orm in effect a continuous journal covering the space of
fifteen years (1766-1780). They allow us, on the one hand, to trace
through all its developments the progress of an extraordinary passion,
and on the other to examine, as it were under the microscope of perhaps
the bitterest perspicacity on record, the last phase of a doomed
society. For the circle which came together in her drawing-room during
those years had the hand of death upon it. The future lay elsewhere; it
was simply the past that survived there--in the rich trappings of
fashion and wit and elaborate gaiety--but still irrevocably the past.
The radiant creatures of Sceaux had fallen into the yellow leaf. We see
them in these letters, a collection of elderly persons trying hard to
amuse themselves, and not succeeding very well. Pont-de-Veyle, the
youthful septuagenarian, did perhaps succeed; for he never noticed what
a bore he was becoming with his perpetual cough, and continued to go the
rounds with indefatigable animation, until one day his cough was heard
no more. Henault--once notorious for his dinner-parties, and for having
written an historical treatise--which, it is true, was worthless, but he
had written it--Henault was beginning to dodder, and Voltaire, grinning
in Ferney, had already dubbed him 'notre delabre President.' Various
dowagers were engaged upon various vanities. The Marquise de Boufflers
was gambling herself to ruin; the Comtesse de Boufflers was wringing
out the last drops of her reputation as the mistress of a Royal Prince;
the Marechale de Mirepoix was involved in shady politics; the Marechale
de Luxembourg was obliterating a highly dubious past by a scrupulous
attention to 'bon ton,' of which, at last, she became the arbitress:
'Quel ton! Quel effroyable ton!' she is said to have exclaimed after a
shuddering glance at the Bible; 'ah, Madame, quel dommage que le Saint
Esprit eut aussi peu de gout!' Then there was the floating company of
foreign diplomats, some of whom were invariably to be found at Madame du
Deffand's: Caraccioli, for instance, the Neapolitan Ambassador--'je
perds les trois quarts de ce qu'il dit,' she wrote, 'mais comme il en
dit beaucoup, on peut supporter cette perte'; and Bernstorff, the Danish
envoy, who became the fashion, was lauded to the skies for his wit and
fine manners, until, says the malicious lady, 'a travers tous ces
eloges, je m'avisai de l'appeler Puffendorf,' and Puffendorf the poor
man remained for