FOOTNOTES:
[1] Hume, Boswell, Burke, and Johnson are quoted in turn. The first reference is to Edinburgh, the rest to London.
[2] Boswell’s Life, Hill’s edition, 2. 75.
[3] Boswell’s Life 3. 253.
[4] Ib., 4. 167.
[5] Ib., 3. 247.
[6] Lettres à Walpole 3. 338; 28 May 1777.
[7] Boswell’s Life 2. 328-29.
[8] Ib., 2. 340.
[9] Boswell’s Life 1. 447.
[10] Letters 6. 301.
[11] In his Memoirs.
[12] See Churton Collins’ Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau in England, London 1908.
[13] Essai sur la Société des Gens de Lettres et des Grands, sur la Réputation, sur les Mécènes, et sur les Récompenses Littéraires. In his Mélanges de Littérature et de Philosophie (1753) 2. 119.
[14] Ib. 2. 121. Cf. Helvétius to Hume (Letters to Hume; 28 June 1767). ‘L’attraction de la terre Britannique agit puissament sur moi.’
[15] See his Memoirs.
[16] Œuvres (1819-25) 43. 320; 14 November 1764. The whole passage is worth quoting: ‘Mille gens, messieurs, s’élèvent et déclament contre l’anglomanie: j’ignore ce qu’ils entendent par ce mot. S’ils veulent parler de la fureur de travestir en modes ridicules quelques usages utiles, de transformer un deshabillé commode en un vêtement malpropre, de saisir, jusqu’à des jeux nationaux, pour y mettre des grimaces à la place de la gravité, ils pourraient avoir raison; mais si, par hasard, ces déclamateurs prétendaient nous faire un crime du désir d’étudier, d’observer, de philosopher, comme les Anglais, ils auraient certainement bien tort: car, en supposant que ce désir soit déraisonable, ou même dangereux, il faudrait avoir beaucoup d’humeur pour nous l’attribuer et ne pas convenir que nous sommes à cet égard à l’abri de tout reproche.’
[17] Its first published title was L’Orphéline Léguée. See also Walpole’s Letters 6. 360.
[18] Correspondance, ed. Lescure, 1. 497; 14 August 1768.
[19] Mélanges 2. 240.
[20] Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works 2. 178.
[21] The ideal of a group of ladies and gentlemen who seek in literature the pleasantest of entertainment is of course encountered in Italian literature long before this time. The singular vitality of the scheme adopted by Boccaccio for the framework of the Decameron is proved by the numerous imitations of it. The Petrarchists, as well as Boccaccio, found favour in the eyes of the court-ladies.
[22] The Book of the Courtier, from the Italian of Count Baldassare Castiglione, done into English by Sir Thomas Hoby. Edited by Professor Raleigh. London, 1900. See pp. 29 ff.
[23] Spirit.
[24] Figures, allegories.
[25] ‘Arguments,’ discussions, such as the one that follows on the nature of the true courtier.
[26] The following anecdote of a warrior who affirmed that the entertainments of the Court were beneath him, may be cited as a specimen: ‘The Gentlewoman demaundyng him, What is then your profession? He aunswered with a frowning looke: To fight. Then saide the Gentlewoman: Seing you are not nowe at the warre nor in place to fight, I woulde thinke it beste for you to bee well besmered and set up in an armorie with other implementes of warre till time wer that you should be occupied, least you waxe more rustier than you are.’ p. 49.
[27] See below, p. 124.
[28] Historical Memoirs 1. 14. Chesterfield, who knew the salons at first hand, writes to his son, 24 December 1750, ‘Le bon goût commença seulement à se faire jour, sous le règne, je ne dis pas de Louis Treize, mais du Cardinal de Richelieu, et fut encore épuré sous celui de Louis Quatorze.... Vers la fin du règne du Cardinal de Richelieu, et au commencement de celui de Louis Quatorze, l’Hôtel de Rambouillet était le Temple du Goût, mais d’un goût pas encore tout à fait épuré.’ Letters, ed. Bradshaw, 1. 382.
[29] ‘Arthénice’ is an anagram of her name, Cathérine. It is said to have been discovered by Malherbe.
[30] This, too, is Italian. Cf. Burckhardt, Renaissance in Italy, tr. Middlemore, p. 359: ‘Social intercourse in its highest and most perfect form now ignored all distinctions of caste, and was based simply on the existence of an educated class.’
[31] Thus Mascarille in Les Précieuses Ridicules: ‘Vous verrez courir de ma façon, dans les belles ruelles de Paris, deux cents chansons, autant de sonnets, quatre cents épigrammes, et plus de mille madrigaux, sans compter les énigmes et les portraits.’
[32] Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la Langue et de la Littérature Française 4. 105.
