sides, and perhaps policy, have
+cut the wings of love.  She is his favorite and his first
+friend."  "I do not believe he has ever been what one calls in
+love," writes Mme. de Sevigne.  But this friendship was a
+veritable romance, without any of the storms or vexations or
+jealousies of a passionate love.  "You may imagine the sweetness
+and charm of an intercourse full of all the friendship and
+confidence possible between two people whose merit is not
+ordinary," she says again; "add to this the circumstance of their
+bad health, which rendered them almost necessary to each other,
+and gave them the leisure not to be found in other relations, to
+enjoy each other's good qualities.  It seems to me that at court
+people have no time for affection; the whirlpool which is so
+stormy for others was peaceful for them, and left ample time for
+the pleasures of a friendship so delicious.  I do not believe
+that any passion can surpass the strength of such a tie."
+
+In the earlier stages of this intimacy, Mme. de La Fayette was a
+little sensitive as to how the world might regard it, as may be
+seen in a note to Mme. de Sable, in which she asks her to explain
+it to the young Comte de Saint-Paul, a son of Mme. de Longueville.
+
+"I beg of you to speak of the matter in such a way as to put out
+of his head the idea that it is anything serious," she writes. 
+"I am not sufficiently sure what you think of it yourself to feel
+certain that you will say the right thing, and it may be
+necessary to begin by convincing my embassador.  However, I must
+trust to your tact, which is superior to ordinary rules.  Only
+convince him.  I dislike mortally that people of his age should
+imagine that I have affairs of gallantry.  It seems to them that
+every one older than themselves is a hundred, and they are
+astonished that such should be regarded of any account.  Besides,
+he would believe these things of M. de La Rochefoucauld more
+readily than of any one else.  In fine, I do not want him to
+think anything about it except that the gentleman is one of my
+friends."
+
+The picture we have of La Rochefoucauld from the pen of Mme. de
+Sevigne has small resemblance to the ideal that one forms of the
+cynical author of the Maxims.  He had come out of the storms of
+the Fronde a sad and disappointed man.  The fires of his nature
+seem to have burned out with the passions of his youth, if they
+had ever burned with great intensity.  "I have seen love nowhere
+except in romances," he says, and even his devotion to Mme. de
+Longueville savors more of the ambitious courtier than of the
+lover.  His nature was one that recoiled from all violent
+commotions of the soul.  The cold philosophy of the Maxims marked
+perhaps the reaction of his intellect against the disenchanting
+experiences of his life.  In the tranquil atmosphere of Mme. de
+Sable he found a certain mental equilibrium; but his character
+was finally tempered and softened by the gentle influence of Mme.
+de La Fayette, whose exquisite poise and delicacy were singularly
+in harmony with a nature that liked nothing in exaggeration.  "I
+have seen him weep with a tenderness that made me adore him,"
+writes Mme. de Sevigne, after the death of his mother.  "The
+heart or M. de La Rochefoucauld for his family is a thing
+incomparable."  When the news came that his favorite grandson had
+been killed in battle, she says again: "I have seen his heart
+laid bare in this cruel misfortune; he ranks first among all I
+have ever known for courage, fortitude, tenderness, and reason; I
+count for nothing his esprit and his charm."  In all the
+confidences of the two women, La Rochefoucauld makes a third.  He
+seems always to be looking over the shoulder of Mme. de La
+Fayette while she writes to the one who "satisfies his idea of
+friendship in all its circumstances and dependences"; adding
+usually a message, a line or a pretty compliment to Mme. de
+Grignan that is more amiable than sincere, because he knows it
+will gladden the heart of her adoring mother.
+
+The side of Mme. de La Fayette which has the most fascination for
+us is this intimate life of which Mme. de Sevigne gives such
+charming glimpses.  For a moment it was her ambition to establish
+a popular salon, a role for which she had every requisite of
+position, talent, and influence.  "She presumed very much upon
+her esprit," says Gourville, who did not like her, "and proposed
+to fill the place of the Marquise de Sable, to whom all the young
+people were in the habit of paying great deference, because,
+after she had fashioned them a little, it was a passport for
+entering the world; but this plan did not succeed, as Mme. de La
+Fayette was not willing to give her time to a thing so futile." 
+One can readily understand that it would not have suited her
+tastes or her temperament.  Besides, her health was too delicate,
+and her moods were too variable.  "You know how she is weary
+sometimes of the same thing," wrote Mme. de Sevigne.  But she had
+her coterie, which was brilliant in quality if not in numbers. 
+The fine house with its pretty garden, which may be seen today
+opposite the Petit Luxembourg, was a favorite meeting place for a
+distinguished circle.  The central figure was La Rochefoucauld. 
+Every day he came in and seated himself in the fauteuil reserved
+for him.  One is reminded of the little salon in the Abbaye-aux-
+Bois, where more than a century later Chateaubriand found the
+pleasure and the consolation of his last days in the society of
+Mme. Recamier.  They talk, they write, they criticize each other,
+they receive their friends.  The Cardinal de Retz comes in, and
+they recall the fatal souvenirs of the Fronde.  Perhaps he thinks
+of the time when he found the young Mlle. De LaVergne pretty and
+amiable, and she did not smile upon him.  The Prince de Conde is
+there sometimes, and honors her with his confidence, which Mme.
+de Sevigne thinks very flattering, as he does not often pay such
+consideration to women.  Segrais has transferred his allegiance
+from the Grande Mademoiselle to Mme. de La Fayette, and is her
+literary counselor as well as a constant visitor.  La Fontaine,
+"so well known by his fables and tales, and sometimes so heavy in
+conversation," may be found there.  Mme. de Sevigne comes almost
+every day with her sunny face and her witty story.  "The Mist"
+she calls Mme. de La Fayette, who is so often ill and sad.  She
+might have called herself The Sunbeam, though she, too, has her
+hours when she can only dine tete-a-tete with her friend, because
+she is "so gloomy that she cannot support four people together." 
+Mme. de Coulanges adds her graceful, vivacious, and sparkling
+presence.  Mme. Scarron, before her days of grandeur, is
+frequently of the company, and has lost none of the charm which
+made the salon of her poet-husband so attractive during his later
+years. "She has an amiable and marvelously just mind," says Mme.
+de Sevigne. . .  "It is pleasant to hear her talk.  These
+conversations often lead us very far, from morality to morality,
+sometimes Christian, sometimes political."  This circle was not
+limited however to a few friends, and included from time to time
+the learning, the elegance and the aristocracy of Paris.
+
+But Mme. de La Fayette herself is the magnet that quietly draws
+together this fascinating world.  In her youth she had much life
+and vivacity, perhaps a spice of discreet coquetry, but at this
+period she was serious, and her fresh beauty had given place to
+the assured and captivating grace of maturity.  She had a face
+that might have been severe in its strength but for the
+sensibility expressed in the slight droop of the head to one
+side, the tender curve of the full lips, and the variable light
+of the dark, thoughtful eyes.  In her last years, when her
+stately figure had grown attenuated, and her face was pallid with
+long suffering, the underlying force of her character was more
+distinctly defined in the clear and noble outlines of her
+features.  Her nature was full of subtle shades.  Over her
+reserved strength, her calm judgment, her wise penetration played
+the delicate light of a lively imagination, the shifting tints of
+a tender sensibility.  Her sympathy found ready expression in
+tears, and she could not even bear the emotion of saying good-by
+to Mme. de Sevigne when she was going away to Provence.  But her
+accents were always tempered, and her manners had the gracious
+and tranquil ease of a woman superior to circumstances.  Her
+extreme frankness lent her at times a certain sharpness, and she
+deals many light blows at the small vanities and affectations
+that come under her notice.  "Mon Dieu," said the frivolous Mme.
+de Marans to her one day, "I must have my hair cut."  "Mon Dieu,"
+replied Mme. de La Fayette simply, "do not have it done; that is
+becoming only to young persons."  Gourville said she was
+imperious and over-bearing, scolding those she loved best, as
+well as those she did not love.  But this valet-de-chambre of La
+Rochefoucauld, who amassed a fortune and became a man of some
+note, was jealous of her influence over his former master, and
+his opinions should be taken with reservation.  Her delicate
+satire may have been sometimes a formidable weapon, but it was
+directed only against follies, and rarely, if ever, used
+unkindly.  She was a woman for intimacies, and it is to those who
+knew her best that we must look for a just estimate of her
+qualities.  "You would love her as soon as you had time to be
+with her, and to become familiar with her esprit and her wisdom,"
+wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her daughter, who was disposed to be
+critical; "the better one knows her, the more one is attached to
+her."
+
+One must also take into consideration her bad health.  People
+thought her selfish or indifferent when she was only sad and
+suffering.  For more than twenty years she was ill, consumed by a
+slow fever which permitted her to go out only at intervals.  La
+Rochefoucauld had the gout, and they consoled each other.  Mme.
+de Sevigne thought it better not to have the genius of a Pascal,
+than to have so many ailments.  "Mme. De La Fayette is always
+languishing, M. de La Rochefoucauld always lame," she writes; "we
+have conversations so sad that it seems as if there were nothing
+more to do but to bury us; the garden of Mme. de La Fayette is
+the prettiest spot in the world, everything blooming, everything
+perfumed; we pass there many evenings, for the poor woman does not
+dare go out in a carriage."  "Her health is never good," she writes
+again, "nevertheless she sends you word that she should not like
+death better; AU CONTRAIRE."  There are times when she can no
+longer "think, or speak, or answer, or listen; she is tired of
+saying good morning and good evening."  Then she goes away to
+Meudon for a few days, leaving La Rochefoucauld "incredibly sad." 
+She speaks for herself in a letter from the country house which
+Gourville has placed at her disposal.
+
+"I am at Saint Maur; I have left all my affairs and all my
+husbands; I have my children and the fine weather; that suffices. 
+I take the waters of Forges; I look after my health, I see no
+one.  I do not mind at all the privation; every one seems to me
+so attached to pleasures which depend entirely upon others, that
+I find my disposition a gift of the fairies.
+
+"I do not know but Mme de Coulanges has already sent you word of
+our after-dinner conversations at Gourville's about people who
+have taste above or below their intelligence.  Mme. Scarron and
+the Abbe Tetu were there; we lost ourselves in subtleties until
+we no longer understood anything.  If the air of Provence, which
+subtilizes things still more, magnifies for you our visions, you
+will be in the clouds.  You have taste below your intelligence;
+so has M. de La Rochefoucauld; and myself also, but not so much
+as you two.  VOILA an example which will guide you."
+
+She disliked writing letters, and usually limited herself to a
+few plain facts, often in her late years to a simple bulletin of
+her health.  This negligence was the subject of many passages-at-
+arms between herself and Mme. de Sevigne.  "If I had a lover who
+wished my letters every morning, I would break with him," she
+writes.  "Do not measure our friendship by our letters.  I shall
+love you as much in writing you only a page in a month, as you me
+in writing ten in eight days."  Again she replies to some
+reproach: "Make up your mind, ma belle, to see me sustain, all my
+life, with the whole force of my eloquence, that I love you still
+more than you love me.  I will make Corbinelli agree with me in a
+quarter of an hour; your distrust is your sole defect, and the
+only thing in you that can displease me."
+
+But in spite of a certain apparent indolence, and her constant
+ill health, there were many threads that connected with the
+outside world the pleasant room in which Mme. de La Fayette spent
+so many days of suffering.  "She finds herself rich in friends
+from all sides and all conditions," writes Mme. de Sevigne; "she
+has a hundred arms; she reaches everywhere.  Her children
+appreciate all this, and thank her every day for possessing a
+spirit so engaging."  She goes to Versailles, on one of her best
+days, to thank the king for a pension, and receives so many kind
+words that it "suggests more favors to come."  He orders a
+carriage and accompanies her with other ladies through the park,
+directing his conversation to her, and seeming greatly pleased
+with her judicious praise.  She spends a few days at Chantilly,
+where she is invited to all the fetes, and regrets that Mme. de
+Sevigne could not be with her in that charming spot, which she is
+"fitted better than anyone else to enjoy."  No one understands so
+well the extent of her influence and her credit as this devoted
+friend, who often quotes her to Mme. de Grignan as a model. 
+"Never did any one accomplish so much without leaving her place,"
+she says.
+
+But there was one phase in the life of Mme. de La Fayette which
+was not fully confided even to Mme. de Sevigne.  It concerns a
+chapter of obscure political history which it is needless to
+dwell upon here, but which throws much light upon her capacity
+for managing intricate affairs.  Her connection with it was long
+involved in mystery, and was only unveiled in a correspondence
+given to the world at a comparatively recent date.  It was in the
+salon of the Grande Mademoiselle that she was thrown into
+frequent relations with the two daughters of Charles Amedee de
+Savoie, Duc de Nemours, one of whom became Queen of Portugal, the
+other Duchesse de Savoie and, later, Regent during the minority
+of her son.  These relations resulted in one of the ardent
+friendships which played so important a part in her career.  Her
+intercourse with the beautiful but vain, intriguing, and
+imperious Duchesse de Savoie assumed the proportion of a delicate
+diplomatic mission.  "Her salon," says Lescure, "was, for the
+affairs of Savoy, a center of information much more important in
+the eyes of shrewd politicians than that of the ambassador."  She
+not only looked after the personal matters of Mme. Royale, but
+was practically entrusted with the entire management of her
+interests in Paris.  From affairs of state and affairs of the
+heart to the daintiest articles of the toilette her versatile
+talent is called into requisition.  Now it is a message to
+Louvois or the king, now a turn to be adroitly given to public
+opinion, now the selection of a perfume or a pair of gloves. 
+"She watches everything, thinks of everything, combines, visits,
+talks, writes, sends counsels, procures advice, baffles
+intrigues, is always in the breach, and renders more service by
+her single efforts than all the envoys avowed or secret whom the
+Duchesse keeps in France."  Nor is the value of these services
+unrecognized.  "Have I told you," wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her
+daughter, "that Mme. de Savoie has sent a hundred ells of the
+finest velvet in the world to Mme. de La Fayette, and a hundred
+ells of satin to line it, and two days ago her portrait,
+surrounded with diamonds, which is worth three hundred louis?"
+
+The practical side of Mme. de La Fayette's character was
+remarkable in a woman of so fine a sensibility and so rare a
+genius.  Her friends often sought her counsel; and it was through
+her familiarity with legal technicalities that La Rochefoucauld
+was enabled to save his fortune, which he was at one time in
+danger of losing.  In clear insight, profound judgment, and
+knowledge of affairs, she was scarcely, if at all, surpassed by
+Mme. de Maintenon, the feminine diplomatist par excellence of her
+time, though her field of action was less broad and conspicuous. 
+But her love of consideration was not so dominant and her
+ambition not so active.  It was one of her theories that people
+should live without ambition as well as without passion.  "It is
+sufficient to exist," she said.  Her energy when occasion called
+for it does not quite accord with this passive philosophy, and
+suggests at least a vast reserved force; but if she directed her
+efforts toward definite ends it was usually to serve other
+interests than her own.  She had been trained in a different
+school from Mme. de Maintenon, her temperament was modified by
+her frail health, and the prizes of life had come to her
+apparently without special exertion.  She was a woman, too, of
+more sentiment and imagination.  Her fastidious delicacy and
+luxurious tastes were the subject of critical comment on the part
+of this austere censor, who condemned the gilded decorations of
+her bed as a useless extravagance, giving the characteristic
+reason that "the pleasure they afforded was not worth the
+ridicule they excited."  The old friendship that had existed when
+Mme. Scarron was living in such elegant and mysterious seclusion,
+devoting herself to the king's children, and finding her main
+diversion in the little suppers enlivened by the wit of Mme. de
+Sevigne and Mme. de Coulanges, and the more serious, but not less
+agreeable, conversation of Mme. de La Fayette, had evidently
+grown cool.  They had their trifling disagreements.  "Mme. de La
+Fayette puts too high a price upon her friendship," wrote Mme. de
+Maintenon, who had once attached such value to a few approving
+words from her.  In her turn Mme. de La Fayette indulged in a
+little light satire.  Referring to the comedy of Esther, which
+Racine had written by command for the pupils at Saint Cyr, she
+said, "It represents the fall of Mme. de Montespan and the rise
+of Mme. de Maintenon; all the difference is that Esther was
+rather younger, and less of a precieuse in the matter of piety." 
+There was certainly less of the ascetic in Mme. de La Fayette. 
+She had more color and also more sincerity.  In symmetry of
+character, in a certain feminine quality of taste and tenderness,
+she was superior, and she seems to me to have been of more
+intrinsic value as a woman.  Whether under the same conditions
+she would have attained the same power may be a question.  If
+not, I think it would have been because she was unwilling to pay
+the price, not because she lacked the grasp, the tact, or the
+diplomacy.
+
+It is mainly as a woman of letters that Mme. de La Fayette is
+known today, and it was through her literary work that she made
+the strongest impression upon her time.  Boileau said that she
+had a finer intellect and wrote better than any other woman in
+France.  But she wrote only for the amusement of idle or lonely
+hours, and always avoided any display of learning, in order not
+to attract jealousy as well as from instinctive delicacy of
+taste.  "He who puts himself above others," she said, "whatever
+talent he may possess, puts himself below his talent."  But her
+natural atmosphere was an intellectual one, and the friend of La
+Rochefoucauld, who would have "liked Montaigne for a neighbor,"
+had her own message for the world.  Her mind was clear and
+vigorous, her taste critical and severe, and her style had a
+flexible quality that readily took the tone of her subject.  In
+concise expression she doubtless profited much from the author of
+the MAXIMS, who rewrote many of his sentences at least thirty
+times.  "A phrase cut out of a book is worth a louis d'or," she
+said, "and every word twenty sous."  Unfortunately her "Memoires
+de la Cour de France" is fragmentary, as her son carelessly lent
+the manuscripts, and many of them were lost.  But the part that
+remains gives ample evidence of the breadth of her intelligence,
+the penetrating, lucid quality of her mind, and her talent for
+seizing the salient traits of the life about her.  In her
+romances, which were first published under the name of Segrais,
+one finds the touch of an artist, and the subtle intuitions of a
+woman.  In the rapid evolution of modern taste and the hopeless
+piling up of books, these works have fallen somewhat into the
+shade, but they are written with a vivid naturalness of style, a
+truth of portraiture, and a delicacy of sentiment, that commend
+them still to all lovers of imaginative literature.  Fontenelle
+read the "Princesse de Cleves" four times when it appeared.  La
+Harpe said it was "the first romance that offered reasonable
+adventures written with interest and elegance."  It marked an era
+in the history of the novel.  "Before Mme. de La Fayette," said
+Voltaire, "people wrote in a stilted style of improbable things." 
+We have the rare privilege of reading her own criticism in a
+letter to the secretary of the Duchesse de Savoie, in which she
+disowns the authorship, and adds a few lines of discreet eulogy.
+
+"As for myself," she writes, :"I am flattered at being suspected
+of it.  I believe I should acknowledge the book, if I were
+assured the author would never appear to claim it.  I find it
+very agreeable and well written without being excessively
+polished, full of things of admirable delicacy, which should be
+read more than once; above all, it seems to be a perfect
+presentation of the world of the court and the manner of living
+there.  It is not romantic or ambitious; indeed it is not a
+romance; properly speaking, it is a book of memoirs, and that I
+am told was its title, but it was changed.  VOILA, monsieur, my
+judgment upon Mme. De Cleves; I ask yours, for people are divided
+upon this book to the point of devouring each other.  Some
+condemn what others admire; whatever you may say, do not fear to
+be alone in your opinion."
+
+Sainte-Beuve, whose portrait of Mme. de La Fayette is so
+delightful as to make all others seem superfluous, has devoted
+some exquisite lines to this book.  "It is touching to think," he
+writes, "of the peculiar situation which gave birth to these
+beings so charming, so pure, these characters so noble and so
+spotless, these sentiments so fresh, so faultless, so tender; how
+Mme. de La Fayette put into it all that her loving, poetic soul
+retained of its first, ever-cherished dreams, and how M. de La
+Rochefoucauld was pleased doubtless to find once more in "M. De
+Nemours" that brilliant flower of chivalry which he had too much
+misused--a sort of flattering mirror in which he lived again his
+youth.  Thus these two old friends renewed in imagination the
+pristine beauty of that age when they had not known each other,
+hence could not love each other.  The blush so characteristic of
+Mme. De Cleves, and which at first is almost her only language,
+indicates well the design of the author, which is to paint love
+in its freshest, purest, vaguest, most adorable, most disturbing,
+most irresistible--in a word, in its own color.  It is
+constantly a question of that joy which youth joined to beauty
+gives, of the trouble and embarrassment that love causes in the
+innocence of early years, in short, of all that is farthest from
+herself and her friend in their late tie."
+
+But whatever tints her tender and delicate imaginings may have
+taken from her own soul, Mme. de La Fayette has caught the
+eternal beauty of a pure and loyal spirit rising above the mists
+of sense into the serene air of a lofty Christian renunciation.
+
+The sad but triumphant close of her romance foreshadowed the
+swift breaking up of her own pleasant life.  In 1680, not long
+after the appearance of the "Princesse de Cleves," La Rochefoucauld
+died, and the song of her heart was changed to a miserere.  Mme.
+de La Fayette has fallen from the clouds," says Mme. de Sevigne. 
+"Where can she find such a friend, such society, a like
+sweetness, charm, confidence, consideration for her and her son?" 
+A little later she writes from The Rocks, "Mme. de La Fayette
+sends me word that she is more deeply affected than she herself
+believed, being occupied with her health and her children; but
+these cares have only rendered more sensible the veritable
+sadness of her heart.  She is alone in the world . . .  The poor
+woman cannot close the ranks so as to fill this place."
+
+The records of the thirteen years that remain to Mme. de La
+Fayette are somber and melancholy.  "Nothing can replace the
+blessings I have lost," she says.  Restlessly she seeks diversion
+in new plans.  She enlarges her house as her horizon diminishes;
+she finds occupation in the affairs of Mme. Royale and interests
+herself in the marriage of the daughter of her never-forgotten
+friend, the Princess Henrietta, with the heir to the throne of
+Savoy.  She writes a romance without the old vigor, occupies
+herself with historic reminiscences, and takes a passing refuge
+in an ardent affection for the young Mme. de Schomberg, which
+excites the jealousy of some older friends.  But the strongest
+link that binds her to the world is the son whose career opens so
+brilliantly as a young officer and for whom she secures an ample
+fortune and a fine marriage.  In this son and the establishment
+of a family centered all her hopes and ambitions.  She was spared
+the pain of seeing them vanish like the "baseless fabric of a
+vision."  The object of so many cares survived her less than two
+years; her remaining son and the only person left to represent
+her was the abbe who had so little care for her manuscripts and
+her literary fame.  A century later, through a collateral branch
+of the family, the glory of the name was revived by the
+distinguished general so dear to the American heart.  It was in
+the less tangible realm of the intellect that Mme. de La Fayette
+was destined to an unlooked-for immortality.
+
+But in spite of these interests, the sense of loneliness and
+desolation is always present.  Her few letters give us occasional
+flashes of the old spirit, but the burden of them is
+inexpressibly sad.  Her sympathies and associations led her
+toward a mild form of Jansenism, and as the evening shadows
+darkened, her thoughts turned to fresh speculations upon the
+destiny of the soul.  She went with Mme. de Coulanges to visit
+Mme. de La Sabliere, who was expiating the errors and follies of
+her life in austere penitence at the Incurables.  The devotion of
+this once gay and brilliant woman, who had been so deeply tinged
+with the philosophy of Descartes, touched her profoundly, and
+suggested a source of consolation which she had never found.  She
+sought the counsels of her confessor, who did not spare her, and
+though she was never sustained by the ardor and exaltation of the
+religieuse, her last days were not without peace and a tranquil
+hope.  To  the end she remained a gracious, thoughtful, self-
+poised, calmly-judging woman whose illusions never blinded her to
+the simple facts of existence, though sometimes throwing over
+them a transparent veil woven from the tender colors of her own
+heart.  Above the weariness and resignation of her last words
+written to Mme. de Sevigne sounds the refrain of a life that
+counts among its crowning gifts and graces a genius for
+friendship.
+
+"Alas, ma belle, all I have to tell you of my health is very bad;
+in a word, I have repose neither night nor day, neither in body
+nor in mind.  I am no more a person either by one or the other. 
+I perish visibly.  I must end when it pleases God, and I am
+submissive.  BELIEVE ME, MY DEAREST, YOU ARE THE PERSON IN THE
+WORLD WHOM I HAVE MOST TRULY LOVED."
+
+Mme. de La Fayette represents better than any other woman the
+social and literary life of the last half of the seventeenth
+century.  Mme. de Sevigne had an individual genius that might
+have made itself equally felt in any other period.  Mme. de
+Maintenon, whom Roederer regards as the true successor of Mme. de
+Rambouillet, was narrowed by personal ambition, and by the
+limitations of her early life.  Born in a prison, reared in
+poverty, wife in name, but practically secretary and nurse of a
+crippled, witty, and licentious poet over whose salon she
+presided brilliantly; discreet and penniless widow, governess of
+the illegitimate children of the king, adviser and finally wife
+of that king, friend of Ninon, model of virtue, femme d'esprit,
+politician, diplomatist, and devote--no fairy tale can furnish
+more improbable adventures and more striking contrasts.  But she
+was the product of exceptional circumstances joined to an
+exceptional nature.  It is true she put a final touch upon the
+purity of manners which was so marked a feature of the Hotel de
+Rambouillet, and for a long period gave a serious tone to the
+social life of France.  But she ruled through repression, and one
+is inclined to accept the opinion of Sainte-Beuve that she does
+not represent the distinctive social current of the time.  In
+Mme. de La Fayette we find its delicacy, its courtesy, its
+elegance, its intelligence, its critical spirit, and its charm.
+
+In considering the great centers in which the fashionable,
+artistic, literary, and scientific Paris of the seventeenth
+century found its meeting ground, one is struck with the
+practical training given to its versatile, flexible feminine
+minds.  Women entered intelligently and sympathetically into the
+interests of men, who, in turn, did not reserve their best
+thoughts for the club or an after-dinner talk among themselves. 
+There was stimulus as well as diversity in the two modes of
+thinking and being.  Men became more courteous and refined, women
+more comprehensive and clear.  But conversation is the
+spontaneous overflow of full minds, and the light play of the
+intellect is only possible on a high level, when the current
+thought has become a part of the daily life, so that a word
+suggests infinite perspectives to the swift intelligence.  It is
+not what we know, but the flavor of what we know, that
+adds"sweetness and light" to social intercourse.  With their
+rapid intuition and instinctive love of pleasing, these French
+women were quick to see the value of a ready comprehension of the
+subjects in which clever men are most interested.  It was this
+keen understanding, added to the habit of utilizing what they
+thought and read, their ready facility in grasping the salient
+points presented to them, a natural gift of graceful expression,
+with a delicacy of taste and an exquisite politeness which
+prevented them from being aggressive, that gave them their
+unquestioned supremacy in the salons which made Paris for so long
+a period the social capital of Europe.  It was impossible that
+intellects so plastic should not expand in such an atmosphere,
+and the result is not difficult to divine.  From Mme. de
+Rambouillet to Mme. de La Fayette and Mme. de Sevigne, from these
+to Mme. de Stael and George Sand, there is a logical sequence. 
+The Saxon temperament, with a vein of La Bruyere, gives us George
+Eliot.
+
+This new introduction of the feminine element into literature,
+which is directly traceable to the salons of the seventeenth
+century, suggests a point of special interest to the moralist. 
+It may be assumed that, whether through nature or a long process
+of evolution, the minds of women as a class have a different
+coloring from the minds of men as a class.  Perhaps the best
+evidence of this lies in the literature of the last two
+centuries, in which women have been an important factor, not only
+through what they have done themselves, but through their reflex
+influence.  The books written by them have rapidly multiplied. 
+Doubtless, the excess of feeling is often unbalanced by mental or
+artistic training; but even in the crude productions, which are
+by no means confined to one sex, it may be remarked that women
+deal more with pure affections and men with the coarser passions. 
+A feminine Zola of any grade of ability has not yet appeared.
+
+It is not, however, in literature of pure sentiment that the
+influence of women has been most felt.  It is true that, as a
+rule, they look at the world from a more emotional standpoint
+than men, but both have written of love, and for one Sappho there
+have been many Anacreons.  Mlle. de Scudery and Mme. de La
+Fayette did not monopolize the sentiment of their time, but they
+refined and exalted it.  The tender and exquisite coloring of
+Mme. de Stael and George Sand had a worthy counterpart in that of
+Chateaubriand or Lamartine.  But it is in the moral purity, the
+touch of human sympathy, the divine quality of compassion, the
+swift insight into the soul pressed down by 
+
+The heavy and weary weight 
+Of all this unintelligible world,
+
+that we trace the minds of women attuned to finer spiritual
+issues.  This broad humanity has vitalized modern literature.  It
+is the penetrating spirit of our century, which has been aptly
+called the Woman's Century.  We do not find it in the great
+literatures of the past.  The Greek poets give us types of tragic
+passions, of heroic virtues, of motherly and wifely devotion, but
+woman is not recognized as a profound spiritual force.  This
+masculine literature, so perfect in form and plastic beauty, so
+vigorous, so statuesque, so calm, and withal so cold, shines
+across the centuries side by side with the feminine Christian
+ideal--twin lights which have met in the world of today.  It may
+be that from the blending of the two, the crowning of a man's
+vigor with a woman's finer insight, will spring the perfected
+flower of human thought.
+
+Robert Browning in his poem "By the Fireside" has said a fitting
+word:
+
+Oh, I must feel your brain prompt mine,
+Your heart anticipate my heart.
+You must be just before, in fine,
+See and make me see, for your part,
+New depths of the Divine!
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. SALONS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
+Characteristics of the Eighteenth Century - Its Epicurean
+Philosophy - Anecdote of Mme. du Deffand--the Salon an Engine of
+Political Power--Great Influence of Women--Salons Defined  
+Literary Dinners--Etiquette of the Salons--An Exotic on
+American Soil.
+
+The traits which strike us most forcibly in the lives and
+characters of the women of the early salons, which colored their
+minds, ran through their literary pastimes, and gave a
+distinctive flavor to their conversation, are delicacy and
+sensibility.  It was these qualities, added to a decided taste
+for pleasures of the intellect, and an innate social genius, that
+led them to revolt from the gross sensualism of the court, and
+form, upon a new basis, a society that has given another
+complexion to the last two centuries.  The natural result was, at
+first, a reign of sentiment that was often over-strained, but
+which represented on the whole a reaction of morality and
+refinement.  The wits and beauties of the Salon Bleu may have
+committed a thousand follies, but their chivalrous codes of honor
+and of manners, their fastidious tastes, even their prudish
+affectations, were open though sometimes rather bizarre tributes
+to the virtues that lie at the very foundation of a well-ordered
+society.  They had exalted ideas of the dignity of womanhood, of
+purity, of loyalty, of devotion.  The heroines of Mlle. de
+Scudery, with their endless discourses upon the metaphysics of
+love, were no doubt tiresome sometimes to the blase courtiers, as
+well as to the critics; but they had their originals in living
+women who reversed the common traditions of a Gabrielle and a
+Marion Delorme, who combined with the intellectual brilliancy and
+fine courtesy of the Greek Aspasia the moral graces that give so
+poetic a fascination to the Christian and medieval types.  Mme.
+de la Fayette painted with rare delicacy the old struggle between
+passion and duty, but character triumphs over passion, and duty
+is the final victor.  In spite of the low standards of the age,
+the ideal woman of society, as of literature, was noble, tender,
+modest, pure, and loyal.
+
+But the eighteenth century brings new types to the surface.  The
+precieuses, with their sentimental theories and naive reserves,
+have had their day.  It is no longer the world of Mme. de
+Rambouillet that confronts us with its chivalrous models, its
+refined platonism, and its flavor of literature, but rather that
+of the epicurean Ninon, brilliant, versatile, free, lax,
+skeptical, full of intrigue and wit, but without moral sense of
+spiritual aspiration.  Literary portraits and ethical maxims have
+given place to a spicy mixture of scandal and philosophy,
+humanitarian speculations and equivocal bons mots.  It is piquant
+and amusing, this light play of intellect, seasoned with clever
+and sparkling wit, but the note of delicacy and sensibility is
+quite gone.  Society has divested itself of many crudities and
+affectations perhaps, but it has grown as artificial and self-
+conscious as its rouged and befeathered leaders.
+
+The woman who presided over these centers of fashion and
+intelligence represent to us the genius of social sovereignty. 
+We fall under the glamour of the luminous but factitious
+atmosphere that surrounded them.  We are dazzled by the subtlety
+and clearness of their intellect, the brilliancy of their wit. 
+Their faults are veiled by the smoke of the incense we burn
+before them, or lost in the dim perspective.  It is fortunate,
+perhaps, for many of our illusions, that the golden age, which is
+always receding, is seen at such long range that only the softly
+colored outlines are visible.  Men and women are transfigured in
+the rosy light that rests on historic heights as on far-off
+mountain tops.  But if we bring them into closer view, and turn
+on the pitiless light of truth, the aureole vanishes, a thousand
+hidden defects are exposed, and our idol stands out hard and
+bare, too often divested of its divinity and its charm.
+
+To do justice to these women, we must take the point of view of
+an age that was corrupt to the core.  It is needless to discuss
+here the merits of the stormy, disenchanting eighteenth century,
+which was the mother of our own, and upon which the world is
+likely to remain hopelessly divided. But whatever we may think of
+its final outcome, it can hardly be denied that this period,
+which in France was so powerful in ideas, so active in thought,
+so teeming with intelligence, so rich in philosophy, was poor in
+faith, bankrupt in morals, without religion, without poetry, and
+without imagination.  The divine ideals of virtue and
+renunciation were drowned in a sea of selfishness and
+materialism.  The austere devotion of Pascal was out of fashion. 
