after more than sixty years, of his talent for poetry; and Mme. de
Lambert, whose house was filled with Academicians, gained him entrance
into the Academy, not without strong opposition on the part of Boileau
and some others." Whether the report of this alliance was true or not,
the families were closely united, as the daughter of Mme. de Lambert
was married to a son of Sainte-Aulaire; it is certain that the enduring
affection of this ancient friend lighted the closing years of her life.

Though tinged with the new philosophy, Mme. de Lambert regarded religion
as a part of a respectable, well-ordered life. "Devotion is a becoming
sentiment in women, and befitting in both sexes," she writes. But she
clearly looked upon it as an external form, rather than an internal
flame. When about to die, at the age of eighty-six, she declined the
services of a friendly confessor, and sent for an abbe who had a great
reputation for esprit. Perhaps she thought he would give her a more
brilliant introduction into the next world; this points to one of her
weaknesses, which was a love of consideration that carried her sometimes
to the verge of affectation. It savors a little of the hypercritical
spirit that is very well illustrated by an anecdote of the witty
Duchesse de Luxenbourg. One morning she took up a prayer book that was
lying upon the table and began to criticize severely the bad taste
of the prayers. A friend ventured to remark that if they were said
reverently and piously, God surely would pay no attention to their
good or bad form. "Indeed," exclaimed the fastidious Marechale, whose
religion was evidently a becoming phase of estheticism, "do not believe
that."

The thoughts of Mme. de Lambert, so elevated in tone, so fine in
moral quality, so rich in worldly wisdom, and often so felicitous in
expression, tempt one to multiply quotations, especially as they show
us an intimate side of her life, of which otherwise we know very
little. Her personality is veiled. Her human experiences, her loves,
her antipathies, her mistakes, and her errors are a sealed book to us,
excepting as they may be dimly revealed in the complexion of her mind.
Of her influence we need no better evidence than the fact that her salon
was called the antechamber to the Academie Francaise.

The precise effect of this influence of women over the most powerful
critical body of the century, or of any century, perhaps, we can hardly
measure. In the fact that the