fy them. The Abbe
Morellet, Thomas, D'Alembert, and Mlle. de Lespinasse (the only lady
admitted to her Wednesdays) were given liberal pensions. Upon each
New Year's Day, in commemoration of Mme. de Tencin, she sent each
Wednesday guest a velvet cap. Her motto was: _Donner et pardonner_
[Give and forgive].

Stanislas, King of Poland, her _protege_, whom she had rescued from
the debtor's prison in Paris, and to whom she had shown many favors,
upon being elected King of Poland in 1764, said to her: _Maman, votre
fils est roi_ [Mamma, your son is king]. Two years later, when she
paid him a visit, the leading members of the Polish nobility met her
on the road, and the king had a special residence prepared for her.
As she passed through Vienna, Joseph II. received her, and the Empress
Maria entertained her at dinner. Upon her return to Paris, after this
triumphal tour through Europe, the members of the world of literature
and art, and even the ministers and the nobility, flocked to see her;
this demonstration was the more remarkable from the fact that she
wielded no political influence, her only desire and pleasure seeming
to lie in aiding her friends.

Mme. Geoffrin was too practical and had too much good common sense to
be vain. The majority of men were influenced by and favored her, and,
which seemed strange, she had few enemies among her own sex. Mme.
Necker said: "The old age of Mme. Geoffrin is like that of old trees,
whose age we know by the space they cover and the quantity of roots
they spread. She has seen all the illustrious men of the century; she
has discovered, with sagacity, their peculiarities and their defects.
She judges them by their conduct, never by their talents."

In her best years, she was intimately associated with the
Encyclopaedists, to whom she paid over one hundred thousand francs for
the publication of their work. Of all the great women of that century,
she was the closest friend of the philosophers and free-thinkers,
being called _La Fontenelle des Femmes_. She was always ready with
an answer; one day a friend pointed out to her the house of the
farmer-general Bouvet, and asked her: "Have you ever seen anything as
magnificent and in better taste?" She replied: "I would have nothing
to say if Bouvet were the _frotteur_ [floor polisher] of it."

Mme. Geoffrin, more than any other woman of the salons, possessed the
three essential qualifications of a salon leader,--good sense,
tact, and intell