n which I write." His grief called out a sympathetic
letter from Frederick the Great which shows the philosophic warrior and
king in a new light. There is a touch of bitter irony in the inflated
eulogy of Guibert, who gave the too-loving woman a death blow in
furthering his ambition, then exhausted his vocabulary in laments and
praises. Perhaps he hoped to borrow from this friendship a fresh ray of
immortality.

Whatever we may think of the strange inconsistencies of Mlle. de
Lespinasse, she is doubly interesting to us as a type that contrasts
strongly with that of her age. Her exquisite tact, her brilliant
intellect, her conversational gifts, her personal charm made her the
idol of the world in which she lived. Her influence was courted, her
salon was the resort of the most distinguished men of the century, and
while she loved to discuss the great social problems which her
friends were trying to solve, she forgot none of the graces. With the
intellectual strength and grasp of a man, she preserved always the
taste, the delicacy, the tenderness of a woman. Her faults were those of
a strong nature. Her thoughts were clear and penetrating, her expression
was lively and impassioned. But in her emotional power she reached the
proportion of genius. With "the most ardent soul, the liveliest fancy,
the most inflammable imagination that has existed since Sappho," she
represents the embodied spirit of tragedy outlined against the cold,
hard background of a skeptical, mocking, realistic age. "I love in order
to live," she said, "and I live to love." This is the key-note of her
life.

CHAPTER XVI. THE SALON HELVETIQUE

_The Swiss Pastor's Daughter--Her Social Ambition--Her Friends--Mme.
de Marchais--Mme. d'Houdetot--Duchesse de Lauzun--Character of Mme.
Necker--Death at Coppet--Close of the most Brilliant Period of the
Salons._

There was one woman who held a very prominent place in the society of
this period, and who has a double interest for us, though she was not
French, and never quite caught the spirit of the eighteenth-century life
whose attractive forms she loved so well. Mme. Necker, whose history
has been made so familiar through the interesting memoirs of the Comte
d'Haussonville, owes her fame to her marked qualities of intellect and
character rather than to the brilliancy of her social talents. These
found an admirable setting in the surroundings which her husband's
fortune and political career gave her. The