[33] She sneered at précieuses. Lettres à Walpole 1. 417.
[34] Essai sur les Gens de Lettres, etc., op. cit. 2. 136. Cf. Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, 84: ‘A writer of real merit now may ... talk even to princes with all the conscious superiority of wisdom.’
[35] ‘Collé regrettera toujours les cafés littéraires et ne se consolera pas de les voir déserter pour les salons.’ Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la Littérature Française, 6. 388. It was a significant moment in the history of the Literary Club in London when, about 1780, it fell into the habit of dining at Mrs. Vesey’s before its more exclusive sessions at the tavern.
[36] ‘Comme son siècle, Madame du Deffand, dans son extrême viellesse, retrouva le don d’aimer et la douceur des larmes.’ Lanson, Choix de Lettres, quoted by Mrs. Toynbee in Lettres à Walpole 1. lx.
[37] ‘Elle symbolise l’évolution qui, à l’époque où elle vécut, s’est opérée dans l’âme de ses contemporains, lorsque de raisonneur le siècle s’est fait passionné, de libertin sentimental.’ Ségur, Julie de Lespinasse, p. 15.
[38] Letters 6. 393.
[39] Ib. 6. 367; 2 December 1765.
[40] Ib. 9. 252; [? September] 1775.
[41] Sentimental Journey.
[42] Letters 6. 352; 19 November 1765. Cf. Madame du Deffand to Walpole (Letters 1. 385; 30 January 1768): ‘Vous n’aimez pas les impiétés, vous êtes, ce me semble, un peu dévot.’
[43] Letter to Gibbon, 30 September 1776; in Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works 2. 178.
[44] This function is admirably expressed by Professor Brunel in his account of Madame de Tencin (Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la Littérature Française 6. 403) ‘[Elle les ramenait] sans cesse au ton léger qui convient, même en un sujet grave. Tel est bien le rôle d’une femme au milieu de ces têtes pensantes. Elle se tient audessus et au dehors du débat, qu’elle envisage au seul point de vue d’agrément, et dont elle règle la marche, toujours souriante, sans le laisser languir ni s’aigrir.’
[45] Letters 6. 414; 3 February 1766.
[46] Boswell’s Life of Johnson 3. 47.
[47] Madame Necker speaks of the ‘art perfectionné de l’exagération,’ in the letter to Gibbon cited above.
[48] Thus Marmontel: ‘Leurs entretiens étaient une école pour moi non moins utile qu’agréable et, autant qu’il m’était possible, je profitais de leurs leçons.’
[49] English visitors in Paris are satirized in two comedies by Samuel Foote, The Englishman in Paris (1753) and The Englishman returned from Paris (1757). In the former the leading character, Buck, is offered an introduction to ‘Madame de Rambouillet’; in the latter he comes home completely Frenchified.
[50] Letters 6. 332; 19 October 1765.
[51] Memoirs of M. de Voltaire. During Goldsmith’s sojourn on the Continent, Diderot and Fontenelle were still visitors at Madame Geoffrin’s.
[52] In Petit de Julleville’s Histoire de la Littérature Française, op. cit., 6. 404, Walpole, who must have had her character from Madame du Deffand, tells Mason that she was ‘a most horrid woman’ who ‘had great parts and so little principle that she was supposed to have murdered and robbed one of her lovers, a scrape out of which Lord Harrington and another of them saved her. She had levees from eight in the morning till night, from the lowest tools to the highest.’ Letters 10. 28; 13 March 1777.
[53] Works of Bolingbroke 7. 169; letter to Hanmer, December 1712 (?).
[54] Ib., 7. 87; 17 October 1712. Prior to Bolingbroke.
[55] Lettres Historiques de Bolingbroke (Paris 1808), 2. 431; 3 June 1715.
[56] Dictionary of National Biography, ‘Saint John.’
[57] See the ribald verses commencing, ‘Tencin, vous avez de l’esprit,’ printed in Lettres de Bolingbroke, op. cit., 2. 433 n. The second stanza begins, ‘Bolingbroke, es-tu possédé?’
[58] Letters, edited by Bradshaw, 1. 383; 24 December 1750.
[59] See his letter to Madame de Tencin, introducing Mrs. Cleland, in Letters, as above, 2. 771; 20 August 1742.
[60] Letters, op. cit., 1. 383.
[61] See Professor P. M. Masson’s excellent monograph, Madame de Tencin (Paris 1909), pp. 278-80. The appendix contains Madame de Tencin’s letters.
[62] Cf. Montesquieu, Lettres; 12 March 1750 (in Œuvres, Paris 1879): ‘Dîtes à milord Chesterfield que rien ne me flatte tant que son approbation,’ and the rest.
