Until her dotage this woman, who, from a natural selfishness and lack of sympathy, was incapable of loving with the characteristic ardor of the women of her time, by knowing how to inspire love in others, controlled and held near her the famous men and women of her age. When she began to realize the calamity of her failing sight, which was probably due to her general state of restlessness and the resultant physical decay, she received, as companion, a relative, Mlle. de Lespinasse, who undertook the most difficult, disagreeable, and ungrateful task of waiting on the marquise. As Mme. du Deffand arose in time to receive at six, mademoiselle soon announced to the friends that she herself would be visible at an earlier hour. Thus, it happened that Marmontel, Turgot, Condorcet, and d'Alembert regularly assembled in mademoiselle's room—a proceeding which soon led to a rupture between the two women and a breach between Mme. du Deffand and d'Alembert. The marquise was therefore left alone, blind, but too proud to tolerate pity, yet by her conversation retaining her power of fascination. It was about this time that Horace Walpole became connected with her life. Upon the death of Mme. Geoffrin, she, hearing of the imposing ceremonies and funeral orations, exclaimed:Voilà bien du bruit pour une omelette au lard. [A great ado about a lard omelet!] Her latter years were dragged out most miserably, being marked by a singular feverishness and unavailing efforts toward the acceptance of some faith. Her death, in 1780, finally brought her relief.
The career of Mme. du Deffand actually began as early as 1730, when she opened her establishment on the Rue de Beaune, at the time that she became attached to the president Hénault, who presided over her salon for more than thirty years. The famous salon Du Deffand at the Convent Saint-Joseph was not opened until 1749; thereshe was very particular as to those whom she received, and access to her salon was a matter of difficulty. Grimm was never received, and Diderot was present but once. The conversation was always intellectual, and whenever she tired of French vivacity, she would spend an evening with Mme. Necker.
A letter of Walpole to Montagu leaves, on the whole, a splendid picture of her: "I have heard her dispute with all sorts of people, upon all sorts of subjects, and never knew her to be in the wrong. She humbles the learned, sets right their disciples, and finds conversation for everybody. As affectionate as Mme. de Sévigné, she has none of her prejudices, but a more universal taste; and with the most delicate frame, her spirits hurry her through a life of fatigue that would kill me were I to remain here."
The simple furnishings of her apartments, which were very spacious and had been occupied by the famous Mme. de Montespan, stood out in striking contrast to the elegance of her visitors. Here she gathered about her her two lovers,le PrésidentHénault and Pont de Veyle, besides D'Alembert, Turgot, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Necker, Walpole, the Abbés Barthélemy and Pernetty, the Chevalier de Lisle, de Formant,le DocteurGatti, Hume, Gibbon, Baron de Gleichen, and many other celebrities, including the Princesses de Beauvau, de Poix, de Talmont, the Duchesses de Choiseul, d'Aiguillon, de Gramont, the Maréchale de Luxembourg, the Marquises de Boufflers and du Châtelet, the Comtesses de Rochefort, de Broglie, de Forcalquier, Mme. Necker, Lady Pembroke, De Lauzun, and many others, all of whom were society leaders. Whenever Mme. du Deffand had a special supper, it was said that Paris was at Mme. du Deffand's.
Her salon, above all others, was the centre of cosmopolitanism, where all great men, foreigners and natives, foundmeans of social intercourse, and where, more than in any other salon, were assembled the great beauties of the day, represented especially by the Countesses de Forcalquier and Choiseul-Beaupré, Duchesse de La Vallière. Gallantry and beauty were found in the Maréchale de Luxembourg and the Comtesse de Boufflers. The philosophical movement of the Encyclopædists and Economists was not encouraged at all. Thus, in Mme. du Deffand's salon, we find neither pure philosophy nor religion, nor the air of pedants anddéclamateurs; it was a royalist salon without illusion, hence indifferent to all questions. It represented the perfect type of the French model ofesprit de finesse,—that is, precision,—and its leader possessed a keen insight into human character.
This wonderful woman, who, during a period of over forty years, had held at her feet the élite of the French world, at the age of about threescore and ten, fell desperately in love with a man of fifty—Horace Walpole. She who had never loved with her heart, but only with her mind, then declared it better to be dead than not to love someone. Although her actions and letters were pitiful in the extreme, her epistles are invaluable for their incomparable portraitures and keen reflections upon persons and events of the time. She attracted Walpole by the possibilities that were opened up to him by her position in society, and by her brilliant conversation, in which she scoffed at the clergy and the philosophers, showing a profound insight into human nature and the society of the time as well as into politics. Their correspondence shows one of the most pitiful, pathetic, and lamentable love tales in the history of society. He looked upon her friendship as a most valuable acquisition by which he was kept in touch with all the scandals and stories of society, of which he was so fond, and she mistook that friendship for love.He felt himself flattered in being the one preferred by such a distinguished old lady of high society.