+The spiritual teachings of Bossuet and Fenelon represented the
+out-worn creeds of an age that was dead.  It was Voltaire who
+gave the tone, and even Voltaire was not radical enough for many
+of these iconoclasts.  "He is a bigot and a deist," exclaimed a
+feminine disciple of d'Holbach's atheism.  The gay, witty,
+pleasure-loving abbe, who derided piety, defied morality, was the
+pet of the salon, and figured in the worst scandals, was a fair
+representative of the fashionable clergy who had no attribute of
+priesthood but the name, and clearly justified the sneers of the
+philosophers.  Tradition had given place to private judgment and
+in its first reaction private judgment knew no law but its own
+caprices.  The watchword of intellectual freedom was made to
+cover universal license, and clever sophists constructed theories
+to justify the mad carnival of vice and frivolity.  "As soon as
+one does a bad action, one never fails to make a bad maxim," said
+the clever Marquise de Crequi.  "As soon as a school boy has his
+love affairs, he wishes no more to say his prayers; and when a
+woman wrongs her husband, she tries to believe no more in God."
+
+The fact that this brilliant but heartless and epicurean world
+was tempered with intellect and taste changed its color but not
+its moral quality.  Talent turned to intrigue, and character was
+the toy of the scheming and flexible brain.  The maxims of La
+Rochefoucauld were the rule of life.  Wit counted for everything,
+the heart for nothing.  The only sins that could not be pardoned
+were stupidity and awkwardness.  "Bah!  He has only revealed
+every one's secret," said Mme. du Defand to an acquaintance who
+censured Helvetius for making selfishness the basis of all human
+actions.  To some one who met this typical woman of her time, in
+the gay salon of Mme. de Marchais, and condoled with her upon the
+death of her lifelong friend and lover, Pont de Veyle, she
+quietly replied, "Alas!  He died this evening at six o"clock;
+otherwise you would not see me here."  "My friend fell ill, I
+attended him; he died, and I dissected him" was the remark of a
+wit on reading her satirical pen portrait of the Marquise du
+Chatelet.  This cold skepticism, keen analysis, and undisguised
+heartlessness strike the keynote of the century which was
+socially so brilliant, intellectually so fruitful, and morally so
+weak.
+
+The liberty and complaisance of the domestic relations were
+complete.  It is true there were examples of conjugal devotion,
+for the gentle human affections never quite disappear in any
+atmosphere; but the fact that they were considered worthy of note
+sufficiently indicates the drift of the age.  In the world of
+fashion and of form there was not even a pretense of preserving
+the sanctity of marriage, if the chronicles of the time are to be
+credited.  It was simply a commercial affair which united names
+and fortunes, continued the glory of the families, replenished
+exhausted purses, and gave freedom to women.  If love entered
+into it at all, it was by accident.  This superfluous sentiment
+was ridiculed, or relegated to the bourgeoisie, to whom it was
+left to preserve the tradition of household virtues.  Every one
+seems to have accepted the philosophy of the irrepressible Ninon,
+who "returned thanks to God every evening for her esprit, and
+prayed him every morning to be preserved from follies of the
+heart."  If a young wife was modest or shy, she was the object of
+unflattering persiflage.  If she betrayed her innocent love for
+her husband, she was not of the charmed circle of wit and good
+tone which frowned upon so vulgar a weakness, and laughed at
+inconvenient scruples.
+
+"Indeed," says a typical husband of the period, "I cannot
+conceive how, in the barbarous ages, one had the courage to wed. 
+The ties of marriage were a chain.  Today you see kindness,
+liberty, peace reign in the bosom of families.  If husband and
+wife love each other, very well; they live together; they are
+happy.  If they cease to love, they say so honestly, and return
+to each other the promise of fidelity.  They cease to be lovers;
+they are friends.  That is what I call social manners, gentle
+manners."  This reign of the senses is aptly illustrated by the
+epitaph which the gay, voluptuous, and spirtuelle Marquise de
+Boufflers wrote for herself:
+
+Ci-git dans une paix profonde
+Cette Dame de Volupte
+Qui, pour plus grande surete,
+Fit son paradis de ce monde.
+
+"Courte et bonne," said the favorite daughter of the Regent, in
+the same spirit.
+
+It is against such a background that the women who figure so
+prominently in the salons are outlined.  Such was the air they
+breathed, the spirit they imbibed.  That it was fatal to the
+finer graces of character goes without saying.  Doubtless, in
+quiet and secluded nooks, there were many human wild flowers that
+had not lost their primitive freshness and delicacy, but they did
+not flourish in the withering atmosphere of the great world.  The
+type in vogue savored of the hothouse.  With its striking beauty
+of form and tropical richness of color, it had no sweetness, no
+fragrance.  Many of these women we can only consider on the
+worldly and intellectual side.  Sydney Smith has aptly
+characterized them as "women who violated the common duties of
+life, and gave very pleasant little suppers."  But standing on
+the level of a time in which their faults were mildly censured,
+if at all, their characteristic gifts shine out with marvelous
+splendor.  It is from this standpoint alone that we can present
+them, drawing the friendly mantle of silence over grave
+weaknesses and fatal errors.
+
+In this century, in which women have so much wider scope, when
+they may paint, carve, act, sing, write, enter professional life,
+or do whatever talent and inclination dictate, without loss of
+dignity or prestige, unless they do it ill,--and perhaps even
+this exception is a trifle superfluous,--it is difficult to
+understand fully, or estimate correctly, a society in which the
+best feminine intellect was centered upon the art of entertaining
+and of wielding an indirect power through the minds of men. 
+These Frenchwomen had all the vanity that lies at the bottom of
+the Gallic character, but when the triumphs of youth were over,
+the only legitimate path to individual distinction was that of
+social influence.  This was attained through personal charm,
+supplemented by more or less cleverness, or through the gift of
+creating a society that cast about them an illusion of talent of
+which they were often only the reflection.  To these two classes
+belong the queens of the salons.  But the most famous of them
+only carried to the point of genius a talent that was universal.
+
+In its best estate a brilliant social life is essentially an
+external one.  Its charm lies largely in the superficial graces,
+in the facile and winning manners, the ready tact, the quick
+intelligence, the rare and perishable gifts of conversation--in
+the nameless trifles which are elusive as shadows and potent as
+light.  It is the way of putting things that tells, rather than
+the value of the things themselves.  This world of draperies and
+amenities, of dinners and conversaziones, of epigrams,
+coquetries, and sparkling trivialities in the Frenchwoman's
+milieu.  It has little in common with the inner world that surges
+forever behind and beneath it; little sympathy with inconvenient
+ideals and exalted sentiments.  The serious and earnest soul to
+which divine messages have been whispered in hours of solitude
+finds its treasures unheeded, its language unspoken here.  The
+cares, the burdens, the griefs that weigh so heavily on the great
+heart of humanity are banished from this social Eden.  The
+Frenchman has as little love for the somber side of life as the
+Athenian, who veiled every expression of suffering.  "Joy marks
+the force of the intellect," said the pleasure-loving Ninon.  It
+is this peculiar gift of projecting themselves into a joyous
+atmosphere, of treating even serious subjects in a piquant and
+lively fashion, of dwelling upon the pleasant surface of things,
+that has made the French the artists, above all others, of social
+life.  The Parisienne selects her company, as a skillful leader
+forms his orchestra, with a fine instinct of harmony; no single
+instrument dominates, but every member is an artist in his way,
+adding his touch of melody or color in the fitting place.  She
+aims, perhaps unconsciously, at a poetic ideal which shall
+express the best in life and thought, divested of the rude and
+commonplace, untouched by sorrow or passion, and free from
+personality.
+
+But the representative salons, which have left a permanent mark
+upon their time, and a memory that does not seem likely to die,
+were no longer simply centers of refined and intellectual
+amusement.  The moral and literary reaction of the seventeenth
+century was one of the great social and political forces of the
+eighteenth.  The salon had become a vast engine of power, an
+organ of public opinion, like the modern press.  Clever and
+ambitious women had found their instrument and their opportunity. 
+They had long since learned that the homage paid to weakness is
+illusory; that the power of beauty is short-lived.  With none of
+the devotion which had made the convent the time-honored refuge
+of tender and exalted souls, finding little solace in the
+domestic affections which played so small a role in their lives,
+they turned the whole force of their clear and flexible minds to
+this new species of sovereignty.  Their keenness of vision, their
+consummate skill in the adaptation of means to ends, their
+knowledge of the world, their practical intelligence, their
+instinct of pleasing, all fitted them for the part they assumed. 
+They distinctly illustrated the truth that "our ideal is not out
+of ourselves, but in ourselves wisely modified."  The intellect
+of these women was rarely the dupe of the emotions.  Their
+clearness was not befogged by sentiment, nor, it may be added,
+were their characters enriched by it.  "The women of the
+eighteenth century loved with their minds and not with their
+hearts," said the Abbe Galiani.  The very absence of the
+qualities so essential to the highest womanly character,
+according to the old poetic types, added to their success.  To be
+simple and true is to forget often to consider effects. 
+Spontaneity is not apt to be discriminating, and the emotions are
+not safe guides to worldly distinction.  It is not the artist who
+feels the most keenly, who sways men the most powerfully; it is
+the one who has most perfectly mastered the art of swaying men. 
+Self-sacrifice and a lofty sense of duty find their rewards in
+the intangible realm of the spirit, but they do not find them in
+a brilliant society whose foundations are laid in vanity and
+sensualism.  "The virtues, though superior to the sentiments, are
+not so agreeable," said Mme. du Deffand; and she echoed the
+spirit of an age of which she was one of the most striking
+representatives.  To be agreeable was the cardinal aim in the
+lives of these women.  To this end they knew how to use their
+talents, and they studied, to the minutest shade, their own
+limitations.  They had the gift of the general who marshals his
+forces with a swift eye for combination and availability.  To
+this quality was added more or less mental brilliancy, or, what
+is equally essential, the faculty of calling out the brilliancy
+of others; but their education was rarely profound or even
+accurate.  To an abbe who wished to dedicate a grammar to Mme.
+Geoffrin she replied: "To me?  Dedicate a grammar to me?  Why, I
+do not even know how to spell."  Even Mme. du Deffand, whom
+Sainte Beuve ranks next to Voltaire as the purest classic of the
+epoch in prose, says of herself, "I do not know a word of
+grammar; my manner of expressing myself is always the result of
+chance, independent of all rule and all art."
+
+But it is not to be supposed that women who were the daily and
+lifelong companions and confidantes of men like Fontenelle,
+d'Alembert, Montesquieu, Helvetius, and Marmontel were deficient
+in a knowledge of books, though this was always subservient to a
+knowledge of life.  It was a means, not an end.  When the salon
+was at the height of its power, it was not yet time for Mme. de
+Stael; and, with rare exceptions, those who wrote were not
+marked, or their literary talent was so overshadowed by their
+social gifts as to be unnoted.  Their writings were no measure of
+their abilities.  Those who wrote for amusement were careful to
+disclaim the title of bel esprit, and their works usually reached
+the public through accidental channels.  Mme. de Lambert herself
+had too keen an eye for consideration to pose as an author, but
+it is with an accent of regret at the popular prejudice that she
+says of Mme. Dacier, "She knows how to associate learning with
+the amenities; for at present modesty is out of fashion; there is
+no more shame for vices, and women blush only for knowledge."
+
+But if they did not write, they presided over the mint in which
+books were coined.  They were familiar with theories and ideas at
+their fountain source.  Indeed the whole literature of the period
+pays its tribute to their intelligence and critical taste.  "He
+who will write with precision, energy, and vigor only," said
+Marmontel, "may live with men alone; but he who wishes for
+suppleness in his style, for amenity, and for that something
+which charms and enchants, will, I believe, do well to live with
+women.  When I read that Pericles sacrificed every morning to the
+Graces, I understand by it that every day Pericles breakfasted
+with Aspasia."  This same author was in the habit of reading his
+tales in the salon, and noting their effect.  He found a happy
+inspiration in "the most beautiful eyes in the world, swimming in
+tears;" but he adds, "I well perceived the cold and feeble
+passages, which they passed over in silence, as well as those
+where I had mistaken the word, the tone of nature, or the just
+shade of truth."  He refers to the beautiful, witty, but erring
+and unfortunate Mme. de la Popeliniere, to whom he read his
+tragedy, as the best of all his critics.  "Her corrections," he
+said, "struck me as so many rays of light."  "A point of morals
+will be no better discussed in a society of philosophers than in
+that of a pretty woman of Paris," said Rousseau.  This constant
+habit of reducing thoughts to a clear and salient form was the
+best school for aptness and ready expression.  To talk wittily
+and well, or to lead others to talk wittily and well, was the
+crowning gift of these women.  This evanescent art was the life
+and soul of the salons, the magnet which attracted the most
+brilliant of the French men of letters, who were glad to discuss
+safely and at their ease many subjects which the public
+censorship made it impossible to write about.  They found
+companions and advisers in women, consulted their tastes, sought
+their criticism, courted their patronage, and established a sort
+of intellectual comradeship that exists to the same extent in no
+country outside of France.  Its model may be found in the limited
+circle that gathered about Aspasia in the old Athenian days.
+
+It is perhaps this habit of intellectual companionship that, more
+than any other single thing, accounts for the practical
+cleverness of the Frenchwomen and the conspicuous part they have
+played in the political as well as social life of France. 
+Nowhere else are women linked to the same degree with the success
+of men.  There are few distinguished Frenchmen with whose fame
+some more or less gifted woman is not closely allied.  Montaigne
+and Mlle. de Gournay, La Rochefoucauld and Mme. de La Fayette,
+d'Alembert and Mlle. de Lespinasse, Chateaubriand and Mme.
+Recamier, Joubert and Mme. de Beaumont--these are only a few of
+the well-known and unsullied friendships that suggest themselves
+out of a list that might be extended indefinitely.  The social
+instincts of the French, and the fact that men and women met on a
+common plane of intellectual life, made these friendships
+natural; that they excited little comment and less criticism made
+them possible.
+
+The result was that from the quiet and thoughtful Marquise de
+Lambert, who was admitted to have made half of the Academicians,
+to the clever but less scrupulous Mme. de Pompadour, who had to
+be reckoned with in every political change in Europe, women were
+everywhere the power behind the throne.  No movement was carried
+through without them.  "They form a kind of republic," said
+Montesquieu, "whose members, always active, aid and serve one
+another.  It is a new state within a state; and whoever observes
+the action of those in power, if he does not know the women who
+govern them, is like a man who sees the action of a machine but
+does not know its secret springs."  Mme. de Tenein advised
+Marmontel, before all things, to cultivate the society of women,
+if he wished to succeed.  It is said that both Diderot and
+Thomas, two of the most brilliant thinkers of their time, failed
+of the fame they merited, through their neglect to court the
+favor of women.  Bolingbroke, then an exile in Paris, with a few
+others, formed a club of men for the discussion of literary and
+political questions.  While it lasted it was never mentioned by
+women.  It was quietly ignored.  Cardinal Fleury considered it
+dangerous to the State, and suppressed it.  At the same time, in
+the salon of Mme. de Tenein, the leaders of French thought were
+safely maturing the theories which Montesquieu set forth in his
+"Esprit des Lois," the first open attack on absolute monarchy, the
+forerunner of Rousseau, and the germ of the Revolution.
+
+-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  
+
+But the salons were far from being centers of "plain living and
+high thinking."  "Supper is one of the four ends of man," said
+Mme. du Deffand; and it must be admitted that the great doctrine
+of human equality was rather luxuriously cradled.  The supreme
+science of the Frenchwomen was a knowledge of men.  Understanding
+their tastes, their ambitions, their interests, their vanities,
+and their weaknesses, they played upon this complicated human
+instrument with the skill of an artist who knows how to touch the
+lightest note, to give the finest shade of expression, to bring
+out the fullest harmony.  In their efforts to raise social life
+to the most perfect and symmetrical proportions, the pleasures of
+sense and the delicate illusions of color were not forgotten. 
+They were as noted for their good cheer, for their attention to
+the elegances that strike the eye, the accessories that charm the
+taste, as for their intelligence, their tact, and their
+conversation.
+
+But one must look for the power and the fascination of the French
+salons in their essential spirit and the characteristics of the
+Gallic race, rather than in any definite and tangible form.  The
+word simply suggests habitual and informal gatherings of men and
+women of intelligence and good breeding in the drawing-room, for
+conversation and amusement.  The hostess who opened her house for
+these assemblies selected her guests with discrimination, and
+those who had once gained an entree were always welcome.  In
+studying the character of the noted salons, one is struck with a
+certain unity that could result only from natural growth about a
+nucleus of people bound together by many ties of congeniality and
+friendship.  Society, in its best sense, does not signify a
+multitude, nor can a salon be created on commercial principles. 
+This spirit of commercialism, so fatal to modern social life, was
+here conspicuously absent.  It was not at all a question of debit
+and credit, of formal invitations to be given and returned. 
+Personal values were regarded.  The distinctions of wealth were
+ignored and talent, combined with the requisite tact, was, to a
+certain point, the equivalent of rank.  If rivalries existed,
+they were based upon the quality of the guests rather than upon
+material display.  But the modes of entertainment were as varied
+as the tastes and abilities of the women who presided.  Many of
+the well-known salons were open daily.  Sometimes there were
+suppers, which came very much into vogue after the petits soupers
+of the regent.  The Duchesse de Choiseul, during the ministry of
+her husband, gave a supper every evening excepting on Friday and
+Sunday.  At a quarter before ten the steward glanced through the
+crowded rooms, and prepared the table for all who were present. 
+The Monday suppers at the Temple were thronged.  On other days a
+more intimate circle gathered round the tables, and the ladies
+served tea after the English fashion.  A few women of rank and
+fortune imitated these princely hospitalities, but it was the
+smaller coteries which presented the most charming and
+distinctive side of French society.  It was not the luxurious
+salon of the Duchesse du Maine, with its whirl of festivities and
+passion for esprit, nor that of the Temple, with its brilliant
+and courtly, but more or less intellectual, atmosphere; nor that
+of the clever and critical Marechale de Luxembourg, so elegant,
+so witty, so noted in its day--which left the most permanent
+traces and the widest fame.  It was those presided over by women
+of lesser rank and more catholic sympathies, of whom Voltaire
+aptly said that "the decline of their beauty revealed the dawn of
+their intellect;" women who had the talent, tact, and address to
+gather about them a circle of distinguished men who have crowned
+them with a luminous ray from their own immortality.  The names
+of Mme. de Lambert, Mme. de Tencin, Mme. Geoffrin, Mme. du
+Deffand, Mme. Necker, Mme. de Stael, and others of lesser note,
+call up visions of a society which the world is not likely to see
+repeated.
+
+Not the least among the attractions of this society was its
+charming informality.  A favorite custom in the literary and
+philosophical salons was to give dinners, at an early hour, two
+or three times a week.  In the evening a larger company assembled
+without ceremony.  A popular man of letters, so inclined, might
+dine Monday and Wednesday with Mme. Geoffrin, Tuesday with Mme.
+Helvetius, Friday with Mme. Necker, Sunday and Thursday with Mme.
+d'Holbach, and have ample time to drop into other salons
+afterward, passing an hour or so, perhaps, before going to the
+theater, in the brilliant company that surrounded Mlle. de
+Lespinasse, and, very likely, supping elsewhere later.  At many
+of these gatherings he would be certain to find readings,
+recitations, comedies, music, games, or some other form of
+extemporized amusement.  The popular mania for esprit, for
+literary lions, for intellectual diversions ran through the
+social world, as the craze for clubs and culture, poets and
+parlor readings, musicales and amateur theatricals, runs through
+the society of today.  It had numberless shades and gradations,
+with the usual train of pretentious follies which in every age
+furnish ample material for the pen of the satirist, but it was a
+spontaneous expression of the marvelously quickened taste for
+things of the intellect.  The woman who improvised a witty verse,
+invented a proverb, narrated a story, sang a popular air, or
+acted a part in a comedy entered with the same easy grace into
+the discussion of the last political problem, or listened with
+the subtlest flattery to the new poem, essay, or tale of the
+aspiring young author, whose fame and fortune perhaps hung upon
+her smile.  In the musical and artistic salon of Mme. de la
+Popeliniere the succession of fetes, concerts, and receptions
+seems to have been continuous.  On Sunday there was a mass in the
+morning, afterward a grand dinner, at five o'clock a light
+repast, at nine a supper, and later a musicale.  One is inclined
+to wonder if there was ever any retirement, any domesticity in
+this life so full of movement and variety.
+
+But it was really the freedom, wit, and brilliancy of the
+conversation that constituted the chief attraction of the salons. 
+Men were in the habit of making the daily round of certain
+drawing rooms, just as they drop into clubs in our time, sure of
+more or less pleasant discussion on whatever subject was
+uppermost at the moment, whether it was literature, philosophy,
+art, politics, music, the last play, or the latest word of their
+friends.  The talk was simple, natural, without heat, without
+aggressive egotism, animated with wit and repartee, glancing upon
+the surface of many things, and treating all topics, grave or
+gay, with the lightness of touch, the quick responsiveness that
+make the charm of social intercourse.
+
+The unwritten laws that governed this brilliant world were drawn
+from the old ideas of chivalry, upon which the etiquette of the
+early salons was founded.  The fine morality and gentle virtues
+which were the bases of these laws had lost their force in the
+eighteenth century, but the manners which grew out of them had
+passed into a tradition.  If morals were in reality not pure, nor
+principles severe, there was at least the vanity of posing as
+models of good breeding.  Honor was a religion; politeness and
+courtesy were the current, though by no means always genuine,
+coin of unselfishness and amiability; the amenities stood in the
+place of an ethical code.  Egotism, ill temper, disloyalty,
+ingratitude, and scandal were sins against taste, and spoiled the
+general harmony.  Evil passions might exist, but it was agreeable
+to hide them, and enmities slept under a gracious smile. 
+noblesse OBLIGE was the motto of these censors of manners; and as
+it is perhaps a Gallic trait to attach greater importance to
+reputation than to character, this sentiment was far more potent
+than conscience.  Vice in many veiled forms might be tolerated,
+but that which called itself good society barred its doors
+against those who violated the canons of good taste, which
+recognize at least the outward semblance of many amiable virtues. 
+Sincerity certainly was not one of these virtues; but no one was
+deceived, as it was perfectly well understood that courteous
+forms meant little more than the dress which may or may not
+conceal a physical defect, but is fit and becoming.  It was not
+best to inquire too closely into character and motives, so long
+as appearances were fair and decorous.  How far the individual
+may be affected by putting on the garb of qualities and feelings
+that do not exist may be a question for the moralist; but this
+conventional untruth has its advantages, not only in reducing to
+a minimum the friction of social machinery, and subjecting the
+impulses to the control of the will, but in the subtle influence
+of an ideal that is good and true, however far one may in reality
+fall short of it.
+
+Imagine a society composed of a leisure class with more or less
+intellectual tastes; men eminent in science and letters; men less
+eminent, whose success depended largely upon their social gifts,
+and clever women supremely versed in the art of pleasing, who
+were the intelligent complements of these men; add a universal
+talent for conversation, a genius for the amenities of social
+life, habits of daily intercourse, and manners formed upon an
+ideal of generosity, amiability, loyalty, and urbanity; consider,
+also, the fact that the journals and the magazines, which are so
+conspicuous a feature of modern life, were practically unknown;
+that the salons were centers in which the affairs of the world
+were discussed, its passing events noted--and the power of these
+salons may be to some extent comprehended.
+
+The reason, too, why it is idle to dream of reproducing them
+today on American soil will be readily seen.  The forms may be
+repeated, but the vitalizing spirit is not there.  We have no
+leisure class that finds its occupation in this pleasant daily
+converse.  Our feverish civilization has not time for it.  We sit
+in our libraries and scan the news of the world, instead of
+gathering it in the drawing rooms of our friends.  Perhaps we
+read and think more, but we talk less, and conversation is a
+relaxation rather than an art.  The ability to think aloud,
+easily and gracefully, is not eminently an Anglo-Saxon gift,
+though there are many individual exceptions to this limitation. 
+Our social life is largely a form, a whirl, a commercial
+relation, a display, a duty, the result of external accretion,
+not of internal growth.  It is not in any sense a unity, nor an
+expression of our best intellectual life; this seeks other
+channels.  Men are immersed in business and politics, and prefer
+the easy, less exacting atmosphere of the club.  The woman who
+aspires to hold a salon is confronted at the outset by this
+formidable rival.  She is a queen without a kingdom, presiding
+over a fluctuating circle without homogeneity, and composed
+largely of women--a fact in itself fatal to the true esprit de
+societe.  It is true we have our literary coteries, but they are
+apt to savor too much of the library; we take them too seriously,
+and bring into them too strong a flavor of personality.  We find
+in them, as a rule, little trace of the spontaneity, the variety,
+the wit, the originality, the urbanity, the polish, that
+distinguished the French literary salons of the last century. 
+Even in their own native atmosphere, the salons exist no longer
+as recognized institutions.  This perfected flower of a past
+civilization has faded and fallen, as have all others.  The salon
+in its widest sense, and in some modified form, may always
+constitute a feature of French life, but the type has changed,
+and its old glory has forever departed.  In a foreign air, even
+in its best days, it could only have been an exotic, flourishing
+feebly, and lacking both color and fragrance.  As a copy of past
+models it is still less likely to be a living force.  Society,
+like government, takes its spirit and its vitality from its own
+soil.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. AN ANTECHAMBER OF THE ACADEMIE FRANCAISE
+The Marquise de Lambert--Her "Bureau d'Esprit"--Fontenelle--
+Advice to her Son--Wise Thoughts on the Education of Women--Her
+love of Consideration--Her Generosoty--Influence of Women upon
+the Academy.
+
+While the gay suppers of the regent were giving a new but by no
+means desirable tone to the great world of Paris, and chasing
+away the last vestiges of the stately decorum that marked the
+closing days of Louis XIV, and Mme. de Maintenon, there was one
+quiet drawing room which still preserved the old traditions.  The
+Marquise de Lambert forms a connecting link between the salons of
+the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, leaning to the side of
+the latter, intellectually, but retaining much of the finer
+morality that distinguished the best life of the former.  Her
+attitude towards the disorders of the regency was similar to that
+which Mme. de Rambouillet had held towards the profligate court
+of Henry IV, though her salon never attained the vogue of its
+model.  It lacked a certain charm of youth and freshness perhaps,
+but it was one of the few in which gambling was not permitted,
+and in which conversation had not lost its serious and critical
+flavor.
+
+If Mme. de Lambert were living today she would doubtless figure
+openly as an author.  Her early tastes pointed clearly in that
+direction.  She was inclined to withdraw from the amusements of
+her age, and to pass her time in reading, or in noting down the
+thoughts that pleased her.  The natural bent of her mind was
+towards moral reflections.  In this quality she resembled Mme. de
+Sable, but she was a woman of greater breadth and originality,
+though less fine and exclusive.  She wrote much in later life on
+educational themes, for the benefit of her children and for her
+own diversion; but she yielded to the prejudices of her age
+against the woman author, and her works were given to the world
+only through the medium of friends to whom she had read or lent
+them.  "Women," she said, "should have towards the sciences a
+modesty almost as sensitive as towards vices."  But in spite of
+her studied observance of the conventional limits which tradition
+still assigned to her sex, her writings suggest much more care
+than is usually bestowed upon the amusement of an idle hour.  If,
+like many other women of her time, she wrote only for her
+friends, she evidently doubted their discretion in the matter of
+secrecy.
+
+As the child who inherited the rather formidable name of Anne
+Theresa de Marguenat de Coucelles was born during the last days
+of the Hotel de Rambouillet, she doubtless cherished many
+illusions regarding this famous salon.  Its influence was more or
+less apparent when the time came to open one of her own.  Her
+father was a man of feeble intellect, who died early; but her
+mother, a woman more noted for beauty than for decorum, was
+afterward married to Bachaumont, a well-known bel esprit, who
+appreciated the gifts of the young girl, and brought her within a
+circle of wits who did far more towards forming her impressible
+mind than her light and frivolous mother had done.  She was still
+very young when she became the wife of the Marquis de Lambert, an
+officer of distinction, to whose interests she devoted her
+talents and her ample fortune.  The exquisitely decorated Hotel
+Lambert, on the Ile Saint Louis, still retains much of its old
+splendor, though the finest masterpieces of Lebrun and Lesueur
+which ornamented its walls have found their way to the Louvre. 
+"It is a home made for a sovereign who would be a philosopher,"
+wrote Voltaire to Frederick the Great.  In these magnificent
+salons, Mme. de Lambert, surrounded by every luxury that wealth
+and taste could furnish, entertained a distinguished company. 
+She carried her lavish hospitalities also to Luxembourg, where
+she adorned the position of her husband, who was governor of that
+province for a short period before his death in 1686.  After this
+event, she was absorbed for some years in settling his affairs,
+which were left in great disorder, and in protecting the fortunes
+of her two children.  This involved her in long and vexatious
+lawsuits which she seems to have conducted with admirable
+ability.  "There are so few great fortunes that are innocent,"
+she writes to her son, "that I pardon your ancestors for not
+leaving you one.  I have done what I could to put in order our
+affairs, in which there is left to women only the glory of
+economy."  It was not until the closing years of her life, from
+1710 to 1733, that her social influence was at its height.  She
+was past sixty, at an age when the powers of most women are on
+the wane, when her real career began.  She fitted up luxurious
+apartments in the Palais Mazarin, employing artists like Watteau
+upon the decorations, and expending money as lavishly as if she
+had been in the full springtide of life, instead of the golden
+autumn.  Then she gathered about her a choice and lettered
+society, which seemed to be a world apart, a last revival of the
+genius of the seventeenth century, and quite out of the main
+drift of the period.  "She was born with much talent," writes one
+of her friends; "she cultivated it by assiduous reading; but the
+most beautiful flower in her crown was a noble and luminous
+simplicity, of which, at sixty years, she took it into her head
+to divest herself.  She lent herself to the public, associated
+with the Academicians, and established at her house a bureau
+d'esprit."  Twice a week she gave dinners, which were as noted
+for the cuisine as for the company, and included, among others,
+the best of the forty Immortals.  Here new works were read or
+discussed, authors talked of their plans, and candidates were
+proposed for vacant chairs in the Academy.  "The learned and the
+lettered formed the dominant element," says a critic of the time. 
+"They dined at noon, and the rest of the day was passed in
+conversations, in readings, in literary and scientific
+discussions.  No card tables; it was in ready wit that each one
+paid his contribution."  Ennui never came to shed its torpors
+over these reunions, of which the Academy furnished the most
+distinguished guests, in company with grands seigneurs eager to
+show themselves as worthy by intelligence as by rank to play a
+role in these gatherings of the intellectual elite.  Fontenelle
+was the presiding genius of this salon, and added to its critical
+and literary spirit a tinge of philosophy.  This gallant savant,
+who was adored in society as "a man of rare and exquisite
+conversation," has left many traces of himself here.  No one was
+so sparkling in epigram; no one talked so beautifully of love, of
+which he knew nothing; and no one talked to delightfully of
+science, of which he knew a great deal.  But he thought that
+knowledge needed a seasoning of sentiment to make it palatable to
+women.  In his "Pluralite des Mondes," a singular melange of
+science and sentiment, which he had written some years before and
+dedicated to a daughter of the gay and learned Mme. de La
+Sabliere, he talks about the stars, to la belle marquise, like a
+lover; but his delicate flatteries are the seasoning of serious
+truths.  It was the first attempt to offer science sugar-coated,
+and suggests the character of this coterie, which prided itself
+upon a discreet mingling of elevated thought with decorous
+gaiety.  The world moves.  Imagine a female undergraduate of
+Harvard or Columbia taking her astronomy diluted with sentiment!
+
+President Henault, the life-long friend of Mme. du Deffand, whose
+light criticism of a pure-minded woman might be regarded as
+rather flattering than otherwise, says: "It was apparent that
+Mme. de Lambert touched upon the time of the Hotel de
+Rambouillet; she was a little affected, and had not the force to
+overstep the limits of the prude and the precieuse.  Her salon
+was the rendevous of celebrated men . . . .  In the evening the
+scenery changed as well as the actors.  A more elegant world
+assembled at the suppers.  The Marquise took pleasure in
+receiving people who were agreeable to each other.  Her tone,
+however, did not vary, and she preached la belle galanterie to
+some who went a little beyond it.  I was of the two parties; I
+dogmatized in the morning and sang in the evening."  The two
+eminent Greek Scholars, La Motte and Mme. Dacier, held spirited
+discussions on the merits of Homer, which came near ending in
+permanent ill-feeling, but the amiable hostess gave a dinner for
+them, "they drank to the health of the poet, and all was
+forgotten."  The war between the partizans of the old and the new
+was as lively then as it is today.  "La Motte and Fontenelle
+prefer the moderns," said the caustic Mme. du Deffand; "but the
+ancients are dead, and the moderns are themselves."  The names of
+Sainte-Aulaire, de Sacy, Mairan, President Henault, and others
+equally scholarly and witty, suffice to indicate the quality of
+the conversation, which treated lightly and gracefully of the
+most serious things.  The Duchesse du Maine and her clever
+companion, Mlle. de Launay were often among the guests; also the
+beautiful and brilliant Mme. de Caylus, a niece of Mme. de
+Maintenon, whom some poetical critic has styled "the last flower
+of the seventeenth century."  Sainte-Aulaire, tired of the
+perpetual excitement at Sceaux, characterized this salon by a
+witty quatrain:
+
+Je suis las de l'esprit, il me met en courroux,
+Il me renverse la cervelle;
+Lambert, je viens chercher un asile chez vous,
+Entre La Motte et Fontenelle.
