ker
had sought the aid and advice of Mme. de Marchais in the formation of
her own salon, and had taken for her one of those ardent attachments so
characteristic of earnest and susceptible natures. She confided to her
all the secrets of her heart; she felt a double pleasure when her joys
and her little troubles were shared with this sympathetic companion. "I
had for her a passionate affection," she says. "When I first saw her my
whole soul was captivated. I thought her one of those enchanting fairies
who combine all the gifts of nature and of magic. I loved her; or,
rather, I idolized her." So pure, so confiding, so far above reproach
herself, she refuses to see the faults of one she loves so tenderly. Her
letters glow with exalted sentiment. "Adieu, my charming, my beautiful,
my sweet friend," she writes. "I embrace you. I press you to my bosom;
or, rather, to my soul, for it seems to me that no interval can separate
yours from mine."

But the character of Mme. de Marchais was evidently not equal to her
fascination. Her vanity was wounded by the success of her friend. She
took offense at a trifling incident that touched her self-love. "The
great ladies have disgusted me with friendship," she wrote, in reply to
Mme. Necker's efforts to repair the breach. They returned to each other
the letters so full of vows of eternal fidelity, and were friends no
more. Apparently without any fault of her own, Mme. Necker was left with
an illusion the less, and the world has another example to cite of the
frail texture of feminine friendships.

She was not always, however, so unfortunate in her choice. She found a
more amiable and constant object for her affections in Mme. d'Houdetot,
a charming woman who, in spite of her errors, held a very warm place
in the hearts of her cotemporaries. We have met her before in the
philosophical circles of La Chevrette, and in the beautiful promenades
of the valley of Montmorency, where Rousseau offered her the incense
of a passionate and poetic love. She was facile and witty, graceful and
gay, said wise and thoughtful things, wrote pleasant verses which were
the exhalations of her own heart, and was the center of a limited though
distinguished circle; but her chief attraction was the magic of a sunny
temper and a loving spirit. "He only is unhappy who can neither love,
nor work, nor die," she writes. Though more or less linked with the
literary coteries of her time, Mme. d'Houdetot seems to have be