All critics are at a loss for the explanation of such a love in a woman of seventy. Was it the result of the lifetime of disappointment of a woman who had constantly sought love but had never found it? Was it, thus, the hallucination of the childish old age of the woman who was physically consumed by incessant social functions and all-night reading? Mme. du Deffand sees in Walpole her ideal, and she gives expression to her feelings, regardless of propriety; for she is childish and irresponsible. To a certain extent, the same was true of Mme. de Staël, but she was still physically healthy and young enough to enjoy life and the realization of that which she had so long desired—an ideal affection. In the case of Mme. du Deffand, the soul was willing, but the body failed. Her emotion can scarcely be termed love, but is rather to be designated as a mental hallucination, an exaggerated intellectual affection bordering upon sentimentality—the outgrowth of that morbid imagination developed from her long suffering from ennui.
She was a woman destined to pass by the side of happiness without ever reaching it. She hardly had enjoyed what may be called friendship; she was always either suspicious of it and of her friends' sentiments, or she herself broke off relations for some trivial reason. This woman, however, always longed to believe her friends sincere, but never succeeded. "Her friends either leave her, they die, or they are far away; or, if present, faithful and attached to her, she cannot believe in their affection; her cursed scepticism deceived her heart."
Mme. du Deffand was one of the few women of the eighteenth century who saw reality and nothing but reality, and admitted what she saw; she was gifted with suchquick penetration and such mental facility that she stands out prominently as one of the brightest and most intellectual of the spiritual women of her time. This quickness of perception and tendency to follow a mere impression made it difficult for her to examine closely, to be patient of details; too sure of herself, too emotional, too passionate, she displayed injustice, vehemence, over-enthusiasm; easily bored and disgusted, she was, at the same time, susceptible to infatuation. Scherer said: "She is a superior man in a body of a nervous and weak woman."
She was a woman dominated by her reason—a characteristic which led to an incurable ennui, thus causing her terrible suffering, but equipping her with a penetration which saw through the world and knew man, whom she divided into three classes:les trompeurs,les trompés,les trompettes. According to her judgment, man is either fatiguing or, if brilliantly endowed, usually false or jealous; but she realized, also, her own shortcomings, the incompleteness of her faculties. "The force of her thought does not reach talent; her intelligence is active and responsive, but fails to respond. She often shows a sovereign disdain for herself, everybody, and everything. She arrives at a point in life when she no longer has passion, desire, or even curiosity; she detests life, and dreads death because she does not know that there is another world. She is not happy enough to do without those whom she scorns, and must therefore seek diversion in the conversation of stupid people, preferring anything to solitude; this refers to the time when her best friends are no more and when she herself is out of her formermilieu); she was too old, or lived too long; she belongs to another age."
By her friends she was called the feminine Voltaire, and the celebrated philosopher and she were drawn together by a very similar habit of mind, although, to her intimates,she scorched Voltaire; but in writing to him she would overwhelm him with compliments, calling him the only orthodox representative of good taste. In general, she detested philosophers, because their hearts were cold and their minds preoccupied with themselves.
Mme. du Deffand had an inherent passion for simplicity, frankness, justice, and a hatred for deceit and affectation; but, strange as it may seem, her nature required variety in her pleasure—new people, new pursuits, new amusements, new agitations for her hungry mind; she was too critical to be contented and to put implicit trust in her friends. An agnostic, always endeavoring to probe into the nature of things, the possession of a personal, living faith was yet the strongest desire of her heart; all her life she longed for the peace that religion affords, but this was denied her, although she had the spiritual assistance of the most famous of the clergy, attended church, had her oratory, her confessor, and faithfully studied the Bible; all was vain—belief would not come to her. The marriage tie was not sacred to her, which was the case with many of the French women of the day, but she went further in lacking all reverence for religious ceremony, though she respected the beliefs of others.
She was all wit and intellectuality. In order to keep her friends from falling under the spell of ennui, she devoted herself to the culinary art, and her suppers became famous for their rare dishes. "She is an example of the type that was predominant in the time—one that had lived too much and was dying from excess of knowledge and pleasure; but she sought that which did not exist in that age,—serenity, peace, faith. She was passionate, sensitive, and sympathetic, in a cold, heartless, and unfeeling world. She needed variety; being bored with society, solitude, husband, lovers, herself, nothing remained forher but to await deliverance by death." This came to her in 1780.