+
+The wits of the day launched many a shaft of satire against it,
+as they had against the Hotel de Rambouillet a century earlier;
+but it was an intellectual center of great influence, and was
+regarded as the sanctuary of old manners as well as the asylum of
+new liberties.  Its decorous character gave it the epithet of
+"very respectable;" but this eminently respectable company, which
+represented the purest taste of the time, often included Adrienne
+Lecouvreur, who was much more remarkable for talent than for
+respectability.  We have a direct glimpse of it through the pen
+of d'Artenson:
+
+"I have just met with a very grievous loss in the death of the
+Marquise de Lambert" (he writes in 1733). "For fifteen years I
+have been one of her special friends, and she has done me the
+favor of inviting me to her house, where it is an honor to be
+received.  I dined there regularly on Wednesday, which was one of
+her days . . . . .  She was rich, and made a good and amiable use
+of her wealth, for the benefit of her friends, and above all for
+the unfortunate.  A pupil of Bachaumont, having frequented only
+the society of people of the world, and of the highest
+intelligence, she knew no other passion than a constant and
+platonic tenderness."
+
+The quality of character and intellect which gave Mme. de Lambert
+so marked an influence, we find in her own thoughts on a great
+variety of subjects.  She gives us the impression of a woman
+altogether sensible and judicious, but not without a certain
+artificial tone.  Her well-considered philosophy of life had an
+evident groundwork of ambition and worldly wisdom, which appears
+always in her advice to her children.  She counsels her son to
+aim high and believe himself capable of great things.  "Too much
+modesty," she says, "is a languor of the soul, which prevents it
+from taking flight and carrying itself rapidly towards glory"--a
+suggestion that would be rather superfluous in this generation. 
+Again, she advises him to seek the society of his superiors, in
+order to accustom himself to respect and politeness.  "With
+equals one grows negligent; the mind falls asleep."  But she does
+not regard superiority as an external thing, and says very
+wisely, "It is merit which should separate you from people, not
+dignity or pride."  By "people" she indicates all those who think
+meanly and commonly.  "The court is full of them," she adds.  Her
+standards of honor are high, and her sentiments of humanity quite
+in the vein of the coming age.  She urges her daughter to treat
+her servants with kindness.  "One of the ancients says they
+should be regarded as unfortunate friends.  Think that humanity
+and Christianity equalize all."
+
+Her criticisms on the education of women are of especial
+interest.  Behind her conventional tastes and her love of
+consideration she has a clear perception of facts and an
+appreciation of unfashionable truths.  She recognizes the
+superiority of her sex in matters of taste and in the enjoyment
+of "serious pleasures which make only the MIND LAUGH and do not
+trouble the heart" She reproaches men with "spoiling the
+dispositions nature has given to women, neglecting their
+education, filling their minds with nothing solid, and destining
+them solely to please, and to please only by their graces or
+their vices."  But she had not always the courage of her
+convictions, and it was doubtless quite as much her dislike of
+giving voice to unpopular opinions as her aversion to the
+publicity of authorship, that led her to buy the entire edition
+of her "Reflexions sur les Femmes," which was published without her
+consent.
+
+One of her marked traits was moderation.  "The taste is spoiled
+by amusements," she writes.  "One becomes so accustomed to ardent
+pleasures that one cannot fall back upon simple ones.  We should
+fear great commotions of the soul, which prepare ennui and
+disgust."  This wise thought suggests the influence of
+Fontenelle, who impressed himself strongly upon the salons of the
+first half of the century.  His calm philosophy is distinctly
+reflected in the character of Mme. de Lambert, also in that of
+Mme. Geoffrin, with whom he was on very intimate terms.  It is
+said that this poet, critic, bel esprit, and courtly favorite,
+whom Rousseau calls "the daintiest pedant in the world," was
+never swayed by any emotion whatever.  He never laughed, only
+smiled; never wept; never praised warmly, though he did say
+pretty things to women; never hurried; was never angry; never
+suffered, and was never moved by suffering.  "He had the gout,"
+says one of his critics, "but no pain; only a foot wrapped in
+cotton.  He put it on a footstool; that was all."  It is perhaps
+fair to present, as the other side of the medallion, the portrait
+drawn by the friendly hand of Adrienne LeCouvreur.  "The charms
+of his intellect often veiled its essential qualities.  Unique of
+his kind, he combines all that wins regard and respect. 
+Integrity, rectitude, equity compose his character; an
+imagination lively and brilliant, turns fine and delicate,
+expressions new and always happy ornament it.  A heart pure,
+actions clear, conduct uniform, and everywhere principles . . . . 
+Exact in friendship, scrupulous in love; nowhere failing in the
+attributes of a gentleman.  Suited to intercourse the most
+delicate, though the delight of savants; modest in his
+conversation, simple in his actions, his superiority is evident,
+but he never makes one feel it." He lived a century, apparently
+because it was too much trouble to die.  When the weight of years
+made it too much trouble to live, he simply stopped.  "I do not
+suffer, my friends, but I feel a certain difficulty in existing,"
+were his last words.  With this model of serene tranquillity, who
+analyzed the emotions as he would a problem in mathematics, and
+reduced life to a debit and credit account, it is easy to
+understand the worldly philosophy of the women who came under his
+influence.
+
+But while Mme. de Lambert had a calm and equable temperament, and
+loved to surround herself with an atmosphere of repose, she was
+not without a fine quality of sentiment.  "I exhort you much more
+to cultivate your heart," she writes to her son, "than to perfect
+your mind; the true greatness of the man is in the heart."  "She
+was not only eager to serve her friends without waiting for their
+prayers or the humiliating exposure of their needs," said
+Fontenelle, "but a good action to be done in favor of indifferent
+people always tempted her warmly . . ..  The ill success of some
+acts of generosity did not correct the habit; she was always
+equally ready to do a kindness."  She has written very delicately
+and beautifully of friendships between men and women; and she had
+her own intimacies that verged upon tenderness, but were free
+from any shadow of reproach.  Long after her death, d'Alembert,
+in his academic eulogy upon de Sacy, refers touchingly to the
+devoted friendship that linked this elegant savant with Mme. de
+Lambert.  "It is believed," says President Henault, "that she was
+married to the Marquis de Sainte-Aulaire.  He was a man of
+esprit, who only bethought himself, after more than sixty years,
+of his talent for poetry; and Mme. de Lambert, whose house was
+filled with Academicians, gained him entrance into the Academy,
+not without strong opposition on the part of Boileau and some
+others."  Whether the report of this alliance was true or not,
+the families were closely united, as the daughter of Mme. de
+Lambert was married to a son of Sainte-Aulaire; it is certain
+that the enduring affection of this ancient friend lighted the
+closing years of her life.
+
+Though tinged with the new philosophy, Mme. de Lambert regarded
+religion as a part of a respectable, well-ordered life. 
+"Devotion is a becoming sentiment in women, and befitting in both
+sexes," she writes.  But she clearly looked upon it as an
+external form, rather than an internal flame.  When about to die,
+at the age of eighty-six, she declined the services of a friendly
+confessor, and sent for an abbe who had a great reputation for
+esprit.  Perhaps she thought he would give her a more brilliant
+introduction into the next world; this points to one of her
+weaknesses, which was a love of consideration that carried her
+sometimes to the verge of affectation.  It savors a little of the
+hypercritical spirit that is very well illustrated by an anecdote
+of the witty Duchesse de Luxenbourg.  One morning she took up a
+prayer book that was lying upon the table and began to criticize
+severely the bad taste of the prayers.  A friend ventured to
+remark that if they were said reverently and piously, God surely
+would pay no attention to their good or bad form.  "Indeed,"
+exclaimed the fastidious Marechale, whose religion was evidently
+a becoming phase of estheticism, "do not believe that."
+
+The thoughts of Mme. de Lambert, so elevated in tone, so fine in
+moral quality, so rich in worldly wisdom, and often so felicitous
+in expression, tempt one to multiply quotations, especially as
+they show us an intimate side of her life, of which otherwise we
+know very little.  Her personality is veiled.  Her human
+experiences, her loves, her antipathies, her mistakes, and her
+errors are a sealed book to us, excepting as they may be dimly
+revealed in the complexion of her mind.  Of her influence we need
+no better evidence than the fact that her salon was called the
+antechamber to the Academie Francaise.
+
+The precise effect of this influence of women over the most
+powerful critical body ot eh century, or of any century, perhaps,
+we can hardly measure.  In the fact that the Academy became for a
+time philosophical rather than critical, and dealt with theories
+rather than with pure literature, we trace the finger of the more
+radical thinkers who made themselves so strongly felt in the
+salons.  Sainte=Beuve tells us that Fontenelle, with other
+friends of Mme. de Lambert, first gave it this tendency; but his
+mission was apparently an unconscious one, and strikingly
+illustrates the accidental character of the sources of the
+intellectual currents which sometimes change the face of the
+world.  "If I had a handful of truths, I should take good care
+not to open it," said this sybarite, who would do nothing that
+was likely to cause him trouble.  But the truths escaped in spite
+of him, and these first words of the new philosophy were perhaps
+the more dangerous because veiled and insidious.  "You have
+written the 'Histoire des Oracles,'" said a philosopher to him,
+after he had been appointed the royal censor, "and you refuse me
+your approbation."  "Monsieur," replied Fontenelle, "if I had
+been censor when I wrote the 'Histoire des Oracles,' I should have
+carefully avoided giving it my approbation." But if the
+philosophers finally determined the drift of this learned body,
+it was undoubtedly the tact and diplomacy of women which
+constituted the most potent factor in the elections which placed
+them there.  The mantle of authority, so gracefully worn by Mme.
+de Lambert, fell upon her successors, Mme. Geoffrin and Mlle. de
+Lespinasse, losing none of its prestige. As a rule, the best men
+in France were sooner or later enrolled among the Academicians. 
+If a few missed the honor through failure to enlist the favor of
+women, as has been said, and a few better courtiers of less merit
+attained it, the modern press has not proved a more judicious
+tribunal.
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE DUCHESSE DU MAINE
+Her Capricious Character--Her Esprit--Mlle. de Launay--Clever
+Portrait of Her Mistress--Perpetual Fetes at Sceaux--Voltaire
+and the "Divine Emilie"--Dilettante Character of this Salon.
+
+The life of the eighteenth century, with its restlessness, its
+love of amusements, its ferment of activities, and its essential
+frivolity, finds a more fitting representative in the Duchesse du
+Maine, granddaughter of the Grand Conde, and wife of the favorite
+son of Louis XIV, and Mme. de Montespan.  The transition from the
+serene and thoughtful atmosphere which surrounded Mme. de
+Lambert, to the tumultuous whirl of existence at Sceaux, was like
+passing from the soft light and tranquillity of a summer evening
+to the glare and confusion of perpetual fireworks.  Of all the
+unique figures of a masquerading age this small and ambitious
+princess was perhaps the most striking, the most pervading.  It
+was by no means her aim to take her place in the world as queen
+of a salon.  Louise-Benedicte de Bourbon belonged to the royal
+race, and this was by far the most vivid fact in her life.  She
+was but a few steps from the throne, and political intrigues
+played a conspicuous part in her singular career.  But while she
+waited for the supreme power to which she aspired, and later,
+when the feverish dream of her life was ended, she must be
+amused, and her diversions must have an intellectual and
+imaginative flavor.  Wits, artists, literary men, and savants
+were alike welcome at Sceaux, if they amused her and entertained
+her guests.  "One lived there by esprit, and esprit is my God,"
+said Mme. du Deffand, who was among the brightest ornaments of
+this circle.
+
+Born in 1676, the Duchesse du Maine lived through the first half
+of the next century, of which her little court was one of the
+most notable features.  Scarcely above the stature of a child of
+ten years, slightly deformed, with a fair face lighted by fine
+eyes; classically though superficially educated; gifted in
+conversation, witty, brilliant, adoring talent, but cherishing
+all the prejudices of the old noblesse--she represented in a
+superlative degree the passion for esprit which lent such
+exceptional brilliancy to the social life of the time.
+
+In character the duchess was capricious and passionate.  "If she
+were as good as she is wicked," said the sharp-tongued Palatine,
+"there would be nothing to say against her.  She is tranquil
+during the day and passes it playing at cards, but at its close
+the extravagances and fits of passion begin; she torments her
+husband, her children, her servants, to such a point that they do
+not know which way to turn."  Her will brooked no opposition. 
+When forced to leave the Tuileries after the collapse of her
+little bubble of political power, she deliberately broke every
+article of value in her apartments, consigning mirrors, vases,
+statues, porcelains alike to a common ruin, that no one else
+might enjoy them after her.  This fiery scion of a powerful
+family, who had inherited its pride, its ambition, its
+uncontrollable passions, and its colossal will, had little
+patience with the serene temperament and dilettante tastes of her
+amiable husband, and it is said she did not scruple to make him
+feel the force of her small hands.  "You will waken some morning
+to find yourself in the Academie Francaise, and the Duc d'Orleans
+regent," she said to him one day when he showed her a song he had
+translated.  Her device was a bee, with this motto: "I am small,
+but I make deep wounds."  Doubtless its fitness was fully
+realized by those who belonged to the Ordre de la Mouche-a-miel
+which she had instituted, and whose members were obliged to
+swear, by Mount Hymettus, fidelity and obedience to their
+perpetual dictator.  But what pains and chagrins were not
+compensated by the bit of lemon-colored ribbon and its small meed
+of distinction!
+
+The little princess worked valiantly for political power, but she
+worked in vain.  The conspiracy against the regent, which seemed
+to threaten another Fronde, came to nothing, and this ardent
+instrigante, who had the disposition to "set the four corners of
+the kingdom on fire" to attain her ends, found her party
+dispersed and herself in prison.  But this was only an episode,
+and though it gave a death blow to her dreams of power, it did
+not quench her irrepressible ardor.  If she could not rule in one
+way, she would in another.  As soon as she regained her freedom,
+her little court was again her kingdom, and no sovereign ever
+reigned more imperiously.  "I am fond of company," she said, "for
+I listen to no one, and every one listens to me."  It was an
+incessant thirst for power, a perpetual need of the sweet incense
+of flattery, that was at the bottom of this "passion for a
+multitude."  "She believed in herself," writes Mlle. de Launay,
+afterward Baronne de Staal, "as she believed in God or Descartes,
+without examination and without discussion."
+
+This lady's maid, who loved mathematics and anatomy, was familiar
+with Malebranche and Descartes, and left some literary reputation
+as a writer of gossipy memoirs, was a prominent figure in the
+lively court at Sceaux for more than forty years, and has given
+us some vivid pictures of her capricious mistress.  A young girl
+of clear intellect and good education, but without rank, friends,
+or fortune, she was forced to accept the humiliating position of
+femme de chambre with the Duchesse du Maine, who had been
+attracted by her talents.  She was brought into notice through a
+letter to Fontenelle, which was thought witty enough to be copied
+and circulated.  If she had taken this cool dissector of human
+motives as a model, she certainly did credit to his teaching. 
+Her curiously analytical mind is aptly illustrated by her novel
+method of measuring her lover's passion.  He was in the habit of
+accompanying her home from the house of a friend.  When he began
+to cross the square, instead of going round it, she concluded
+that his love had diminished in the exact proportion of two sides
+of a square to the diagonal.  Promoted to the position of a
+companion, she devoted herself to the interests of her restless
+mistress, read to her, talked with her, wrote plays for her, and
+was the animating spirit of the famous Nuits Blanches.  While the
+duchess was in exile she shared her disgrace, refused to betray
+her, and was sent to the Bastille for her loyalty.  She resigned
+herself to her imprisonment with admirable philosophy, amused
+herself in the study of Latin, in watching the gambols of a cat
+and kitten, and in carrying on a safe and sentimental flirtation
+with the fascinating Duc de Richelieu, who occupied an adjoining
+cell and passed the hours in singing with her popular airs from
+Iphigenie.  "Sentimental" is hardly a fitting word to apply to
+the coquetries of this remarkably clear and calculating young
+woman.  She returned with her patroness to Sceaux, found many
+admirers, but married finally with an eye to her best worldly
+interests, and, it appears, in the main happily--at least, not
+unhappily.  The shade of difference implies much.  She had a
+keen, penetrating intellect which nothing escaped, and as it had
+the peculiar clearness in which people and events are reflected
+as in a mirror, her observations are of great value.  "Aside from
+the prose of Voltaire, I know of none more agreeable than that of
+Mme. de Staal de Launay," said Grimm.  Her portrait of her
+mistress serves to paint herself as well.
+
+"Mme. la Duchesse du Maine, at the age of sixty years, has yet
+learned nothing from experience; she is a child of much talent;
+she has its defects and its charms.  Curious and credulous, she
+wishes to be instructed in all the different branches of
+knowledge; but she is contented with their surface.  The
+decisions of those who educated her have become for her
+principles and rules upon which her mind has never formed the
+least doubt; she submits once for all.  Her provision for ideas
+is made; she rejects the best demonstrated truths and resists the
+best reasonings, if they are contrary to the first impressions
+she has received.  All examination is impossible to her
+lightness, and doubt is a state which her weakness cannot
+support.  Her catechism and the philosophy of Descartes are two
+systems which she understands equally well . . . .  Her mirror
+cannot make her doubt the charms of her face; the testimony of
+her eyes is more questionable than the judgment of those who have
+decided that she is beautiful and well-formed.  Her vanity is of
+a singular kind, but seems the less offensive because it is not
+reflective, though in reality it is the more ridiculous, 
+Intercourse with her is a slavery; her tyranny is open; she does
+not deign to color it with the appearance of friendship.  She
+says frankly that she has the misfortune of not being able to do
+without people for whom she does not care.  She proves it
+effectually.  One sees her learn with indifference the death of
+those who would call forth torrents of tears if they were a
+quarter of an hour too late for a card party or a promenade."
+
+But this vain and self-willed woman read Virgil and Terence in
+the original, was devoted to Greek tragedies, dipped into
+philosophy, traversed the surface of many sciences, turned a
+madrigal with facility, and talked brilliantly.  "The language is
+perfect only when you speak it or when one speaks of you," wrote
+Mme. de Lambert, in a tone of discreet flattery.  "No one has
+ever spoken with more correctness, clearness, and rapidity,
+neither in a manner more noble or more natural," said Mlle. de
+Launay.
+
+Through this feminine La Bruyere, as Sainte-Beuve has styled her,
+we are introduced to the life at Sceaux.  It was the habit of the
+guests to assemble at eight, listen to music or plays, improvise
+verses for popular airs, relate racy anecdotes, or amuse
+themselves with proverbs.  "Write verses for me," said the
+insatiable duchess when ill; "I feel that verses only can give me
+relief."  The quality does not seem to have been essential,
+provided they were sufficiently flattering.  Sainte-Aulaire wrote
+madrigals for her.  Malezieu, the learned and versatile preceptor
+of the Duc du Maine, read Sophocles and Euripides.  Mme. du Maine
+herself acted the roles of Athalie and Iphigenie with the famous
+Baron.  They played at science, contemplated the heavens through
+a telescope and the earth through a microscope.  In their eager
+search for novelty they improvised fetes that rivaled in
+magnificence the Arabian Nights; they posed as gods and
+goddesses, or, affecting simplicity, assumed rustic and pastoral
+characters, even to their small economies and romantic
+platitudes.  Mythology, the chivalry of the Middle Ages,
+costumes, illuminations, scenic effects, the triumphs of the
+artists, the wit of the bel esprit--all that ingenuity could
+devise or money could buy was brought into service.  It was the
+life that Watteau painted, with its quaint and grotesque fancies,
+its sylvan divinities, and its sighing lovers wandering in
+endless masquerade, or whispering tender nothings on banks of
+soft verdure, amid the rustle of leaves, the sparkle of
+fountains, the glitter of lights, and the perfume of innumerable
+flowers.  It was a perpetual carnival, inspired by imagination,
+animated by genius, and combining everything that could charm the
+taste, distract the mind, and intoxicate the senses.  The
+presiding genius of this fairy scene was the irrepressible
+duchess, who reigned as a goddess and demanded the homage due to
+one.  Well might the weary courtiers cry out against les galeres
+du bel esprit.
+
+But this fantastic princess who carried on a sentimental
+correspondence with the blind La Motte, and posed as the tender
+shepherdess of the adoring but octogenarian Sainte-Aulaire, had
+no really democratic notions.  There was no question in her mind
+of the divine right of kings or of princesses.  She welcomed
+Voltaire because he flattered her vanity and amused her guests,
+but she was far enough from the theories which were slowly
+fanning the sparks of the Revolution.  Her rather imperious
+patronage of literary and scientific men set a fashion which all
+her world tried to follow.  It added doubtless to the prestige of
+those who were insidiously preparing the destruction of the very
+foundations on which this luxurious and pleasure-loving society
+rested.  But, after all, the bond between this restless,
+frivolous, heartless coterie and the genuine men of letters was
+very slight.  There was no seriousness, no earnestness, no
+sincerity, no solid foundation.
+
+The literary men, however, who figured most conspicuously in the
+intimate circle of the Duchesse du Maine were not of the first
+order.  Malezieu was learned, a member of two Academies, faintly
+eulogized by Fontenelle, warmly so by Voltaire, and not at all by
+Mlle. de Launay; but twenty-five years devoted to humoring the
+caprices and flattering the tastes of a vain and exacting
+patroness were not likely to develop his highest possibilities. 
+There is a point where the stimulating atmosphere of the salon
+begins to enervate.  His clever assistant, the Abbe Genest, poet
+and Academician, was a sort of Voiture, witty, versatile, and
+available.  He tried to put Descartes into verse, which suggests
+the quality of his poetry.  Sainte-Aulaire, who, like his friend
+Fontenelle, lived a century, frequented this society more or less
+for forty years, but his poems are sufficiently light, if one may
+judge from a few samples, and his genius doubtless caught more
+reflections in the salon than in a larger world.  He owed his
+admission to the Academy partly to a tender quatrain which he
+improvised in praise of his lively patroness.  It is true we have
+occasional glimpses of Voltaire.  Once he sought an asylum here
+for two months, after one of his numerous indiscretions, writing
+tales during the day, which he read to the duchess at night. 
+Again he came with his "divine Emilie," the learned Marquise du
+Chatelet, who upset the household with her eccentric ways.  "Our
+ghosts do not show themselves by day," writes Mlle. de Launay;
+"they appeared yesterday at ten o'clock in the evening.  I do not
+think we shall see them earlier today; one is writing high facts,
+the other, comments upon Newton.  They wish neither to play nor
+to promenade; they are very useless in a society where their
+learned writings are of no account."  But Voltaire was a
+courtier, and, in spite of his frequent revolts against
+patronage, was not at all averse to the incense of the salons and
+the favors of the great.  It was another round in the ladder that
+led him towards glory.
+
+The cleverest women in France were found at Sceaux, but the
+dominant spirit was the princess herself.  It was amusement she
+wanted, and even men of talent were valued far less for what they
+were intrinsically than for what they could contribute to her
+vanity or to her diversion.  "She is a predestined soul," wrote
+Voltaire.  "She will love comedy to the last moment, and when she
+is ill I counsel you to administer some beautiful poem in the
+place of extreme unction.  One dies as one has lived."
+
+Mme. du Maine represented the conservative side of French society
+in spite of the fact that her abounding mental vitality often
+broke through the stiff boundaries of old traditions.  It was not
+because she did not still respect them, but she had the defiant
+attitude of a princess whose will is an unwritten law superior to
+all traditions.  The tone of her salon was in the main
+dilettante, as is apt to be the case with any circle that plumes
+itself most upon something quite apart from intellectual
+distinction.  It reflected the spirit of an old aristocracy, with
+its pride, its exclusiveness, its worship of forms, but faintly
+tinged with the new thought that was rapidly but unconsciously
+encroaching upon time-honored institutions.  Beyond the clever
+pastimes of a brilliant coterie, it had no marked literary
+influence.  This ferment of intellectual life was one of the
+signs of the times, but it led to no more definite and tangible
+results than the turning of a madrigal or the sparkle of an
+epigram.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. MADAME DE TENCIN AND MADAME DU CHATELET
+An Intriguing Chanoinesse--Her Singular Fascination--Her Salon
+--Its Philosophical Character--Mlle. Aisse--Romances of Mme. de
+Tencin--D'Alembert--La Belle Emilie--Voltaire--The Two Women
+Compared
+
+It was not in the restless searchings of an old society for new
+sensations, new diversions, nor in the fleeting expressions of
+individual taste or caprice, which were often little more than
+the play of small vanities, that the most potent forces in the
+political as well as in the intellectual life of France were
+found.  It was in the coteries which attracted the best
+representatives of modern thought, men and women who took the
+world on a more serious side, and mingled more or less of
+earnestness even in their amusements.  While the Duchesse du
+Maine was playing her little comedy, which began and ended in
+herself, another woman, of far different type, and without rank
+or riches , was scheming for her friends, and nursing the germs
+of the philosophic party in one of the most notable salons of the
+first half of the century.  Mme. de Tencin is not an interesting
+figure to contemplate from a moral standpoint.  "She was born
+with the most fascinating qualities and the most abominable
+defects that God ever gave to one of his creatures," said Mme. du
+Deffand, who was far from being able to pose, herself, as a model
+of virtue or decorum.  But sin has its degrees, and the woman who
+errs within the limits of conventionality considers herself
+entitled to sit in judgment upon her sister who wanders outside
+of the fold.  Measured even by the complaisant standards of her
+own time, there can be but one verdict upon the character of Mme.
+de Tencin, though it is to be hoped that the scandal-loving
+chroniclers have painted her more darkly than she deserved.  But
+whatever her faults may have been, her talent and her influence
+were unquestioned.  She posed in turn as a saint, an intrigante,
+and a femme d'esprit, with marked success in every one of these
+roles.  But it was not a comedy she was playing for the amusement
+of the hour.  Beneath the velvet softness of her manner there was
+a definite aim, an inflexible purpose.  With the tact and
+facility of a Frenchwoman, she had a strong, active intellect,
+boundless ambition, indomitable energy, and the subtlety of an
+Italian.
+
+An incident of her early life, related by Mme. du Deffand,
+furnishes a key to her complex character, and reveals one secret
+of her influence.  Born of a poor and proud family in Grenoble,
+in 1681, Claudine Alexandrine Guerin de Tencin was destined from
+childhood for the cloister.  Her strong aversion to the life of a
+nun was unavailing, and she was sent to a convent at Montfleury. 
+This prison does not seem to have been a very austere one, and
+the discipline was far from rigid.  The young novice was so
+devout that the archbishop prophesied a new light for the church,
+and she easily persuaded him of the necessity of occupying the
+minds of the religieuses by suitable diversions.  Though not yet
+sixteen, this pretty, attractive, vivacious girl was fertile in
+resources, and won her way so far into the good graces of her
+superiors as to be permitted to organize reunions, and to have
+little comedies played which called together the provincial
+society.  She transformed the convent, but her secret
+disaffection was unchanged.  She took the final vows under the
+compulsion of her inflexible father, then continued her role of
+devote to admirable purpose.  By the zeal of her piety, the
+severity of her penance, and the ardor of her prayers, she gained
+the full sympathy of her ascetic young confessor, to whom she
+confided her feeling of unfitness for a religious life, and her
+earnest desire to be freed from the vows which sat so uneasily
+upon her sensitive conscience.  He exhorted her to steadfastness,
+but finally she wrote him a letter in which she confessed her
+hopeless struggle against a consuming passion, and urged the
+necessity of immediate release.  The conclusion was obvious.  The
+Abbe Fleuret was horrified by the conviction that this pretty
+young nun was in love with himself, and used his influence to
+secure her transference to a secular order at Neuville, where as
+chanoinesse, she had many privileges and few restrictions.  Here
+she became at once a favorite, as before, charming by her modest
+devotion, and amusing by her brilliant wit.  Artfully, and by
+degrees, she convinced those in authority of the need of a
+representative in Paris.  This office she was chosen to fill. 
+Playing her pious part to the last, protesting with tears her
+pain at leaving a life she loved, and her unfitness for so great
+an honor she set out upon her easy mission.  There are many tales
+of a scandalous life behind all this sanctity and humility, but
+her new position gave her consideration, influence, and a good
+revenue.  "Young, beautiful, clever, with an adorable talent,"
+this "nun unhooded" fascinated the regent, and was his favorite
+for a few days.  But her ambition got the better of her prudence. 
+She ventured upon political ground, and he saw her no more.  With
+his minister, the infamous Dubois, she was more successful, and
+he served her purpose admirably well.  Through her notorious
+relations with him she enriched her brother and secured him a
+cardinal's hat.  The intrigues of this unscrupulous trio form an
+important episode in the history of the period.  When Dubois
+died, within a few months of the regent, she wept, as she said,
+"that fools might believe she regretted him."
+
+Her clear, incisive intellect and conversational charm would have
+assured the success of any woman at a time when these things
+counted for so much.  "At thirty-six," wrote Mme. du Deffand,
+"she was beautiful and fresh as a woman of twenty; her eyes
+sparkled, her lips had a smile at the same time sweet and
+perfidious; she wished to be good, and gave herself great trouble
+to seem so, without succeeding."  Indolent and languid with
+flashes of witty vivacity, insinuating and facile, unconscious of
+herself, interested in everyone with whom she talked, she
+combined the tact, the finesse, the subtle penetration of a woman
+with the grasp, the comprehensiveness, and the knowledge of
+political machinery which are traditionally accorded to a man. 
+"If she wanted to poison you, she would use the mildest poison,"
+said the Abbe Trublet.
+
+"I cannot express the illusion which her air of nonchalance and
+easy grace left with me," says Marmontel.  "Mme. de Tencin, the
+woman in the kingdom who moved the most political springs, both
+in the city and at court, was for me only an indolente.  Ah, what
+finesse, what suppleness, what activity were concealed beneath
+this naive air, this appearance of calm and leisure!"  But he
+confesses that she aided him greatly with her counsel, and that
+he owed to her much of his knowledge of the world.
+
+"Unhappy those who depend upon the pen," she said to him;
+"nothing is more chimerical.  The man who makes shoes is sure of
+his wages; the man who makes a book or a tragedy is never sure of
+anything."  She advises him to make friends of women rather than
+of men.  "By means of women, one attains all that one wishes from
+men, of whom some are too pleasure-loving, others too much
+preoccupied with their personal interests not to neglect yours;
+whereas women think of you, if only from idleness.  Speak this
+evening to one of them of some affair that concerns you; tomorrow
+at her wheel, at her tapestry, you will find her dreaming of it,
+and searching in her head for some means of serving you."
+
+Prominent among her friends were Bolingbroke and Fontenelle.  "It
+is not a heart which you have there," she said to the latter,
+laying her hand on the spot usually occupied by that organ, "but
+a second brain."  She had enlisted what stood in the place of it,
+however, and he interested himself so far as to procure her final
+release from her vows, through Benedict XIV, who, as Cardinal
+Lambertini, had frequented her salon, and who sent her his
+portrait as a souvenir, after his election to the papacy.
+
+Through her intimacy with the Duc de Richelieu, Mme. de Tencin
+made herself felt even in the secret councils of Louis XV.  Her
+practical mind comprehended more clearly than many of the
+statesmen the forces at work and the weakness that coped with
+them.  "Unless God visibly interferes," she said, "it is
+physically impossible that the state should not fall in pieces." 
+It was her influence that inspired Mme. de Chateauroux with the
+idea of sending her royal lover to revive the spirits of the army
+in Flanders.  "It is not, between ourselves, that he is in a
+state to command a company of grenadiers," she wrote to her
+brother, "but his presence will avail much.  The troops will do
+their duty better, and the generals will not dare to fail them so
+openly . . .  A king, whatever he may be, is for the soldiers and
+people what the ark of the covenant was for the Hebrews; his
+presence alone promises success."
+
+Her devotion to her friends was the single redeeming trait in her
+character, and she hesitated at nothing to advance the interests
+of her brother, over whose house she gracefully presided.  But
+she failed in her ultimate ambition to elevate him to the
+ministry, and her intrigues were so much feared that Cardinal
+Fleury sent her away from Paris for a short time.  Her
+disappointments, which it is not the purpose to trace here, left
+her one of the disaffected party, and on her return her drawing
+room became a rallying point for the radical thinkers of France.
+
+Such was the woman who courted, flattered, petted, and patronized
+the literary and scientific men of Paris, called them her
+menagerie, put them into a sort of uniform, gave them two suppers
+a week, and sent them two ells of velvet for small clothes at New
+Year's.  Of her salon, Marmontel gives us an interesting glimpse. 
+He had been invited to read one of his tragedies, and it was his
+first introduction.
+
+"I saw assembled there Montesquieu, Fontenelle, Mairan, Marivaux,
+the young Helvetius, Astruc, and others, all men of science or
+letters, and, in the midst of them, a woman of brilliant
+intellect and profound judgment, who, with her kind and simple
+exterior, had rather the appearance of the housekeeper than the
+mistress.  This was Mme. de Tencin. . . .  I soon perceived that
+the guests came there prepared to play their parts, and that
+their wish to shine did not leave the conversation always free to
+follow its easy and natural course.  Every one tried to seize
+quickly and on the wing the moment to bring in his word, his
+story, his anecdote, his maxim, or to add his dash of light and
+sparkling wit; and, in order to do this opportunely, it was often
+rather far-fetched.  In Marivaux, the impatience to display his
+finesse and sagacity was quite apparent.  Montesquieu, with more
+calmness, waited for the ball to come to him, but he waited. 
+Mairan watched his opportunity.  Astruc did not deign to wait. 
+Fontenelle alone let it come to him without seeking it, and he
+used so discreetly the attention given him, that his witty
+sayings and his clever stories never occupied more than a moment. 
+Alert and reserved, Helvetius listened and gathered material for
+the future."
