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Updated: May 8, 2025
The society in the house of Madame de Tencin consisted of well-known men of learning, and some younger men of distinguished name and family; she united, in later years, a certain amiability with her care for the entertainment and recreation of those whom she had once received into her house. This society, after the death of De Tencin, assembled in the house of Geoffrin.
Geoffrin allowed her three thousand francs. The majority of the members of her salon were from that of Mme. du Deffand, having followed Mlle. de Lespinasse after the rupture of the two women; besides these, there were Condorcet, Helvétius, Grimm, Marmontel, Condillac, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and many others.
Geoffrin had already been dead three years, and Mlle. de Lespinasse, four. Some of the most noted of the philosophers and men of letters were also gone, others were past the age of forming fresh ties, the young men belonged to another generation, and no new drawing rooms exactly replaced the old ones. Mme.
Her influence may be traced in the work of the encyclopedists, in which she was associated, and which she did more than any other woman to aid and encourage. As a power in the making of reputations and in the election of members to the Academy she shared with Mme. Geoffrin the honor of being a legitimate successor of Mme. de Lambert.
Madame du Deffant appeared on the stage of the great world contemporaneously with Geoffrin, and attained so high a degree of celebrity, that the Emperor Joseph paid her a visit in her advanced period of life, and thus afforded her the opportunity of paying him that celebrated compliment which is found related in every history of France.
He combined amiability with perfect manners, and, as he was an excellent man, was sought after by the best company. One of my visitors of eminence was Mme. Geoffrin, the woman so famous for her brilliant social life. Mme. Geoffrin gathered at her house all the known men of talent in literature and the arts, all foreigners of note and the grandest gentlemen attached to the court.
This distinguished art made the house of Madame Geoffrin invaluable to the great world, and to those learned men who wished to shine in this kind of society, and to cultivate and avail themselves of it, for such people must learn above all things neither to say too much nor too little. This society, indeed, was not calculated for any length of time for a Rousseau or a Diderot.
The Duc de Nivernois has parts, and writes at the top of the mediocre, but, as Madame Geoffrin says, is manqué par tout; guerrier manqué, ambassadeur manqué, homme d'affaires manqué, and auteur manque no, he is not homme de naissance manqué. He would think freely, but has some ambition of being governor to the Dauphin, and is more afraid of his wife and daughter, who are ecclesiastic fagots.
Helvetius, Mme. de Marchais, or Mme. de Graffigny, in the Encyclopedist coterie of Mlle. de Lespinasse, or in the liberal drawing room of Mme. d'Epinay, who held a more questionable place in the social world, but received much good company, Mme. Geoffrin herself included. Mme. de Graffigny is known mainly as a woman of letters whose life had in it many elements of tragedy.
"It isn't altogether the rich people's fault," said Margaret; and she spoke impartially, too. "I don't believe that the literary men and the artists would like a salon that descended to them. Madame Geoffrin, you know, was very plebeian; her husband was a business man of some sort." "He would have been a howling swell in New York," said Beaton, still impartially.
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