In matters literary, Mme. du Deffand preserved an absolute liberty and independence of opinion. She refused to accept the verdicts of the most competent judges; with instinctive attractions and repulsions, she found but few writers that pleased her. Boileau, Lesage, Chamfort, were her favorites. She said that Buffon was of an unendurable monotony. "He knows well what he knows, but he is occupied with beasts only; one must be something of a beast one's self in order to devote one's self to such an occupation."
As a writer, she showed remarkable good sense, admirable sincerity, rare judgment, justness, and precision; depth and charm were present in a less degree than were other desirable qualities, but she exhibited excellentesprit. She was probably the most subtile, and at the same time the most fastidious person of the century. The best portraits of her were written by her own pen; two of them we give, one written at the beginning of her career in 1728, the other at its end in 1774.
"Mme. la Marquise du Deffand is an enemy of all falseness and affectation. Her talk and countenance are always the faithful interpreters of the sentiment of her soul. Her form is not fine nor bad. She hasesprit, is reasonable and has a correct taste. If vivacity at times leads her off, truth soon brings her back. After she falls into an ennui which extinguishes all the light of her mind, she finds that state insupportable and the cause of such unhappiness, that she blindly embraces all that presents itself, without deliberation."
(1774.) "They believe Mme. du Deffand to possess moreespritthan she really has; they praise and fear her, but she merits neither the one nor the other. As far asherespritis concerned, she is what she is; in regard to her form, to her birth and fortune—nothing extraordinary, nothing distinguished. Born without great talent, incapable of great application, she is very susceptible to ennui, and, not finding any resource within herself, she resorts to those that surround her and this search is often without success."
Mme. du Deffand arouses our curiosity because she was such an exceptional character, led such a strange life, made and retained friends in ways so different from those of the noted heroines of the salons. In her youth, she was beautiful and fascinating, with numerous lovers and numberless suitors, but she grew even more famous as her age increased; when infirm and blind, and living in a convent, she ruled by virtue of her acknowledged authority and was still able to cope with the greatest philosophers, the chief and dean of whom, Voltaire, wrote the following four lines:
"Qui vous voit et qui vous entendPerd bientôt sa philosophie;Et tout sage avec Du DeffandVoudrait en fou passer sa vie."[He who sees and hears you,Soon loses his philosophy.Wise he who with Du DeffandInsane would pass his life.]
"Qui vous voit et qui vous entendPerd bientôt sa philosophie;Et tout sage avec Du DeffandVoudrait en fou passer sa vie."
"Qui vous voit et qui vous entend
Perd bientôt sa philosophie;
Et tout sage avec Du Deffand
Voudrait en fou passer sa vie."
[He who sees and hears you,Soon loses his philosophy.Wise he who with Du DeffandInsane would pass his life.]
[He who sees and hears you,
Soon loses his philosophy.
Wise he who with Du Deffand
Insane would pass his life.]
Living long enough to witness the reigns of three kings and one regent, she was brilliant enough to reign over the intellectual and social world for over fifty years, by virtue of her intellectuality, keenness, and wit; yet, among all the great women of France, she is truly the one who deserves genuine pity and sympathy.
The salon of Mlle. de Lespinasse, her rival, was of a different type, being exclusively intellectual, but permitting absolute liberty of expression of opinions. Born in1732, at the house of a surgeon of Lyons, she was the illegitimate daughter of the Comtesse d'Albon and was baptized as the child of a man supposed to be named Claude Lespinasse. From 1753 she was the constant attendant to Mme. du Deffand, her mother's sister-in-law, for a period of ten years, until she became completely worn out physically, morally, and mentally by incessant care and endless all-night readings. An attempt to end her existence with sixty grains of opium failed. Owing to the jealousy of Mme. du Deffand, a separation ensued in 1764, when she retired some distance from the Convent Saint-Joseph to very modest apartments, where, by means of her friends, she was able to receive in a dignified way. The Maréchale de Luxembourg completely fitted up her apartment, the Duc de Choiseul succeeded in getting her an annual pension from the king, and Mme. Geoffrin allowed her three thousand francs.
The majority of the members of her salon were from that of Mme. du Deffand, having followed Mlle. de Lespinasse after the rupture of the two women; besides these, there were Condorcet, Helvétius, Grimm, Marmontel, Condillac, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and many others. As her hours for receiving were after five o'clock, her friends were made to understand that her means were not such as to warrant suppers or dinners, four o'clock being the dinner hour in those days.
Her salon immediately became known as the official encyclopædia resort, Mme. du Deffand dubbing itLa Muse de l'Encyclopédie. D'Alembert was the high priest, and it was not long before he was comfortably lodged in the third story of her house, Mlle. de Lespinasse having nursed him through a malignant fever which the poor man had contracted in the wretched place where he lodged. A strange gathering, those salons! Mlle. de Lespinasse, oneof the leaders in the social world, with a prominent salon, was the illegitimate daughter of a Comtesse d'Albon, and her presiding genius was the illegitimate son of Mme. de Tencin; here we find the wealthiest and most elegant of the aristocracy coming from their palaces to meet, in friendly social and intellectual intercourse, men who lived on a mere pittance, dressed on almost nothing, lodged in the most wretched of dens, boarding wherever a salon or palace was opened to them. Surely, intellect was highly valued in those days, and moral etiquette was at a low ebb!