+
+Mme. de Tencin loved literature and philosophy for their own
+sake, and received men of letters at their intrinsic value.  She
+encouraged, too, the freedom of thought and expression at that
+time so rare and so dangerous.  It was her influence that gave
+its first impulse to the success of Montesquieu's esprit DES
+LOIS, of which she personally bought and distributed many copies.
+If she talked well, she knew also how to listen, to attract by
+her sympathy, to aid by her generosity, to inspire by her
+intelligence, to charm by her versatility.
+
+Another figure flits in and out of this salon, whose fine
+qualities of soul shine so brightly in this morally stifling
+atmosphere that one forgets her errors in a mastering impulse of
+love and pity.  There is no more pathetic history in this arid
+and heartless age than that of Mlle. Aisse, the beautiful
+Circassian, with the lustrous, dark, Oriental eyes," who was
+brought from Constantinople in infancy by the French envoy, and
+left as a precious heritage to Mme. de Ferriol, the intriguing
+sister of Mme. de Tencin, and her worthy counterpart, if not in
+talent, in the faults that darkened their common womanhood.  This
+delicate young girl, surrounded by worldly and profligate
+friends, and drawn in spite of herself into the errors of her
+time, redeemed her character by her romantic heroism, her
+unselfish devotion, and her final revolt against what seemed to
+be an inexorable fate.  The struggle between her self-forgetful
+love for the knightly Chevalier d'Aydie and her sensitive
+conscience, her refusal to cloud his future by a portionless
+marriage, and her firmness in severing an unholy tie, knowing
+that the sacrifice would cost her life, as it did, form an
+episode as rare as it is tragical.  But her exquisite
+personality, her rich gifts of mind and soul, her fine
+intelligence, her passionate love, almost consecrated by her
+pious but fatal renunciation, call up one of the loveliest
+visions of the century--a vision that lingers in the memory like
+a medieval poem.  
+
+Mme. de Tencin amused her later years b writing sentimental
+tales, which were found among her papers after her death.  These
+were classed with the romances of Mme. de La Fayette.  Speaking
+of the latter, La Harpe said, "Only one other woman succeeded, a
+century later, in painting with equal power the struggles of love
+and virtue."  It is one of the curious inconsistencies of her
+character, that her creations contained an element which her life
+seems wholly to have lacked.  Behind all her faults of conduct
+there was clearly an ideal of purity and goodness.  Her stories
+are marked by a vividness and an ardor of passion rarely found in
+the insipid and colorless romances of the preceding age.  Her
+pictures of love and intrigue and crime are touched with the
+religious enthusiasm of the cloister, the poetry of devotion, the
+heroism of self-sacrifice.  Perhaps the dark and mysterious facts
+of her own history shaped themselves in her imagination.  Did the
+tragedy of La Fresnaye, the despairing lover who blew out his
+brains at her feet, leaving the shadow of a crime hanging over
+her, with haunting memories of the Bastille, recall the innocence
+of her own early convent days?  Did she remember some long-buried
+love, and the child left to perish upon the steps of St. Jean le
+Rond, but grown up to be her secret pride in the person of the
+great mathematician and philosopher d'Alembert?  What was the
+subtle link between this worldly woman and the eternal passion,
+the tender self-sacrifice of Adelaide, the loyal heroine who
+breathes out her solitary and devoted soul on the ashes of La
+Trappe, unknown to her faithful and monastic lover, until the
+last sigh?  The fate of Adelaide has become a legend.  It has
+furnished a theme for the poet and the artist, an inspiration for
+the divine strains of Beethoven, another leaf in the annals of
+pure and heroic love.  But the woman who conceived it toyed with
+the human heart as with a beautiful flower, to be tossed aside
+when its first fragrance was gone.  She apparently knew neither
+the virtue, nor the honor, nor the purity, nor the truth of which
+she had so exquisite a perception in the realm of the
+imagination.  Or were some of the episodes which darken the story
+of her life simply the myths of a gossiping age, born of the
+incidents of an idle tale, to live forever on the pages of
+history?
+
+But it was not as a literary woman that Mme. de Tencin held her
+position and won her fame.  Her gifts were eminently those of her
+age and race, and it may be of interest to compare her with a
+woman of larger talent of a purely intellectual order, who
+belonged more or less to the world of the salons, without
+aspiring to leadership, and who, though much younger, died in the
+same year.  Mme. du Chatelet was essentially a woman of letters. 
+She loved the exact sciences, expounded Leibnitz, translated
+Newton, gave valuable aid to Voltaire in introducing English
+thought into France, and was one of the first women among the
+nobility to accept the principles of philosophic deism.  "I
+confess that she is tyrannical," said Voltaire; "one must talk
+about metaphysics, when the temptation is to talk of love. Ovid was
+formerly my master; it is now the turn of Locke."  She
+has been clearly but by no means pleasantly painted for us in the
+familiar letters of Mme. de Graffigny, in the rather malicious
+sketches of the Marquise de Crequi, and in the still more
+strongly outlined portrait or Mme. du Deffand, as a veritable bas
+bleu, learned, pedantic, eccentric, and without grace or beauty. 
+"Imagine a woman tall and hard, with florid complexion, face
+sharp, nose pointed--VOILA LA BELLE EMILIE," writes the latter;
+"a face with which she was so contented that she spared nothing
+to set it off; curls, topknots, precious stones, all are in
+profusion . . .  She was born with much esprit; the desire of
+appearing to have more made her prefer the study of the abstract
+sciences to agreeable branches of knowledge; she thought by this
+singularity to attain a greater reputation and a decided
+superiority over all other women.  Madame worked with so much
+care to seem what she was not, that no one knew exactly what she
+was; even her defects were not natural."  "She talks like an
+angel"--"she sings divinely"--"our sex ought to erect altars
+to her," wrote Mme. de Graffigny during a visit at her chateau. 
+A few weeks later her tone changed.  They had quarreled.  Of such
+stuff is history made.  But she had already given a charming
+picture of the life at Cirey.
+
+Mme. du Chatelet plunged into abstractions during the day.  In
+the evening she was no more the savante, but gave herself up to
+the pleasures of society with the ardor of a nature that was
+extreme in everything.  Voltaire read his poetry and his dramas,
+told stories that made them weep and then laugh at their tears,
+improvised verses, and amused them with marionettes, or the magic
+lantern.  La belle Emilie criticized the poems, sang, and played
+prominent parts in the comedies and tragedies of the philosopher
+poet, which were first given in her little private theater. 
+Among the guests were the eminent scientist, Maupertuis, her
+life-long friend and teacher; the Italian savant, Algarotti,
+President Henault, Helvetius, the poet, Saint-Lambert, and many
+others of equal distinction.  "Of what do we not talk!" writes
+Mme. de Graffigny.  "Poetry, science, art, everything, in a tone
+of graceful badinage.  I should like to be able to send you these
+charming conversations, these enchanting conversations, but it is
+not in me."
+
+Mme. du Chatelet owned for several years the celebrated Hotel
+Lambert, and a choice company of savants assembled there as in
+the days when Mme. de Lambert presided in those stately
+apartments.  But this learned salon had only a limited vogue. 
+The thinking was high, but the dinners were too plain.  The real
+life of Mme. du Chatelet was an intimate one.  "I confess that in
+love and friendship lies all my happiness," said this astronomer,
+metaphysician, and mathematician, who wrote against revelation
+and went to mass with her free-thinking lover.  Her learning and
+eccentricities made her the target for many shafts of ridicule,
+but she counted for much with Voltaire, and her chief title to
+fame lies in his long and devoted friendship.  He found the
+"sublime and respectable Emilie" the incarnation of all the
+virtues, though a trifle ill-tempered.  The contrast between his
+kindly portrait and those of her feminine friends is striking and
+rather suggestive.
+
+"She joined to the taste for glory a simplicity which does not
+always accompany it, but which is often the fruit of serious
+studies.  No woman was ever so learned, and no one deserves less
+to be called a femme savante.  Born with a singular eloquence,
+this eloquence manifested itself only when she found subjects
+worthy of it . . .  The fitting word, precision, justness, and
+force were the characteristics of her style.  She would rather
+write like Pascal and Nicole than like Mme. de Sevigne; but this
+severe strength and this vigorous temper of her mind did not
+render her inaccessible to the beauties of sentiment.  The charms
+of poetry and eloquence penetrated her, and no one was ever more
+sensitive to harmony . . .  She gave herself to the great world
+as to study.  Everything that occupies society was in her
+province except scandal.  She was never known to repeat an idle
+story.  She had neither time nor disposition to give attention to
+such things, and when told that some one had done her an
+injustice, she replied that she did not wish to hear about it."
+
+"She led him a life a little hard," said Mme. de Graffigny, after
+her quarrel; but he seems to have found it agreeable, and broke
+his heart--for a short time--when she died.  "I have lost half
+of my being," he wrote--"a soul for which mine was made."  To
+Marmontel he says: "Come and share my sorrow.  I have lost my
+illustrious friend.  I am in despair.  I am inconsolable."  One
+cannot believe that so clear-sighted a man, even though a poet,
+could live for twenty years under the spell of a pure illusion. 
+What heart revelations, what pictures of contemporary life, were
+lost in the eight large volumes of his letters which were
+destroyed at her death!
+
+While Mme. de Tencin studied men and affairs, Mme. du Chatelet
+studied books.  One was mistress of the arts of diplomacy, gentle
+but intriguing, ambitious, always courting society and shunning
+solitude.  The other was violent and imperious, hated finesse,
+and preferred burying herself among the rare treasures of her
+library at Cirey.
+
+The influence of Mme. de Tencin was felt, not only in the social
+and intellectual, but in the political life of the century.  The
+traditions of her salon lingered in those which followed,
+modified by the changes that time and personal taste always
+bring.  Mme. du Chatelet was more learned, but she lacked the
+tact and charm which give wide personal ascendancy.  Her
+influence was largely individual, and her books have been mostly
+forgotten.  These women were alike defiant of morality, but taken
+all in all, the character of Mme. Chatelet has more redeeming
+points, though little respect can be accorded to either.  With
+the wily intellect of a Talleyrand, Mme. de Tencin represents the
+social genius, the intelligence, the esprit, and the worst vices
+of the century on which she has left such conspicuous traces.
+
+"She knew my tastes and always offered me those dishes I
+preferred," said Fontenelle when she died in 1740.  "It is an
+irreparable loss."  Perhaps his hundred years should excuse his
+not going to her funeral for fear of catching cold.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. MADAME GEOFFRIN AND THE PHILOSOPHERS
+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."
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. ULTRA-PHILOSOPHICAL SALONS--MADAME D'EPINAY
+Mme. de Graffigny--Baron d'Holbach--Mme. d'Epinay's Portrait of
+Herself--Mlle. Quinault--Rousseau--La Chevrette--Grimm--
+Diderot--The Abbe Galiani--Estimate of Mme. d'Epinay
+
+A few of the more radical and earnest of the philosophers rarely,
+if ever, appeared at the table of Mme. Geoffrin.  They would have
+brought too much heat to this company, which discussed everything
+in a light and agreeable fashion.  Perhaps, too, these free and
+brilliant spirits objected to the leading-strings which there
+held every one within prescribed limits.  They could talk more at
+their ease at the weekly dinners of Baron d'Holbach, in the
+salons of Mme. Helvetius, Mme. de Marchais, or Mme. de Graffigny,
+in the Encyclopedist coterie of Mlle. de Lespinasse, or in the
+liberal drawing room of Mme. d'Epinay, who held a more
+questionable place in the social world, but received much good
+company, Mme. Geoffrin herself included.
+
+Mme. de Graffigny is known mainly as a woman of letters whose
+life had in it many elements of tragedy.  Her youth was passed in
+the brilliant society of the little court at Luneville.  She was
+distantly related to Mme. du Chatelet, and finally took refuge
+from the cruelties of a violent and brutal husband in the
+"terrestrial paradise" at Cirey.  La belle Emilie was moved to
+sympathy, and Voltaire wept at the tale of her sorrows.  A little
+later she became a victim to the poet's sensitive vanity.  He
+accused her of sending to a friend a copy of his "Pucello," an
+unfinished poem which was kept under triple lock, though parts of
+it had been read to her.  Her letters were opened, her innocent
+praises were turned against her, there was a scene, and Cirey was
+a paradise no more.  She came to Paris, ill, sad, and penniless. 
+She wrote "Les Lettres d'une Peruvienne" and found herself famous. 
+She wrote "Cenie," which was played at the Comedie Francaise, and
+her success was established.  Then she wrote another drama.  "She
+read it to me," says one of her friends; "I found it bad; she
+found me ill-natured.  It was played; the public died of ennui
+and the author of chagrin."  "I am convinced that misfortune will
+follow me into paradise," she said.  At all events, it seems to
+have followed her to the entrance.
+
+Her salon was more or less celebrated.  The freedom of the
+conversations may be inferred from the fact that Helvetius
+gathered there the materials for his "De l'Esprit," a book
+condemned by the Pope, the Parliament, and the Sorbonne.  It was
+here also that he found his charming wife, a niece of Mme. de
+Graffigny, and the light of her house as afterwards of his own.
+
+A more permanent interest is attached to the famous dinners of
+Baron d'Holbach, where twice a week men like Diderot, Helvetius,
+Grimm, Marmontel, Duclos, the Abbe Galiani and for a time Buffon
+and Rousseau, met in an informal way to enjoy the good cheer and
+good wines of this "maitre d'hotel of philosophy," and discuss
+the affairs of the universe.  The learned and free-thinking baron
+was agreeable, kind, rich, and lavish in his hospitality, but
+without pretension.  "He was a man simply simple," said Mme.
+Geoffrin.  We have many pleasant glimpses of his country place at
+Grandval, with its rich and rare collections, its library, its
+pictures, its designs, and of the beautiful wife who turned the
+heads of some of the philosophers, whom, as a rule, she did not
+like overmuch, though she received them so graciously.  "We dine
+well and a long time," wrote Diderot.  "We talk of art, of
+poetry, of philosophy, and of love, of the greatness and vanity
+of our own enterprises . . .  Of gods and kings, of space and
+time, of death and of life."
+
+"They say things to make a thunderbolt strike the house a hundred
+times, if it struck for that," said the Abbe Morellet.
+
+Among the few women admitted to these dinners was Mme. d'Epinay,
+for whom d'Holbach, as well as his amiable wife, always
+entertained the warmest friendship.  This woman, whose position
+was not assured enough to make people overlook her peculiar and
+unfortunate domestic complications, has told the story of her own
+life in her long and confidential correspondence with Grimm,
+Galiani, and Voltaire.  The senseless follies of a cruel and
+worthless husband, who plunged her from great wealth into extreme
+poverty, and of whom Diderot said that "he had squandered two
+millions without saying a good word or doing a good action,"
+threw her into intimate relations with Grimm; this brought her
+into the center of a famous circle.  Her letters give us a clear
+but far from flattering reflection of the manners of the time. 
+She unveils the bare and hard facts of her own experience, the
+secret workings of her own soul.  The picture is not a pleasant
+one, but it is full of significance to the moralist, and
+furnishes abundant matter for psychological study.
+
+The young girl, who had entered upon the scene about 1725, under
+the name of Louise Florence Petronille-Tardieu d'Esclavelles, was
+married at twenty to her cousin.  It seems to have been really a
+marriage of love; but the weak and faithless M. d'Epinay was
+clearly incapable of truth or honor, and the torturing process by
+which the confiding young wife was disillusioned, the insidious
+counsel of a false and profligate friend, with the final betrayal
+of a tender and desolate heart, form a chapter as revolting as it
+is pathetic.  The fresh, lively, pure-minded, sensitive girl,
+whose intellect had been fed on Rollin's history and books of
+devotion, who feared the dissipations of the gay world and shrank
+with horror from the rouge which her frivolous husband compelled
+her to put on, learned her lesson rapidly in the school of
+suffering.
+
+At thirty she writes of herself, after the fashion of the pen
+portraits of the previous century:
+
+"I am not pretty; yet I am not plain.  I am small, thin, very
+well formed.  I have the air of youth, without freshness, but
+noble, sweet, lively, spirituelle, and interesting.  My
+imagination is tranquil.  My mind is slow, just, reflective, and
+inconsequent.  I have vivacity, courage, firmness, elevation, and
+excessive timidity.  I am true without being frank.  Timidity
+often gives me the appearance of dissimulation and duplicity; but
+I have always had the courage to confess my weakness, in order to
+destroy the suspicion of a vice which I have not.  I have the
+finesse to attain my end and to remove obstacles; but I have none
+to penetrate the purposes of others.  I was born tender and
+sensible, constant and no coquette.  I love retirement, a life
+simple and private; nevertheless I have almost always led one
+contrary to my taste.  Bad health, and sorrows sharp and
+repeated, have given a serious cast to my character, which is
+naturally very gay."
+
+Her first entrance into the world in which wit reigned supreme
+was in the free but elegant salon of Mlle. Quinault, an actress
+of the Comedie Francaise, who had left the stage, and taking the
+role of a femme d'esprit, had gathered around her a distinguished
+and fashionable coterie.  This woman, who had received a
+decoration for a fine motet she had composed for the queen's
+chapel, who was loved and consulted by Voltaire, and who was the
+best friend of d'Alembert after the death of Mlle. de Lespinasse,
+represented the genius of esprit and finesse.  She was the
+companion of princes, the adoration of princesses, the oracle of
+artists and litterateurs, the model of elegance, and the
+embodiment of social success.  It did not matter much that the
+tone of her salon was lax; it was fashionable.  "It distilled
+dignity, la convenance, and formality," says the Marquise de
+Crequi, who relates an anecdote that aptly illustrates the
+glamour which surrounded talent at that time.  She was taken by
+her grandmother to see Mlle. Quinault, and by some chance mistook
+her for Mlle. de Vertus, who was so much flattered by her
+innocent error that she left her forty thousand francs, when she
+died a few months later.
+
+Mme. d'Epinay was delighted to find herself in so brilliant a
+world, and was greatly fascinated by its wit, though she was not
+sure that those who met there did not "feel too much the
+obligation of having it."  But she caught the spirit, and
+transferred it, in some degree, to her own salon, which was more
+literary than fashionable.  Here Francueil presents "a sorry
+devil of an author who is as poor as Job, but has wit and vanity
+enough for four."  This is Rousseau, the most conspicuous figure
+in the famous coterie.  "He is a man to whom one should raise
+altars," wrote Mme. d'Epinay.  "And the simplicity with which he
+relates his misfortunes!  I have still a pitying soul.  It is
+frightful to imagine such a man in misery."  She fitted up for
+him the Hermitage, and did a thousand kind things which entitled
+her to a better return than he gave.  There is a pleasant moment
+when we find him the center of an admiring circle at La
+Chevrette, falling madly in love with her clever and beautiful
+sister-in-law the Comtesse d'Houdetot, writing "La Nouvelle
+Heloise" under the inspiration of this passion, and dreaming in
+the lovely promenades at Montmorency, quite at peace with the
+world.  But the weeping philosopher, who said such fine things
+and did such base ones, turned against his benefactress and
+friend for some imaginary offense, and revenged himself by false
+and malicious attacks upon her character.  The final result was a
+violent quarrel with the whole circle of philosophers, who
+espoused the cause of Mme. d'Epinay.  This little history is
+interesting, as it throws so much light upon the intimate
+relations of some of the greatest men of the century.  Behind the
+perpetual round of comedies, readings, dinners, music, and
+conversation, there is a real comedy of passion, intrigue,
+jealousy, and hidden misery that destroys many illusions.
+
+Mme. d'Epinay has been made familiar to us by Grimm, Galiani,
+Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire.  Perhaps, on the whole, Voltaire
+has given us the most agreeable impression.  She was ill of grief
+and trouble, and had gone to Geneva to consult the famous
+Tronchin when she was thrown into more or less intimacy with the
+Sage of Ferney.  He invited her to dinner immediately upon her
+arrival.  "I was much fatigued, besides having confessed and
+received communion the evening before.  I did not find it fitting
+to dine with Voltaire two days afterward," writes this curiously
+sensitive friend of the free-thinkers.  He addresses her as ma
+belle philosophe, speaks of her as "an eagle in a cage of gauze,"
+and praises in verse her philosophy, her esprit, her heart, and
+her "two great black eyes."  He weeps at her departure, tells her
+she is "adored at Delices, adored at Paris, adored present and
+absent."  But "the tears of a poet do not always signify grief,"
+says Mme. d'Epinay.
+
+There is a second period in her life, when she introduces us
+again to the old friends who always sustained her, and to many
+new ones.  The world that meets in her salon later is much the
+same as that which dines with Baron d'Holbach.  To measure its
+attractions one must recall the brilliancy and eloquence of
+Diderot; the wit, the taste, the learning, the courtly
+accomplishments of Grimm; the gaiety and originality of
+d'Holbach, who had "read everything and forgotten nothing
+interesting;" the sparkling conversation of the most finished and
+scholarly diplomats in Europe, many of whom we have already met
+at the dinners of Mme. Geoffrin.  They discuss economic
+questions, politics, religion, art, literature, with equal
+freedom and ardor.  They are as much divided on the merits of
+Gluck's "Armida" and Piccini's "Roland" as upon taxes, grains, and
+the policy of the government.  The gay little Abbe Galiani brings
+perennial sunshine with the inexhaustible wit and vivacity that
+lights his clear and subtle intellect.  "He is a treasure on
+rainy days," says Diderot.  "If they made him at the toy shops
+everybody would want one for the country."  "He was the nicest
+little harlequin that Italy has produced," says Marmontel, "but
+upon the shoulders of this harlequin was the head of a
+Machiavelli.  Epicurean in his philosophy and with a melancholy
+soul, seeing everything on the ridiculous side, there was nothing
+either in politics or morals apropos of which he had not a good
+story to tell, and these stories were always apt and had the salt
+of an unexpected and ingenious allusion." He did not accept the
+theories of his friends, which he believed would "cause the
+bankruptcy of knowledge, of pleasure, and of the human
+intellect."  "Messieurs les philosophes, you go too fast," he
+said.  "I begin by saying that if I were pope I would put you in
+the Inquisition, and if I were king of France, into the
+Bastille."  He saw the drift of events; but if he reasoned like a
+philosopher he laughed like a Neapolitan.  What matters tomorrow
+if we are happy today!
+
+The familiar notes and letters of these clever people picture for
+us a little world with its small interests, its piques, its
+loves, its friendships, its quarrels, and its hatreds.  Diderot,
+who refused for a long time to meet Mme. d'Epinay, but finally
+became an intimate and lasting friend, touches often, in his
+letters to Sophie, upon the pleasant informality of La Chevrette,
+with its curious social episodes and its emotional undercurrents. 
+He does not forget even the pigeons, the geese, the ducks, and
+the chickens, which he calls his own.  Pouf, the dog, has his
+place here too, and flits often across the scene, a tiny bit of
+reflected immortality.  These letters represent the bold
+iconoclast on his best side, kind, simple in his tastes, and
+loyal to his friends.  He was never at home in the great world. 
+He was seen sometimes in the salons of Mme. Geoffrin, Mme.
+Necker, and others, but he made his stay as brief as possible. 
+Mme. d'Epinay succeeded better in attaching him to her coterie. 
+There was more freedom, and he probably had a more sympathetic
+audience.  "Four lines of this man make me dram more and occupy
+me more," she said, "than a complete work of our pretended beaux
+esprits."  Grimm, too, was a central figure here, and Grimm was
+his friend.  But over his genius, as over that of Rousseau, there
+was the trail of the serpent.  The breadth of his thought, the
+brilliancy of his criticisms, the eloquence of his style were
+clouded with sensualism.  "When you see on his forehead the
+reflection of a ray from Plato," says Sainte-Beuve, "do not trust
+it; look well, there is always the foot of a satyr."
+
+It was to the clear and penetrating intellect of Grimm, with its
+vein of German romanticism, that Mme. d'Epinay was indebted for
+the finest appreciation and the most genuine sympathy.  "Bon
+Dieu," he writes to Diderot, "how this woman is to be pitied!  I
+should not be troubled about her if she were as strong as she is
+courageous.  She is sweet and trusting; she is peaceful, and
+loves repose above all; but her situation exacts unceasingly a
+conduct forced and out of her character; nothing so wears and
+destroys a machine naturally frail."  She aided him in his
+correspondance litteraire; wrote a treatise on education, which
+had the honor of being crowned by the Academy; and, among other
+things of more or less value, a novel, which was not published
+until long after her death.  With many gifts and attractions,
+kind, amiable, forgiving, and essentially emotional, Mme.
+d'Epinay seems to have been a woman of weak and undecided
+character, without sufficient strength of moral fiber to sustain
+herself with dignity under the unfortunate circumstances which
+surrounded her.  "It depends only upon yourself," said Grimm, "to
+be the happiest and most adorable creature in the world, provided
+that you do not put the opinions of others before your own, and
+that you know how to suffice for yourself."  Her education had
+not given her the worldly tact and address of Mme. Geoffrin, and 
+her salon never had a wide celebrity; but it was a meeting place
+of brilliant and radical thinkers, of the men who have perhaps
+done the most to change the face of the modern world.  In a quiet
+and intimate way, it was one among the numberless forces which
+were gathering and gaining momentum to culminate in the great
+tragedy of the century.  Mme. d'Epinay did not live to see the
+catastrophe.  Worn out by a life of suffering and ill health, she
+died in 1783.
+
+Whatever her faults and weaknesses may have been, the woman who
+could retain the devoted affection of so brilliant and versatile
+a man as Grimm for twenty-seven years, who was the lifelong
+friend and correspondent of Galiani and Voltaire, and the valued
+confidante of Diderot, must have had some rare attractions of
+mind, heart, or character.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. SALONS OF THE NOBLESSE--MADAME DU DEFFAND
+La Marechale de Luxembourg--The Temple--Comtesse de Boufflers-- 
+Mme. du Deffand--Her Convent Salon--Rupture with Mlle. de
+Lespinasse--Her Friendship with Horace Walpole--Her brilliancy
+and Her Ennui
+
+While the group of iconoclasts who formed the nucleus of the
+philosophical salons was airing its theories and enjoying its
+increasing vogue, there was another circle which played with the
+new ideas more or less as a sort of intellectual pastime, but was
+aristocratic au fond, and carefully preserved all the traditions
+of the old noblesse.  One met here the philosophers and men of
+letters, but they did not dominate; they simply flavored these
+coteries of rank and fashion.  In this age of esprit no salon was
+complete without its sprinkling of literary men.  We meet the shy
+and awkward Rousseau even in the exclusive drawing room of the
+clever and witty but critical Marechale de Luxembourg, who
+presides over a world in which the graces rule--a world of
+elegant manners, of etiquette, and of forms.  This model of the
+amenities, whose gay and faulty youth ripened into a pious and
+charitable age, was at the head of that tribunal which pronounced
+judgment upon all matters relating to society.  She was learned
+in genealogy, analyzed and traced to their source the laws of
+etiquette, possessed a remarkable memory, and without profound
+education, had learned much from conversation with the savants
+and illustrious men who frequented her house.  Her wit was
+proverbial, and she was never at a loss for a ready repartee or a
+spicy anecdote.  She gave two grand suppers a week.  Mme. de
+Genlis, who was often there, took notes, according to her custom,
+and has left an interesting record of conversations that were
+remarkable not only for brilliancy, but for the thoughtful wisdom
+of the comments upon men and things.  La Harpe read a great part
+of his works in this salon.  Rousseau entertained the princely
+guests at Montmorency with "La Nouvelle Heloise" and "Emile," and
+though never quite at ease, his democratic theories did not
+prevent him from feeling greatly honored by their friendly
+courtesies; indeed, he loses his usual bitterness when speaking
+of this noble patroness.  He says that her conversation was
+marked by an exquisite delicacy that always pleased, and her
+flatteries were intoxicating because they were simple and seemed
+to escape without intention.
+
+Mme. de Luxembourg was an autocrat, and did not hesitate to
+punish errors in taste by social ostracism.  "Erase the name of
+Monsieur -- -- -- from my list," she said, as a gentleman left
+after relating a scandalous story reflecting upon some one's
+honor.  It was one of her theories that "society should punish
+what the law cannot attack."  She maintained that good manners
+are based upon noble and delicate sentiments, that mutual
+consideration, deference, politeness, gentleness, and respect to
+age are essential to civilization.  The disloyal, the ungrateful
+bad sons, bad brothers, bad husbands, and bad wives, whose
+offenses were serious enough to be made public, she banished from
+that circle which called itself la bonne compagnie.  It must be
+admitted, however, that it was les convenances rather than
+morality which she guarded.
+
+A rival of this brilliant salon, and among the most celebrated of
+its day, was the one at the Temple.  The animating spirit here
+was the amiable and vivacious Comtesse de Boufflers, celebrated
+in youth for her charms, and later for her talent.  She was dame
+d'honneur to the Princesse de Conti, wife of the Duc d'Orleans,
+who was noted for her caustic wit, as well as for her beauty.  It
+was in the salon of his clever and rather capricious sister that
+the learned Prince de Conti met her and formed the intimacy that
+ended only with his life.  She was called the idole of the
+Temple, and her taste for letters gave her also the title of
+Minerve savante.  She wrote a tragedy which was said to be good,
+though she would never let it go out of her hands, and has been
+immortalized by Rousseau, with whom she corresponded for sixteen
+years.  Hume also exchanged frequent letters with her, and she
+tried in vain to reconcile these two friends after their quarrel. 
+President Henault said he had never met a woman of so much
+esprit, adding that "outside all her charms she had character." 
+For society she had a veritable passion.  She said that when she
+loved England the best she could not think of staying there
+without "taking twenty-four or twenty-five intimate friends, and
+sixty or eighty others who were absolutely necessary to her." 
+Her conversation was full of fire and brilliancy, and her gaiety
+of heart, her gracious manners, and her frank appreciation of the
+talent of others added greatly to her piquant fascination.  She
+delighted in original turns of expression, which were sometimes
+far-fetched and artificial.  One of her friends said that "she
+made herself the victim of consideration, and lost it by running
+after it."  Her rule of life may be offered as a model.  "In
+conduct, simplicity and reason; in manners, propriety and
+decorum; in actions, justice and generosity; in the use of
+wealth, economy and liberality; in conversation, clearness,
+truth, precision; in adversity, courage and pride; in prosperity,
+modesty and moderation."  Unfortunately she did not put all this
+wisdom into practice, if we judge her by present standards.  We
+have a glimpse of the famous circle over which she presided in an
+interesting picture formerly at Versailles, now at the Louvre. 
+The figures are supposed to be portraits.  Among others are Mme.
+de Luxembourg, the Comtesse de Boufflers, and the lovely but ill-
+fated young stepdaughter, Amelie, Comtesse de Lauzun, to whom she
+is so devoted; the beautiful Comtesse d'Egmont, Mme. de Beauvan,
+President Henault, the witty Pont de Veyle, Mairan, the versatile
+scientist, and the Prince de Conti.  In the midst of this group
+the little Mozart, whose genius was then delighting Europe, sits
+at the harpsichord.  The chronicles of the time give us pleasant
+descriptions of the literary diversions of this society, which
+met by turns at the Temple and Ile-Adam.  But the Prince as well
+as the clever Comtesse had a strong leaning towards philosophy,
+and the amusements were interspersed with much conversation of a
+serious character that has a peculiar interest today when read by
+the light of after events.
+
+Among the numerous salons of the noblesse there was one which
+calls for more than a passing word, both on account of its world-
+wide fame and the exceptional brilliancy of its hostess.  Though
+far less democratic and cosmopolitan than that of Mme. Geoffrin,
+with which it was contemporary, its character was equally
+distinct and original.  Linked by birth with the oldest of the
+nobility, allied by intellect with the most distinguished in the
+world of letters, Mme. du Deffand appropriated the best in
+thought, while retaining the spirit of an elegant and refined
+social life.  She was exclusive by nature and instinct, as well
+as by tradition, and could not dispense with the arts and
+amenities which are the fruit of generations of ease; but the
+energy and force of her intellect could as little tolerate
+shallowness and pretension, however disguised beneath the
+graceful tyranny of forms.  Her salon offers a sort of compromise
+between the freedom of the philosophical coteries and the
+frivolities of the purely fashionable ones.  It included the most
+noted of the men of letters--those who belonged to the old
+aristocracy and a few to whom nature had given a prescriptive
+title of nobility--as well as the flower of the great world. 
+Her sarcastic wit, her clear intelligence, and her rare
+conversational gifts added a tone of individuality that placed
+her salon at the head of the social centers of the time in
+brilliancy and in esprit.  In this group of wits, LITTERATEURS,
+philosophers, statesmen, churchmen, diplomats, and men of rank,
+Mme. du Deffand herself is always the most striking figure.  The
+art of self-suppression she clearly did not possess.  But the art
+of so blending a choice society that her own vivid personality
+was a pervading note of harmony she had to an eminent degree. 
+She could easily have made a mark upon her time through her
+intellectual gifts without the factitious aid of the men with
+whom her name is associated.  But society was her passion  
+society animated by intellect, sparkling with wit, and expressing
+in all its forms the art instincts of her race.  She never
+aspired to authorship, but she has left a voluminous
+correspondence in which one reads the varying phases of a
+singularly capricious character.  In her old age she found refuge
+from a devouring ennui in writing her own memoirs.  Merciless to
+herself as to others, she veils nothing, revealing her frailties
+with a freedom that reminds one of Rousseau.
+
+It is not the portrait of an estimable woman that we can paint
+from these records; but in her intellectual force, her social
+gifts, and her moral weakness she is one of the best exponents of
+an age that trampled upon the finest flowers of the soul in the
+blind pursuit of pleasure and the cynical worship of a hard and
+unpitying realism.  Living from 1697 to 1780, she saw the train
+laid for the Revolution, and died in time to escape its horrors. 
