de Lespinasse was unique. Everyone was at perfect
liberty to express and sustain his own opinions upon any subject,
without danger of offending the hostess, which, as has been seen,
was not the case in the salon of Mme. Geoffrin. Her high and sane
intellectual culture permitted her to listen to all discussions and to
take part in all. She had no strong prejudices, having read--for Mme.
du Deffand--nearly everything that was read at that time; also, she
had the talent of preserving harmony among her members by drawing from
each one his best qualities.

A woman who played a prominent part in society during the Regency,
but who had no salon in the proper sense of that word, was Mme.
du Chatelet, commonly called Voltaire's Emilie. She was especially
interested in sciences, mathematics, geometry, and astronomy, and did
more than any other woman of that time to encourage nature study.
It was at her Chateau de Cirey that Voltaire found protection when
threatened with a second visit to the Bastille; and there, from time
to time for sixteen years, he did some of the best work of his life.
It was Mme. du Chatelet who encouraged him, sympathized with him,
and appreciated his mobile humor as well as his talent. During these
years, while he was under the influence of madame, appeared _Merope_,
_Alzire_, the _Siecle de Louis XIV_, etc.

Mme. du Chatelet was the one great _femme savante_ of that century. In
the preface to her _Traduction des Principes Mathematiques de Newton_,
Voltaire wrote: "Never was a woman so _savante_ as she, and never did
a woman merit less the saying, _she is a femme savante_. She did
not select her friends from those circles where there was a war of
_esprit_, where a sort of tribunal was established, where they judged
their century, by which, in recompense, they were severely judged.
She lived for a long time in societies which were ignorant of what she
was, and she took no notice of this ignorance. The words precision,
justness, and force are those which correctly describe her elegance.
She would have written as Pascal and Nicole did rather than like Mme.
de Sevigne; but this severe firmness and this tendency of her _esprit_
did not make her inaccessible to the beauties of sentiment."

Maupertuis, the astronomer, wrote: "What a marvel, moreover, to have
been able to combine the fine qualities of her sex with the sublime
knowledge which we believe uniquely made for us! This enterprising
phenomenon will ma