laws for them--
Must I be your slave and queen at the same time,
O among tyrants, the greatest?]

As far as the care of the education of her children is concerned,
with its sacrifice and real application to duty, she was sometimes
called--and not unadvisedly--the type of the ideal mother. From 1757
on her ideas and thoughts ran to education. Her friends were all
of the philosophical trend, and intellectual labor was their chief
pleasure. After having passed through a career of excitement and
love's caprices, she longed for a peaceful, quiet existence; at
that point, however, her health gave way, and she entered upon a new
territory at Geneva. There she conquered Voltaire, who was profuse
with his compliments and kindnesses. Upon her return she became the
recognized leader or champion of the philosophic and foreign group
and the Encyclopaedists, and was regarded as the central figure of the
philosophical movement in general.

The ideas of the philosophers had been gaining ground, and were
disseminated through all classes. The mere love of pleasure and luxury
at first found under Louis XV. gave way to more serious reflections
when society was confronted with those all-important questions which
finally culminated in the Revolution. The salon of Mme. d'Epinay grew
to be the most important and, intellectually, the most brilliant
of the time. Rousseau, Diderot, Helvetius, Duclos, Suard, the Abbes
Galiani, Raynal, the Florentine physician Gatti, Comte de Schomberg,
Chevalier de Chastellux, Saint-Lambert, Marquis de Croixmare, the
different ambassadors, counts and princes, were frequent visitors
In this brilliant circle her letters from Voltaire, read aloud, were
always eagerly awaited. Such dramas as Voltaire's _Tancred_, Diderot's
_Le Pere de Famille_, were given under her patronage and discussed in
her salon; after the performance she entertained all the friends at
supper.

Upon the departure of Abbe Galiani from Paris, Mme. d'Epinay and
Diderot were intrusted with the revision and printing of his famous
_Dialogues sur les Bles_; Grimm left to them the continuance of
his _Correspondance Litteraire_. She was known for her wonderful
analytical ability and her keen power of observation--faculties which
won the esteem and respect of such men and caused her collaboration
to be anxiously sought by them; however, she never attempted to rival
them in their particular sphere. In her writings she displayed a
reactionary tende