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 in