e sight of the unhappiness of others. She has an impressionable heart;
she is old; she is well; she wishes to preserve her health and her
tranquillity. As soon as she learns that I am happy she will love me to
folly."

But her generosity was exceptional. "Donner et pardonner" was her
device. Many anecdotes are related of her charitable temper. She had
ordered two marble vases of Bouchardon. One was broken before reaching
her. Learning that the man who broke it would lose his place if it were
known, and that he had a family of four children, she immediately sent
word to the atelier that the sculptor was not to be told of the loss,
adding a gift of twelve francs to console the culprit for his fright.
She often surprised her impecunious friends with the present of some bit
of furniture she thought they needed, or an annuity delicately bestowed.
"I have assigned to you fifteen thousand francs," she said one day to
the Abbe Morellet; "do not speak of it and do not thank me." "Economy is
the source of independence and liberty" was one of her mottoes, and she
denied herself the luxuries of life that she might have more to spend in
charities. But she never permitted any one to compromise her, and often
withheld her approbation where she was free with her purse. To do all
the good possible and to respect all the convenances were her cardinal
principles. Marmontel was sent to the Bastille under circumstances that
were rather creditable than otherwise; but it was a false note, and
she was never quite the same to him afterwards. She wept at her own
injustice, schemed for his election to the Academy, and scolded him for
his lack of diplomacy; but the little cloud was there. When the Sorbonne
censured his Belisarius her friendship could no longer bear the strain,
and, though still received at her dinners, he ceased to live in her
house.

Her dominant passion seems to have been love of consideration, if a calm
and serene, but steadily persistent, purpose can be called a passion. No
trained diplomatist ever understood better the world with which he had
to deal, or managed more adroitly to avoid small antagonisms. It was
her maxim not to create jealousy by praising people, nor irritation by
defending them. If she wished to say a kind word, she dwelt upon good
qualities that were not contested. She prided herself upon ruling her
life by reason. Sainte-Beuve calls her the Fontenelle of women, but it
was Fontenelle tempered with a heart.