s of a society which the world is
not likely to see repeated.

Not the least among the attractions of this society was its charming
informality. A favorite custom in the literary and philosophical salons
was to give dinners, at an early hour, two or three times a week. In the
evening a larger company assembled without ceremony. A popular man
of letters, so inclined, might dine Monday and Wednesday with Mme.
Geoffrin, Tuesday with Mme. Helvetius, Friday with Mme. Necker, Sunday
and Thursday with Mme. d'Holbach, and have ample time to drop into other
salons afterward, passing an hour or so, perhaps, before going to the
theater, in the brilliant company that surrounded Mlle. de Lespinasse,
and, very likely, supping elsewhere later. At many of these gatherings
he would be certain to find readings, recitations, comedies, music,
games, or some other form of extemporized amusement. The popular mania
for esprit, for literary lions, for intellectual diversions ran through
the social world, as the craze for clubs and culture, poets and parlor
readings, musicales and amateur theatricals, runs through the society of
today. It had numberless shades and gradations, with the usual train of
pretentious follies which in every age furnish ample material for
the pen of the satirist, but it was a spontaneous expression of the
marvelously quickened taste for things of the intellect. The woman who
improvised a witty verse, invented a proverb, narrated a story, sang
a popular air, or acted a part in a comedy entered with the same easy
grace into the discussion of the last political problem, or listened
with the subtlest flattery to the new poem, essay, or tale of the
aspiring young author, whose fame and fortune perhaps hung upon her
smile. In the musical and artistic salon of Mme. de la Popeliniere
the succession of fetes, concerts, and receptions seems to have been
continuous. On Sunday there was a mass in the morning, afterward a grand
dinner, at five o'clock a light repast, at nine a supper, and later a
musicale. One is inclined to wonder if there was ever any retirement,
any domesticity in this life so full of movement and variety.

But it was really the freedom, wit, and brilliancy of the conversation
that constituted the chief attraction of the salons. Men were in the
habit of making the daily round of certain drawing rooms, just as they
drop into clubs in our time, sure of more or less pleasant discussion on
whatever subject was uppe