[63] Madame Necker, who had studied Madame Geoffrin’s methods, remarks (Nouveaux Mélanges 1. 100): ‘Le piquant de l’esprit de Madame Geoffrin consistait toujours à rendre des idées ingénieuses par des images triviales, et pour ainsi dire, de ménage; son esprit était toujours enté sur un ton bourgeois.’ The following may serve as specimens (cf. above, p. 29): ‘Madame —— a frappé à la porte de toutes les vertus sans entrer chez aucune.’ ‘Quand nos amis sont borgnes, il faut les regarder de profil.’
[64] Letter in Éloges de Madame Geoffrin, ed. M. Morellet, p. 110.
[65] Éloges, op. cit., p. 105.
[66] Letters to Hume, pp. 288-89.
[67] Letters 6. 298; 20 September 1765.
[68] Correspondance Littéraire, Paris 1829, 5. 4: ‘Il est lourd, il n’a ni chaleur, ni grâce, ni agrément dans l’esprit.’
[69] Lettres à Walpole 1, passim.
[70] Burton’s Life of Hume 2. 168 n.
[71] Letters 6, passim. Cf. Grimm, op. cit., 5. 3-4.
[72] Burton’s Hume 2. 173; 9 November 1673.
[73] An Englishman in Paris wrote to the Earl Marshall of Scotland, ‘L’on regarde le bonheur de l’y voir comme un des plus doux fruits de la paix.’ Letters to Hume, p. 63; 4 January 1764.
[74] Burton’s Hume 2. 181.
[75] Du Deffand’s Lettres à Walpole 3. 591.
[76] Lettres à Walpole 1. 232; 5 March 1767, et passim.
[77] See Burton’s Life of Hume; Letters addressed to Hume (1849); Private Correspondence of Hume (1820); Letters, ed. T. Murray (1841); and Exposé succinct de la Contestation ... entre M. Hume et M. Rousseau (1766). The simplest narratives for the general reader are in Ségur’s Julie de Lespinasse, chapter 7, and in Collins’s Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau in England, pp. 182 ff.
[78] See Garat, Mémoires Historiques 2. 158.
[79] See Letters 6. 396; 12 January 1766, for the complete letter. A second letter, in the character of Émile, is printed in Madame du Deffand’s Lettres à Walpole 1. 3 n. Madame du Deffand persuaded Walpole not to let it become public.
[80] See above, p. 54 n., and volume one of her Lettres à Walpole, passim.
[81] Burton’s Life of Hume 2. 513.
[82] Lettres à Walpole 3. 253.
[83] In October (?) 1776, Mrs. Montagu wrote to Beattie: ‘As I passed a good deal of my time with the Litterati at Paris, you may imagine I heard much of the manner of Mr. Hume’s taking leave of the world. “Les Philosophes” (as they call themselves) were pleased that he supported the infidel character with so much constancy.’ M. Forbes’s Beattie and his Friends 130.
[84] Letters 6. 309; 3 October 1765.
[85] Ib., 6. 332.
[86] Ib., 6. 358.
[87] See Letters 6. 332: ‘Good folks, they have no time to laugh.’ ‘M. de Fontenelle,’ asked Madame Geoffrin one day, ‘Vous n’avez jamais ri?’ ‘Non,’ he replied, ‘je n’ai jamais fait ah, ah, ah.’ Necker, Nouveaux Mélanges 1. 165. Chesterfield’s hatred of laughter, that ‘shocking distortion of the face,’ is well-known; he boasted that he had never been seen to laugh.
[88] Lettres à Walpole 1. 577; 24 May 1769.
[89] Letters 6. 404; 25 January 1766.
[90] Ten years later Madame du Deffand gave him a more startling illustration of French motherliness. See Letters 9. 236.
[91] Cf. Professor Brunel in Petit de Julleville’s Histoire 6. 410: ‘C’est en effet la “raison” qu’on reconnaît à Madame Geoffrin pour mérite éminent.’
[92] Letters 6. 395; 11 January 1766.
[93] Ib., 6. 396.
[94] Ib., 6. 404; 25 January 1766.
[95] Montesquieu wrote her (15 June 1751): ‘Je sens qu’il n’y a pas de lectures qui puissent remplacer un quart d’heure de ces soupers qui faisaient mes délices.’ Œuvres (1879), 7. 377.
[96] Letters 9. 59; 28 September 1774.
[97] Ib., 6. 356; Walpole had met this Duke in Paris.
[98] Montesquieu, Œuvres (1879), 7. 400; 13 September 1752. ‘Ce qui doît nous consoler, c’est que ceux qui voient clair ne sont pour celà lumineux.’
[99] This description of herself ‘dans le coin d’un couvent’ she sent to Madame de Boufflers:
—From G. Maugras, La Marquise de Boufflers, p. 101.
