The Women of the French Salons [99]
to all situations. The world pleases you; you love solitude. Society amuses you, but it does not seduce you. Your heart does not give itself easily. Strong passions are necessary to you, and it is better so, for they will not return often. Nature, in placing you in an ordinary position, has given you something to relieve it. Your soul is noble and elevated, and you will never remain in a crowd. It is the same with your person. It is distinguished and attracts attention, without being beautiful. There is something piquante about you . . . You have two things which do not often go together: you are sweet and strong; your gaiety adorns you and relaxes your nerves, which are too tense . . . You are extremely refined; you have divined the world."
The age of portraits was not quite passed, and the privilege of seeing one's self in the eyes of one's friends was still accorded, a fact to which we owe many striking if sometimes rather highly colored pictures. A few words from d'Alembert are of twofold interest. He writes some years later:
"The regard one has for you does not depend alone upon your external charms; it depends, above all, upon your intellect and your character. That which distinguishes you in society is the art of saying to every one the fitting word and that art is very simple with you; it consists in never speaking of yourself to others, and much of themselves. It is an infallible means of pleasing; thus you please every one, though it happens that all the world pleases you; you know even how to avoid repelling those who are least agreeable."
This epitome of the art of pleasing may be commended for its wisdom, aside from the very delightful picture it gives of an amiable and attractive woman. Again he writes:
"The excellence of your tone would not be a distinction for one reared in a court, and speaking only the language she has learned. In you it is a merit very real and very rare. You have brought it from the seclusion of a province, where you met no one who could teach you. You were, in this regard, as perfect the day after your arrival at Paris as you are today. You found yourself, from the first, as free, as little out of place in the most brilliant and most critical society as if you had passed your life there; you have felt its usages before knowing them, which implies a justness and fineness of tact very unusual, an exquisite knowledge of les convenances."
It was her innate tact and social instinct, combined with rare gifts of intellect and great conversational charm, that gave this woman without name, beauty, or fortune so exceptional a position, and her salon so distinguished a place among the brilliant centers of Paris. As she was not rich and could not give costly dinners, she saw her friends daily from five to nine, in the interval between other engagements. This society was her chief interest, and she rarely went out. "If she made an exception to this rule, all Paris was apprised of it in advance," says Grimm. The most illustrious men of the State, the Church, the Court, and the Army, as well as celebrated foreigners and men of letters, were sure to be found there. "Nowhere was conversation more lively, more brilliant, or better regulated," writes Marmontel. . . "It was not with fashionable nonsense and vanity that every day during four hours, without languor or pause, she knew how to make herself interesting to a circle of sensible people." Caraccioli went from her salon one evening to sup with Mme. du Deffand. "He was intoxicated with all the fine works he had heard read there," writes the latter. "There was a eulogy of one named Fontaine by M. de Condorcet. There were translations of Theocritus; tales, fables by I know not whom. And then some eulogies of Helvetius, an extreme admiration of the esprit and the talents of the age; in fine, enough to make one stop the ears. All these judgments false and in the worst taste." A hint of the rivalry between the former friends is given in a letter from Horace Walpole. "There is at Paris," he writes, "a Mlle.
The age of portraits was not quite passed, and the privilege of seeing one's self in the eyes of one's friends was still accorded, a fact to which we owe many striking if sometimes rather highly colored pictures. A few words from d'Alembert are of twofold interest. He writes some years later:
"The regard one has for you does not depend alone upon your external charms; it depends, above all, upon your intellect and your character. That which distinguishes you in society is the art of saying to every one the fitting word and that art is very simple with you; it consists in never speaking of yourself to others, and much of themselves. It is an infallible means of pleasing; thus you please every one, though it happens that all the world pleases you; you know even how to avoid repelling those who are least agreeable."
This epitome of the art of pleasing may be commended for its wisdom, aside from the very delightful picture it gives of an amiable and attractive woman. Again he writes:
"The excellence of your tone would not be a distinction for one reared in a court, and speaking only the language she has learned. In you it is a merit very real and very rare. You have brought it from the seclusion of a province, where you met no one who could teach you. You were, in this regard, as perfect the day after your arrival at Paris as you are today. You found yourself, from the first, as free, as little out of place in the most brilliant and most critical society as if you had passed your life there; you have felt its usages before knowing them, which implies a justness and fineness of tact very unusual, an exquisite knowledge of les convenances."
It was her innate tact and social instinct, combined with rare gifts of intellect and great conversational charm, that gave this woman without name, beauty, or fortune so exceptional a position, and her salon so distinguished a place among the brilliant centers of Paris. As she was not rich and could not give costly dinners, she saw her friends daily from five to nine, in the interval between other engagements. This society was her chief interest, and she rarely went out. "If she made an exception to this rule, all Paris was apprised of it in advance," says Grimm. The most illustrious men of the State, the Church, the Court, and the Army, as well as celebrated foreigners and men of letters, were sure to be found there. "Nowhere was conversation more lively, more brilliant, or better regulated," writes Marmontel. . . "It was not with fashionable nonsense and vanity that every day during four hours, without languor or pause, she knew how to make herself interesting to a circle of sensible people." Caraccioli went from her salon one evening to sup with Mme. du Deffand. "He was intoxicated with all the fine works he had heard read there," writes the latter. "There was a eulogy of one named Fontaine by M. de Condorcet. There were translations of Theocritus; tales, fables by I know not whom. And then some eulogies of Helvetius, an extreme admiration of the esprit and the talents of the age; in fine, enough to make one stop the ears. All these judgments false and in the worst taste." A hint of the rivalry between the former friends is given in a letter from Horace Walpole. "There is at Paris," he writes, "a Mlle.