Mlle. de Lespinasse possessed two characteristics which were prominent in a remarkable degree—love and friendship. She appeared to interest herself in everybody in such a way as to make him believe that he was the preferred of her heart; loving everybody sincerely and affectionately, she "lacked altogether the sentimental equilibrium." Especially pathetic was her love for two men—the Count de Mora, a Spanish nobleman, and a Colonel Guibert, who was celebrated for his relations with Frederick the Great; although this wore terribly on her, consuming her physical force, she always received her friends with the same good grace, but often, after their departure, she would fall into a frightful nervous fit from which she could find relief only by the use of opium.
Her love for Guibert was known to her friends, but was a secret from her platonic lover, D'Alembert. When, after a number of years of untold sufferings which even opium could not relieve, she died in 1776, having been cared for to the last by D'Alembert, the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, and her cousin, the Marquis d'Enlezy, it was with these words on her dying lips, addressed to Guibert: "Adieu, my friend! If ever I return to life, I should like to use it in loving you; but there is no longer any time." When D'Alembert read in her correspondence that she had beenthe mistress of Guibert for sixteen years, he was disconsolate, and retired to the Louvre, which was his privilege as Secretary of the Academy. He left there only to go walking in the evening with Marmontel, who tried to console him by recalling the changeableness of humor of Mlle. de Lespinasse. "Yes," he would reply, "she has changed, but not I; she no longer lived for me, but I always lived for her. Since she is no longer, I don't know why I am living. Ah, that I must still suffer these moments of bitterness which she knew so well how to soothe and make me forget! Do you remember the happy evenings we used to pass? What is there now? Instead of her, when coming home, I find only her shadow! This Louvre lodging is itself a tomb, which I enter only with fright."
Mlle. de Lespinasse died of grief for a lover's death, but she left a group of lovers to lament her loss. In many respects she was not unlike Mlle. de Scudéry; exceptionally plain, her face was much marked with smallpox, a disfigurement not uncommon in those days; her exceedingly piercing and fine eyes, beautiful hair, tall and elegant figure, excellent taste in dress, pleasing voice and a most brilliant talent for conversation, combined to make her one of the most attractive and popular women of her time. As previously stated, she was the only female admitted to the dinners given by Mme. Geoffrin to her men of letters.
Mme. du Deffand's friend,le PrésidentHénault, left the following portrait of Mlle. de Lespinasse: "You are cosmopolitan—you are suitable to all occasions. You like company—you like solitude. Pleasures amuse, but do not seduce you. You have very strong passions, and of the best kind, for they do not return often. Nature, in endowing you with an ordinary state, gave you somethingwith which to rise above it. You are distinguished, and, without being beautiful, you attract attention. There is something piquant in you; one might obstinately endeavor to turn your head, but it would be at one's own expense. Your will must be awaited, because you cannot be made to come. Your cheerfulness embellishes you, and relaxes your nerves, which are too highly strung. You have your own opinion, and you leave others their own. You are extremely polite. You have divinedle monde. In vain one would transplant you—you would take root anywhere. In short, you are not an ordinary person."
The salon of Mlle. de Lespinasse was unique. Everyone was at perfect liberty to express and sustain his own opinions upon any subject, without danger of offending the hostess, which, as has been seen, was not the case in the salon of Mme. Geoffrin. Her high and sane intellectual culture permitted her to listen to all discussions and to take part in all. She had no strong prejudices, having read—for Mme. du Deffand—nearly everything that was read at that time; also, she had the talent of preserving harmony among her members by drawing from each one his best qualities.
A woman who played a prominent part in society during the Regency, but who had no salon in the proper sense of that word, was Mme. du Châtelet, commonly called Voltaire's Emilie. She was especially interested in sciences, mathematics, geometry, and astronomy, and did more than any other woman of that time to encourage nature study. It was at her Château de Cirey that Voltaire found protection when threatened with a second visit to the Bastille; and there, from time to time for sixteen years, he did some of the best work of his life. It was Mme. du Châtelet who encouraged him, sympathized with him, and appreciated his mobile humor as well as his talent. During theseyears, while he was under the influence of madame, appearedMérope,Alzire, theSiècle de Louis XIV, etc.
