s.

One remarkable characteristic of her company was the age of her
intimate associates--the Marquis de Saint-Aulaire, Fontenelle, Mme.
Dacier, and her husband, Louis de Sacy, all of whom, as well as Mme.
de Lambert herself, had passed threescore and more; but they still
kept alive the cherished memories of the brilliant society of their
youth. Mme. de Lambert did not personally know Mme. de Rambouillet,
but she visited the latter's daughter, Julie d'Angennes, from whom
she learned the customs and etiquette in vogue at the Hotel de
Rambouillet.

The Wednesday dinners of Mme. de Lambert were to her intimate friends,
while every Tuesday afternoon she received a general circle which
indulged in general conversation and read and discussed books which
were about to be published; gambling, which seemed to be the principal
means of entertaining in those days, had no place there. Fontenelle
says: "It was, with very few exceptions, the only house which had been
preserved from the epidemic of gambling--the only house where persons
congregated simply for the sake of talking sensibly and with _esprit_.
Those who had their reasons for considering it bad taste that
conversation was still carried on in any place, cast mean reflections,
whenever they could, against the house of Mme. de Lambert." In the
evening, she received only a few select friends with whom she talked
seriously. Her salon soon became the envy of those who were not
admitted (and they were numerous), and was the object of many
calumnies and attacks.

During this time she found leisure to write two treatises of practical
morality, _Avis d'une mere a son fils_, and _Avis d'une mere a sa
fille_, which appeared without her permission. The manuscripts, lent
to friends, fell into the hands of a publisher; and although the
authoress endeavored to prevent the distribution of the works by
buying up the entire editions, they were published outside of France.
The two works written to her children form an important contribution
to the educational literature of the time; in them the religion of the
eighteenth century is first defined.

"Above all these duties--civil and human (says the mother to her
son)--is the duty you owe to the Supreme Being. Religion is a commerce
established between God and man through the grace of God to man and
through the duty of man to God. Elevated souls have for their God
sentiments and a cult apart, which do not resemble at all those of the
peopl