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gains something of the interest of the hero or heroine of the story; and what arouses our curiosity and holds our attention in Madame du Deffand is that contrast of character and life by which she is always startling us. Commonly she is remembered as a blind old woman and for her friendship with Horace Walpole, which caused in him an absurd fear of ridicule from a connexion of his name with that of a personage much more famous than himself-perhaps the most famous living woman-simply because she was old. For when their friendship began Walpole was, in the estimation of his contemporaries, a mere diletantte; it was the publication of his correspondence after his death which brought his name celebrity. But by becoming more and more famous up to the time of her death, the picture of Madame du Deffand, young, beautiful, and fascinating, is overshadowed by the more unusual figure of a woman, old, infirm, confined in a few small rooms in a convent, but attracting by the brightness of her mind and attaching to herself every one, young and old, who came within her influence. It was in her charming youth, long before Walpole knew her, that Voltaire wrote:

Qui vous voit et qui vous entend

Perd bientôt sa philosophie;

Et tout sage avec du Deffand

Voudrait en fou passer sa vie.'

A philosopher herself, her quarrel with the philosophers never ceased, nor did her friendship with their chief thinker.

In Madame du Deffand's lifetime three kings occupied successively the throne of France, and the Duc d'Orléans, as regent, in whose life she for a short time played a leading rôle, added to the dangers which threatened the State by his sinister career. She also may be said to have reigned by right of her intellectual and social pre-eminence, a rule which continued throughout the period of uncertainty and unrest which separated the old from the new order, when ancient faith and ways of thought were faltering before the impulse and rush of the new ideals with which the minds of French thinkers were then filled. In the early years of the eighteenth century, when the life of Louis XIV., and that era which the French call le grand siècle,' with its wars, its glories, its tyrannies and taxations, was drawing to a close, men still clung to the old social conditions, too beautiful and made too sacred by use and tradition to fall without defenders in a structure of society for which faith

VOL. CXCIII. NO. CCCXCV.

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had built the most splendid of living monuments in the cathedrals of the middle ages, and when dress, manners, art, and literature touched, and lingered for a brief moment at the summit of richness, elegance, and refinement, a fine, if decaying, fruit of civilisation. It was when the effect of the new ideas-which attacked at once the State, the Church, and the family-was beginning to be felt that Madame du Deffand attained her majority and entered actively into this a so rapidly changing world.

Strangely enough there exists no complete sketch of the life of Madame du Deffand, though both it and her correspondence have served as a subject for several interesting essays, notably by Sainte-Beuve, and in more recent years by one of the leading statesmen of France. Her portrait shows us a woman of clever and keen rather than beautiful aspect, but we are told so frequently by her contemporaries of her beauty, charm, and grace that we must abide by their decision. We have not even her handwriting as a guide to the study of her character, and no collection, however rich, possesses her autograph.* Her life, after the first reckless plunge into the fashionable and corrupt world about her, may be said to be uneventful outwardly, and thenceforward she lived chiefly an intellectual existence, though she has left but little besides her letters to mark it; a short play, inimitable pen portraits, a few verses, are all we have: these and her letters are sufficient, however, to show the precision of mind, the sure judgement, the exquisite literary taste, and the capacity which made men of the keenest intellect her admirers.

Marie de Vichy Chamrond, Marquise du Deffand, was born in 1697, a year after the death of Madame de Sévigné, her great literary rival; she was contemporary with Madame Geoffrin and Madame d'Épinay, and Madame Necker made celebrated the same period. The place of her birth is somewhat uncertain, but it is probable that she was born at the Château de Chamrond, Saône-et-Loire. Her parents both belonged to noble families of Bourgogne. Left an orphan at six, she was brought to Paris, where she was placed in the convent of Sainte Madeleine de Troisuel.

Madame du Deffand early saw and combated every form of deceit; a passionate desire for truth was her dominant

In the French edition of Madame du Deffand's letters to Walpole (Paris 1812), there is a page purporting to be a facsimile of her handwriting.

characteristic; it is seen in her references to her education, of which she often speaks bitterly as the cause of all the unhappiness of her life; she possessed, and made use of to a remarkable degree, that third eye of which Goethe speaks by which we are able to observe ourselves and our own actions as well as those of others, an unprejudiced and judicial eye which takes note of all that passes, and weighs and judges; such a mind is never satisfied with accepted truths, with dull routine, or with the petty details of commonplace living; contentment does not come readily to soaring spirits which, in a world where mediocrity obtains, flutter uselessly against the walls of environment, only to be hurt by aspiration. Independent and curious and enthusiastic, she wished to criticise, to examine, to know, for herself.

So disturbing, even in those early years, were her questions on religion that Massillon was sent to convince this child in the convent, who trembled before the august presence of the renowned ecclesiastic, but not before his reasoning. Indeed, the charming young pensionnaire sustained the discussion with so much sound sense that the future prelate left her more struck with her beauty and intelligence than scandalised by her heresies.

