table, without affectation or
pretension, but not untouched by ennui, the malady of her time, she held
her position to the end of a long life which closed in 1777.

"Alas," said d'Alembert, who had been in the habit of spending his
mornings with Mlle. de Lespinasse until her death, and his evenings with
Mme. Geoffrin, "I have neither evenings nor mornings left."

"She has made for fifty years the charm of her society," said the Abbe
Morellet. "She has been constantly, habitually virtuous and benevolent."
Her salon brought authors and artists into direct relation with
distinguished patrons, especially foreigners, and thus contributed
largely to the spread of French art and letters. It was counted among
"the institutions of the eighteenth century."

CHAPTER XIII. ULTRA-PHILOSOPHICAL SALONS--MADAME D'EPINAY

_Mme. de Graffigny--Baron d'Holbach--Mme. d'Epinay's Portrait of
Herself--Mlle. Quinault--Rousseau--La Chevrette--Grimm--Diderot--The
Abbe Galiani--Estimate of Mme. d'Epinay_

A few of the more radical and earnest of the philosophers rarely, if
ever, appeared at the table of Mme. Geoffrin. They would have brought
too much heat to this company, which discussed everything in a light
and agreeable fashion. Perhaps, too, these free and brilliant spirits
objected to the leading-strings which there held every one within
prescribed limits. They could talk more at their ease at the weekly
dinners of Baron d'Holbach, in the salons of Mme. Helvetius, Mme. de
Marchais, or Mme. de Graffigny, in the Encyclopedist coterie of Mlle. de
Lespinasse, or in the liberal drawing room of Mme. d'Epinay, who held
a more questionable place in the social world, but received much good
company, Mme. Geoffrin herself included.

Mme. de Graffigny is known mainly as a woman of letters whose life had
in it many elements of tragedy. Her youth was passed in the brilliant
society of the little court at Luneville. She was distantly related
to Mme. du Chatelet, and finally took refuge from the cruelties of a
violent and brutal husband in the "terrestrial paradise" at Cirey. La
belle Emilie was moved to sympathy, and Voltaire wept at the tale of
her sorrows. A little later she became a victim to the poet's sensitive
vanity. He accused her of sending to a friend a copy of his "Pucello,"
an unfinished poem which was kept under triple lock, though parts of it
had been read to her. Her letters were opened, her innocent praises were
turned against he