Mme. du Châtelet was the one greatfemme savanteof that century. In the preface to herTraduction des Principes Mathématiques de Newton, Voltaire wrote: "Never was a woman sosavanteas she, and never did a woman merit less the saying,she is a femme savante. She did not select her friends from those circles where there was a war ofesprit, where a sort of tribunal was established, where they judged their century, by which, in recompense, they were severely judged. She lived for a long time in societies which were ignorant of what she was, and she took no notice of this ignorance. The words precision, justness, and force are those which correctly describe her elegance. She would have written as Pascal and Nicole did rather than like Mme. de Sévigné; but this severe firmness and this tendency of herespritdid not make her inaccessible to the beauties of sentiment."
Maupertuis, the astronomer, wrote: "What a marvel, moreover, to have been able to combine the fine qualities of her sex with the sublime knowledge which we believe uniquely made for us! This enterprising phenomenon will make her memory eternally respected."
It seems strange indeed that in a century in which the universal impulse was toward pleasure, and sameness of personality was visible everywhere, the types of great women showed such an absolute dissimilarity. The contrast between the natural inclinations of Mme. Necker, the wife of the great minister of finance, and the atmosphere in which she lived, makes the study of her a most interesting one. Born in Switzerland, the daughter of Curchod, a poor Protestant minister, "with patriarchal morals, solid education, and strong good sense," this moral and stern woman was thrown into the midst of depraved elegance, refined licentiousness, and physical debauchery. Sincere, chaste, enthusiastic, and essentially religious, she remained so amidst all the corruption and physical and mental degeneracy of the age.
Critics have made much ado over her marriage, a union of pure love and mutual inclinations, amidst the marriages of mere convenience and the gallant liaisons, such as those of Mme. du Deffand andle PrésidentHénault, and Mme. d'Epinay and Grimm. The matrimonial selection of Susanne Curchod was natural in a girl of her serious make-up, her moral education and her pure ancestry of thestrict Protestant type. As a girl of sixteen, she had given evidence of remarkable mental ability and had acquired a wide knowledge—physics, Latin, philosophy, metaphysics—when she was sent to Lausanne, possibly with the idea of meeting a future husband with whom she could become thoroughly acquainted before giving up her independence. There she became the centre of a group or academy of young people, who, under her leadership, discussed subjects of every nature. At first she showed a tendency towardpréciositéand the spirit of the blue-stocking rather than toward the seriousness and dignity which marked her later career.
It was at Lausanne that she met and fell in love with Gibbon, the English historian; this love affair met with opposition from Gibbon's father, and, after the death of the father of his fiancée, a calamity which left her poor and necessitated her teaching for a living, the Englishman, by his actions and manner toward her, compelled the breaking of their engagement. When, later in life, he went to her salon, they became intimate friends, enjoying "the intellectual union which had been impossible for them in their earlier days."
Thus, at the age of twenty-four, Mlle. Curchod, beautiful, virtuous, and accomplished, and at the height of her reputation in a small town in Switzerland, was left an orphan. She was taken to Paris by Mme. de Vermenoux, a wealthy widow, who was sought in marriage by M. Necker, banker and capitalist; but, as she was unable to make up her mind to a definite answer, his attention was attracted to her young companion. The result was that, after a few months' sojourn in Paris, Mlle. Curchod became the wife of M. Necker, an event which caused rejoicing from Lausanne to Geneva. Their characters are well portrayed in two letters, written by them to theirfriends after their marriage. M. Necker wrote, in reply to a letter of congratulation:
"Yes, sir; your friend (Mlle. Curchod) was indeed willing to have me, and I believe myself as happy as one can be. I cannot understand how it can be you whom they congratulate, unless it is as my friend. Will money always be the measure of opinion? That is pitiable! He who wins a virtuous, kind, and sensible woman—has he not made a good transaction, whether or not she be seated on sacks of money? Humanity, what a poor judge you are!"
Shortly after her marriage, Mme. Necker wrote to one of her friends: "My dear, I have married a man who, according to my ideas, is the kindest of mortals, and I am not the only one to judge thus. I had had a liking for him ever since I learned to know him. At present, I see, in all nature, only my husband. I take notice of other men only in so far as they come more or less up to the standard of my husband, and I compare them only for the pleasure of seeing the difference." The marital relations of this loving pair lasted throughout life; and among great women of the eighteenth century, Mme. Necker is one of the few examples of ideal marriage relations.
