About 1726, when lovers were numerous and friends plentiful, the death of Lafresnaye occurred at her salon. In his testament he stated that his death was caused by Mme. de Tencin; however, she was too shrewd, cunning, and careful to be guilty of permitting any weak points to appear in her plots, and it was not difficult for her to clear herself of that charge by the verdict of the judges, who considered the accusation a posthumous vengeance.
The great literary men whom Mme. de Tencin gathered about her, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mairan, Marivaux, Helvétius, Marmontel, were called her menagerie, or her bêtes. Among them, Marivaux received a pension of one thousand écus from her, besides drawing at will upon the exchequer of an old maid by the name of Saint-Jean. Marmontel, desirous of writing tragedies, took lessons from the famous Mlle. Clairon--at his friend's expense. To give a correct idea of the character of woman's influence upon the literary style of that century, the words of Marmontel may be quoted: "He who wishes to write with precision, energy, and vigor, may live with man only; but he who in his style wishes to have subtleness, amenity, charm, flexibility, will do well, I think, to live with woman."
Mme. de Tencin exerted an immense influence upon the men of her circle, especially socially; for example, she married the wealthy M. de La Popelinière to Mlle. Dancourt. She was one of the few really consummate diplomats; later on, she became less associated with intrigues, and gave lessons in current diplomacy, with which she was perfectly familiar. Her counsel to her pupils was to gain friends among women rather than among men. "For," she would say, "we do whatever we wish with men; they are so dissipated, or so preoccupied with their personal interests, that to give attention to them would be to neglect your own interests."
Every New Year's Day the bêtes of her menagerie received two yards of velvet, to make knickerbockers to be worn at her receptions; this custom was observed up to the last year of the existence of her salon. Her receptions were among the first of the kind in France. Like the majority of salon leaders, she was an authoress of no mean ability. Her novels were widely read at the time--Le Siège de Calais and Les Malheurs de l'Amour. Her memoirs, throwing light upon the intrigues and plots, social animosities, and general state of the society of the time, are historically valuable. She died in Paris, in 1749.
Among all the great salons, that of Mme. de Tencin was the only one in which gambling was indulged in on a wholesale scale; fortunes changed hands every evening, a large part of the gains always falling to the lot of the hostess, as a sort of "rake off." She herself was a professional at the business, and by receiving private information from headquarters, through her famous friend Law, the contrôleur-général, and her lover Dubois, she was able to acquire an immense fortune which she distributed freely among her friends and favorites. Her place among the literary salon leaders depends mainly upon her endeavors to advance the interests of the aspiring young authors who were willing to place themselves under her protection.
After the death of Mme. de Tencin and that of Mme. de Châtelet, who had received many of the celebrities of the time, there remained but two distinguished, purely literary and philosophical salons open in Paris. By right of precedence, the bêtes should have gone over to the salon of Mme. du Deffand, as she had been established some years when Mme. Geoffrin began to receive at her residence, which gained its first renown through the exquisite dinners served there. But the bêtes all flocked to the salon bourgeois, and consequently a more brilliant gathering never assembled in a salon; here sat, enjoying the liberal hospitalities, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mairan, Marmontel, Helvétius, Diderot, D'Alembert, Thomas, D'Holbach, Hume, Morellet, Mlle. de Lespinasse, the Marquis de Duras, Comtesses d'Egmont and de Brionne. Here, conversation--which, in the eighteenth century, was not only a discussion or a dissertation, but an art--reached its highest development; the members did not need to be eloquent, to expatiate upon some theory or science; the conversation moved about the members, and they had to be a part of it.
Mme. Geoffrin was born in Paris in 1699, and was the daughter of M. Rodet, valet de chambre of the dauphiness, Duchesse de Bourgogne, mother of Louis XV. When barely fifteen she was married to the wealthy M. Geoffrin, the so-called founder of the celebrated Manufacture des Glaces de Gobelins. Through his wealth and his associations with people of nobility who bought his ware, she was soon encouraged in her desire to entertain the nobility; and her esprit, tact, intelligence, and admirable taste in dress were all effective in bringing about the desired results.
Her career was one of continual successes. When she opened her salon, in 1741, she instituted the custom of receiving her friends at table, not only men of letters, but artists, architects, builders, painters, sculptors, all men of genius and prominence. Monday was the day reserved for artists exclusively; Marmontel, who lived with Mme. Geoffrin for ten years "as her tenant," and the indispensable Abbé Morellet were the exceptions who might be present upon that day. From the very beginning she formed the habit of permitting conversation to go just so far, then cutting it off with her famous: Voil qui est bien!
Her husband was the maître d'hôtel, of whom many interesting anecdotes are told; the best and one that illustrates well the appreciation of individuals in those days is the following, which is so admirably told by Lady Jackson that we quote from her: "For some years, there sat at the bottom of Mme. Geoffrin's dinner and supper table a dignified-looking, white-haired old gentleman, bland in manner, but very modest and retiring, speaking only when spoken to, but looking very happy when the guests seemed to enjoy the good cheer set before them. When, at last, his customary place became vacant, and some brilliant butterfly of madame's circle of visiteurs flottants, who, perhaps, had smiled patronizingly upon the silent old gentleman, becoming aware of his absence, would, perchance, carelessly inquire what had become of her constant dinner guest, madame would reply: Mais, c'était mon mari. Hélas! il est mort, le bon homme. [Why, that was my husband! alas, he is dead, poor man!] Just so little was the consideration shown this worthy creature in his own house! Yet it both pleased and amused him to sit there silently and gaze at the throng of rank, fashion, and learning, assembled in his wife's salon, and to witness her social success."
After the death of Mme. Geoffrin's husband, the immense fortune passed under her own management, whereupon began her real career as a social arbitress, during which she is said to have tempered both opinions and characters. Thomas said of her that "she was, in morals, like that divinity of the ancients which maintained or reëstablished limits." She was a great patroness of arts and her rooms were decorated with pictures by Vanloo, Greuze, Vernet, Robert, etc. She and her salon became, in time, the acknowledged judge and dictator of matters literary and artistic. Whenever a financier wished to purchase a certain work of art, it was taken to her Monday dinner, where the artists determined its artistic value and fixed the price. Her house was a real museum; there the precious Mariette collection was on permanent exhibition.