Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 2

by John Hill Burton

character and condition of the Parisian coteries than one of Hume's most intimate friends, Madame Geoffrin. In this country, were an uneducated woman to frame and lead a social party, including the first in rank and in talent of the day, to which no one under royalty was too great not to deem admission a privilege; were she to be absolute in her admissions and exclusions, bold in her sarcasms, free and blunt often to rudeness in her observations and opinions, and severe or kind to all by turns as her own choice or caprice suggested, it would be at once pronounced that the reddest blood and the highest rank could alone produce such an anomaly. A very small number of eminent duchesses have perhaps occupied such a position in this country. Yet Madame Geoffrin, who acted this part to the full among the fastidious aristocracy of France before the revolution, was the daughter of a valet-de-chambre and the widow of a glass manufacturer. The foundation of her influence was her success in making herself the centre of a circle of artists and men of letters. She was much in the confidence of Madame De Tencin, and on that lady's death succeeded in transferring to herself what remained of her distinguished society, dimmed as it was by the departure of Montesquieu and Fontenelle. Madame Geoffrin by activity and energy widened the circle. She never made visits herself, and those who had the privilege of entering her dining-room on her public days, found there assembled D'Alembert, Helvétius, Raynal, Marmontel, Caraccioli, Holbach, Galliani, and the artist Vanloo. During the British embassy, David Hume, the great philosopher from the far North, might there be met; and when all other attempts had perhaps failed, some chance of encountering such an erratic meteor as Rousseau

still remained in attending Madame Geoffrin's Wednesday dinner. Having once, by her signal wit and wisdom, gained her position, no obtrusive rivals from her own deserted class could push near enough to drive her from it. It is not the least admirable feature of this remarkable woman, that far from assuming the subdued and cautious tone of one of her own rank, who must be more wary than a denizen of committing breaches of the social rules of her new cast, a simplicity and freedom seems to have accompanied all her actions and ideas; a courageous adoption of what seemed good to her in place of what might be fit. Her letters, in their severe diction, give some notion of the writer's character, but cannot convey so full an impression as when they are presented in the bold, irregular, and most "unlady-like" hand in which they are scribbled.[211:1]

The pleasant retailers of the literary chit-chat of that time, Marmontel, Grimm, Bauchemont, and others, are full of details of Madame Geoffrin, who, if she was not quite as formally approached as Boufflers, or Deffand, was as much respected, loved, and feared. The author of the Contes Moraux," tells us some of the weaknesses of this gifted lady; and, according to his account, she had been actually convicted, living as she was outwardly in the freest society in the world, of a turn for secret devotion! "Elle avait un apartement dans un couvent de religieuses et une tribune à l'Eglise des Capucins,—mais avec autant de mystère que les femmes galantes de ce temps-là avaient des petites maisons." The picture would be sufficiently ludicrous, were it not for the darker features presented by a state of society, where no one should venture to be pious except under pain of being exterminated with ridicule.

There was one matter as to which Madame Geoffrin was timid and cautious; she never meddled with matters of state or unsafe political opinions, and was induced to discountenance those who did so. Surrounded by restless and inquiring spirits, she often dreaded being compromised by their conduct; and was especially uneasy at any time when the Bastille sheltered a more than usual number of those whose wit was wont to flash round her board. But her guests have recorded, that if there was a little saddened and earnest gravity in her deportment, when she received them after such naughty affairs, she abated nothing of her old kindness. Her good heart indeed was after all her noblest quality. She was one of those who held the simple notion, that were it not for the judicious distribution

of favours by the rich, the poor, including artisans and producers of all kinds, must necessarily die of starvation. She was thus in the midst of an extensive distribution of charities, actively occupied in the encouragement of those who lived by the sweat of their brow; and if she believed that she accomplished much more than she actually did, it was a satisfaction not to be grudged to one who occupied herself with the fortunes of the poor, in the midst of the stony indifference of the French aristocracy of that day.

Another lady, a friend and correspondent of Hume, Madame le Page du Boccage, endeavoured to rival Madame Geoffrin as a centre of attraction; but though she possessed, along with wealth, both rank and beauty, she was unsuccessful, on account of the presence of a third quality—authorship. The wits must praise her bad poetry if they frequented her house, and where so many other doors were open without such a condition, they abandoned it. "Elle était d'une figure aimable," says Grimm, "elle est bonne femme; elle est riche; elle pouvait fixer chez elle les gens d'esprit et de bonne compagnie, sans les mettre dans l'embarras de lui parler avec peu de sincérité de sa Colombiade ou de ses Amazones."[213:1]

Perhaps of all these eminent women, while

Madame de Boufflers had the greatest amount of elegance and accomplishment, Madame du Deffand had the sharpest and most searching wit. She was the author of that proverbial bon mot about St. Denis carrying his head under his arm, il n'y a que le premier pas qui coûte; a saying sufficient to make a reputation in France. Madame du Deffand does not appear to have been a correspondent of Hume, nor, though they occasionally met, does much cordiality seem to have subsisted between them.[214:1] The aveugle clairvoyante, as Voltaire aptly called her, in allusion to her blindness and her wit, thought that she discovered in Hume a worshipper at another shrine. She wrote to Walpole expressing her disgust of those who paid court to Madame de Boufflers, at the same time, only just not stating, in express terms, how much they were mistaken in not transferring their obsequiousness to herself.[214:2] She, certainly an object

of pity from her blindness, was still more so in her own discontented spirit. The days which tranquil ease and the attentions of kind friends might have soothed, were disturbed by restless vanity, an intense desire to interfere with the doings of that world which she could not see, dissipation, and literary wrangles.

One remarkable person, an offshoot of Madame du Deffand's circle, and driven forth from it to raise an empire of her own, was Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse. Hume and she met frequently in Paris, and they subsequently corresponded together. She was an illegitimate child, who, having been well educated, had been adopted by Madame du Deffand as her companion, and the minister for supplying, as far as possible, her lost sense of sight. Mademoiselle had to be present at those displays of intellect which illuminated the table of her mistress. It soon began to transpire that the humble drudge possessed a soul of fire; and taking part in the conversation, her remarks rose as she acquired confidence and ease, into an originality of thought, fulness of judgment, and rich eloquence of language, which fascinated the senses of those veteran champions in the arena of intellect. Thus many of those who went to offer their incense to a woman old and blind, were constrained to bestow some of it on one "young in years, but in sage counsel old," who had little more outward claim on their admiration; for Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse was naturally plain, and was deeply marked with smallpox. The patroness did not present herself till six o'clock in the evening; to her who knew no difference between light and darkness it was morning. She often found that her protégée had been entertaining the guests for an hour, and that they had come early to enjoy her conversation. This was treason—an