Soon after their marriage, the Neckers took up their quarters at the Rue Michel-le-Comte, where they began to receive friends. As at that time every day in the week was reserved by other salons,—Monday and Wednesday at Mme. Geoffrin's, Tuesday at Helvétius's, Thursday and Sunday at the Baron d'Holbach's,—Mme. Necker was compelled to appoint Friday as her reception day. She soon succeeded in attracting to her hôtel the bestespritof Paris: Diderot, Suard, Grimm, Comte de Schomberg, Marmontel, D'Alembert, Thomas, Saint-Lambert, Helvétius,Ducis, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the Abbés Raynal, Armand, and Morellet, Mme. Geoffrin, Mme. du Deffand, Mme. de Marchais, Mme. Suard, the Maréchale de Luxembourg, the Duchesse de Lauzun, the Marquise de La Ferté-Imbault, Mme. de Boufflers.
Among these visitors, most of whom were atheists, Mme. Necker preserved her own religious opinions and piety, although her friends at Geneva never ceased to be concerned about her. Her admirers were many, but they were kept within the bounds of propriety and never attempted any gallant liberties with the hostess—except her ardent admirer Thomas, the intensity of whose eulogies upon her she was forced to check occasionally. It was not long before she became very influential in filling the vacant seats of the Academy. In this and many other respects, her salon may be compared with that of Mme. de Lambert.
Mme. Necker's idea of conducting a salon and its conversation was much the same as the management of a state; she believed that the hostess must never join in the conversation as long as it goes on by itself, but, ever watchful, must never permit disturbances, disagreements, improprieties, or obstacles; she must animate it if it languish; she must see that conversation never takes a dangerous, disagreeable, or tiresome turn, and that it never brings into undue prominence one man especially, as this makes others jealous and displeases the entire society; it must always interest and include all members. The discussions at Mme. Necker's were literary and philosophical; and to prevent even the possibility of tedium, frequent readings were given in their place.
It was at the salon of Mme. Necker that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre first read hisPaul et Virginie, which received such a cold and indifferent welcome that the author, utterlydiscouraged, was on the point of burning his manuscript, when he was prevailed upon by his friend Vernet, the great artist, to preserve all his works. Mme. Necker was always quite frank and outspoken, often showing a cutting harshness and a rigor which, as was said, was little in harmony with her bare neck and arms—a style then in vogue at court. She never judged persons by their reputations, but by theiresprit; thus, it was possible for her to receive people of the most diverse tendencies. When the Marquise de La Ferté-Imbault, one of the few virtuous women of the time, and of the highest aristocracy, was invited to attend the salon of Mme. Necker and was told that the Maréchale de Luxembourg, Mme. du Deffand, Mme. de Boufflers, and Mme. Marchais were frequenters, she said: "These four women are so discredited by manners, and the first two are so dangerous, that for thirty years they have been the horror of society."
The two portraits by Marmontel and Galiani are interesting, as throwing light upon the doings of her salon. Marmontel wrote: "Mme. Necker is very virtuous and instructed, but emphatic and stiff. She does not know Mme. de Sévigné, whom she praises, and only esteems Buffon and Thomas. She calculates all things; she sought men of letters only as trumpets to blow in honor of her husband. He never said a word; that was not very recreating."
Galiani leaves a different impression: "There is not a Friday that I do not go to your houseen esprit. I arrive, I find you now busy with your headdress, now busy with this duchess. I seat myself at your feet. Thomas quietly suffers, Morellet shows his anger aloud. Grimm and Suard laugh heartily about it, and my dear Comte de Greuze does not notice it. Marmontel finds the example worthy to be imitated, and you, madame, make two of your mostbeautiful virtues do battle, bashfulness and politeness, and in this suffering you find me a little monster more embarrassing than odious. Dinner is announced. They leave the table and in the café all speak at the same time. M. Necker thinks everything well, bows his head and goes away."
In summer her receptions were first held at the Château de Madrid, and, later on, in a château at Saint-Ouen; the guests were always called for and returned in carriages supplied by the hostess. It was in her salon, in 1770, that the plan originated to erect the statue of Voltaire, which is to-day the famous statue of thePalais de l'Institute.
When, during the stirring times before the Revolution, her salon took on a purely political nature, Mme. Necker played a very secondary rôle. In 1788 she and her husband were compelled to leave Paris; but being recalled by Louis XVI., Necker managed affairs for thirteen months, after which he retired with Mme. Necker to Coppet, where, in 1794, the latter died.