It

In the year 1718 she was married to the Marquis du Deffand de la Lande, the usual mariage de convenance. was late for the wedding-day of so much spirit, intelligence, and beauty, but her dot was small, and the Marquis du Deffand was undoubtedly the first suitor who presented himself. As he possessed the necessary qualifications, the marriage was concluded without delay. Unhappily, however, Mademoiselle de Chamrond and the Marquis were not suited to each other, a fact which was soon realised by both, and especially by the young wife, who quickly tired of her prosaic husband, and they separated by amicable agreement. Once independent Madame du Deffand did not hesitate to enter upon the life of pleasure of the period; she was found among the gayest of the fashionable world, where, beautiful and bright, she at once became supreme. But she early emerged from some of the worst phases of high society; she was soon cured of the passion for play, the scandal of the time; years afterwards she wrote to Mr. Crawford: La vilaine passion 'que le jeu; je l'ai eue pendant trois mois; elle me détachait de tout; je ne pensais à rien. C'était le biribi que j'aimais; je me fis horreur, et je me guéris de ma folie!"* Gaming *February 13, 1767.

was indulged in to an even greater excess abroad than in England; in Paris the houses of private gentlemen were thrown open to the public, provided they played; at night the streets were lighted with fire-pots before the houses of the grands seigneurs, converted into gaming establishments, and even princesses of the blood were not ashamed to profit by banks established in their houses.

On Madame du Deffand's entrance into society we find her most intimate associates were of a character ill calculated to the leading of a reasonable life. Her first friend was Madame de Prie, wife of the French Ambassador at Turin, whose life offers few redeeming features. She was not wanting, however, in esprit; when Madame du Deffand visited her at her château in Normandy, where she had been exiled, they characteristically began the day by exchanging verses before getting up in the morning. Madame de Prie lived a dissolute life, and according to the gossip of the time died a wretched death, though this is contradicted by Madame du Deffand, who declares that she died simply from regret at no longer possessing any political influence. Then Madame de Parabère showed her the ways of her unscrupulous world; introducing her to the Regent's little suppers, which set the fashion for this form of entertainment, condoling with her on her marriage, and regretting that she had not rather taken the vows of a canoness.

'In that case you would have been free; well-placed everywhere; with the status of a married woman; an income which permits one to live and accept aid from others; the independence of a widow, without the ties which a family imposes; unquestioned rank, which you would owe to no one; indulgence and impunity. For these advantages there is only the trouble of wearing a cross, which is becoming; black or grey habits, which can be made as magnificent as one likes; a little imperceptible veil, and a knitting sheath.'

Such tuition was not without its influence. We will not attempt to give a detailed account of the manner of Madame du Deffand's life at this period, or relate her connexion with Philippe d'Orléans, and with his accomplished confidant in all manner of wild dissipation, Delrieu du Fargis, or her different experiences in the gay life of Paris of the period. The Abbé Galiani said that the women of the eighteenth century loved with their minds and not with their hearts, and it is always clear that Madame du Deffand's heart was never in these enterprises, but remained untouched until, in blind old age, a pale flower of love should bloom to be at

once her expiation and her solace. Indeed, Madame du Deffand, troubled, unhappy, ennuyée, by her unsettled mode of life, presently made an effort to return to closer relations with her husband. In 1728 there was written a curious letter in which are related the whole circumstances of this unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation; Monsieur du Deffand was placed on probation; he did not succeed in pleasing; overcome by aversion and weariness, which the lady did not conceal, the unlucky husband did not linger, but at once saved the situation by taking his leave.

In her gay and uncontrolled youth we find Madame du Deffand occasionally flitting from town to famous châteaux, of which many are in ruins since the Revolution. We meet her bright face in the north with Madame de Prie at Courebévine, with the Présidente de Bernière at la RivièreBourdet, on the banks of the Loire in old Touraine. She was one of the little court of Sceaux gathered about the granddaughter of the Great Condé, Louise de Bourbon, the ambitious, intriguing, brilliant Duchesse du Maine, who did not a little to retain for her the good graces of society. For after the second and final dismissal of her husband, her friends pretended to be shocked at what was called the lightness of Madame du Deffand's behaviour towards her husband, though it is probable that it was taste-the one unpardonable sin in Paris-that was offended. But Madame du Deffand, though she is popularly supposed to have had little regard for some of the rules which govern society, had good instincts and loved orderly conduct. Her youth was reckless rather from the force of adverse circumstances than from pure love of pleasure, and her intellect was far too clear to have allowed her to drift into a material and voluptuous existence. At Sceaux, indeed, where the Duchesse du Maine's passion for wit and brilliant conversation produced the saying that her guests were condemned to the galères du 'bel esprit,' Madame du Deffand was the one whose company was most desired. Madame de Staal, the humbly born but clever companion of the duchess, says in her delightful Mémoires :

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'Personne n'a plus d'esprit, et ne l'a plus naturel. Le feu pétillant qui l'anime pénètre au fond de chaque objet, le fait sortir de luimême, et donne du relief aux simples linéaments. Elle possède au suprême degré le talent de peindre les caractères, et ses portraits, plus vivants que les originaux, les font mieux connaître que le plus intime commerce avec eux. Elle me donna une idée toute nouvelle de ce genre d'écrire.'

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