onsider the education I have received with Mme. du Deffand.
President Henault, Abbe Bon, the Archbishop of Toulouse, the Archbishop
of Aix, Turgot, d'Alembert, Abbe de Boismont--these are the men who
have taught me to speak, to think, and who have deigned to count me for
something."

It was men like these who thronged her own salon, together with such
women as the Duchesse d'Anville, friend of the economists, the Duchesse
de Chatillon whom she loved so passionately, and others well-known in
the world of fashion and letters. But its tone was more philosophical
than that of Mme. du Deffand. Though far from democratic by taste or
temperament, she was so from conviction. The griefs and humiliations of
her life had left her peculiarly open to the new social and political
theories which were agitating France. She liked free discussion, and her
own large intelligence, added to her talent for calling out and giving
point to the ideas of others, went far towards making the cosmopolitan
circle over which she presided one of the most potent forces of the
time. Her influence may be traced in the work of the encyclopedists, in
which she was associated, and which she did more than any other woman
to aid and encourage. As a power in the making of reputations and in
the election of members to the Academy she shared with Mme. Geoffrin
the honor of being a legitimate successor of Mme. de Lambert. Chastellux
owed his admission largely to her, and on her deathbed she secured that
of La Harpe.

But the side of her character which strikes us most forcibly at this
distance of time is the emotional. The personal charm which is always so
large a factor in social success is of too subtle a quality to be
caught in words. The most vivid portrait leaves a divine something to
be supplied by the imagination, and the fascination of eloquence is gone
with the flash of the eye, the modulation of the voice, or some fleeting
grace of manner. But passion writes itself out in indelible characters,
especially when it is a rare and spontaneous overflow from the heart of
a man or woman of genius, whose emotions readily crystallize into form.

Her friendship for d'Alembert, loyal and devoted as it was, seems to
have been without illusions. It is true she had cast aside every other
consideration to nurse him through a dangerous illness, and as soon as
he was able to be removed, he had taken an apartment in the house where
she lived, which he retained until her