Mme. Necker never became a thorough Frenchwoman; she always lacked the grace and charm which are the necessary qualifications of a salon leader; intelligence was her most meritorious quality. Her dinners were apt to become tiresome and to drag. A very interesting story is told of her by the Marquis de Chastellux, which was reported by Mme. Genlis, one of her intimate friends:
"Dining at Mme. Necker's, the marquis was first to arrive, and so early that the hostess was not yet in the salon. In walking up and down the room, he noticed a small book under Mme. Necker's chair. He picked it up and opened it. It was a blank book, a few of the pages of which had been written upon by Mme. Necker. Certainly, he would not have read a letter, but, believing to find only a few spiritual thoughts, he read without anyscruples. It contained the plan for the dinner of that day, to which he had been invited, and had been written by Mme. Necker on the previous evening. It told what she would say to the most prominent of the invited guests. She wrote: 'I shall speak to the Chevalier de Chastellux about public felicity and Agatha; to M. d'Angeviller, I shall speak of love; between Marmontel and Guibert I shall raise some literary discussion.' After reading the note, he hurriedly replaced the book under the chair. A moment later, a valet entered, saying that madame had left her notebook in the salon. The dinner was charming for M. de Chastellux, because he had the pleasure of hearing Mme. Necker say, word for word, what she had written in her notebook."
This woman was ever preoccupied with style, and, throughout her life, retained the solemn, studied, and academic air, as well as the simple, rural, innocent manner and spirit of her early surroundings. A mere bourgeoise, unaccustomed to elegance or to the manners of French social life, upon entering Parisian society she set her mind to observing, and immediately began to change her provincial ways and to make over herespritfor conversation, for circumstances, and for characters; she adjusted her provincial spirit to that of Paris, thus making of it an entirely new product. Later on, her salon became the first of the modern political salons, but it was far from reaching the prominence of that of Mme. Geoffrin, whose characteristics were social prudence and strict propriety, while those of Mme. Necker were virtue and goodness.
Mme. Necker was never in perfect sympathy with her visitors, the philosophers, the common basis of ideas and sentiments never existing between her and her friends as it did between Mme. Geoffrin and her frequenters; her tie was always artificial. "She represented the Swiss spiritin Parisian society; those serious and educated souls, virtuous and sentimental, somewhat sad and strictly moral, were rather tiresome to the Parisian world." Marmontel well describes her in another of his famous portraits:
"A stranger to the customs of Paris, Mme. Necker had none of the charms and accomplishments of the young French woman. In her manner and language she had neither the air nor the tone of a woman reared in the school of arts, formed at the school of high society. Without taste in her headdress, without ease in her bearing, without fascination in her politeness, her mind—as was her countenance—was too properly adjusted to show grace. But a charm more worthy of her was that of propriety, of candor, of goodness. A virtuous education and solitary studies had given to her all that culture can add to an excellent nature. In her, sentiment was perfect, but her thought was often confused and vague; instead of clearing her ideas, meditation disturbed them; in exaggerating them, she believed to enlarge them; in order to extend them, she wandered off into abstractions and hyperboles. She seemed to see certain objects only through a fog, which augmented their importance in her eyes; and then her expression became so inflated that the pomposity of it would have been laughable if one had not known her to be entirely ingenuous."
"In summing up the character of Mme. Necker, we find," says Sainte-Beuve, "first of all, a genuine individuality and a personality with defects which at first impression are shocking, but which only helped to render the woman and all her aspirations the more admirable. Entering a Parisian society with the firm decision of becoming a woman ofespritand of being in relation with thebeaux esprits, she was able to preserve the moral conscience of her Protestant training, to protest against the false doctrines abouther, to give herself up to duties in the midst of society, to found institutions for the sick and needy,—and to leave a memory without a stain."
While, among the famous salon leaders of the eighteenth century, Mme. Necker stands out preëminently for her strict moral integrity and fidelity to her marriage relations, Mme. d'Epinay is unique for the constancy of her affections for the men to whom she owes her celebrity, Rousseau and Grimm. Born in 1725, the record of her life runs like that of most French women. At the age of twenty she was married to her cousin, La Live, who later took the name of d'Epinay, from an estate his father, the wealthy M. de Bellegarde, had bought—a man who was really in love with her for a whole month after their marriage, but who, tiring of the pure affections of a loving wife, soon began to lavish his time and fortune upon adanseuse. The poor young wife was between two fires, the extravagance and wild dissipations of her husband and the rigid discipline and orthodoxy of her mother. Never was a woman treated so outrageously and insultingly as was this woman by a man who contrived in every manner to corrupt her morals by throwing her among his dissolute companions, Mme. d'Artz, the mistress of the Prince de Conti, and Mlle. d'Ette, an intriguing woman of the time; to the latter, Mme. d'Epinay confided her troubles, and, as the result of her counsels, fell into the hands of a M. de Francueil, handsome, clever, accomplished, but as morally depraved as was her husband.
