[141] The Unpublished Correspondence of Madame du Deffand, Vol. I, pp. 202-203, London, 1810.
[142] Mme. du Deffand's venomous letter, somewhat abridged, reads as follows: "Imagine a tall, hard and withered woman, narrow-chested, with large limbs, enormous feet, a very small head, a thin face, a pointed nose, two small sea-green eyes, her color dark, her complexion florid, her mouth flat, her teeth set far apart and very much decayed; there is the figure of the beautiful Émilie, a figure with which she is so well pleased that she spares nothing for the sake of setting it off. Her manner of dressing her hair, her adornments, her top-knots, her jewelry, all are in profusion; but, as she wishes to be lovely in spite of nature, and as she wishes to appear magnificent in spite of fortune, she is obliged, in order to obtain superfluities, to go without necessaries such as under-garments and other trifles.
"She was born with sufficient intellect, and the desire to appear as though she had a great deal made her prefer to study the most abstract sciences rather than more general and pleasant branches of knowledge. She thought she would gain a greater reputation by this peculiarity and a more decided superiority over other women.
"She did not limit herself to this ambition. She wished to be a princess as well, and she became so, not by the grace of God nor by that of the King, but by her own act. This absurdity went on like the others. One became accustomed to regard her as a princess of the theatre, and one almost forgot that she was a woman of rank.
"Madame worked so hard to appear what she was not that no one knew what she really was. Even her faults were perhaps not natural. They may have had something to do with her pretensions, her want of respect with regard to the state of princess, her dullness in that of savante, and her stupidity in that of a jolie femme.
"However much of a celebrity Mme. du Châtelet may be, she would not be satisfied if she were not celebrated, and that is what she desired in becoming the friend of M. de Voltaire. To him she owes the éclat of her life, and it is to him that she will owe immortality." See Lettres de la Marquise du Deffand à Horace Walpole, Tom. I, pp. 200-201, Paris, 1824.
As a contrast to this atrocious caricature, it is but due to the memory of Mme. du Châtelet to give her portrait by Voltaire, to whom she was ever the beautiful, the charming Urania, the
"Vaste et puissante génie,
Minerve de la France, immortelle Émilie."
It is contained in the following verses:
"L'esprit sublime et la delicatesse,
L'oubli charmante de sa propre beauté
L'amitié tendre et l'amour emporté
Sont les attraits de ma belle maîtresse."