which
finally culminated in the Revolution. The salon of Mme. d'Epinay grew
to be the most important and, intellectually, the most brilliant
of the time. Rousseau, Diderot, Helvetius, Duclos, Suard, the Abbes
Galiani, Raynal, the Florentine physician Gatti, Comte de Schomberg,
Chevalier de Chastellux, Saint-Lambert, Marquis de Croixmare, the
different ambassadors, counts and princes, were frequent visitors
In this brilliant circle her letters from Voltaire, read aloud, were
always eagerly awaited. Such dramas as Voltaire's _Tancred_, Diderot's
_Le Pere de Famille_, were given under her patronage and discussed in
her salon; after the performance she entertained all the friends at
supper.

Upon the departure of Abbe Galiani from Paris, Mme. d'Epinay and
Diderot were intrusted with the revision and printing of his famous
_Dialogues sur les Bles_; Grimm left to them the continuance of
his _Correspondance Litteraire_. She was known for her wonderful
analytical ability and her keen power of observation--faculties which
won the esteem and respect of such men and caused her collaboration
to be anxiously sought by them; however, she never attempted to rival
them in their particular sphere. In her writings she displayed a
reactionary tendency against the educational methods of the day, her
chief work of real literary worth being mostly in the form of
sound advice to a child. Being a reasonable, careful, and sensible
woman,--in spite of the defects in her moral life,--she desired to
show the possibilities of a moral revolution against the habits and
customs of the time, of which she herself had been a most unfortunate
victim. She was relieved of actual want by means of this work, which
gained for her a pension from Catherine II. of Russia, who adopted
her methods for her own children, and the award of the Montyon prize,
which was given her in a competition with a large number of aspirants,
the most famous of whom was Mme. de Genlis. It was her ability to gain
and retain the respect of great men which won that honor for her.

The memoirs of Mme. d'Epinay leave one of the most accurate and
faithful pictures of the polished society of the France of about 1750.
"Her salon was the centre about which circled the greatest activity;
it was filled with men who ordered events, thinkers whose minds were
bent upon untangling the knotty problems of the age; it was her salon,
more than any other, that quickened the philosophical movement of