When Mme. d'Epinay was finally convinced that her husband was untrue to her, she felt nothing but disdain and contempt for him, and decided to live a virtuous life; after holding for a short time to her resolution "that a woman may have the most profound and tender sentiment for a man and yet remain faithful to her duties," she lostherself under the influence of the professional seducer Francueil, and, completely carried away by that passion, she cries out, in her memoirs:Francueil, Francueil, tu m'as perdue, et tu disais que tu m'aimais[You have undone me—and you said you loved me]! Such was the lot, as was seen, of most women of those days, who had noble intentions, but a woman's weakness. The century did not demand faithfulness to the marital vows; but when a woman had once abandoned herself to love, it required that the attachment be to a man of honor and standing. Marriage was simply a preliminary step to freedom; after that ceremony came the natural election of the heart and mutual tenderness of the beings who could be mated only through the freedom which married life afforded. A superior illegitimate liaison was nothing unnatural—on the contrary, it was but a natural human selection; such was the nature of the affection of Mme. d'Epinay for this débauché Francueil.
As she enjoyed absolute liberty, her lover paid his respects to her at Epinay; there he inaugurated amusements and took his friends. It was he who suggested the erection of a theatre at which her friends' productions might be offered to the world of critics. Through his efforts, the great men who made her salon famous were gathered at "La Chevrette," where the actors and players soon drew the attention of literary Paris. After a year or two of attachment, Francueil became indifferent to Mme. d'Epinay and transferred his affections to an actress—the sister of M. d'Epinay's mistress. Thus runs the story of the life of the average married woman. If she remained virtuous, she usually became resigned to her fate and lived happily; if she undertook to imitate her husband's tactics, she fell from the good graces of one lover to those of another, ending her life in absolute wretchedness.
These two men—the lover and the husband—carried on with two sisters their licentious living and extravagances to such an extent that the injured wife demanded a separation of her fortune from that of her husband, in which project her father-in-law aided her and gave her thirteen thousand francs income. Mme. d'Epinay, in the midst of success, became acquainted with Mlle. Quinault, the daughter of the famous actor of the time, and herself a great actress. This woman invited Mme. d'Epinay to her so-called salon, which was, possibly, the most licentious and irreligious of the salons then in vogue, where she met Duclos, with whom she immediately formed a strong friendship.
After the death of M. de Bellegarde, her wealth was considerably increased, a piece of good fortune which enabled her to carry out all her plans. It was at this time, 1755, that she induced Rousseau to live in her cottage, "l'Hermitage;" and for about two years she enjoyed perfect happiness with him. By a peculiar freak of fate she fell in with Grimm, who was introduced to her by Rousseau and who had, for some time, been on the hunt for a "faithful mistress." This German by birth, but Frenchman in spirit, had championed her at a dinner, where she was the object of the severest reproach. She had burned the papers of her sister, Mme. de Jully, who had betrayed an honest husband. Stricken with smallpox, just before dying, she confessed all to Mme. d'Epinay. The latter owed Mme. de Jully fifty écus and the note was among the papers of Mme. de Jully. Mme. d'Epinay was accused of having burned the note to which it was asserted she had access; and Grimm undertook to plead her cause, an act which so elated madame that she turned all her affection upon her defender, whereupon Rousseau departed. Later on, the note having been found, Mme. d'Epinay wascompletely vindicated. Grimm then became her third lover.
This third marriage, so to speak, was one of reason; the first was one of mere emancipation; the second, one of passion and genuine love. In 1755, worn out physically, she took a trip to Switzerland, to be treated by the famous Dr. Tronchin; there she became so ill that Grimm was summoned. They remained together for about two years, and after her return to Paris she reopened her salon of "La Chevrette." Her reunions partook more of the nature of our house parties; the salon was an immense room, in which the members would pair off and divert themselves as they pleased; in that respect "La Chevrette" was unique. After her fortune, which at one time was quite large, became diminished, partly through her own extravagance and partly through that of her son, who was the very counterpart of his father, she was forced to rent "La Chevrette" and, later on, "La Briche," where she had opened her second salon.
The last years of her life she spent in Paris with Grimm. She had reached such a physical condition that her sufferings could be relieved only by the use of opium. Financial relief came to her in 1783, when the Academy awarded her the Montyon prize, then given for the first time, for herConversations d'Emilie. She died in the same year, surrounded by her dearest friends—Grimm, M. and Mme. Belgunce, and Mme. d'Houdetot.
Mme. d'Epinay, in many respects, was a remarkable woman. Amid all her social duties, with all her physical and mental troubles, she found time to help others and to manage her own business affairs and those of her children, took an active interest in art, music, and literature, raised, with the utmost care, her granddaughter, produced one of the best works of the time for children, made tapestry,and wrote innumerable letters. Her fortune was lost through the reforms of Necker.
She was not a beautiful woman; but she was distinguished by a small, thin figure, an abundance of rich dark hair, which brought out in striking relief the peculiar whiteness of her skin, and large brown eyes. Her five lovers she called her five bears: Rousseau, Grimm, Desmoulin, Saint-Lambert, Gauffecourt. An epistle to Grimm begins thus;