supper
table a dignified-looking, white-haired old gentleman, bland in
manner, but very modest and retiring, speaking only when spoken to,
but looking very happy when the guests seemed to enjoy the good cheer
set before them. When, at last, his customary place became vacant, and
some brilliant butterfly of madame's circle of _visiteurs flottants_,
who, perhaps, had smiled patronizingly upon the silent old gentleman,
becoming aware of his absence, would, perchance, carelessly inquire
what had become of her constant dinner guest, madame would reply:
_Mais, c'etait mon mari. Helas! il est mort, le bon homme._ [Why, that
was my husband! alas, he is dead, poor man!] Just so little was the
consideration shown this worthy creature in his own house! Yet it both
pleased and amused him to sit there silently and gaze at the throng
of rank, fashion, and learning, assembled in his wife's salon, and to
witness her social success."

After the death of Mme. Geoffrin's husband, the immense fortune passed
under her own management, whereupon began her real career as a social
arbitress, during which she is said to have tempered both opinions
and characters. Thomas said of her that "she was, in morals, like that
divinity of the ancients which maintained or reestablished limits."
She was a great patroness of arts and her rooms were decorated with
pictures by Vanloo, Greuze, Vernet, Robert, etc. She and her salon
became, in time, the acknowledged judge and dictator of matters
literary and artistic. Whenever a financier wished to purchase a
certain work of art, it was taken to her Monday dinner, where the
artists determined its artistic value and fixed the price. Her house
was a real museum; there the precious Mariette collection was on
permanent exhibition.

Besides her Monday dinners to artists and her Wednesday dinners to the
literary world, she gave private luncheons to a select few who were
especially congenial. At those functions, such celebrities as the
Comtesses d'Egmont and de Brionne, the Marquise de Duras, and the
Prince de Rohan were frequent guests.

Mme. Geoffrin was shrewd and tactful enough to avoid politics and not
to permit discussions of a political nature at her salon--precautions
which she observed to keep the government from interfering with her
fortune and mode of living. Her salon and dinners became so famous
that every foreigner going to Paris had the ambition to be received at
Mme. Geoffrin's; when any aspirant w