ternal. My education was
continual."

The daughter of a valet de chambre of the Duchess of Burgundy, who gave
her a handsome dowry, Marie Therese Rodet became, at fourteen, the wife
of a lieutenant-colonel of the National Guard and a rich manufacturer of
glass. Her husband did not count for much among the distinguished guests
who in later years frequented her salon, and his part in her life seems
to have consisted mainly in furnishing the money so essential to her
success, and in looking carefully after the interests of the menage. It
is related that some one gave him a history to read, and when he called
for the successive volumes the same one was always returned to him. Not
observing this, he found the work interesting, but "thought the author
repeated a little." He read across the page a book printed in two
columns, remarking that "it seemed to be very good, but a trifle
abstract." One day a visitor inquired for the white-haired old gentleman
who was in the habit of sitting at the head of the table. "That was my
husband," replied Mme. Geoffrin; "he is dead."

But if her marriage was not an ideal one, it does not appear that it was
unhappy. Perhaps her bourgeois birth and associations saved her youth
from the domestic complications which were so far the rule in the great
world as to have, in a measure, its sanction. At all events her life
was apparently free from the shadows that rested upon many of her
contemporaries.

"Her character was a singular one," writes Marmontel, who lived for ten
years in her house, "and difficult to understand or paint, because it
was all in half-tints and shades; very decided nevertheless, but without
the striking traits by which one's nature distinguishes and defines
itself. She was kind, but had little sensibility; charitable, without
any of the charms of benevolence; eager to aid the unhappy, but without
seeing them, for fear of being moved; a sure, faithful, even officious
friend, but timid and anxious in serving others, lest she should
compromise her credit or her repose. She was simple in her taste, her
dress, and her furniture, but choice in her simplicity, having the
refinements and delicacies of luxury, but nothing of its ostentation nor
its vanity; modest in her air, carriage, and manners, but with a touch
of pride, and even a little vainglory. Nothing flattered her more
than her intercourse with the great. At their houses she rarely saw
them,--indeed she was not at her ease