+She traversed the whole experience of the women of her world with
+the independence and abandon of a nature that was moderate in
+nothing.  It is true she felt the emptiness of this arid
+existence, and had an intellectual perception of its errors, but
+she saw nothing better.  "All conditions appear to me equally
+unhappy, from the angel to the oyster," is the burden of her
+hopeless refrain.
+
+She reveals herself to us as two distinct characters.  The one
+best known is hard, bitter, coldly analytic, and mocks at
+everything bordering upon sentiment or feeling.  The other, which
+underlies this, and of which we have rare glimpses, is frank,
+tender, loving even to weakness, and forever at war with the
+barrenness of a period whose worst faults she seems to have
+embodied, and whose keenest penalties she certainly suffered.
+
+Voltaire, the lifelong friend whom she loved, but critically
+measured, was three years old when she was born; Mme. de Sevigne
+had been dead nearly a year.  Of a noble family in Burgundy,
+Marie de Vichy-Chamroud was brought to Paris at six years of age
+and placed in the convent of St. Madeleine de Traisnel, where she
+was educated after the superficial fashion which she so much
+regrets in later years.  She speaks of herself as a romantic,
+imaginative child, but she began very early to shock the pious
+sisters by her dawning skepticism.  One of the nuns had a wax
+figure of the infant Jesus, which she discovered to have been a
+doll formerly dressed to represent the Spanish fashions to Anne
+of Austria.  This was the first blow to her illusions, and had a
+very perceptible influence upon her life.  She pronounced it a
+deception.  Eight days of solitude with a diet of bread and water
+failed to restore her reverence.  "It does not depend upon me to
+believe or disbelieve," she said.  The eloquent and insinuating
+Massillon was called in to talk with her.  "She is charming," was
+his remark, as he left her after two hours of conversation;
+adding thoughtfully, "Give her a five-cent catechism."
+
+Skeptical by nature and saturated with the free-thinking spirit
+of the time, she reasoned that all religion was au fond, only
+paganism disguised.  In later years, when her isolated soul
+longed for some tangible support, she spoke regretfully of the
+philosophic age which destroyed beliefs by explaining and
+analyzing everything.
+
+But a beautiful, clever, high-spirited girl of sixteen is apt to
+feel her youth all suffering.  It is certain that she had no
+inclination towards the life of a religieuse, and the country
+quickly became insupportable after her return to its provincial
+society.  Ennui took possession of her.  She was glad even to go
+to confessional, for the sake of telling her thoughts to some
+one.  She complained bitterly that the life of women compelled
+dependence upon the conduct of others, submission to all ills and
+all consequences.  Long afterwards she said that she would have
+married the devil if he had been clothed as a gentleman and
+assured her a moderate life.  But a husband was at last found for
+her, and merely to escape the monotony of her secluded existence,
+she was glad, at twenty-one, to become the wife of the Marquis du
+Deffand--a good but uninteresting man, much older than herself.
+
+Brilliant, fascinating, restless, eager to see and to learn, she
+felt herself in her element in the gay world of Paris.  She
+confessed that, for the moment, she almost loved her husband for
+bringing her there.  But the moment was a short one.  They did
+not even settle down to what a witty Frenchman calls the
+"politeness of two indifferences."  It is a curious commentary
+upon the times, that the beautiful but notorious Mme. de
+Parabere, who introduced her at once into her own unscrupulous
+world and the petits soupers of the Regent, condoled with the
+young bride upon her marriage, regretting that she had not taken
+the easy vows of a chanoinesse, as Mme. de Tencin had done.  "In
+that case," she said, "you would have been free; well placed
+everywhere; with the stability of a married woman; a revenue
+which permits one to live and accept aid from others; the
+independence of a widow, without the ties which a family imposes;
+unquestioned rank, which you would owe to no one; indulgence, and
+impunity.  For these advantages there is only the trouble of
+wearing a cross, which is becoming; black or gray habits, which
+can be made as magnificent as one likes; a little imperceptible
+veil, and a knitting sheath."
+
+Under such teaching she was not long in taking her own free and
+independent course, which was reckless even in that age of
+laxity.  At her first supper at the Palais Royal she met Voltaire
+and fascinated the Regent, though her reign lasted but a few
+days.  The counsels of her aunt, the dignified Duchesse de
+Luynes, availed nothing.  Her husband was speedily sent off on
+some mission to the provinces and she plunged into the current. 
+Once afterwards, in a fit of ennui, she recalled him, frankly
+stating her position.  But she quickly wearied of him again, grew
+dull, silent, lost her vivacity, and fell into a profound
+melancholy.  Her friend Mme. de Parabere took it upon herself to
+explain to him the facts, and he kindly relieved her forever of
+his presence, leaving a touching and pathetic letter which gave
+her a moment of remorse in spite of her lightened heart.  This
+sin against good taste the Parisian world could not forgive, and
+even her friends turned against her for a time.  But the Duchesse
+due Maine came to her aid with an all-powerful influence, and
+restored her finally to her old position.  For some years she
+passed the greater part of her time at Sceaux, and was a favorite
+at this lively little court.
+
+It is needless to trace here the details of a career which gives
+us little to admire and much to condemn.  It was about 1740 when
+her salon became noted as a center for the fashionable and
+literary world of Paris.  Montesquieu and d'Alembert were then
+among her intimate friends.  Of the latter she says: "The
+simplicity of his manners, the purity of his morals, the air of
+youth, the frankness of character, joined to all his talents,
+astonished at first those who saw him." It is said to have been
+through her zeal that he was admitted to the Academy so young. 
+Among others who formed her familiar circle were her devoted
+friend Pont de Veyle; the Chevalier d'Aydie; Formont, the
+"spirituel idler and amiable egotist," who was one of the three
+whom she confesses really to have loved; and President Henault,
+who brought always a fund of lively anecdote and agreeable
+conversation.  This world of fashion and letters, slightly
+seasoned with philosophy, is also the world of Mme. de
+Luxembourg, of the brilliant Mme. de Mirepoix, of the Prince and
+Princesse de Beauvau, and of the lovely Duchesse de Choiseul, a
+femme d'esprit and "mistress of all the elegances," whose gentle
+virtues fall like a ray of sunlight across the dark pages of this
+period.  It is the world of elegant forms, the world in which a
+sin against taste is worse than a sin against morals, the world
+which hedges itself in by a thousand unwritten laws that save it
+from boredom.
+
+After the death of the Duchesse du Maine, Mme. du Deffand retired
+to the little convent of St. Joseph, where, after the manner of
+many women of rank with small fortunes, she had her menage and
+received her friends.  "I have a very pretty apartment," she
+writes to Voltaire; "very convenient; I only go out for supper. 
+I do not sleep elsewhere, and I make no visits.  My society is
+not numerous, but I am sure it will please you; and if you were
+here you would make it yours.  I have seen for some time many
+savants and men of letters; I have not found their society
+delightful."  The good nuns objected a little to Voltaire at
+first, but seem to have been finally reconciled to the visits of
+the arch-heretic.  At this time Mme. du Deffand had supposably
+reformed her conduct, if not her belief.
+
+She continued to entertain the flower of the nobility and the
+stars of the literary and scientific world.  But while the most
+famous of the men of letters were welcome in her salon, the tone
+was far from pedantic or even earnest.  It was a society of
+conventional people, the elite of fashion and intelligence, who
+amused themselves in an intellectual but not too serious way. 
+Montesquieu, who liked those houses in which he could pass with
+his every-day wit, said, "I love this woman with all my heart;
+she pleases and amuses me; it is impossible to feel a moment's
+ennui in her company."  Mme. de Genlis, who did not love her
+expressed her surprise at finding her so natural and so kindly. 
+Her conversation was simple and without pretension.  When she was
+pleased, her manners were even affectionate.  She never entered
+into a discussion, confessing that she was not sufficiently
+attached to any opinion to defend it.  She disliked the
+enthusiasm of the philosophers unless it was hidden behind the
+arts of the courtier, as in Voltaire, whose delicate satire
+charmed her.  Diderot came once, "eyed her epicurean friends,"
+and came no more.  The air was not free enough.  When at home she
+had three or four at supper every day, often a dozen, and, once a
+week, a grand supper.  All the intellectual fashions of the time
+are found here.  La Harpe reads a translation from Sophocles and
+his own tragedy.  Clairon, the actress in vogue, recites the
+roles of Phedre and Agrippine, Lekain reads Voltaire, and Goldoni
+a comedy of his own, which the hostess finds tiresome.  New
+books, new plays, the last song, the latest word of the
+philosophers--all are talked about, eulogized, or dismissed with
+a sarcasm.  The wit of Mme. du Deffand is feared, but it
+fascinates.  She delights in clever repartees and sparkling
+epigrams.  A shaft of wit silences the most complacent of
+monologues.  "What tiresome book are you reading?" she said one
+day to a friend who talked too earnestly and too long--saving
+herself from the charge of rudeness by an easy refuge in her
+blindness.  
+
+Her criticisms are always severe.  "There are only two pleasures
+for me in the world--society and reading," she writes.  "What
+society does one find?  Imbeciles, who utter only commonplaces,
+who know nothing, feel nothing, think nothing; a few people of
+talent, full of themselves, jealous, envious, wicked, whom one
+must hate or scorn."  To some one who was eulogizing a mediocre
+man, adding that all the world was of the same opinion, she
+replied, "I make small account of the world, Monsieur, since I
+perceive that one can divide it into three parts, les trompeurs,
+les trompes, et les trompettes."  Still it is life alone that
+interests her.  Though she is not satisfied with people, she has
+always the hope that she will be.  In literature she likes only
+letters and memoirs, because they are purely human; but the age
+has nothing that pleases her.  "It is cynical or pedantic," she
+writes to Voltaire; "there is no grace, no facility, no
+imagination.  Everything is a la glace, hardness without force,
+license without gaiety; no talent, much presumption."
+
+As age came on, and she felt the approach of blindness, she found
+a companion in Mlle. de Lespinasse, a young girl of remarkable
+gifts, who had an obscure and unacknowledged connection with her
+family.  For ten years the young woman was a slave to the
+caprices of her exacting mistress, reading to her through long
+nights of wakeful restlessness, and assisting to entertain her
+guests.  The one thing upon which Mme. du Deffand most prided
+herself was frankness.  She hated finesse, and had stipulated
+that she would not tolerate artifice in any form.  It was her
+habit to lie awake all night and sleep all day, and as she did
+not receive her guests until six o'clock, Mlle. de Lespinasse,
+whose amiable character and conversational charm had endeared her
+at once to the circle of her patroness, arranged to see her
+personal friends--among whom were d'Alembert, Turgot,
+Chastellux, and Marmontel--in her own apartments for an hour
+before the marquise appeared.  When this came to the knowledge of
+the latter, she fell into a violent rage at what she chose to
+regard as a treachery to herself, and dismissed her companion at
+once.  The result was the opening of a rival salon which carried
+off many of her favorite guests, notably d'Alembert, to whom she
+was much attached.  "If she had died fifteen years earlier, I
+should not have lost d'Alembert," was her sympathetic remark when
+she heard of the death of Mlle. de Lespinasse.
+
+But the most striking point in the career of this worldly woman
+was her friendship for Horace Walpole.  When they first met she
+was nearly seventy, blind, ill-tempered, bitter, and hopelessly
+ennuyee.  He was not yet fifty, a brilliant, versatile man of the
+world, and saw her only at long intervals.  Their curious
+correspondence extends over a period of fifteen years, ending
+only with her death.
+
+In a letter to Grayson, after meeting her, he writes: "Mme. du
+Deffand is now very old and stone blind, but retains all her
+vivacity, wit, memory, judgment, passion, and agreeableness.  She
+goes to operas, plays, suppers, Versailles; gives supper twice a
+week; has everything new read to her; makes new songs and
+epigrams--aye, admirably--and remembers every one that has been
+made these fourscore years.  She corresponds with Voltaire,
+dictates charming letters to him, contradicts him, is no bigot to
+him or anybody, and laughs both at the clergy and the
+philosophers.  In a dispute, into which she easily falls, she is
+very warm, and yet scarce ever in the wrong; her judgment on
+every subject is as just as possible; on every point of conduct
+as wrong as possible; for she is all love and hatred, passionate
+for her friends to enthusiasm, still anxious to be loved--I
+don't mean by lovers--and a vehement enemy openly."
+
+The acquaintance thus begun quickly drilled into an intimacy. 
+Friendship she calls this absorbing sentiment, but it has all the
+caprices and inconsistencies of love.  Fed by the imagination,
+and prevented by separation from wearing itself out, it became
+the most permanent interest of her life.  There is something
+curiously pathetic in the submissive attitude of this blind,
+aged, but spirited woman--who scoffs at sentiment and confesses
+that she could never love anything--towards the man who
+criticizes her, scolds her, crushes back her too ardent feeling,
+yet calls her his dear old friend, writes her a weekly letter,
+and modestly declares that she "loves him better than all France
+together."
+
+The spirit of this correspondence greatly modifies the impression
+which her own words, as well as the facts of her career, would
+naturally give us.  We find in the letters of this period little
+of the freshness and spontaneity that lent such a charm to the
+letters of Mme. de Sevigne and her contemporaries.  Women still
+write of the incidents of their lives,  the people they meet,
+their jealousies, their rivalries, their loves, and their
+follies; but they think, where they formerly mirrored the world
+about them.  They analyze, they compare, the criticize, they
+formulate their own emotions, they add opinions to facts.  The
+gaiety, the sparkle, the wit, the play of feeling, is not there. 
+Occasionally there is the tone of passion, as in the letters of
+Mlle. Aisse and Mlle. de Lespinasse, but this is rare.  Even
+passion has grown sophisticated and deals with phrases.  There is
+more or less artificiality in the exchange of written thoughts. 
+Mme. du Deffand thinks while she writes, and what she sees takes
+always the color of her own intelligence.  She complains of her
+inability to catch the elusive quality, the clearness, the
+flexibility of Mme. de Sevigne, whom she longs to rival because
+Walpole so admires her.  But if she lacks the vivacity, the
+simplicity, the poetic grace of her model, she has qualities not
+less striking, though less lovable.  Her keen insight is
+unfailing.  With masterly penetration she grasps the essence of
+things.  No one has portrayed so concisely and so vividly the men
+and women of her time.  No one has discriminated between the
+shades of character with such nicety.  No one has so clearly
+fathomed the underlying motives of action.  No one has forecast
+the outcome of theories and events with such prophetic vision. 
+The note of bitterness and cynicism is always there.  The nature
+of the woman reveals itself in every line: keen, dry, critical,
+with clear ideals which she can never hope to attain.  But we
+feel that she has stripped off the rags of pretension and brought
+us face to face with realities.  "All that I can do is to love
+you with all my heart, as I have done for about fifty years,"
+wrote Voltaire.  "How could I fail to love you?  Your soul seeks
+always the true; it is a quality as rare as truth itself."  So
+far does she carry her hatred of insincerity that one is often
+tempted to believe she affects a freedom from affectation.  "I am
+so fatigued with the vanity of others that I avoid the occasion
+of having any myself," she writes.  Is there not here a trace of
+the quality she so despises?
+
+But beneath all this runs the swift undercurrent of an absorbing
+passion.  A passion of friendship it may be, but it forces itself
+through the arid shells of conventionalism; it is at once the
+agony and the consolation of a despairing soul.  Heartless, Mme.
+du Deffand is called, and her life seems to prove the truth of
+the verdict; but these letters throb and palpitate with feeling
+which she laughs at, but cannot still.  It is the cry of the soul
+for what it has not; what the world cannot give; what it has
+somehow missed out of a cold, hard, restless, and superficial
+existence.  With a need of loving, she is satisfied with no one. 
+There is something wanting; even in the affection of her friends. 
+"Ma grand'maman," she says to the gentle Duchesse de Choiseul,
+"you KNOW that you love me, but you do not FEEL it."
+
+Devouring herself in solitude, she despises the society she
+cannot do without.  "Men and women appear to me puppets who go,
+come, talk, laugh, without thinking, without reflecting, without
+feeling," she writes.  She confesses that she has a thousand
+troubles in assembling a choice company of people who bore her to
+death.  "One sees only masks, one hears only lies," is her
+constant refrain.  She does not want to live, but is afraid to
+die; she says she is not made for this world, but does not know
+that there is any other.  She tries devotion, but has no taste
+for it.  Of the light that shines from within upon so many
+darkened and weary souls she has no knowledge.  Her vision is
+bounded by the tangible, which offers only a rigid barrier,
+against which her life flutters itself away.  She dies as she has
+lived, with a deepened conviction of the nothingness of
+existence.  "Spare me three things," she said to her confessor in
+her last moments; "let me have no questions, no reasons, and no
+sermons."  Seeing Wiart, her faithful servitor, in tears, she
+remarks pathetically, as if surprised, "You love me then?" 
+"Divert yourself as much as you can," was her final message to
+Walpole.  "You will regret me, because one is very glad to know
+that one is loved."  She commends to his care and affection
+Tonton, her little dog.
+
+Strong but not gentle, brilliant but not tender, too penetrating
+for any illusions, with a nature forever at war with itself, its
+surroundings, and its limitations, no one better points the moral
+of an age without faith, without ideals, without the inner light
+that reveals to hope what is denied to sense.
+
+The influence of such a woman with her gifts, her energy, her
+power, and her social prestige, can hardly be estimated.  It was
+not in the direction of the new drift of thought.  "I am not a
+fanatic as to liberty," she said; "I believe it is an error to
+pretend that it exists in a democracy.  One has a thousand
+tyrants in place of one."  She had no breadth of sympathy, and
+her interests were largely personal; but in matters of style and
+form her taste was unerring.  Pitiless in her criticisms, she
+held firmly to her ideals of clear, elegant, and concise
+expression, both in literature and in conversation.  She
+tolerated no latitudes, no pretension, and left behind her the
+traditions of a society that blended, more perfectly, perhaps,
+than any other of her time, the best intellectual life with
+courtly manners and a strict observance of les convenances.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. MADEMOISELLE DE LESPINASSE
+A Romantic Career--Companion of Mme. du Deffand--Rival Salons--  
+Association with the Encyclopedists--D'Alembert--A Heart
+Tragedy--Impassioned Letters--A Type Unique in her Age
+
+Inseparably connected with the name of Mme. du Deffand is that of
+her companion and rival, Mlle. de Lespinasse, the gifted,
+charming, tender and loving woman who presided over one of the
+most noted of the philosophical salons; who was the chosen friend
+and confidante of the Encyclopedists; and who died in her prime
+of a broken heart, leaving the world a legacy of letters that
+rival those of Heloise or the poems of Sappho, as "immortal
+pictures of passion."  The memory of her social triumphs,
+remarkable as they were, pales before the singular romances of
+her life.  In the midst of a cold, critical, and heartless
+society, that adored talent and ridiculed sentiment, she became
+the victim of a passion so profound, so ardent, so hopeless, that
+her powerful intellect bent before it like a reed before a storm. 
+She died of that unsuspected passion, and years afterwards these
+letters found the light and told the tale.
+
+The contrast between the two women so closely linked together is
+complete.  Mme. du Deffand belonged to the age of Voltaire by
+every fiber of her hard and cynical nature.  What she called love
+was a fire of the intellect which consumed without warming.  It
+was a violent and fierce prejudice in favor of those who
+reflected something of herself.  The tenderness of self-sacrifice
+was not there.  Mlle. de Lespinasse was of the later era of
+Rousseau; the era of exaggerated feeling, of emotional delirium,
+of romantic dreams; the era whose heroine was the loving and
+sentimental "Julie," for whose portrait she might have sat, with a
+shade or so less of intellect and brilliancy.  But it was more
+than a romantic dream that shadowed and shortened the life of
+Mlle. de Lespinasse.  She had a veritable heart of flame, that
+consumed not only itself but its frail tenement as well.
+
+Julie-Jeanne-Eleonore de Lespinasse, who was born at Lyons in
+1732, had a birthright of sorrow.  Her mother, the Comtesse
+d'Albon, could not acknowledge this fugitive and nameless
+daughter, but after the death of her husband she received her on
+an inferior footing, had her carefully educated, and secretly
+gave her love and care.  Left alone and without resources at
+fifteen, Julie was taken, as governess and companion, into the
+family of a sister who was the wife of Mme. du Deffand's brother. 
+Here the marquise met her on one of her visits and heard the
+story of her sorrows.  Tearful, sad, and worn out by
+humiliations, the young girl had decided to enter a convent. 
+"There is no misfortune that I have not experienced," she wrote
+to Guibert many years afterwards.  "Some day, my friend, I will
+relate to you things not to be found in the romances of Prevost
+nor of Richardson . . .  I ought naturally to devote myself to
+hating; I have well fulfilled my destiny; I have loved much and
+hated very little.  Mon Dieu, my friend, I am a hundred years
+old."  Mme. du Deffand was struck with her talent and a certain
+indefinable fascination of manner which afterwards became so
+potent.  "You have gaiety," she wrote to her, "you are capable of
+sentiment; with these qualities you will be charming so long as
+you are natural and without pretension."  After a negotiation of
+some months, Mlle. de Lespinasse went to Paris to live with her
+new friend.  The history of this affair has been already related.
+
+Parisian society was divided into two factions on the merits of
+the quarrel--those who censured the ingratitude of the younger
+woman, and those who accused the marquise of cruelty and
+injustice.  But many of the oldest friends of the latter aided
+her rival.  The Marechale de Luxembourg furnished her apartments
+in the Rue de Belle-Chasse.  The Duc de Choiseul procured her a
+pension, and Mme. Geoffrin gave her an annuity.  She carried with
+her a strong following of eminent men from the salon of Mme. du
+Deffand, among whom was d'Alembert, who remained faithful and
+devoted to the end.  It is said that President Henault even
+offered to marry her, but how, under these circumstances, he
+managed to continue in the good graces of his lifelong friend,
+the unforgiving marquise, does not appear.  A letter which he
+wrote to Mlle. de Lespinasse throws a direct light upon her
+character, after making due allowance for the exaggeration of
+French gallantry.
+
+"You are cosmopolitan; you adapt yourself to all situations.  The
+world pleases you; you love solitude.  Society amuses you, but it
+does not seduce you.  Your heart does not give itself easily. 
+Strong passions are necessary to you, and it is better so, for
+they will not return often.  Nature, in placing you in an
+ordinary position, has given you something to relieve it.  Your
+soul is noble and elevated, and you will never remain in a crowd. 
+It is the same with your person.  It is distinguished and
+attracts attention, without being beautiful.  There is something
+piquante about you . . .  You have two things which do not often
+go together: you are sweet and strong; your gaiety adorns you and
+relaxes your nerves, which are too tense . . .  You are extremely
+refined; you have divined the world."
+
+The age of portraits was not quite passed, and the privilege of
+seeing one's self in the eyes of one's friends was still
+accorded, a fact to which we owe many striking if sometimes
+rather highly colored pictures.  A few words from d'Alembert are
+of twofold interest.  He writes some years later:
+
+"The regard one has for you does not depend alone upon your
+external charms; it depends, above all, upon your intellect and
+your character.  That which distinguishes you in society is the
+art of saying to every one the fitting word and that art is very
+simple with you; it consists in never speaking of yourself to
+others, and much of themselves.  It is an infallible means of
+pleasing; thus you please every one, though it happens that all
+the world pleases you; you know even how to avoid repelling those
+who are least agreeable."
+
+This epitome of the art of pleasing may be commended for its
+wisdom, aside from the very delightful picture it gives of an
+amiable and attractive woman.  Again he writes:
+
+"The excellence of your tone would not be a distinction for one
+reared in a court, and speaking only the language she has
+learned.  In you it is a merit very real and very rare.  You have
+brought it from the seclusion of a province, where you met no one
+who could teach you.  You were, in this regard, as perfect the
+day after your arrival at Paris as you are today.  You found
+yourself, from the first, as free, as little out of place in the
+most brilliant and most critical society as if you had passed
+your life there; you have felt its usages before knowing them,
+which implies a justness and fineness of tact very unusual, an
+exquisite knowledge of les convenances."
+
+It was her innate tact and social instinct, combined with rare
+gifts of intellect and great conversational charm, that gave this
+woman without name, beauty, or fortune so exceptional a position,
+and her salon so distinguished a place among the brilliant
+centers of Paris.  As she was not rich and could not give costly
+dinners, she saw her friends daily from five to nine, in the
+interval between other engagements.  This society was her chief
+interest, and she rarely went out.  "If she made an exception to
+this rule, all Paris was apprised of it in advance," says Grimm. 
+The most illustrious men of the State, the Church, the Court, and
+the Army, as well as celebrated foreigners and men of letters,
+were sure to be found there.  "Nowhere was conversation more
+lively, more brilliant, or better regulated," writes Marmontel. .
+.  "It was not with fashionable nonsense and vanity that every
+day during four hours, without languor or pause, she knew how to
+make herself interesting to a circle of sensible people." 
+Caraccioli went from her salon one evening to sup with Mme. du
+Deffand.  "He was intoxicated with all the fine works he had
+heard read there," writes the latter.  "There was a eulogy of one
+named Fontaine by M. de Condorcet.  There were translations of
+Theocritus; tales, fables by I know not whom.  And then some
+eulogies of Helvetius, an extreme admiration of the esprit and
+the talents of the age; in fine, enough to make one stop the
+ears.  All these judgments false and in the worst taste."  A hint
+of the rivalry between the former friends is given in a letter
+from Horace Walpole.  "There is at Paris," he writes, "a Mlle. de
+Lespinasse, a pretended bel esprit, who was formerly a humble
+companion of Mme. du Deffand, and betrayed her and used her very
+ill.  I beg of you not to let any one carry you thither.  I dwell
+upon this because she has some enemies so spiteful as to try to
+carry off all the English to Mlle. de Lespinasse."
+
+But this "pretended bel esprit" had socially the touch of genius. 
+Her ardent, impulsive nature lent to her conversation a rare
+eloquence that inspired her listeners, though she never drifted
+into monologue, and understood the value of discreet silence. 
+"She rendered the marble sensible, and made matter talk," said
+Guibert.  Versatile and suggestive herself, she knew how to draw
+out the best thoughts of others.  Her swift insight caught the
+weak points of her friends, and her gracious adaptation had all
+the fascination of a subtle flattery.  Sad as her experience had
+been, she had nevertheless been drawn into the world most
+congenial to her tastes.  "Ah, how I dislike not to love that
+which is excellent," she wrote later.  "How difficult I have
+become!  But is it my fault?  Consider the education I have
+received with Mme. du Deffand.  President Henault, Abbe Bon, the
+Archbishop of Toulouse, the Archbishop of Aix, Turgot,
+d'Alembert, Abbe de Boismont--these are the men who have taught
+me to speak, to think, and who have deigned to count me for
+something."
+
+It was men like these who thronged her own salon, together with
+such women as the Duchesse d'Anville, friend of the economists,
+the Duchesse de Chatillon whom she loved so passionately, and
+others well-known in the world of fashion and letters.  But its
+tone was more philosophical than that of Mme. du Deffand.  Though
+far from democratic by taste or temperament, she was so from
+conviction.  The griefs and humiliations of her life had left her
+peculiarly open to the new social and political theories which
+were agitating France.  She liked free discussion, and her own
+large intelligence, added to her talent for calling out and
+giving point to the ideas of others, went far towards making the
+cosmopolitan circle over which she presided one of the most
+potent forces of the time.  Her influence may be traced in the
+work of the encyclopedists, in which she was associated, and
+which she did more than any other woman to aid and encourage.  As
+a power in the making of reputations and in the election of
+members to the Academy she shared with Mme. Geoffrin the honor of
+being a legitimate successor of Mme. de Lambert.  Chastellux owed
+his admission largely to her, and on her deathbed she secured
+that of La Harpe.
+
+But the side of her character which strikes us most forcibly at
+this distance of time is the emotional.  The personal charm which
+is always so large a factor in social success is of too subtle a
+quality to be caught in words.  The most vivid portrait leaves a
+divine something to be supplied by the imagination, and the
+fascination of eloquence is gone with the flash of the eye, the
+modulation of the voice, or some fleeting grace of manner.  But
+passion writes itself out in indelible characters, especially
+when it is a rare and spontaneous overflow from the heart of a
+man or woman of genius, whose emotions readily crystallize into
+form.
+
+Her friendship for d'Alembert, loyal and devoted as it was, seems
+to have been without illusions.  It is true she had cast aside
+every other consideration to nurse him through a dangerous
+illness, and as soon as he was able to be removed, he had taken
+an apartment in the house where she lived, which he retained
+until her death.  But he was not rich, and marriage was not to be
+thought of.  On this point we have his own testimony.  "The one
+to whom they marry me in the gazettes is indeed a person
+respectable in character, and fitted by the sweetness and charm
+of her society to render a husband happy," he writes to Voltaire;
+"but she is worthy of an establishment better than mine, and
+there is between us neither marriage nor love, but mutual esteem,
+and all the sweetness of friendship.  I live actually in the same
+house with her, where there are besides ten other tenants; this
+is what has given rise to the rumor."  His devotion through so
+many years, and his profound grief at her loss, as well as his
+subsequent words, leave some doubt as to the tranquillity of his
+heart, but the sentiments of Mlle. de Lespinasse seem never to
+have passed the calm measure of an exalted and sympathetic
+friendship.  It was remarked that he lost much of his prestige,
+and that his society which had been so brilliant, became
+infinitely more miscellaneous and infinitely less agreeable after
+the death of the friend whose tact and finesse had so well served
+his ambition.
+
+Not long after leaving Mme. du Deffand she met the Marquis de
+Mora, a son of the Spanish ambassador, who became a constant
+habitue of her salon.  Of distinguished family and large fortune,
+brilliant, courtly, popular, and only twenty-four, he captivated
+at once the fiery heart of this attractive woman of thirty-five. 
+It seems to have been a mutual passion, as during one brief
+absence of ten days he wrote her twenty-two letters.  But his
+family became alarmed and made his delicate health a pretext for
+recalling him to Spain.  Her grief at the separation enlisted the
+sympathy of d'Alembert.  At her request he procured from his
+physician a statement that the climate of Madrid would prove
+fatal to M. de Mora, whose health had steadily failed since his
+return home, and that if his friends wished to save him they must
+lose no time in sending him back to Paris.  The young man was
+permitted to leave at once, but he died en route at Bordeaux.
+
+In the meantime Mlle. de Lespinasse, sad and inconsolable, had
+met M. Guibert, a man of great versatility and many
+accomplishments, whose genius seems to have borne no adequate
+fruit.  We hear of him later through the passing enthusiasm of
+Mme. de Stael, who in her youth, made a pen-portrait of him,
+sufficiently flattering to account in some degree for the
+singular passion of which he became the object.  Mlle. de
+Lespinasse was forty.  He was twenty-nine, had competed for the
+Academie Francaise, written a work on military science, also a
+national tragedy which was still unpublished.  She was dazzled by
+his brilliancy, and when she fathomed his shallow nature, as she
+finally did, it was too late to disentangle her heart.  He was a
+man of gallantry, and was flattered by the preference of a woman
+much in vogue, who had powerful friends, influence at the
+Academy, and the ability to advance his interest in many ways. 
+He clearly condescended to be loved, but his own professions have
+little of the true ring.
+
+Distracted by this new passion on one side, and by remorse for
+her disloyalty to the old one, on the other, the health of Mlle.
+de Lespinasse, naturally delicate and already undermined, began
+to succumb to the hidden struggle.  The death of M. de Mora
+solved one problem; the other remained.  Mr. Guibert wished to
+advance his fortune by a brilliant marriage without losing the
+friend who might still be of service to him.  She sat in judgment
+upon her own fate, counseled him, aided him in his choice, even
+praised the woman who became his wife, hoping still, perhaps, for
+some repose in that exaltation of friendship which is often the
+last consolation of passionate souls.  But she was on a path that
+led to no haven of peace.  There was only a blank wall before
+her, and the lightning impulses of her own heart were forced back
+to shatter her frail life.  The world was ignorant of this fresh
+experience; and, believing her crushed by the death of M. de
+Mora, sympathized with her sorrow and praised her fidelity.  She
+tried to sustain a double role--smiles and gaiety for her
+friends, tears and agony for the long hours of solitude.  The
+tension was too much for her.  She died shortly afterwards at the
+age of forty-three.  "If to think, to love, and to suffer is that
+which constitutes life, she lived in these few years many ages,"
+said one who knew her well.
+
+It was not until many years later, when those most interested
+were gone, that the letters to Guibert, which form her chief
+title to fame, were collected, and, curiously enough, by his
+widow.  Then for the first time the true drama of her life was
+unveiled.  It is impossible in a few extracts to convey an
+adequate idea of the passion and devotion that runs through these
+letters.  They touch the entire gamut of emotion, from the tender
+melancholy of a lonely soul, the inexpressible sweetness of self-
+forgetful love, to the tragic notes or agony and despair.  There
+are many brilliant passages in them, many flashes of profound
+thought, many vivid traits of the people about her; but they are,
+before all, the record of a soul that is rapidly burning out its
+casket.
+
+"I prefer my misery to all that the world calls happiness or
+pleasure," she writes.  "I shall die of it, perhaps, but that is
+better than never to have lived."
+
+"I have no more the strength to love," she says again; "my soul
+fatigues me, torments me; I am no more sustained by anything.  I
+have every day a fever; and my physician, who is not the most
+skillful of men, repeats to me without ceasing that I am consumed
+by chagrin, that my pulse, my respiration, announce an active
+grief, and he always goes out saying, 'We have no cure for the
+soul.'"
+
+"Adieu, my friend," were her last words to him.  "If I ever
+return to life I shall still love to employ it in loving you; but
+there is no more time."
+
+One could almost wish that these letters had never come to light. 
+A single grand passion has always a strong hold upon the
+imagination and the sympathies, but two passions contending for
+the mastery verge upon something quite the reverse of heroic. 
