ed among her friends.

"La Paroisse," of Mme. Doublet de Persan, was the salon of the
sceptics and was under the constant surveillance of the police. All
the members arrived at the same time and each took possession of the
armchair reserved for him, above which hung his portrait. On a
large stand were two registers, in which the rumors of the day were
noted--in one the doubtful, in the other the accredited. On Saturday,
a selection was made, which went to the _Grand Livre_, which became a
journal entitled _Nouvelles a la Main_, kept by the _valet-de-chambre_
of Mme. Doublet. This book furnished the substance of the six volumes
of the _Memoires Secrets_, which began to appear in 1770.

Besides these salons of the nobility, there were those of the
financiers, a profession which had risen into prominence within the
last half century, after the death of Louis XIV. According to the
Goncourt brothers, the greatest of these salons was that of Mme.
de Grimrod de La Reyniere, who, by dint of shrewd manoeuvring, by
unheard-of extravagances, excessive opulence in the furnishings of
her salon, and by the most gorgeous and rare fetes and suppers, had
succeeded in attracting to her establishment a number of the court and
nobility.

The salon of M. de La Popeliniere belonged to this class, although he
was ranked, more or less, among the nobility. There were the weekly
suppers of Mme. Suard, Mme. Saurin, the Abbe Raynal, and the luncheons
of the Abbe Morellet on the first Sunday of the month; to the latter
functions were invited all the celebrities of the other salons, as
well as artists and musicians--it was there that the famous quarrel
of the Gluck and Piccini parties originated. The Tuesday dinners of
Helvetius became famous; it was at them that Franklin was one of the
favorites; after the death of Helvetius, he attempted in vain to
put an end to the widowhood of madame. No man at that time was more
popular than Franklin or had as much public attention shown him.

There were a number of celebrated women whose reputations rest mainly
on their wit and conversational abilities; they may be classed as
society leaders, to distinguish them from salon leaders.

CHAPTER X

SOCIAL CLASSES

The belief generally prevails that devotion and constancy did not
exist among French women of the eighteenth century; but, in spite of
the very numerous instances of infidelity which dot the pages of
the history of the French matrimonial