[100] ‘Madame du Deffand ... is delicious; that is, as often as I can get her fifty years back, but she is as eager about what happens every day as I am about the last century.’ Walpole, Letters 6. 367; 2 December 1765.
[101] D’Alembert called her ‘The Viper,’ and told Hume that she hated everybody, especially great men. Letters to Hume, p. 201.
[102] ‘Ceux par qui on n’a pas craindre d’être assassiné, mais qui laisseraient faire les assassins.’ Montesquieu, Œuvres (1879) 7. 379.
[103] Necker, Nouveaux Mélanges 1. 79: ‘Madame du Défan [sic] accusait tous les penseurs d’affectation.’
[104] Lettres à Walpole 3. 319, et passim.
[105] Ib. 3. 77.
[106] Ib. 2. 373; cf. 3. 203. ‘Toute espèce de lecture m’ennuie.’
[107] Edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee, London, 1912. There are 838 letters.
[108] Lettres à Walpole 1. 167; 14 November 1766.
[109] Letters 9. 249; 8 September 1775.
[110] ‘If possible she is more worth visiting than ever; and so far am I from being ashamed of coming hither at my age, that I look on myself as wiser than one of the Magi, when I travel to adore this star in the East. The star and I went to the Opera last night, and when we came from Madame de la Vallière’s, at one in the morning, it wanted to drive about the town, because it was too early to set.... You nurse a little girl of four years old, and I rake with an old woman of fourscore!’ Letters 9. 256; to Selwyn, 16 September 1775.
[111] Lettres à Walpole 2. 476.
[112] Ib. 2. 484.
[113] Ib. 2. 479; ‘Il y a des gens ici qui l’appellent Junius.’
[114] J. Morley, Burke, p. 67.
[115] Lettres à Walpole 3. 589, in criticism of his Speech on the Independence of Parliament, 11 February 1780.
[116] Ib. 2. 479; 481.
[117] ‘Je lui donne une compagnie que j’ai tâché de lui assortir; un M. du Buc, qui est aussi un grand esprit, le Comte de Broglio, l’Évêque de Mirepoix, Madame de Cambis, les Caraman, etc.’ Lettres à Walpole 2. 479; 24 February 1773.
[118] Printed in 1778.
[119] By J. A. H. de Guibert, Paris 1773.
[120] See Lettres à Walpole 2. 488. He had spoken of it to Walpole, and evidently preferred it to La Harpe’s tragedy—which did not please Madame du Deffand. The tragedy, which was widely known from the author’s reading of it in the salons, was acted in 1775.
[121] See Bisset, Life of Burke (1798), p. 158. Morley thinks it was in Mlle. de Lespinasse’s salon that Burke met Diderot.
[122] Letters 8. 252; 11 March 1773.
[123] Diderot.
[124] Morellet.
[125] Professor Cross, however, considers them fairly reliable. Life of Sterne, p. 287.
[126] D. Garat, Mémoires Historiques sur le XVIIIe Siècle 2. 136.
[127] 31 January 1762.
[128] Letters 6. 370; 2 December 1765.
[129] Cf. Cross, Life of Sterne, p. 282.
[130] The rise of Julie de Lespinasse (1732-1776) to a position of first importance in Parisian society is a thrilling story. See Ségur, Julie de Lespinasse. The account of her break with Madame du Deffand whose ‘companion’ she had been, is referred to above, p. 61. Walpole (Letters 9. 59) calls her ‘a pretended bel esprit,’ and begs Conway not to allow himself to be taken to her salon, frequented by Englishmen, lest he offend Madame du Deffand.
[131] Necker, Mélanges 2. 287.
[132] Letters to the Count de Guibert (1809) 2. 233.
[133] See Lettres de Mlle. de Lespinasse ... suivies de deux chapitres dans le genre du Voyage sentimental de Sterne, par le même Auteur. Paris 1809; 3. 261.
[134] The authenticity of these stories is vouched for by the first editor of Mlle. de Lespinasse’s Letters (1809), op. cit. 1. xiv, and by the author of the ‘Portrait’ in Éloges de Madame Geoffrin (1812), p. 47. Mlle. de Lespinasse read the chapters aloud in Madame Geoffrin’s salon.
[135] His father had sent him to Lausanne at the age of sixteen. His first literary venture, his Essai sur l’Étude de la Littérature, was in French.
[136] Lettres à Walpole 3. 342; 8 June 1777.
[137] Gibbon, Miscellaneous Works 2. 247; 21 April 1781.
[138] Lettres à Walpole, 3. 367; 21 September 1777.
[139] Private Letters, ed. Prothero, 1. 29; 12 February 1763. Cf. Memoirs, ed. Hill, p. 153.