+The note of heart-breaking despair is tragic enough, but there is
+a touch of comedy behind it.  Though her words have the fire, the
+devotion, the abandon of Heloise, they leave a certain sense of
+disproportion.  One is inclined to wonder if they do not overtop
+the feeling.
+
+D'Alembert was her truest mourner, and fell into a profound
+melancholy after her death.  "Yes," he said to Marmontel, "she
+was changed, but I was not; she no longer lived for me, but I
+ever lived for her.  Since she is no more, I know not why I
+exist.  Ah!  Why have I not still to suffer those moments of
+bitterness that she knew so well how to sweeten and make me
+forget?  Do you remember the happy evenings we passed together? 
+Now what have I left?  I return home, and instead of herself I
+find only her shade.  This lodging at the Louvre is itself a
+tomb, which I never enter but with horror."  To this "shade" he
+wrote two expressive and well-considered eulogies, which paint in
+pathetic words the perfections of his friend and his own
+desolation.  "Adieu, adieu, my dear Julie," says the heartbroken
+philosopher; "for these eyes which I should like to close forever
+fill with tears in tracing these last lines, and I see no more
+the paper on which I write."  His grief called out a sympathetic
+letter from Frederick the Great which shows the philosophic
+warrior and king in a new light.  There is a touch of bitter
+irony in the inflated eulogy of Guibert, who gave the too-loving
+woman a death blow in furthering his ambition, then exhausted his
+vocabulary in laments and praises.  Perhaps he hoped to borrow
+from this friendship a fresh ray of immortality.
+
+Whatever we may think of the strange inconsistencies of Mlle. de
+Lespinasse, she is doubly interesting to us as a type that
+contrasts strongly with that of her age.  Her exquisite tact, her
+brilliant intellect, her conversational gifts, her personal charm
+made her the idol of the world in which she lived.  Her influence
+was courted, her salon was the resort of the most distinguished
+men of the century, and while she loved to discuss the great
+social problems which her friends were trying to solve, she
+forgot none of the graces.  With the intellectual strength and
+grasp of a man, she preserved always the taste, the delicacy, the
+tenderness of a woman.  Her faults were those of a strong nature. 
+Her thoughts were clear and penetrating, her expression was
+lively and impassioned.  But in her emotional power she reached
+the proportion of genius.  With "the most ardent soul, the
+liveliest fancy, the most inflammable imagination that has
+existed since Sappho," she represents the embodied spirit of
+tragedy outlined against the cold, hard background of a
+skeptical, mocking, realistic age.  "I love in order to live,"
+she said, "and I live to love."  This is the key-note of her
+life.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE SALON HELVETIQUE
+The Swiss Pastor's Daughter--Her Social Ambition--Her Friends--
+Mme. de Marchais--Mme. d'Houdetot--Duchesse de Lauzun--
+Character of Mme. Necker--Death at Coppet--Close of the most
+Brilliant Period of the Salons.
+
+There was one woman who held a very prominent place in the
+society of this period, and who has a double interest for us,
+though she was not French, and never quite caught the spirit of
+the eighteenth-century life whose attractive forms she loved so
+well.  Mme. Necker, whose history has been made so familiar
+through the interesting memoirs of the Comte d'Haussonville, owes
+her fame to her marked qualities of intellect and character
+rather than to the brilliancy of her social talents.  These found
+an admirable setting in the surroundings which her husband's
+fortune and political career gave her.  The Salon Helvetique had
+a distinctive color of its own, and was always tinged with the
+strong convictions and exalted ideals of the Swiss pastor's
+daughter, who passed through this world of intellectual affluence
+and moral laxity like a white angel of purity--in it, but not of
+it.  The center of a choice and lettered circle which included
+the most noted men and women of her time, she brought into it not
+only rare gifts, a fine taste, and genuine literary enthusiasm,
+but the fresh charm of a noble character and a beautiful family
+life, with the instincts of duty and right conduct which she
+inherited from her simple Protestant ancestry.  She lacked a
+little, however, in the tact, the ease, the grace, the
+spontaneity, which were the essential charm of the French women. 
+Her social talents were a trifle theoretical.  "She studied
+society," says one of her critics, "as she would a literary
+question."  She had a theory of conducting a salon, as she had of
+life in general, and believed that study would attain everything. 
+But the ability to do a thing superlatively well is by no means
+always implied in the knowledge of how it ought to be done. 
+Social genius is as purely a gift of nature as poetry or music;
+and, of all others, it is the most subtle and indefinable.  It
+was a long step from the primitive simplicity in which Suzanne
+Curchod passed her childhood on the borders of Lake Leman to the
+complex life of a Parisian salon; and the provincial beauty,
+whose fair face, soft blue eyes, dignified but slightly
+coquettish manner, brilliant intellect, and sparkling though
+sometimes rather learned conversation had made her a local queen,
+was quick to see her own shortcomings.  She confessed that she
+had a new language to learn, and she never fully mastered it. 
+"Mme. Necker has talent, but it is in a sphere too elevated for
+one to communicate with her," said Mme. du Deffand, though she
+was glad to go once a week to her suppers at Saint-Ouen, and
+admitted that in spite of a certain stiffness and coldness she
+was better fitted for society than most of the grandes dames.
+The salon of Mme. Necker marks a transition point between two
+periods, and had two quite distinct phases.  One likes best to
+recall her in the freshness of her early enthusiasm, when she
+gave Friday dinners, modeled after those of Mme. Geoffrin, to men
+of letters, and received a larger world in the evening; when her
+guests were enlivened by the satire of Diderot, the anecdotes of
+Marmontel, the brilliancy or learning of Grimm, d'Alembert,
+Thomas, Suard, Buffon, the Abbe Raynal, and other wits of the
+day; when they discussed the affairs of the Academy and decided
+the fate of candidates; when they listened to the recitations of
+Mlle. Clairon, and the works of many authors known and unknown. 
+It is interesting to recall that "Paul and Virginia" was first read
+here.  But there was apt to be a shade of stiffness, and the
+conversation had sometimes too strong a flavor of pedantry.  "No
+one knows better or feels more sensibly than you, my dear and
+very amiable friend," wrote Mme. Geoffrin, "the charm of
+friendship and its sweetness; no one makes others experience them
+more fully.  But you will never attain that facility, that ease,
+and that liberty which give to society its perfect enjoyment." 
+The Abbe Morellet complained of the austerity that always held
+the conversation within certain limits, and the gay little Abbe
+Galiani found fault with Mme. Necker's coldness and reserve,
+though he addresses her as his "Divinity" after his return to
+Naples, and his racy letters give us vivid and amusing pictures
+of these Fridays, which in his memory are wholly charming.
+
+In spite of her firm religious convictions, Mme. Necker cordially
+welcomed the most extreme of the philosophers.  "I have atheistic
+friends," she said.  "Why not?  They are unfortunate friends." 
+But her admiration for their talents by no means extended to
+their opinions, and she did not permit the discussion of
+religious questions.  It was at one of her own dinners that she
+started the subscription for a statue of Voltaire, for whom she
+entertained the warmest friendship.  One may note here, as
+elsewhere, a fine mental poise, a justness of spirit, and a
+discrimination that was superior to natural prejudices. 
+Sometimes her frank simplicity was misunderstood.  "There is a
+Mme. Necker here, a pretty woman and a bel esprit, who is
+infatuated with me; she persecutes me to have me at her house,"
+wrote Diderot to Mlle. Volland, with an evident incapacity to
+comprehend the innocent appreciation of a pure-hearted woman. 
+When he knew her better, he expressed his regret that he had not
+known her sooner.  "You would certainly have inspired me with a
+taste for purity and for delicacy," he says, "which would have
+passed from my soul into my works."  He refers to her again as "a
+woman who possesses all that the purity of an angelic soul adds
+to an exquisite taste."
+
+Among the many distinguished foreigners who found their way into
+this pleasant circle was her early lover, Gibbon.  The old days
+were far away when she presided over the literary coterie at
+Lausanne, speculated upon the mystery of love, talked of the
+possibility of tender and platonic friendships between men and
+women, after the fashion of the precieuses, and wept bitter tears
+over the faithlessness of the embryo historian.  The memory of
+her grief had long been lost in the fullness of subsequent
+happiness, and one readily pardons her natural complacency in the
+brilliancy of a position which took little added luster from the
+fame of the man who had wooed and so easily forgotten her.
+
+This period of Mme. Necker's career shows her character on a very
+engaging side.  Loving her husband with a devotion that verged
+upon idolatry, she was rich in the friendship of men like Thomas,
+Buffon, Grimm, Diderot, and Voltaire, whose respectful tone was
+the highest tribute to her dignity and her delicacy.  But the
+true nature of a woman is best seen in her relations with her own
+sex.  There are a thousand fine reserves in her relations with
+men that, in a measure, veil her personality.  They doubtless
+call out the most brilliant qualities of her intellect, and
+reveal her character, in some points, on its best and most
+lovable side; but the rare shades of generous and unselfish
+feeling are more clearly seen in the intimate friendships, free
+from petty vanities and jealous rivalries, rich in cordial
+appreciation and disinterested affection, which we often find
+among women of the finest type.  It is impossible that one so
+serious and so earnest as Mme. Necker should have cherished such
+passionate friendships for her own sex, if she had been as cold
+or as calculating as she has been sometimes represented.  Her
+intimacy with Mme. de Marchais, of which we have so many pleasant
+details, furnishes a case in point.
+
+This graceful and vivacious woman, who talked so eloquently upon
+philosophical, political, and economic questions, was the center
+of a circle noted for its liberal tendencies.  A friend of Mme.
+de Pompadour, at whose suppers she often sang; gifted, witty,
+and, in spite of a certain seriousness, retaining always the
+taste, the elegance, the charming manners which were her native
+heritage, she attracted to her salon not only a distinguished
+literary company, but many men and women from the great world of
+which she only touched the borders.  Mme. Necker had sought the
+aid and advice of Mme. de Marchais in the formation of her own
+salon, and had taken for her one of those ardent attachments so
+characteristic of earnest and susceptible natures.  She confided
+to her all the secrets of her heart; she felt a double pleasure
+when her joys and her little troubles were shared with this
+sympathetic companion.  "I had for her a passionate affection,"
+she says.  "When I first saw her my whole soul was captivated.  I
+thought her one of those enchanting fairies who combine all the
+gifts of nature and of magic.  I loved her; or, rather, I
+idolized her."  So pure, so confiding, so far above reproach
+herself, she refuses to see the faults of one she loves so
+tenderly.  Her letters glow with exalted sentiment.  "Adieu, my
+charming, my beautiful, my sweet friend," she writes.  "I embrace
+you.  I press you to my bosom; or, rather, to my soul, for it
+seems to me that no interval can separate yours from mine."
+
+But the character of Mme. de Marchais was evidently not equal to
+her fascination.  Her vanity was wounded by the success of her
+friend.  She took offense at a trifling incident that touched her
+self-love.  "The great ladies have disgusted me with friendship,"
+she wrote, in reply to Mme. Necker's efforts to repair the
+breach.  They returned to each other the letters so full of vows
+of eternal fidelity, and were friends no more.  Apparently
+without any fault of her own, Mme. Necker was left with an
+illusion the less, and the world has another example to cite of
+the frail texture of feminine friendships.
+
+She was not always, however, so unfortunate in her choice.  She
+found a more amiable and constant object for her affections in
+Mme. d'Houdetot, a charming woman who, in spite of her errors,
+held a very warm place in the hearts of her cotemporaries.  We
+have met her before in the philosophical circles of La Chevrette,
+and in the beautiful promenades of the valley of Montmorency,
+where Rousseau offered her the incense of a passionate and poetic
+love.  She was facile and witty, graceful and gay, said wise and
+thoughtful things, wrote pleasant verses which were the
+exhalations of her own heart, and was the center of a limited
+though distinguished circle; but her chief attraction was the
+magic of a sunny temper and a loving spirit.  "He only is unhappy
+who can neither love, nor work, nor die," she writes.  Though
+more or less linked with the literary coteries of her time, Mme.
+d'Houdetot seems to have been singularly free from the small
+vanities and vulgar ambitions so often met there.  She loved
+simple pleasures and the peaceful scenes of the country.  "What
+more have we to desire when we can enjoy the pleasures of
+friendship and of nature?" she writes.  "We may then pass lightly
+over the small troubles of life."  She counsels repose to her
+more restless friend, and her warm expressions of affection have
+always the ring of sincerity, which contrasts agreeably with the
+artificial tone of the time.  Mme. d'Houdetot lived to a great
+age, preserving always her youthfulness of spirit and sweet
+serenity of temper, in spite of sharp domestic sorrows.  She took
+refuge from these in the life-long friendship of Saint-Lambert,
+for whom Mme. Necker has usually a gracious message.  It is a
+curious commentary upon the manners of the age that one so rigid
+and severe should have chosen for her intimate companionship two
+women whose lives were so far removed from her own ideal of
+reserved decorum.  But she thought it best to ignore errors which
+her world did not regard as grave, if she was conscious of them
+at all.
+
+One finds greater pleasure in recalling her ardent and romantic
+attachment to the granddaughter of the Marechale de Luxembourg,
+the lovely Amelie de Boufflers, Duchesse de Lauzun, whose pen-
+portrait she sketched so gracefully and so tenderly; whose gentle
+sweetness and shy delicacy, in the rather oppressive glare of her
+surroundings, suggest a modest wild flower astray among the
+pretentious beauties of the hothouse, and whose untimely death on
+the scaffold has left her fragrant memory entwined with a garland
+of cypress.  But we cannot dwell upon the intimate phases of this
+friendship, whose fine quality is shown in the few scattered
+leaves of a correspondence overflowing with the wealth of two
+rare though unequally gifted natures.
+
+At a later period her husband's position in the ministry, and the
+pronounced opinions of her brilliant daughter, gave to the salon
+of Mme. Necker a marked political and semi-revolutionary
+coloring.  Her inclinations always led her to literary
+diversions, rather than to the discussion of economic questions,
+but as Mme. de Stael gradually took the scepter that was falling
+from her hand, she found it difficult to guide the conversation
+into its old channels.  Her pale, thoughtful face, her gentle
+manner, her soft and penetrating voice, all indicated an
+exquisitely feminine quality quite in unison with the spirit of
+urbanity and politeness that was even then going out of fashion. 
+Her quiet and earnest though interesting conversation was
+somewhat overshadowed by the impetuous eloquence of Mme. de
+Stael, who gave the tone to every circle into which she came.  "I
+am more and more convinced that I am not made for the great
+world," she said to the Duchesse de Lauzun, with an accent of
+regret.  "It is Germaine who should shine there and who should
+love it, for she possesses all the qualities which put her in a
+position to be at once feared and sought."
+
+If she was allied to the past, however, by her tastes and her
+sympathies, she belonged to the future by her convictions, and
+her many-sided intellect touched upon every question of the day. 
+Profoundly religious herself, she was broadly tolerant; always
+delicate in health, she found time amid her numerous social
+duties to aid the poor and suffering, and to establish the
+hospital that still bears her name.  Her letters and literary
+records reveal a woman of liberal thought and fine insight, as
+well as scholarly tastes.  If she lacked a little in the facile
+graces of the French women, she had to an eminent degree the
+qualities of character that were far rarer in her age and sphere. 
+Though she was cold and reserved in manner, beneath the light
+snow which she brought from her native hills beat a heart of warm
+and tender, even passionate, impulses.  Devoted wife, loyal
+friend, careful mother, large-minded and large-souled woman, she
+stands conspicuous, in a period of lax domestic relations, for
+the virtues that grace the fireside as well as for the talents
+that shine in the salon.
+
+But she was not exempt from the sorrows of a nature that exacts
+from life more than life can give, and finds its illusions vanish
+before the cold touch of experience.  She had her hours of
+darkness and of suffering.  Even the love that was the source of
+her keenest happiness was also the source of her sharpest griefs. 
+In the days of her husband's power she missed the exclusive
+attention she craved.  There were moments when she doubted the
+depth of his affection, and felt anew that her "eyes were wedded
+to eternal tears."  She could not see without pain his extreme
+devotion to her daughter, whose rich nature, so spontaneous, so
+original, so foreign to her own, gave rise to many anxieties and
+occasional antagonisms.  This touches the weak point in her
+character.  She was not wholly free from a certain egotism and
+intellectual vanity, without the imagination to comprehend fully
+an individuality quite remote from all her preconceived ideas. 
+She was slow to accept the fact that her system of education was
+at fault, and her failure to mold her daughter after her own
+models was long a source of grief and disappointment.  She was
+ambitious too, and had not won her position without many secret
+wounds.  When misfortunes came, the blows that fell upon her
+husband struck with double force into her own heart.  She was
+destined to share with him the chill of censure and neglect, the
+bitter sting of ingratitude, the lonely isolation of one fallen
+from a high place, whose friendship and whose favors count no
+more.
+
+In the solitude of Coppet, where she died at fifty-seven, during
+the last and darkest days of the Revolution, perhaps she realized
+in the tireless devotion of her husband and the loving care of
+Mme. de Stael the repose of heart which the brilliant world of
+Paris never gave her.
+
+With all her gifts, which have left many records that may be
+read, and in spite of a few shadows that fall more or less upon
+all earthly relations, not the least of her legacies to posterity
+was the beautiful example, rarer then than now, of that true and
+sympathetic family life in which lies the complete harmony of
+existence, a safeguard against the storms of passion, a perennial
+fount of love that keeps the spirit young, the tranquility out of
+which spring the purest flowers of human happiness and human
+endeavor.
+
+There were many salons of lesser note which have left agreeable
+memories.  It would be pleasant to recall other clever and
+beautiful women whose names one meets so often in the chronicles
+of the time, and whose faces, conspicuous for their clear, strong
+outlines, still look out upon us from the galleries that
+perpetuate its life; but the list is too long and would lead us
+too far.  From the moving procession of social leaders who made
+the age preceding the Revolution so brilliant I have chosen only
+the few who were most widely known, and who best represent its
+dominant types and its special phases.
+
+The most remarkable period of the literary salons was really
+closed with the death of Mme. du Deffand, in 1780.  Mme. Geoffrin
+had already been dead three years, and Mlle. de Lespinasse, four. 
+Some of the most noted of the philosophers and men of letters
+were also gone, others were past the age of forming fresh ties,
+the young men belonged to another generation, and no new drawing
+rooms exactly replaced the old ones.  Mme. Necker still received
+the world that was wont to assemble in the great salons, Mme. de
+Condorcet presided over a rival coterie, and there were numerous
+small and intimate circles; but the element of politics was
+beginning to intrude, and with it a degree of heat which
+disturbed the usual harmony.  The reign of esprit, the perpetual
+play of wit had begun to pall upon the tastes of people who found
+themselves face to face with problems so grave and issues so
+vital.  There was a slight reaction towards nature and
+simplicity.  "They may be growing wiser," said Walpole, "but the
+intermediate change is dullness."  For nearly half a century
+learned men and clever women had been amusing themselves with
+utopian theories, a few through conviction, the majority through
+fashion, or egotism, or the vanity of saying new things, just as
+the world is doing today.  The doctrines put forth by
+Montesquieu, vivified by Voltaire, and carried to the popular
+heart by Rousseau had been freely discussed in the salons, not
+only by philosophers and statesmen, but by men of the world,
+poets, artists, and pretty women.  The sparks of thought with
+which they played so lightly filtered slowly through the social
+strata.  The talk of the drawing room at last reached the street. 
+But the torch of truth which, held aloft, serves as a beacon star
+to guide the world towards some longed for ideal becomes often a
+deadly explosive when it falls among the poisonous vapors of
+inflammable human passions.  Liberty, equality, fraternity
+assumed a new and fatal significance in the minds of the hungry
+and restless masses who, embittered by centuries of wrong, were
+ready to carry these phrases to their immediate and living
+conclusions.  They had found their watchwords and their hour. 
+The train was already laid beneath this complex social structure,
+and the tragedy that followed carried to a common ruin court and
+salon, philosophers and beaux esprits, innocent women and
+dreaming men.
+
+That the salons were unconscious instruments in hastening the
+catastrophe, which was sooner or later inevitable, is undoubtedly
+true.  Their influence in the dissemination of thought was
+immense.  The part they played was, to a limited extent,
+precisely that of the modern press, with an added personal
+element.  They moved in the drift of their time, directed its
+intelligence, and reflected its average morality.  As centers of
+serious conversation they were distinctly stimulating.  It is
+quite possible that they stimulated the intellect to the
+exclusion of the more solid qualities of character, and that they
+were the source of a vast amount of affectation.  It was the
+fashion to have esprit, and those who were deficient in an
+article so essential to success were naturally disposed to borrow
+it, or to put on the semblance of it.  But no phase of life is
+without its reverse side, and the present generation cannot claim
+freedom from pretension of the same sort.  It is not unlikely
+that in expanding the intelligence they established new standards
+of distinction, which in a measure weakened the old ones.  But if
+they precipitated the downfall of the court they began by
+rivaling, it was in the logical course of events, which few were
+wise enough to foresee, much less to determine.
+
+It is worthy of remark that this reign of women, in which the
+manners and forms of modern society found their initiative and
+their models, was not a reign of youth, or beauty, though these
+qualities are never likely to lose their own peculiar
+fascination.  It was, before all things, a reign of intelligence,
+and ascendency of women who had put on the hues of age without
+laying aside the permanent charm of a fully developed
+personality.  It was intelligence blended with practical
+knowledge of the world and with the graceful amenities that
+heightened while half disguising its power.  The women of the
+present have different aims.  They are no longer content with the
+role of inspirer.  Their methods are more direct.  They depend
+less upon finesse, more upon inherent right and strength.  But it
+is to the women who shone so conspicuously in France for more
+than two hundred years that we may trace the broadened
+intellectual life, the unfettered activities, the wide and
+beneficent influence of the women of today.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. SALONS OF THE REVOLUTION--MADAME ROLAND
+Change in the Character of the Salons--Mme. de Condorcet--Mme.
+Roland's Story of Her Own Life--A Marriage of Reason-- 
+Enthusiasm for the Revolution--Her Modest Salon--Her Tragical
+Fate
+
+The salons of the Revolution were no longer simply the fountains
+of literary and artistic criticism, the centers of wit,
+intelligence, knowledge, philosophy, and good manners, but the
+rallying points of parties.  They took the tone of the time and
+assumed the character of political clubs.  The salon of 1790 was
+not the salon of 1770.  A new generation had arisen, with new
+ideals and a new spirit that made for itself other forms or
+greatly modified the old ones.  It was not led by philosophers
+and beaux esprits who evolved theories and turned them over as an
+intellectual diversion, but by men of action, ready to test
+these theories and force them to their logical conclusions. 
+Mirabeau, Vergniaud, and Robespierre had succeeded Voltaire,
+Diderot, and d'Alembert.  Impelled towards one end, by vanity,
+ambition, love of glory, or genuine conviction, these men and
+their colleagues turned the salon, which had so long been the
+school of public opinion, into an engine of revolution.  The
+exquisite flower of the eighteenth century had blossomed,
+matured, and fallen.  Perhaps it was followed by a plant of
+sturdier growth, but the rare quality of its beauty was not
+repeated.  The time was past when the gentle touch of women could
+temper the violence of clashing opinions, or subject the
+discussion of vital questions to the inflexible laws of taste. 
+No tactful hostess could hold in leading strings these fiery
+spirits.  The voices that had charmed the old generation were
+silent.  Of the women who had made the social life of the century
+so powerful and so famous, many were quietly asleep before the
+storm broke; many were languishing in prison cells, with no
+outlook but the scaffold; some were pining in the loneliness of
+exile; and a few were buried in a seclusion which was their only
+safeguard.
+
+But nature has always in reserve fresh types that come to the
+surface in a great crisis.  The women who made themselves felt
+and heard above the din of revolution, though by no means
+deficient in the graces, were mainly distinguished for quite
+other qualities than those which shine in a drawing room or lead
+a coterie.  They were either women of rare genius and the courage
+of their convictions, or women trained in the stern school of a
+bitter experience, who found their true milieu in the midst of
+stirring events.  The names of Mme. de Stael, Mme. Roland, and
+Mme. de Condorcet readily suggest themselves as the most
+conspicuous representatives of this stormy period.  With
+different gifts and in different measure, each played a prominent
+role in the brief drama to which they lent the inspiration of
+their genius and their sympathy, until they were forced to turn
+back with horror from that carnival of savage passions which they
+had unconsciously helped to let loose upon the world.
+
+The salon of the young, beautiful, and gifted Mme. de Condorcet
+had its roots in the old order of things.  During the ministry of
+Necker it was in come degree a rival of the Salon Helvetique, and
+included many of the same guests; later it became a rendezvous
+for the revolutionary party.  The Marquis de Condorcet was not
+only philosopher, savant, litterateur, a member of two academies,
+and among the profoundest thinkers of his time, but a man of the
+world, who inherited the tastes and habits of the old noblesse. 
+His wife, whom he had married late in life, was Sophie de
+Grouchy, sister of the Marechal, and was noted for remarkable
+talents, as well as for surpassing beauty.  Belonging by birth
+and associations to the aristocracy, and by her pronounced
+opinions to the radical side of the philosophic party, her salon
+was a center in which two worlds met.  In its palmy days people
+were only speculating upon the borders of an abyss which had not
+yet opened visibly before them.  The revolutionary spirit ran
+high, but had not passed the limits of reason and humanity.  Mme.
+de Condorcet, who was deeply tinged with the new doctrines,
+presided with charming grace, and her youthful beauty lent an
+added fascination to the brilliancy of her intellect and the
+rather grave eloquence of her conversation.  In her drawing room
+were gathered men of letters and women of talent, nobles and
+scientists, philosophers and BEAUX espritS.  Turgot and
+Malesherbes represented its political side; Marmontel, the Abbe
+Morellet, and Suard lent it some of the wit and vivacity that
+shone in the old salons.  Literature, science, and the arts were
+discussed here, and there was more or less reading, music, or
+recitation.  But the tendency was towards serious conversation,
+and the tone was often controversial.
+
+The character of Condorcet was a sincere and elevated one.  "He
+loved much and he loved many people," said Mlle. de Lespinasse. 
+He aimed at enlightening and regenerating the world, not at
+overturning it; but, like many others, strong souls and true, he
+was led from practical truth in the pursuit of an ideal one.  His
+wife, who shared his political opinions, united with them a fiery
+and independent spirit that was not content with theories.  Her
+philosophic tastes led her to translate Adam Smith, and to write
+a fine analysis of the "Moral Sentiments."  But the sympathy of
+which she spoke so beautifully, and which gave so living a force
+to the philosophy it illuminated, if not directed by broad
+intelligence and impartial judgment, is often like the ignis
+fatuus that plays over the poisonous marsh and lures the unwary
+to destruction.  For a brief day the magical influence of Mme. de
+Condorcet was felt more or less by all who came within her
+circle.  She inspired the equable temper of her husband with her
+own enthusiasm, and urged him on to extreme measures from which
+his gentler soul would have recoiled.  When at last he turned
+from those scenes of horror, choosing to be victim rather than
+oppressor, it was too late.  Perhaps she recalled the days of her
+power with a pang of regret when her friends had fallen one by
+one at the scaffold, and her husband, hunted and deserted by
+those he tried to serve, had died by his own hand, in a lonely
+cell, to escape a sadder fate; while she was left, after her
+timely release from prison, to struggle alone in poverty and
+obscurity, for some years painting water-color portraits for
+bread.  She was not yet thirty when the Revolution ended, and
+lived far into the present century; but though the illusions of
+her youth had been rudely shattered, she remained always devoted
+to her liberal principles and a broad humanity.
+
+The woman, however, who most fitly represents the spirit of the
+Revolution, who was at once its inspiration, its heroine, and its
+victim, is Mme. Roland.  It is not as the leader of a salon that
+she takes her place in the history of her time, but as one of the
+foremost and ablest leaders of a powerful political party.  Born
+in the ranks of the bourgeoisie, she had neither the prestige of
+a name nor the distinction of an aristocratic lineage.  Reared in
+seclusion, she was familiar with the great world by report only. 
+Though brilliant, even eloquent in conversation when her interest
+was roused, her early training had added to her natural distaste
+for the spirit, as well as the accessories, of a social life that
+was inevitably more or less artificial.  She would have felt
+cramped and caged in the conventional atmosphere of a drawing
+room in which the gravest problems were apt to be forgotten in
+the flash of an epigram or the turn of a bon mot.  The strong and
+heroic outlines of her character were more clearly defined on the
+theater of the world.  But at a time when the empire of the salon
+was waning, when vital interests and burning convictions had for
+the moment thrown into the shade all minor questions of form and
+convenance, she took up the scepter in a simpler fashion, and,
+disdaining the arts of a society of which she saw only the fatal
+and hopeless corruption, held her sway over the daring and ardent
+men who gathered about her by the unassisted force of her clear
+and vigorous intellect.
+
+It would be interesting to trace the career of the thoughtful and
+precocious child known as Manon or Marie Phlipon, who sat in her
+father's studio with the burin of an engraver in one hand and a
+book in the other, eagerly absorbing the revolutionary theories
+which were to prove so fatal to her, but it is not the purpose
+here to dwell upon the details of her life.  In the solitude of a
+prison cell and under the shadow of the scaffold she told her own
+story.  She has introduced us to the simple scenes of her
+childhood, the modest home on the Quai de l'Horloge, the wise and
+tender mother, the weak and unstable father.  We are made
+familiar with the tiny recess in which she studies, reads, and
+makes extracts from the books which are such strange companions
+for her years.  We seem to see the grave little face as it lights
+with emotion over the inspiring pages of Fenelon or the
+chivalrous heroes of Tasso, and sympathize with the fascination
+that leads the child of nine years to carry her Plutarch to mass
+instead of her prayer book.  She portrays for us her convent life
+with its dreams, its exaltations, its romantic friendships, and
+its ardent enthusiasms.  We have vivid pictures of the calm and
+sympathetic Sophie Cannet, to whom she unburdens all her hopes
+and aspirations and sorrows; of the lively sister Henriette, who
+years afterward, in the generous hope of saving her early friend,
+proposed to exchange clothes and take her place in the cells of
+Sainte-Pelagie.  In the long and commonplace procession of
+suitors that files before us, one only touches her heart.  La
+Blancherie has a literary and philosophic turn, and the young
+girl's imagination drapes him in its own glowing colors.  The
+opposition of her father separates them, but absence only lends
+fuel to this virgin flame.  One day she learns that his views are
+mercenary, that he is neither true nor disinterested, and the
+charm is broken.  She met him afterward in the Luxembourg
+gardens with a feather in his hat, and the last illusion
+vanished.
+
+There is an idyllic charm in these pictures so simply and
+gracefully sketched.  She sees with the vision of one lying down
+to sleep after a life of pain, and dreaming of the green fields,
+the blue skies, the running brooks, the trees, the flowers, that
+make so beautiful a background for youthful loves and hopes. 
+Perhaps we could wish sometimes that she were a little less
+frank.  We miss a touch of delicacy in this nature that was so
+strong and self-poised.  We are sorry that she dismissed La
+Blancherie quite so theatrically.  There is a trace too much of
+consciousness in her fine self-analysis, perhaps a little vanity,
+and we half suspect that her unchildlike penetration and
+precocity of motive was sometimes the reflection of an
+afterthought.  But it is to be remembered that, even in
+childhood, she had lived in such close companionship with the
+heroes and moralists of the past that their sentiments had become
+her own.  She doubtless posed a little to herself, as well as to
+the world, but her frankness was a part of that uncompromising
+truthfulness which scorned disguises of any sort, and led her to
+paint faults and virtues alike.
+
+Family sorrows--the death of the mother whom she adored, and the
+unworthiness of her father--combined to change the current of
+her free and happy life, and to deepen a natural vein of
+melancholy.  In her loneliness of soul the convent seemed to
+offer itself as the sole haven of peace and rest.  The child, who
+loved Fenelon, and dreamed over the lives of the saints, had in
+her much of the stuff out of which mystics and fanatics are made. 
+Her ardent soul was raised to ecstasy by the stately ceremonial
+of the Church; her imagination was captivated by its majestic
+music, its mystery, its solemnity, and she was wont to spend
+hours in rapt meditation.  But her strong fund of good sense, her
+firm reason fortified by wide and solid reading, together with
+her habits of close observation and analysis, saved her from
+falling a victim to her own emotional needs, or to chimeras of
+any sort.  She had drawn her mental nourishment too long from
+Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, the English philosophers, and
+classic historians, to become permanently a prey to exaggerated
+sensibilities, though it was the same temperament fired by a
+sense of human inequality and wrong, that swept her at last along
+the road that led to the scaffold.  At twenty-six the vocation of
+the religieuse had lost its fascination; the pious fervor of her
+childhood had vanished before the skepticism of her intellect,
+its ardent friendships had grown dim, its fleeting loves had
+proved illusive, and her romantic dreams ended in a cold marriage
+of reason.
+
+It may be noted here that though Mme. Roland had lost her belief
+in ecclesiastical systems, and, as she said, continued to go to
+mass only for the "edification of her neighbors and the good
+order of society," there was always in her nature a strong
+undercurrent of religious feeling.  Her faith had not survived
+the full illumination of her reason, but her trust in immortality
+never seriously wavered.  The Invocation that was among her last
+written words is the prayer of a soul that is conscious of its
+divine origin and destiny.  She retained, too, the firm moral
+basis that was laid in her early teachings, and which saved her
+from the worst errors of her time.  She might be shaken by the
+storms of passion, but one feels that she could never be swept
+from her moorings.
+
+Tall and finely developed, with dark brown hair; a large mouth
+whose beauty lay in a smile of singular sweetness; dark, serious
+eyes with a changeful expression which no artist could catch; a
+fresh complexion that responded to every emotion of a passionate
+soul; a deep, well-modulated voice; manners gentle, modest,
+reserved, sometimes timid with the consciousness that she was not
+readily taken at her true value--such was the PERSONNELLE of the
+woman who calmly weighed the possibilities of a life which had no
+longer a pleasant outlook in any direction, and, after much
+hesitation, became the wife of a grave, studious, austere man of
+good family and moderate fortune, but many years her senior.
+
+It was this marriage, into which she entered with all
+seriousness, and a devotion that was none the less sincere
+because it was of the intellect rather than the heart, that gave
+the final tinge to a character that was already laid on solid
+foundations.  Strong, clear-sighted, earnest, and gifted, her
+later experience had accented a slightly ascetic quality which
+had been deepened also by her study of antique models.  Her
+tastes were grave and severe.  But they had a lighter side.  As a
+child she had excelled in music, dancing, drawing, and other
+feminine accomplishments, though one feels always that her
+distinctive talent does not lie in these things.  She is more at
+home with her thoughts.  There was a touch of poetry, too, in her
+nature, that under different circumstances might have lent it a
+softer and more graceful coloring.  She had a natural love for
+the woods and the flowers.  The single relief to her somber life
+at La Platiere, after her marriage, was in the long and lonely
+rambles in the country, whose endless variations of hill and vale
+and sky and color she has so tenderly and so vividly noted.  In
+her last days a piano and a few flowers lighted the darkness of
+her prison walls, and out of these her imagination reared a world
+of its own, peopled with dreams and fancies that contrasted
+strangely with the gloom of her surroundings.  This poetic vein
+was closely allied to the keen sensibility that tempered the
+seriousness of her character.  With the mental equipment of a
+man, she combined the rich sympathy of a woman.  Her devotion to
+her mother was passionate in its intensity; her letters to Sophie
+throb with warmth and sentiment.  She is tender and loving, as
+well as philosophic and thoughtful.  Her emotional ardor was
+doubtless partly the glow of youth and not altogether in the
+texture of a mind so eminently rational; but there were rich
+possibilities behind it.  A shade of difference in the mental and
+moral atmosphere, a trace more or less of sunshine and happiness
+are important factors in the peculiar combination of qualities
+that make up a human being.  The marriage of Mme. Roland led her
+into a world that had little color save what she brought into it. 
+Her husband did not smile upon her friends.  Sympathy other than
+that of the intellect she does not seem to have had.  But her
+story is best told in her own words, written in the last days of
+her life.
+
+"In considering only the happiness of my partner, I soon
+perceived that something was wanting to my own.  I had never, for
+a single instant, ceased to see in my husband one of the most
+estimable of men, to whom I felt it an honor to belong; but I
+have often realized that there was a lack of equality between us,
+that the ascendency of an overbearing character, added to that of
+twenty years more of age, gave him too much superiority.  If we
+lived in solitude, I had many painful hours to pass; if we went
+into the world, I was loved by men of whom I saw that some might
+touch me too deeply.  I plunged into work with my husband,
+another excess which had its inconvenience; I gave him the habit
+of not knowing how to do without me for anything in the world,
+nor at any moment.
+
+"I honor, I cherish my husband, as a sensible daughter adores a
+virtuous father to whom she would sacrifice even her lover; but I
+have found the man who might have been that lover, and remaining
+faithful to my duties, my frankness has not known how to conceal
+the feelings which I subjected to them.  My husband, excessively
+sensitive both in his affections and his self-love, could not
+support the idea of the least change in his influence; his
+imagination darkened, his jealousy irritated me; happiness fled;
+he adored me, I sacrificed myself for him, and we were miserable.
+
+"If I were free, I would follow him everywhere to soften his
+griefs and console his old age; a soul like mine leaves no
+sacrifices imperfect.  But Roland was embittered by the thought
+of sacrifice, and the knowledge once acquired that I mad made one
+ruined his happiness; he suffered in accepting it, and could not
+do without it."
+
+The sequel to this tale is told in allusions and half
+revelations, in her letters to Buzot, which glow with suppressed
+feeling; in her touching farewell to one whom she dared not to
+name, but whom she hoped to meet where it would not be a crime to
+love; in those final words of her "Last Thoughts"--"Adieu. . . . 
+No, it is from thee alone that I do not separate; to leave the
+earth is to approach each other."
+
+Beneath this semi-transparent veil the heart-drama of her life is
+hidden.
+
+For the sake of those who would be pained by this story, as well
+as for her own, we would rather it had never been told.  We
+should like to believe that the woman who worked so nobly with
+and for the man who died by his own hand five days after her
+death, because he could stay no longer in a world where such
+crimes were possible, had lived in the full perfection of
+domestic sympathy.  But, if she carried with her an incurable
+wound, one cannot help regretting that her Spartan courage had
+not led her to wear the mantle of silence to the end.  Posterity
+is curious rather than sympathetic, and the world is neither
+wiser nor better for these needless soul-revelations.  There is
+always a certain malady of egotism behind them.  But it is often
+easier to scale the heights of human heroism than to still the
+cry of a bruised spirit.  Mme. Roland had moments of falling
+short of her own ideals, and this was one of them.  Pure, loyal,
+self-sustained as she was, her strong sense of verity did not
+permit the veil which would have best served the interests of the
+larger truth.  It is fair to say that she thought the malicious
+gossip of her enemies rendered this statement necessary to the
+protection of her fame.  Perhaps, after all, she shows here her
+most human and lovable if not her strongest side.  We should like
+Minerva better if she were not so faultlessly wise.
+
+The outbreak of the Revolution found Mme. Roland at La Platiere,
+where she shared her husband's philosophic and economic studies,
+brought peace into a discordant family, attended to her household
+duties and the training of her child, devoted many hours to
+generous care for the sick and poor, and reserved a little
+leisure for poetry and the solitary rambles she loved so well. 
+The first martial note struck a responsive chord in her heart. 
+Her opportunity had come.  Embittered by class distinctions over
+which she had long brooded, saturated with the sentiments of
+Rousseau, and full of untried theories constructed in the closet,
+with small knowledge of the wide and complex interests with which
+it was necessary to deal, she centered all the hitherto latent
+energies of her forceful nature upon the quixotic effort to
+redress human wrongs.  Her birth, her intellect, her character,
+her temperament, her education, her associations--all led her
+towards the role she played so heroically.  She had a keen
+appreciation for genuine values, but none whatever for factitious
+ones.  Her inborn hatred of artificial distinctions had grown
+with her years and colored all her estimates of men and things. 
+When she came to Paris, she noted with a sort of indignation the
+superior poise and courtesy of the men in the assembly who had
+been reared in the habit of power.  It added fuel to her enmity
+towards institutions in which reason, knowledge, and integrity
+paid homage to fine language and distinguished manners.  She
+found even Vergniaud too refined and fastidious in his dress for
+a successful republican leader.  Her old contempt for a
+"philosopher with a feather" had in no wise abated.  With such
+principles ingrained and fostered, it is not difficult to
+forecast the part Mme. Roland was destined to play in the coming
+conflict of classes.  Whatever we may think of the wisdom of her
+attitude towards the Revolution, she represented at least its
+most sincere side.  As she stood white-robed and courageous at
+the foot of the scaffold, facing the savage populace she had laid
+down her life to befriend, perhaps her perspectives were truer. 
+Experience had given her an insight into the characters of men
+which is not to be gained in the library, nor in the worship of
+dead heroes.  If it had not shaken her faith in human
+perfectibility, it had taught her at least the value of tradition
+in chaining brutal human passions.
+
+The tragical fate of Mme. Roland has thrown a strong light upon
+the modest little salon in which the unfortunate Girondists met
+four times a week to discuss the grave problems that confronted
+them.  A salon in the old sense it certainly was not.  It had
+little in common with the famous centers of conversation and
+esprit.  It was simply the rallying point of a party.  The only
+woman present was Mme. Roland herself, but at first she assumed
+no active leadership.  She sat at a little table outside of the
+circle, working with her needle, or writing letters, alive to
+everything that was said, venturing sometimes a word of counsel
+or a thoughtful suggestion, and often biting her lips to repress
+some criticism that she feared might not be within her province. 
+She had left her quiet home in the country fired with a single
+thought--the regeneration of France.  The men who gathered about
+her were in full accord with her generous aims.  It was not to
+such enthusiasms that the old salons lost themselves.  They had
+been often the centers of political intrigues, as in the days of
+the Fronde; or of religious partisanship, as during the troubles
+of Port Royal; they had ranged themselves for and against rival
+candidates for literary or artistic honors; but they had
+preserved, on the whole, a certain cosmopolitan character.  All
+shades of opinion were represented, and social brilliancy was the
+end sought, not the triumph of special ideas.  It is indeed true
+that earnest convictions were, to some extent, stifled in the
+salons, where charm and intelligence counted for so much, and the
+sterling qualities of character for so little.  But the
+etiquette, the urbanity, the measure, which assured the outward
+harmony of a society that courted distinction of every kind, were
+quite foreign to the iconoclasts who were bent upon leveling all
+distinctions.  The Revolution which attacked the whole
+superstructure of society, was antagonistic to its minor forms as
+well, and it was the revolutionary party alone which was
+represented in the salon of Mme. Roland. Brissot, Vergniaud,
+Petion, Guadet, and Buzot were leaders there--men sincere and
+ardent, though misguided, and unable to cope with the storm they
+had raised, to be themselves swept away by its pitiless rage. 
+Robespierre, scheming and ambitious, came there, listened, said
+little, appropriated for his own ends, and bided his time.  Mme.
+Roland had small taste for the light play of intellect and wit
+that has no outcome beyond the meteoric display of the moment,
+and she was impatient with the talk in which an evening was often
+passed among these men without any definite results.  As she
+measured their strength, she became more outspoken.  She
+communicated to them a spark of her own energy.  The most daring
+moves were made at her bidding.  She urged on her timid and
+conservative husband, she drew up his memorials, she wrote his
+letters, she was at once his stimulus, and his helper. Weak and
+vacillating men yielded to her rapid insight, her vigor, her
+earnestness, and her persuasive eloquence.  This was probably the
+period of her greatest influence.  Many of the swift changes of
+those first months may be traced to her salon.  The moves which
+were made in the Assembly were concocted there, the orators who
+triumphed found their inspiration there.  Still, in spite of her
+energy, her strength, and her courage, she prides herself upon
+maintaining always the reserve and decorum of her sex.
+
+If she assumed the favorite role of the French woman for a short
+time while her husband was in the ministry, it was in a sternly
+republican fashion.  She gave dinners twice a week to her
+husband's political friends.  The fifteen or twenty men who met
+around her table at five o'clock were linked by political
+interests only.  The service was simple, with no other luxury
+than a few flowers.  There were no women to temper the
+discussions or to lighten their seriousness.  After dinner the
+guests lingered for an hour or so in the drawing room, but by
+nine o'clock it was deserted.  She received on Friday, but what a
+contrast to the Fridays of Mme. Necker in those same apartments! 
+It was no longer a brilliant company of wits, savants, and men of
+letters, enlivened by women of beauty, esprit, rank, and fashion. 
+There was none of the diversity of taste and thought which lends
+such a charm to social life.  Mme. Roland tells us that she never
+had an extended circle at any time, and that, while her husband
+was in power, she made and received no visits, and invited no
+women to her house.  She saw only her husband's colleagues, or
+those who were interested in his tastes and pursuits, which were
+also her own.  The world of society wearied her.  She was
+absorbed in a single purpose.  If she needed recreation, she
+sought it in serious studies.
+
+It is always difficult to judge what a man or a woman might have
+been under slightly altered conditions.  But for some single
+circumstance that converged and focused their talent, many a hero
+would have died unknown and unsuspected.  The key that unlocks
+the treasure house of the soul is not always found, and its
+wealth is often scattered on unseen shores.  But it is clear that
+the part of Mme. Roland could never have been a distinctively
+social one.  She lived at a time when great events brought out
+great qualities.  Her clear intellect, her positive convictions,
+her boundless energy, and her ardent enthusiasm, gave her a
+powerful influence in those early days of the Revolution, that
+looked towards a world reconstructed but not plunged into the
+dark depths of chaos, and it is through this that she has left a
+name among the noted women of France.  In more peaceful times her
+peculiar talent would doubtless have led her towards literature. 
+In her best style she has rare vigor and simplicity.  She has
+moments of eloquent thought.  There are flashes of it in her
+early letters to Sophie, which she begs her friend not to burn,
+though she does not hope to rival Mme. de Sevigne, whom she takes
+for her model.  She lacked the grace, the lightness, the wit, the
+humor of this model, but she had an earnestness, a serious depth
+of thought, that one does not find in Mme. de Sevigne.  She had
+also a vein of sentiment that was an underlying force in her
+character, though it was always subject to her masculine
+intellect.  She confesses that she should like to be the annalist
+of her country, and longs for the pen of Tacitus, for whom she
+has a veritable passion.  When one reads her sharp, incisive pen-
+portraits, drawn with such profound insight and masterly skill,
+one feels that her true vocation was in the world of letters.  At
+the close she verges a little upon the theatrical, as sometimes
+in her young days.  But when she wrote her final records she felt
+her last hours slipping away.  Life, with its large possibilities
+undeveloped and its promises unfulfilled, was behind her. 
+Darkness was all around her, eternal silence before her.  And
+she had lived but thirty-nine years.
+
+Mme. Roland does not really belong to the world of the salons,
+though she has been included among them by some of her own
+cotemporaries.  She was of quite another genre.  She represents a
+social reaction in which old forms are adapted to new ideas and
+lose their essential quality by the change.  But she foreshadows
+a type of woman that has had great influence since the salons
+have lost their prestige.  She relied neither upon the reflected
+light of a coterie, the arts of the courtier,nor the subtle power
+of personal attraction; but, firm in her convictions, clear in
+her purpose, and unselfish in her aims, she laid down her
+interests, and, in the end, her life, upon the altar of liberty
+and humanity.  She could hardly be regarded, however, as herself
+a type.  She was cast in a rare mold and lived under rare
+conditions.  She was individual, as were Hypatia, Joan of Arc,
+and Charlotte Corday--a woman fitted for a special mission which
+brought her little but a martyr's crown and a permanent fame.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. MADAME DE STAEL
+Supremacy of Her Genius--Her Early Training--Her Sensibility -- 
+a Mariage de Convenance--Her Salon--Anecdote of Benjamin
+Constant--Her Exile--Life at Coppet--Secret Marriage--Close
+of a Stormy Life.
+
+The fame of all other French women is more or less overshadowed
+by that of one who was not only supreme in her own world, but who
+stands on a pinnacle so high that time and distance only serve to
+throw into stronger relief the grand outlines of her many-sided
+genius.  Without the simplicity and naturalness of Mme. de
+Sevigne, the poise and judgment of Mme. de Lafayette, or the calm
+foresight and diplomacy of Mme. de Maintenon, Mme. de Stael had a
+brilliancy of imagination, a force of passion, a grasp of
+intellect, and a diversity of gifts that belonged to none of
+these women.  It is not possible within the limits of a brief
+chapter to touch even lightly upon the various phases of a
+character so complex and talents so versatile.  One can only
+gather a few scattered traits and indicate a few salient points
+in a life of which the details are already familiar.  As woman,
+novelist, philosopher, litterateur, and conversationist, she has
+marked, if not equal, claims upon our attention.  To speak of her
+as simply the leader of a salon is to merge the greater talent
+into the less, but her brilliant social qualities in a measure
+brought out and illuminated all the others.  It was not the gift
+of reconciling diverse elements, and of calling out the best
+thoughts of those who came within her radius, that distinguished
+her.  Her personality was too dominant not to disturb sometimes
+the measure and harmony which fashion had established.  She did
+not listen well, but her gift was that of the orator, and, taking
+whatever subject was uppermost into her own hands, she talked
+with an irresistible eloquence that held her auditors silent and
+enchained.  Living as she did in the world of wit and talent
+which had so fascinated her mother, she ruled it as an autocrat.
+
+The mental coloring of Mme. de Stael was not taken in the shade,
+as that of Mme. Roland had been.  She was reared in the
+atmosphere of the great world.  That which her eager mind
+gathered in solitude was subject always to the modification which
+contact with vigorous living minds is sure to give.  The little
+Germaine Necker who sat on a low stool at her mother's side,
+charming the cleverest men of her time by her precocious wit; who
+wrote extracts from the dramas she heard, and opinions upon the
+authors she read; who made pen-portraits of her friends, and cut
+out paper kings and queens to play in the tragedies she composed;
+whose heart was always overflowing with love for those around
+her, and who had supreme need for an outlet to her sensibilities,
+was a fresh type in that age of keen analysis, cold skepticism,
+and rigid forms.  The serious utterances of her childhood were
+always suffused with feeling.  She loved that which made her
+weep.  Her sympathies were full and overflowing, and when her
+vigorous and masculine intellect took the ascendency it directed
+them, but only partly held them in check.  It never dulled nor
+subdued them.  The source of her power, as also of her weakness,
+lay perhaps in her vast capacity for love.  It gave color and
+force to her rich and versatile character.  It animated all she
+did and gave point to all she wrote.  It found expression in the
+eloquence of her conversation, in the exaltation and passionate
+intensity of her affections, in the fervor of her patriotism, in
+the self-forgetful generosity that brought her very near the
+verge of the scaffold.  Here was the source of that indefinable
+quality we call genius--not genius of the sort which Buffon has
+defined as patience, but the divine flame that crowns with life
+the dead materials which patience has gathered.
+
+It was impossible that a child so eager, so sympathetic, so full
+of intellect and esprit, should not have developed rapidly in the
+atmosphere of her mother's salon.  Whether it was the best school
+for a young girl may be a question, but a character like that of
+Mme. de Stael is apt to go its own way in whatever circumstances
+it finds itself.  She was the despair of Mme. Necker, whose
+educational theories were altogether upset by this precocious
+daughter who refused to be cast in a mold.  But she was
+habituated to a high altitude of thought.  Men like Marmontel, La
+Harpe, Grimm, Thomas, and the Abbe Raynal delighted in calling
+out her ready wit, her brilliant repartee, and her precocious
+ideas.  Surrounded thus from childhood with all the appointments
+as well as the talent and esprit that made the life of the salons
+so fascinating; inheriting the philosophic insight of her father,
+the literary gifts of her mother, to which she added a genius all
+her own; heir also to the spirit of conversation, the facility,
+the enthusiasm, the love of pleasing which are the Gallic
+birthright, she took her place in the social world as a queen by
+virtue of her position, her gifts, and her heritage.  Already,
+before her marriage, she had changed the tone of her mother's
+salon.  She brought into it an element of freshness and
+originality which the dignified and rather precise character of
+Mme. Necker had failed to impart.  She gave it also a strong
+political coloring.  This influence was more marked after she
+became the wife of the Swedish ambassador, as she continued for
+some time to pass her evenings in her mother's drawing room,
+where she became more and more a central figure.  Her temperament
+and her tastes were of the world in which she lived, but her
+reason and her expansive sympathies led her to ally herself with
+the popular cause; hence she was, to some extent, a link between
+two conflicting interests.
+
+It was in 1786 that Mme. de Stael entered the world as a married
+woman.  This marriage was arranged for her after the fashion of
+the time, and she accepted it as she would have accepted anything
+tolerable that pleased her idolized father and revered mother. 
+When only ten years of age, she observed that they took great
+pleasure in the society of Gibbon, and she gravely proposed to
+marry him, that they might always have this happiness.  The full
+significance of this singular proposition is not apparent until
+one remembers that the learned historian was not only rather old,
+but so short and fat as to call out from one of his friends the
+remark that when he needed a little exercise he had only to take
+a turn of three times around M. Gibbon.  The Baron de Stael had
+an exalted position, fine manners, a good figure, and a handsome
+face, but he lacked the one thing that Mme. de Stael most
+considered, a commanding talent.  She did not see him through the
+prism of a strong affection which transfigures all things, even
+the most commonplace.  What this must have meant to a woman of
+her genius and temperament whose ideal of happiness was a
+sympathetic marriage, it is not difficult to divine.  It may
+account, in some degree, for her restlessness, her perpetual need
+of movement, of excitement, of society.  But, whatever her
+domestic troubles may have been, they were of limited duration. 
+She was quietly separated from her husband in 1798.  Four years
+later she decided to return to Coppet with him, as he was unhappy
+and longed to see his children.  He died en route.
+
+The period of this marriage was one of the most memorable of
+France, the period when noble and generous spirits rallied in a
+spontaneous movement for national regeneration.  Mme. De Stael
+was in the flush of hope and enthusiasm, fresh from the study of
+Rousseau and her own dreams of human perfectibility; radiant,
+too, with the reflection of her youthful fame.  Among those who
+surrounded her were the Montmorencys, Lafayette, and Count Louis
+de Narbonne, whose brilliant intellect and charming manners
+touched her perhaps too deeply for her peace of mind.  There were
+also Barnave, Chenier, Talleyrand, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, and many
+others of the active leaders of the Revolution.  A few woman
+mingled in her more intimate circle, which was still of the old
+society.  Of these were the ill-fated Duchesse de Gramont, Mme.
+de Lauzun, the Princesse de Poix, and the witty, lovable
+Marechale de Beauvau.  As a rule, though devoted to her friends
+and kind to those who sought her aid, Mme. de Stael did not like
+the society of women.  Perhaps they did not always respond to her
+elevated and swiftly flowing thoughts; or it may be that she
+wounded the vanity of those who were cast into the shade by
+talents so conspicuous and conversation so eloquent, and who felt
+the lack of sympathetic rapport.  Society is au fond republican,
+and is apt to resent autocracy, even the autocracy of genius,
+when it takes the form of monologue.  It is contrary to the
+social spirit.  The salon of Mme. de Stael not only took its tone
+from herself, but it was a reflection of herself.  She was not
+beautiful, and she dressed badly; indeed, she seems to have been
+singularly free from that personal consciousness which leads
+people to give themselves the advantages of an artistic setting,
+even if the taste is not inborn.  She was too intent upon what
+she thought and felt, to give heed to minor details.  But in her
+conversation, which was a sort of improvisation, her eloquent
+face was aglow, her dark eyes flashed with inspiration, her
+superb form and finely poised head seemed to respond to the
+rhythmic flow of thoughts that were emphasized by the graceful
+gestures of an exquisitely molded hand, in which she usually held
+a sprig of laurel.  "If I were queen," said Mme. de Tesse, "I
+would order Mme. de Stael to talk to me always."
+
+But this center in which the more thoughtful spirits of the old
+regime met the brilliant and active leaders of the new was broken
+up by the storm which swept away so many of its leaders, and Mme.
+de Stael, after lingering in the face of dangers to save her
+friends, barely escaped with her life on the eve of the September
+massacres of 1792.  "She is an excellent woman," said one of her
+contemporaries, "who drowns all her friends in order to have the
+pleasure of angling for them."
+
+Mme. de Stael resumed her place and organized her salon anew in
+1795.l But it was her fate to live always in an atmosphere
+surcharged with storms.  She was too republican for the
+aristocrats, and too aristocratic for the republicans. 
+Distrusted by both parties and feared by the Directoire, she
+found it advisable after a few months to retire to Coppet.  Less
+than two years later she was again in Paris.  Her friends were
+then in power, notably Talleyrand. "If I remain here another year
+I shall die," he had written her from America, and she had
+generously secured the repeal of the decree that exiled him, a
+kindness which he promptly forgot.  Though her enthusiasm for the
+republic was much moderated, and though she had been so far
+dazzled by the genius of Napoleon as to hail him as a restorer of
+order, her illusions regarding him were very short-lived.  She
+had no sympathy with his aims at personal power.  Her drawing
+room soon became the rallying point for his enemies and the
+center of a powerful opposition.  But she had a natural love for
+all forms of intellectual distinction, and her genius and fame
+still attracted a circle more or less cosmopolitan.  Ministers of
+state and editors of leading journals were among her guests. 
+Joseph and Lucien Bonaparte were her devoted friends.  The small
+remnant of the noblesse that had any inclination to return to a
+world which had lost its charm for them found there a trace of
+the old politeness.  Mathieu de Montmorency, devout and
+charitable; his brother Adrien, delicate in spirit and gentle in
+manners; Narbonne, still devoted and diplomatic, and the
+Chevalier de Boufflers, gay, witty, and brilliant, were of those
+who brought into it something of the tone of the past regime. 
+There were also the men of the new generation, men who were
+saturated with the principles of the Revolution though regretting
+its methods.  Among these were Chebnier, Regnault, and Benjamin
+Constant.
+
+The influence of Mme. de Stael was at its height during this
+period.  Her talent, her liberal opinions, and her persuasive
+eloquence gave her great power over the constitutional leaders. 
+The measures of the Government were freely discussed and
+criticized in her salon, and men went out with positions well
+defined and speeches well considered.  The Duchesse d'Abrantes
+relates an incident which aptly illustrates this power and its
+reaction upon herself.  Benjamin Constant had prepared a
+brilliant address.  The evening before it was to be delivered,
+Mme. de Stael was surrounded by a large and distinguished
+company.  After tea was served he said to her:
+
+"Your salon is filled with people who please you; if I speak
+tomorrow, it will be deserted.  Think of it."
+
+"One must follow one's convictions," she replied, after a
+moment's hesitation.
+
+She admitted afterward that she would never have refused his
+offer not to compromise her, if she could have foreseen all that
+would follow.
+
+The next day she invited her friends to celebrate his triumph. 
+At four o'clock a note of excuse; in an hour, ten.  From this
+time her fortunes waned.  Many ceased to visit her salon.  Even
+Talleyrand, who owed her so much, came there no more.
+
+In later years she confessed that the three men she had most
+loved were Narbonne, Talleyrand, and Mathieu de Montmorency.  Her
+friendship for the first of these reached a passionate
+exaltation, which had a profound and not altogether wholesome
+influence upon her life.  How completely she was disenchanted is
+shown in a remark she made long afterward of a loyal and
+distinguished man: "He has the manners of Narbonne and a heart." 
+It is a character in a sentence.  Mathieu de Montmorency was a
+man of pure motives, who proved a refuge of consolation in many
+storms, but her regard for him was evidently a gentler flame that
+never burned to extinction.  Whatever illusions she may have had
+as to Talleyrand--and they seem to have been little more than an
+enthusiastic appreciation of his talent--were certainly broken
+by his treacherous desertion in her hour of need.  Not the least
+among her many sorrows was the bitter taste of ingratitude.
+
+But Napoleon, who, like Louis XIV, sought to draw all influences
+and merge all power in himself, could not tolerate a woman whom
+he felt to be in some sense a rival.  He thought he detected her
+hand in the address of Benjamin Constant which lost her so many
+friends.  He feared the wit that flashed in her salon, the satire
+that wounded the criticism that measured his motives and his
+actions.  He recognized the power of a coterie of brilliant
+intellects led by a genius so inspiring.  His brothers, knowing
+her vulnerable point and the will with which she had to deal,
+gave her a word of caution.  But the advice and intercession of
+her friends were alike without avail.  The blow which she so much
+feared fell at last, and she found herself an exile and a
+wanderer from the scenes she most loved.
+
+We have many pleasant glimpses of her life at Coppet, but a
+shadow always rests upon it.  A few friends still cling to her
+through the bitter and relentless persecutions that form one of
+the most singular chapters in history, and offer the most
+remarkable tribute to her genius and her power.  We find here
+Schlegel, Sismondi, Mathieu de Montmorency, Prince Augustus,
+Monti, Mme. Recamier, and many other distinguished visitors of
+various nationalities.  The most prominent figure perhaps was
+Benjamin Constant, brilliant, gifted, eloquent, passionate, vain,
+and capricious, the torturing consolation and the stormy problem
+of her saddest years.  She revived the old literary diversions. 
+At eleven o'clock, we are told, the guests assembled at
+breakfast, and the conversations took a high literary tone.  They
+were resumed at dinner, and continued often until midnight. 
+Here, as elsewhere, Mme. de Stael was queen, holding her guests
+entranced by the magic of her words. "Life is for me like a ball
+after the music has ceased," said Sismondi when her voice was
+silent.  She was a veritable Corinne in her esprit, her
+sentiment, her gift of improvisation, and her underlying
+melancholy.  But in this choice company hers was not the only
+voice, though it was heard above all the others.  Thought and wit
+flashed and sparkled.  Dramas were played--the "Zaire" and
+"Tancred" of Voltaire, and tragedies written by herself.  Mme.
+Recamier acted the Aricie to Mme. de Stael's Phedre.  This life
+that seems to us so fascinating, has been described too often to
+need repetition.  It had its tumultuous elements, its passionate
+undercurrents, its romantic episodes.  But in spite of its
+attractions Mme. de Stael fretted under the peaceful shades of
+Coppet.  Its limited horizon pressed upon her.  The silence of
+the snowcapped mountains chilled her.  She looked upon their
+solitary grandeur with "magnificent horror."  The repose of
+nature was an "infernal peace" which plunged her into gloomier
+depths of ennui and despair.  To some one who was admiring the
+beauties of Lake Leman she replied; "I should like better the
+gutters of the Rue du Bac."  It was people, always people, who
+interested her.  "French conversation exists only in Paris," she
+said, "and conversation has been from infancy my greatest
+pleasure."  Restlessly she sought distraction in travel, but
+wherever she went the iron hand pressed upon her still.  Italy
+fostered her melancholy.  She loved its ruins, which her
+imagination draped with the fading colors of the past and
+associated with the desolation of a living soul.  But its
+exquisite variety of landscape and color does not seem to have
+touched her.  "If it were not for the world's opinion," she said,
+"I would not open my window to see the Bay of Naples for the
+first time, but I would travel five hundred leagues to talk with
+a clever man whom I have not met."  Germany gave her infinite
+food for thought, but her "astonishing volubility," her
+"incessant movement," her constant desire to know, to discuss, to
+penetrate all things wearied the moderate Germans, as it had
+already wearied the serious English.  "Tell me, Monsieur Fichte,"
+she said one day, "could you in a short time, a quarter of an
+hour for example, give me a glimpse of your system and explain
+what you understand by your ME; I find it very obscure." The
+philosopher was amazed at what he thought her impertinence, but
+made the attempt through an interpreter.  At the end of ten
+minutes she exclaimed, "That is sufficient, Monsieur Fichte. 
+That is quite sufficient.  I comprehend you perfectly.  I have
+seen your system in illustration.  It is one of the adventures of
+Baron Munchhausen." "We are in perpetual mental tension," said
+the wife of Schiller.  Even Schiller himself grew tired.  "It
+seems as if I were relieved of a malady," he said, when she left.
+
+It was this excess of vivacity and her abounding sensibility that
+constituted at once her fascination and her misfortune.  Her
+beliefs were enthusiasms.  Her friendships were passions.  "No
+one has carried the religion of friendship so far as myself," she
+said.  To love, to be loved was the supreme need of her soul; but
+her love was a flame that irradiated her intellect and added
+brilliancy to the life it consumed.  She paints in "Corinne" the
+passions, the struggles, the penalties, and the sorrows of a
+woman of genius.  It is a life she had known, a life of which she
+had tasted the sweetest delights and experienced the most cruel
+disenchantments.  "Corinne" at the Capitol, "Corinne" thinking,
+analyzing, loving, suffering, triumphing, wearing a crown of
+laurel upon her head and an invisible crown of thorns upon her
+heart--it is Mme. de Stael self-revealed by the light of her own
+imagination.
+
+It was in a moment of weakness and weariness, when her idols had
+one after another been shattered, and all the pleasant vistas of
+her youth seemed shut out forever, that she met M. de Rocca, a
+wounded officer of good family, but of little more than half her
+years, whose gentle, chivalric character commanded her
+admiration, whose suffering touched her pity, and whose devotion
+won her affection.  "I will love her so much that she will end by
+marrying me," he said, and the result proved his penetration. 
+This marriage, which was a secret one, has shadowed a little the
+brilliancy of her fame, but if it was a weakness to bend from her
+high altitude, it was not a sin, though more creditable to her
+heart than to her worldly wisdom.  At all events it brought into
+her life a new element of repose, and gave her a tender
+consolation in her closing years.
+
+When at last the relentless autocrat of France found his rock-
+bound limits, and she was free to return to the spot which had
+been the goal of all her dreams, it was too late.  Her health was
+broken.  It is true her friends rallied around her, and her
+salon, opened once more, retook a little of its ancient glory. 
+Few celebrities who came to Paris failed to seek the drawing room
+of Mme. de Stael, which was still illuminated with the brilliancy
+of her genius and the splendor of her fame.  But her triumphs
+were past, and life was receding.  Her few remaining days of
+weakness and suffering, darkened by vain regrets, were passed
+more and more in the warmth and tenderness of her devoted family,
+in the noble and elevated thought that rose above the strife of
+politics into the serene atmosphere of a Christian faith.  At her
+death bed Chateaubriand did her tardy justice.  "Bon jour, my
+dear Francis; I suffer, but that does not prevent me from loving
+you," she said to one who had been her critic, but never her
+friend.  Her magnanimity was as unfailing as her generosity, and
+it may be truly said that she never cherished a hatred.
+
+The life of Mme. de Stael was in the world.  She embodied the
+French spirit; she could not conceive of happiness in a secluded
+existence; a theater and an audience were needed to call out her
+best talents.  She could not even bear her griefs alone.  The
+world was taken into her confidence.  She demanded its sympathy. 
+She chanted exquisite requiems over her dead hopes and her lost
+illusions, but she chanted them in costume, never quite
+forgetting that her role was a heroic one.  She added, however,
+to the gifts of an improvisatrice something infinitely higher and
+deeper.  There was no problem with which she was not ready to
+deal.  She felt the pulse beats in the great heart of humanity,
+and her tongue, her pen, her purse, and her influence were ever
+at the bidding of the unfortunate.  She traversed all fields of
+thought, from the pleasant regions of poetry and romance to the
+highest altitudes of philosophy.  We may note the drift of her
+ardent and imaginative nature in the youthful tales into which
+she wove her romantic dreams, her fancied griefs, her inward
+struggles, and her tears.  In the pages of "Corinne" we read the
+poetry, the sensibility, the passion, the melancholy, the thought
+of a matured woman whose youth of the soul neither sorrow nor
+experience could destroy.  We may divine the direction of her
+sympathies, and the fountain of her inspiration, in her letters
+on Rousseau, written at twenty, and foreshadowing her own
+attitude towards the theories which appealed so powerfully to the
+generous spirits of the century.  We may follow the active and
+scholarly workings of her versatile intellect in her pregnant
+thoughts on literature, on the passions, on the Revolution; or
+measure the clearness of her insight, the depth of her
+penetration, the catholicity of her sympathies, and the breadth
+of her intelligence in her profound and masterly, if not always
+accurate, studies of Germany.  The consideration of all this
+pertains to a critical estimate of her character and genius which
+cannot be attempted here.
+
+It has grown to be somewhat the fashion to depreciate the
+literary work of Mme. de Stael.  Measured by present standards
+she leaves something to be desired in logical precision; she had
+not the exactness of the critical scholar, nor the simplicity of
+the careful artist; the luxuriance of her language often obscures
+her thought.  She is talking still, and her written words have
+the rapid, tumultuous flow of conversation, together with its
+occasional negligences, its careless periods, its sudden turns,
+its encumbered phrases.  Misguided she sometimes was, and carried
+away by the resistless rush of ideas that, like the mountain
+torrent, gathered much debris along their course.  But her rapid
+judgments, which have the force of inspiration, are in advance of
+her time, though in the main correct from her own point of view,
+while her flaws in workmanship are more than counterbalanced by
+that inward illumination which is Heaven's richest and rarest
+gift.  But who cares to dwell upon the shadows that scarcely dim
+the brilliancy of a genius so rare and so commanding?  They are
+but spots on the sun that are only discovered by looking through
+a glass that veils its radiance.  It is just to weigh her by the
+standards of her own age.  Born at its highest level, she soared
+far above her generation.  She carried within herself the vision
+of a statesman, the penetration of a critic, the insight of a
+philosopher, the soul of a poet, and the heart of a woman.  If
+she was not without faults, she had rare virtues.  No woman has
+ever exercised a wider or more varied influence.  With one or two
+exceptions, none stands on so high a pinnacle.  George Sand was a
+more finished artist; George Eliot was a greater novelist, a more
+accurate scholar, and a more logical thinker; but in versatility,
+in intellectual spontaneity, in brilliancy of conversation and
+natural eloquence of thought she is without a rival.  Her moral
+standards, too, were above the average of her time.  Her ideals
+were high and pure.  The wealth of her emotions and the rich
+coloring of sentiment in which her thoughts and feelings were
+often clothed left her open to possible misconceptions.  It was
+her fate to be grossly misunderstood, to miss the domestic
+happiness she craved, to be the victim of a sleepless
+persecution, to pass her best years in a dreary exile from the
+life she most loved, to be maligned by her enemies and betrayed
+by her friends.  Her very virtues were construed into faults and
+turned against her.  Though we may not lift the veil from her
+intimate life, we may fairly judge her by her own ideals and her
+dominant traits.  The world, which is rarely indulgent, has been
+in the main just to her motives and her character.  "I have been
+ever the same, intense and sad," were among her last words.  "I
+have loved God, my father, and liberty."  But she was a victim to
+the contradictory elements in her own nature, and walked always
+among storms.  This nature, so complex, so rich, so ardent, so
+passionate, could it ever have found permanent repose?
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE SALONS OF THE EMPIRE AND RESTORATION--MADAME
+RECAMIER
+A Transition Period--Mme. de Montesson--Mme. de Genlis--
+Revival of the Literary Spirit--Mme. de Beaumont--Mme. de
+Remusat--Mme. de Souza--Mme. de Duras--Mme. de Krudener-- 
+Fascination of Mme. Recamier--Her Friends--Her Convent Salon--  
+Chateaubriand--Decline of the Salon
+
+In the best sense, society is born, not made.  A crowd of well-
+dressed people is not necessarily a society.  They may meet and
+disperse with no other bond of union than a fine house and lavish
+hospitality can give.  It may be an assembly without unity,
+flavor, or influence.  In the social chaos that followed the
+Revolution, this truth found a practical illustration.  The old
+circles were scattered.  The old distinctions were virtually
+destroyed, so far as edicts can destroy that which lies in the
+essence of things.  A few who held honored names were left, or
+had returned from a long exile, to find themselves bereft of
+rank, fortune, and friends; but these had small disposition to
+form new associations, and few points of contact with the
+parvenus who had mounted upon the ruins of their order.  The new
+society was composed largely of these parvenus, who were
+ambitious for a position and a life of which they had neither the
+spirit, the taste, the habits, nor the mellowing traditions. 
+Naturally they mistook the gilded frame for the picture. 
+Unfamiliar with the gentle manners, the delicate sense of honor,
+and the chivalrous instincts which underlie the best social life,
+though not always illustrated by its individual members, they
+were absorbed in matters of etiquette of which they were
+uncertain, and exacting of non-essentials.  They regarded society
+upon its commercial side, contended over questions of precedence,
+and, as one of the most observing of their contemporaries has
+expressed it, "bargained for a courtesy and counted visits."  "I
+have seen quarrels in the imperial court," she adds, "over a
+visit more or less long, more or less deferred."  Perhaps it is
+to be considered that in a new order which has many aggressive
+elements, this balancing of courtesies is not without a certain
+raison d'etre as a protection against serious inroads upon time
+and hospitality; but the fault lies behind all this, in the lack
+of that subtle social sense which makes the discussion of these
+things superfluous, not to say impossible.
+
+It was the wish of Napoleon to reconstruct a society that should
+rival in brilliancy the old courts.  With this view he called to
+his aid a few women whose names, position, education, and
+reputation for esprit and fine manners he thought a sufficient
+guarantee of success.  But he soon learned that it could not be
+commanded at will.  The reply of the Duchesse d'Brantes, who has
+left us so many pleasant reminiscences of this period, in which
+she was an actor as well as an observer, was very apt.
+
+"You can do all that I wish," he said to her; "you are all young,
+and almost all pretty; ah, well!  A young and pretty woman can do
+anything she likes."
+
+"Sire, what your Majesty says may be true," she replied, "but
+only to a certain point.  If the Emperor, instead of his guard
+and his good soldiers, had only conscripts who would recoil under
+fire, he could not win great battles like that of Austerlitz. 
+Nevertheless, he is the first general in the world."
+
+But this social life was to serve a personal end.  It was to
+furnish an added instrument of power to the autocrat who ruled,
+to reflect always and everywhere the glory of Napoleon.  The
+period which saw its cleverest woman in hopeless exile, and its
+most beautiful one under a similar ban for the crime of being her
+friend, was not one which favored intellectual supremacy.  The
+empire did not encourage literature, it silenced philosophy, and
+oppressed the talent that did not glorify itself.  Its blighting
+touch rested upon the whole social fabric.  The finer elements
+which, to some extent, entered into it were lost in the glitter
+of display and pretension.  The true spirit of conversation was
+limited to private coteries that kept themselves in the shade,
+and were too small to be noted.
+
+The salon which represented the best side of the new regime was
+that of Mme. de Montesson, wife of the Duc d'Orleans, a woman of
+brilliant talents, finished manners, great knowledge of the
+world, fine gifts of conversation, and, what was equally
+essential, great discrimination and perfect tact.  If her niece,
+Mme. de Genlis, is to be trusted, she had more ambition that
+originality, her reputation was superior to her abilities, and
+her beauty covered many imperfections.  But she had experience,
+finesse, and prestige.  Napoleon was quick to see the value of
+such a woman in reorganizing a court, and treated her with the
+greatest consideration, even asking her to instruct Josephine in
+the old customs and usages.  Her salon, however, united many
+elements which it was impossible to fuse.  There were people of
+all parties and all conditions, a few of the nobles and returned
+emigres, the numerous members of the Bonaparte family, the new
+military circle, together with many people of influence "not to
+the manner born."  Mme. de Montesson revived the old amusements,
+wrote plays for the entertainment of her guests gave grand
+dinners and brilliant fetes.  But the accustomed links were
+wanting.  Her salon simply illustrates a social life in a state
+of transition.
+
+Mme. de Genlis had lived much in the world before the Revolution,
+and her position in the family of the Duc d'Orleans, together
+with her great versatility of talent, had given her a certain
+vogue.  Author, musician, teacher, moralist, critic, poser,
+egotist, femme d'esprit, and friend of princes, her romantic life
+would fill a volume and cannot be even touched upon in a few
+lines.  After ten years of exile she returned to Paris, and her
+salon at the Arsenal was a center for a few celebrities.  Many of
+these names have small significance today.  A few men like
+Talleyrand, LaHarpe, Fontanes, and Cardinal Maury were among her
+friends,, and she was neutral enough, or diplomatic enough, not
+to give offense to the new government.  But she was a woman of
+many affectations, and in spite of her numerous accomplishments,
+her cleverness, and her literary fame, the circle she gathered
+about her was never noted for its brilliancy or its influence. 
+As a historic figure, she is more remarkable for the variety of
+her voluminous work, her educational theories, and her
+observations upon the world in which she lived, than for talents
+of a purely social order.
+
+One is little inclined to dwell upon the ruling society of this
+period.  It had neither the dignity of past traditions nor
+freedom of intellectual expression.  Its finer shades were
+drowned in loud and glaring colors.  The luxury that could be
+commanded counted for more than the wit and intelligence that
+could not.
+
+As the social elements readjusted themselves on a more natural
+basis, there were a few salons out of the main drift of the time
+in which the literary spirit flourished once more, blended with
+the refined tastes, the elegant manners, and the amiable courtesy
+that had distinguished the old regime.  But the interval in which
+history was made so rapidly, and the startling events of a
+century were condensed into a decade, had wrought many vital
+changes.  It was no longer the spirit of the eighteenth century
+that reappeared under its revived and attractive forms.  We note
+a tone of seriousness that had no permanent place in that world
+of esprit and skepticism, of fine manners and lax morals, which
+divided its allegiance between fashion and philosophy.  The
+survivors of so many heart-breaking tragedies, with their weary
+weight of dead hopes and sad memories, found no healing balm in
+the cold speculation and scathing wit of Diderot or Voltaire. 
+Even the devotees of philosophy gave it but a half-hearted
+reverence.  It was at this moment that Chateaubriand, saturated
+with the sorrows of his age, and penetrated with the hopelessness
+of its philosophy, offered anew the truths that had sustained the
+suffering and broken-hearted for eighteen centuries, in a form so
+sympathetic, so fascinating, that it thrilled the sensitive
+spirits of his time, and passed like an inspiration into the
+literature of the next fifty years.  The melancholy of "Rene" found
+its divine consolation in the "Genius of Christianity."  It was
+this spirit that lent a new and softer coloring to the intimate
+social life that blended in some degree the tastes and manners of
+the old noblesse with a refined and tempered form of modern
+thought.  It recalls, in many points, the best spirit of the
+seventeenth century.  There is a flavor of the same seriousness,
+the same sentiment.  It is the sentiment that sent so many
+beautiful women to the solitude of the cloister, when youth had
+faded and the air of approaching age began to grow chilly.  But
+it is not to the cloister that these women turn.  They weave
+romantic tales out of the texture of their own lives, they repeat
+their experiences, their illusions, their triumphs, and their
+disenchantments.  As the day grows more somber and the evening
+shadows begin to fall, they meditate, they moralize, they
+substitute prayers for dreams.  But they think also.  The drama
+of the late years had left no thoughtful soul without earnest
+convictions.  There were numerous shades of opinion, many finely
+drawn issues.  In a few salons these elements were delicately
+blended, and if they did not repeat the brilliant triumphs of the
+past, if they focused with less power the intellectual light
+which was dispersed in many new channels, they have left behind
+them many fragrant memories.  One is tempted to linger in these
+temples of a goddess half-dethroned.  One would like to study
+these women who added to the social gifts of their race a
+character that had risen superior to many storms, hearts that
+were mellowed and purified by premature sorrow, and intellects
+that had taken a deeper and more serious tone from long brooding
+over the great problems of their time.  But only a glance is
+permitted us here.  Most of them have been drawn in living colors
+by Saint-Beuve, from whom I gather here and there a salient
+trait.
+
+Who that is familiar with the fine and exquisite thought of
+Joubert can fail to be interested in the delicate and fragile
+woman whom he met in her supreme hour of suffering, to find in
+her a rare and permanent friend, a literary confidante, and an
+inspiration?  Mme. de Beaumont--the daughter of Montmorin, who
+had been a colleague of Necker in the ministry--had been
+forsaken by a worthless husband, had seen father, mother,
+brother, perish by the guillotine, and her sister escape it only
+by losing her reason, and then her life, before the fatal day. 
+She, too, had been arrested with the others, but was so ill and
+weak that she was left to die by the roadside en route to Paris-- 
+a fate from which she was saved by the kindness of a peasant.  It
+was at this moment that Joubert befriended her.  These numerous
+and crushing sorrows had shattered her health, which was never
+strong, but during the few brief years that remained to her she
+was the center of a coterie more distinguished for quality than
+numbers.  Joubert and Chateaubriand were its leading spirits, but
+it included also Fontanes, Pasquier, Mme. de Vintimille, Mme. de
+Pastoret, and other friends who had survived the days in which
+she presided with such youthful dignity over her father's salon. 
+The fascination of her fine and elevated intellect, her gentle
+sympathy, her keen appreciation of talent, and her graces of
+manner lent a singular charm to her presence.  Her character was
+aptly expressed by this device which Rulhiere had suggested for
+her seal: "Un souffle m'agite et rien ne m'ebrante." 
+Chateaubriand was enchanted with a nature so pure, so poetic, and
+so ardent.  He visited her daily, read to her "Atala" and "Rene,"
+and finished the "Genius of Christianity" under her influence.  He
+was young then, and that she loved him is hardly doubtful, though
+the friendship of Joubert was far truer and more loyal than the
+passing devotion of this capricious man of genius, who seems to
+have cared only for his own reflection in another soul.  But this
+sheltered nook of thoughtful repose, this conversational oasis in
+a chaotic period had a short duration.  Mme. de Beaumont died at
+Rome, where she had gone in the faint hope of reviving her
+drooping health, in 1803.  Chateaubriand was there, watched over
+her last hours with Bertin, and wrote eloquently of her death. 
+Joubert mourned deeply and silently over the light that had gone
+out of his life.
+
+We have pleasant reminiscences of the amiable, thoughtful, and
+spirituelle Mme. de Remusat, who has left us such vivid records
+of the social and intimate life of the imperial court.  A
+studious and secluded childhood, prematurely saddened by the
+untimely fate of her father in the terrible days of 1794, an
+early and congenial marriage, together with her own wise
+penetration and clear intellect, enabled her to traverse this
+period without losing her delicate tone or serious tastes.  She
+had her quiet retreat into which the noise and glare did not
+intrude, where a few men of letters and thoughtful men of the
+world revived the old conversational spirit.  She amused her idle
+hours by writing graceful tales, and, after the close of her
+court life and the weakening of her health, she turned her
+thoughts towards the education and improvement of her sex. 
+Blended with her wide knowledge of the world, there is always a
+note of earnestness, a tender coloring of sentiment, which
+culminates towards the end in a lofty Christian resignation.
+
+We meet again at this time a woman known to an earlier generation
+as Mme. de Flahaut, and made familiar to us through the pens of
+Talleyrand and Gouverneur Morris.  She saw her husband fall by
+the guillotine, and, after wandering over Europe for years as an
+exile, became the wife of M. de Souza, and, returning to Paris,
+took her place in a quiet corner of the unaccustomed world,
+writing softly colored romances after the manner of Mme. de La
+Fayette, wearing with grace the honors her literary fame brought
+her, and preserving the tastes, the fine courtesies, the gentle
+manners, the social charms, and the delicate vivacity of the old
+regime.
+
+One recalls, too, Mme. de Duras, whose father, the noble and
+fearless Kersaint, was the companion of Mme. Roland at the
+scaffold; who drifted to our own shores until the storms had
+passed, and, after saving her large fortune in Martinique,
+returned matured and saddened to France.  As the wife of the Duc
+de Duras, she gathered around her a circle of rank, talent, and
+distinction.  Chateaubriand, Humboldt, Curier, de Montmorency
+were among her friends.  What treasures of thought and
+conversation do these names suggest!  What memories of the past,
+what prophecies for the future!  Mme. de Duras, too, wore
+gracefully the mantle of authorship with which she united
+pleasant household cares.  She, too, put something of the sad
+experiences of her own life into romances which reflect the
+melancholy of this age of restlessness and lost illusions.  She,
+too, like many of the women of her time whose youth had been
+blighted by suffering, passed into an exalted Christian strain. 
+The friend of Mme. de Stael, the literary CONFIDANTE of
+Chateaubriand, the woman of many talents, many virtues, and many
+sorrows, died with words of faith and hope and divine consolation
+on her lips.
+
+The devotion of Mme. de Cantal, the mysticism of Mme. Guyon, find
+a nineteenth-century counterpart in the spiritual illumination of
+Mme. de Krudener.  Passing from a life of luxury and pleasure to
+a life of penitence and asceticism, singularly blending
+worldliness and piety, opening her salon with prayer, and adding
+a new sensation to the gay life of Paris, this adviser of
+Alexander I, and friend of Benjamin Constant, who put her best
+life into the charming romances which ranked next to "Corinne" and
+"Delphine" in their time; this beautiful woman, novelist,
+prophetess, mystic, illuminee, fanatic, with the passion of the
+South and the superstitious vein of the far North, disappeared
+from the world she had graced, and gave up her life in an ecstasy
+of sacrifice in the wilderness of the Crimea.
+
+It is only to indicate the altered drift of the social life that
+flowed in quiet undercurrents during the Empire and came to the
+surface again after the Restoration; to trace lightly the slow
+reaction towards the finer shades of modern thought and modern
+morality, that I touch--so briefly and so inadequately--upon
+these women who represent the best side of their age, leaving
+altogether untouched many of equal gifts and equal note.
+
+There is one, however, whose salon gathered into itself the last
+rays of the old glory, and whose fame as a social leader has
+eclipsed that of all her contemporaries.  Mme. Recamier, "the
+last flower of the salons," is the woman of the century who has
+been, perhaps, most admired, most loved, and most written about. 
+It has been so much the fashion to dwell upon her marvelous
+beauty, her kindness, and her irresistible fascination, that she
+has become, to some extent, an ideal figure invested with a
+subtle and poetic grace that folds itself about her like the
+invisible mantle of an enchantress.  Her actual relations to the
+world in which she lived extended over a long period, terminating
+only on the threshold of our own generation.  Without strong
+opinions or pronounced color, loyal to her friends rather than to
+her convictions, of a calm and happy temperament, gentle in
+character, keenly appreciative of all that was intellectually
+fine and rare, but without exceptional gifts herself, fascinating
+in manner, perfect in tact, with the beauty of an angel and the
+heart of a woman--she presents a fitting close to the long reign
+of the salons.
+
+We hear of her first in the bizarre circles of the Consulate, as
+the wife of a man who was rather father than husband, young,
+fresh, lovely, accomplished, surrounded by the luxuries of
+wealth, and captivating all hearts by that indefinable charm of
+manner which she carried with her to the end of her life.  Both
+at Paris and at her country house at Clichy she was the center of
+a company in which the old was discreetly mingled with the new,
+in which enmities were tempered, antagonisms softened, and the
+most discordant elements brought into harmonious rapport, for the
+moment, at least, by her gracious word or her winning smile. 
+Here we find Adrien and Mathieu de Montmorency, who already
+testified the rare friendship that was to outlive years and
+misfortunes; Mme. de Stael before her exile; Narbonne, Barrere,
+Bernadotte, Moreau, and many distinguished foreigners.  Lucien
+Bonaparte was at her feet; LaHarpe was devoted to her interests;
+Napoleon was trying in vain to draw her into his court, and
+treasuring up his failure to another.  The salon of Mme. Recamie
+was not in any sense philosophical or political, but after the
+cruel persecution of LaHarpe, the banishment or Mme. de Stael,
+and the similar misfortunes of other friends, her sympathies were
+too strong for her diplomacy, and it gradually fell into the
+ranks of the opposition.  It was well known that the emperor
+regarded all who went there as his enemies, and this young and
+innocent woman was destined to feel the full bitterness of his
+petty displeasure.  We cannot trace here the incidents of her
+varied career, the misfortunes of the father to whom she was a
+ministering angel, the loss of her husband's fortune and her own,
+the years of wandering and exile, the second period of brief and
+illusive prosperity, and the swift reverses which led to her
+final retreat.  She was at the height of her beauty and her fame
+in the early days of the Restoration, when her salon revived its
+old brilliancy, and was a center in which all parties met on
+neutral ground.  Her intimate relations with those in power gave
+it a strong political influence, but this was never a marked
+feature, as it was mainly personal.
+
+But the position in which one is most inclined to recall Mme.
+Recamier is in the convent of Abbaye-aux-Bois, where, divested of
+fortune and living in the simplest manner, she preserved for
+nearly thirty years the fading traditions of the old salons. 
+Through all the changes which tried her fortitude and revealed
+the latent heroism of her character, she seems to have kept her
+sweet serenity unbroken, bending to the passing storms with the
+grace of a facile nature, but never murmuring at the inevitable. 
+One may find in this inflexible strength and gentleness of temper
+a clue to the subtle fascination which held the devoted
+friendship of so many gifted men and women, long after the fresh
+charm of youth was gone.
+
+The intellectual gifts of Mme. Recamier, as has been said before,
+were not of a high or brilliant order.  She was neither profound
+nor original, nor given to definite thought.  Her letters were
+few, and she has left no written records by which she can be
+measured.  She read much, was familiar with current literature,
+also with religious works.  But the world is slow to accord a
+twofold superiority, and it is quite possible that the fame of
+her beauty has prevented full justice to her mental abilities. 
+Mme. de Genlis tells us that she has a great deal of esprit.  It
+is certain that no woman could have held her place as the center
+of a distinguished literary circle and the confidante and adviser
+of the first literary men of her time, without a fine
+intellectual appreciation.  "To love what is great," said Mme.
+Necker "is almost to be great one's self."  Ballanche advised her
+to translate Petrarch, and she even began the work, but it was
+never finished.  "Believe me," he writes, "you have at your
+command the genius of music, flowers, imagination, and elegance.
+. . .  Do not fear to try your hand on the golden lyre of the
+poets."  He may have been too much blinded by a friendship that
+verged closely upon a more passionate sentiment to be an
+altogether impartial critic, but it was a high tribute to her
+gifts that a man of such conspicuous talents thought her capable
+of work so exacting.  Her qualities were those of taste and a
+delicate imagination rather than of reason.  Her musical
+accomplishments were always a resource.  She sang, played the
+harp and piano, and we hear of her during a summer at Albano
+playing the organ at vespers and high mass.  She danced
+exquisitely, and it was her ravishing grace that suggested the
+shawl dance of "Corinne" to Mme. de Stael and of "Valerie" to Mme.
+de Krudener.  One can fancy her, too, at Coppet, playing the role
+of the angel to Mme. de Stael's Hagar--a spirit of love and
+consolation to the stormy and despairing soul of her friend.
+
+But her real power lay in the wonderful harmony of her nature, in
+the subtle penetration that divined the chagrins and weaknesses
+of others, only to administer a healing balm; in the delicate
+tact that put people always on the best terms with themselves,
+and gave the finest play to whatever talents they possessed.  Add
+to this a quality of beauty which cannot be caught by pen or
+pencil, and one can understand the singular sway she held over
+men and women alike.  Mme. de Krudener, whose salon so curiously
+united fashion and piety, worldliness and mysticism, was troubled
+by the distraction which the entrance of Mme. Recamier was sure
+to cause, and begged Benjamin Constant to write and entreat her
+to make herself as little charming as possible.  His note is
+certainly unique, though it loses much of its piquancy in
+translation:
+
+"I acquit myself with a little embarrassment of a commission
+which Mme. de Krudener has just given me.  She begs you to come
+as little beautiful as you can.  She says that you dazzle all the
+world, and that consequently every soul is troubled and attention
+is impossible.  You cannot lay aside your charms, but do not add
+to them."
+
+In her youth she dressed with great simplicity and was fond of
+wearing white with pearls, which accorded well with the dazzling
+purity of her complexion.
+
+Mme. Recamier was not without vanity, and this is the reverse
+side of her peculiar gifts.  She would have been more than mortal
+if she had been quite unconscious of attractions so rare that
+even the children in the street paid tribute to them.  But one
+finds small trace of the petty jealousies and exactions that are
+so apt to accompany them.  She liked to please, she wished to be
+loved, and this inevitably implies a shade of coquetry in a young
+and beautiful woman.  There is an element of fascination in this
+very coquetry, with its delicate subtleties and its shifting
+tints of sentiment.  That she carried it too far is no doubt
+true; that she did so wittingly is not so certain.  Her victims
+were many, and if they quietly subsided into friends, as they
+usually did, it was after many struggles and heart burnings.  But
+if she did not exercise her power with invariable discretion, it
+seems to have been less the result of vanity than a lack of
+decision and an amiable unwillingness to give immediate pain, or
+to lose the friend with the lover.  With all her fine qualities
+of heart and soul, she had a temperament that saved her from much
+of the suffering she thoughtlessly inflicted upon others.  The
+many violent passions she roused do not seem to have disturbed at
+all her own serenity.  The delicate and chivalrous nature of
+Mathieu de Montmorency, added to his years, gave his relations to
+her a half-paternal character, but that he loved her always with
+the profound tenderness of a loyal and steadfast soul is apparent
+through all the singularly disinterested phases of a friendship
+that ended only with his life.
+
+Prince Augustus, whom she met at Coppet, called up a passing
+ripple on the surface of her heart, sufficiently strong to lead
+her to suggest a divorce to her husband, whose relations to her,
+though always friendly, were only nominal.  But he appealed to
+her generosity, and she thought of it no more.  Why she permitted
+her princely suitor to cherish so long the illusions that time
+and distance do not readily destroy is one of the mysteries that
+are not easy to solve.  Perhaps she thought it more kind to let
+absence wear out a passion than to break it too rudely.  At all
+events, he cherished no permanent bitterness, and never forgot
+her.  At his death, nearly forty years later he ordered her
+portrait by Gerard to be returned, but her ring was buried with
+him.
+
+The various phases of the well-known infatuation of Benjamin
+Constant, which led him to violate his political principles and
+belie his own words rather than take a course that must result in
+separation from her, suggest a page of highly colored romance. 
+The letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse scarcely furnish us with a
+more ardent episode in the literature of hopeless passion.  The
+worshipful devotion of Ampere and Ballanche would form a chapter
+no less interesting, though less intense and stormy.
+
+But the name most inseparably connected with Mme. Recamier is
+that of Chateaubriand.  The friendship of an unquestioned sort
+that seems to have gone quite out of the world, had all the
+phases of a more tender sentiment, and goes far towards
+disproving the charge of coldness that has often been brought
+against her.  It was begun after she had reached the dreaded
+forties, by the death bed of Mme. de Stael, and lasted more than
+thirty years.  It seems to have been the single sentiment that
+mastered her.  One may trace in the letters of Chateaubriand the
+restless undercurrents of this life that was outwardly so serene. 
+He writes to her from Berlin, from England, from Rome.  He
+confides to her his ambitions, tells her his anxieties, asks her
+counsel as to his plans, chides her little jealousies, and
+commends his wife to her care and attention.  This recalls a
+remarkable side of her relations with the world.  Women are not
+apt to love formidable rivals, but the wives of her friends
+apparently shared the admiration with which their husbands
+regarded her.  If they did not love her, they exchanged friendly
+notes, and courtesies that were often more than cordial.  She
+consoles Mme. de Montmorency in her sorrow, and Mme. de
+Chateaubriand asks her to cheer her husband's gloomy moods. 
+Indeed, she roused little of that bitter jealousy which is
+usually the penalty of exceptional beauty or exceptional gifts of
+any sort.  The sharp tongue of Mme. de Genlis lost its sting in
+writing of her.  She idealized her as Athenais, in the novel of
+that name, which has for its background the beauties of Coppet,
+and vaguely reproduces much of its life.  The pious and austere
+Mme. Swetchine, whose prejudices against her were so strong that
+for a long time she did not wish to meet her, confessed herself
+at once a captive to her "penetrating and indefinable charm." 
+Though she did not always escape the shafts of malice, no better
+tribute could be offered to the graces of her character than the
+indulgence with which she was regarded by the most severely
+judging of her own sex.
+
+But she has her days of depression.  Chateaubriand is absorbed in
+his ambitions and sometimes indifferent; his antagonistic
+attitude towards Montmorency, who is far the nobler character of
+the two, is a source of grief to her.  She tries in vain to
+reconcile her rival friends.  Once she feels compelled to tear
+herself from an influence which is destroying her happiness, and
+goes to Italy.  But she carries within her own heart the seeds
+of unrest.  She still follows the movements of the man who
+occupies so large a space in her horizon, sympathizes from afar
+with his disappointments, and cares for his literary interest,
+ordering from Tenerani, a bas-relief of a scene from "The Martyrs."
+
+After her return her life settles into more quiet channels. 
+Chateaubriand, embittered by the chagrins of political life,
+welcomed her with the old enthusiasm.  From this time he devoted
+himself exclusively to letters, and sought his diversion in the
+convent-salon which has left so wide a fame, and of which he was
+always the central figure.  The petted man of genius was moody
+and capricious.  His colossal egotism found its best solace in
+the gentle presence of the woman who flattered his restless
+vanity, anticipated his wishes, studied his tastes, and watched
+every shadow that flitted across his face.  He was in the habit
+of writing her a few lines in the morning; at three o'clock he
+visited her, and they chatted over their tea until four, when
+favored visitors began to arrive.  In the evening it was a little
+world that met there.  The names of Ampere, Tocqueville,
+Montalembert, Merimee, Thierry, and Sainte-Beuve suggest the
+literary quality of this circle, in which were seen from time to
+time such foreign celebrities as Sir Humphry and Lady Darcy,
+Maria Edgeworth, Humboldt, the Duke of Hamilton, the gifted
+Duchess of Devonshire, and Miss Berry.  Lamartine read his
+"Meditations" and Delphine Gay her first poems.  Rachel recited,
+and Pauline Viardot, Garcia, Rubini, and Lablache sang.  
+Delacroix, David, and Gerard represented the world of art, and
+the visitors from the grand monde were too numerous to mention. 
+In this brilliant and cosmopolitan company, what resources of wit
+and knowledge, what charms of beauty and elegance, what splendors
+of rank and distinction were laid upon the altar of the lovely
+and adored woman, who recognized all values, and never forgot the
+kindly word or the delicate courtesy that put the most modest
+guests at ease and brought out the best there was in them!
+
+One day in 1847 there was a vacant place, and the faithful
+Ballanche came no more from his rooms across the street.  A year
+later Chateaubriand died.  After the death of his wife he had
+wished to marry Mme. Recamier, but she thought it best to change
+nothing, believing that age and blindness had given her the right
+to devote herself to his last days.  To her friends she said that
+if she married him, he would miss the pleasure and variety of his
+daily visits.
+
+Old, blind, broken in health and spirit, but retaining always the
+charm which had given her the empire over so many hearts, she
+followed him in a few months.
+
+Mme. Recamier represents better than any woman of her time the
+peculiar talents that distinguished the leaders of some of the
+most famous salons.  She had tact, grace, intelligence,
+appreciation, and the gift of inspiring others.  The cleverest
+men and women of the age were to be met in her drawing room.  One
+found there genius, beauty, esprit, elegance, courtesy, and the
+brilliant conversation which is the Gallic heritage.  But not
+even her surpassing fascination added to all these attractions
+could revive the old power of the salon.  Her coterie was
+charming, as a choice circle gathered about a beautiful, refined,
+accomplished woman, and illuminated by the wit and intelligence
+of thoughtful men, will always be; but its influence was limited
+and largely personal, and it has left no perceptible traces.  Nor
+has it had any noted successor.  It is no longer coteries
+presided over by clever women that guide the age and mold its
+tastes or its political destinies.  The old conditions have
+ceased to exist, and the prestige of the salon is gone.
+
+The causes that led to its decline have been already more or less
+indicated.  Among them, the decay of aristocratic institutions
+played only a small part.  The salons were au fond democratic in
+the sense that all forms of distinction were recognized so far as
+they were amenable to the laws of taste, which form the ultimate
+tribunal of social fitness in France.  But it cannot be denied
+that the code of etiquette which ruled them had its foundation in
+the traditions of the noblesse.  The genteel manners, the absence
+of egotism and self-assertion, as of disturbing passions, the
+fine and uniform courtesy which is the poetry of life, are the
+product of ease and assured conditions.  It is struggle that
+destroys harmony and repose, whatever stronger qualities it may
+develop, and the greater mingling of classes which inevitably
+resulted in this took something from the exquisite flavor of the
+old society.  The increase of wealth, too, created new standards
+that were fatal to a life in which the resources of wit,
+learning, and education in its highest sense were the chief
+attractions.  The greater perfection of all forms of public
+amusement was not without its influence.  Men drifted, also, more
+and more into the one-sided life of the club.  Considered as a
+social phase, no single thing has been more disastrous to the
+unity of modern society than this.  But the most formidable enemy
+of the salon has been the press.  Intelligence has become too
+universal to be focused in a few drawing rooms.  Genius and
+ambition have found a broader arena.  When interest no longer led
+men to seek the stimulus and approval of a powerful coterie, it
+ceased to be more than an elegant form of recreation, a theater
+of small talents, the diversion of an idle hour.  When the press
+assumed the sovereignty, the salon was dethroned.
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of The Women of the French Salons
+by Amelia Gere Mason
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