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Updated: May 8, 2025
Even the great admirers of Geoffrin admit that savoir vivre was her highest knowledge, she had very few ideas with respect to anything besides; but in the knowledge of all that pertained to the manners and usage of good society, in the knowledge of men, and particularly of women, she was deeply learned, and was able to give some very useful instructions.
Geoffrin began to receive at her residence, which gained its first renown through the exquisite dinners served there.
Mme. de Graffigny Baron d'Holbach Mme. d'Epinay's Portrait of Herself Mlle. Quinault Rousseau La Chevrette Grimm Diderot The Abbe Galiani Estimate of Mme. d'Epinay A few of the more radical and earnest of the philosophers rarely, if ever, appeared at the table of Mme. Geoffrin. They would have brought too much heat to this company, which discussed everything in a light and agreeable fashion.
Geoffrin also assumed the tone of high life, which always treats men of learning, poets and artists, as if they were mantua-makers or hair-dressers; and which must ever value social tact and the tone which is only to be acquired in good society, higher than all studies and arts upon which any one possessed of these properties is in a condition to pass judgment without having spent any time in their investigation.
Sainte-Beuve pronounced it "the most complete, the best organized, and best conducted of its time; the best established since the foundation of the salons; that is, since the Hotel de Rambouillet." "Do you know why La Geoffrin comes here? It is to see what she can gather from my inventory," remarked Mme. de Tencin on her death bed.
The famous coteries in which learning was inter-blended with fashion in the golden age of French intelligence, are being revived under the new Republic, and women are again quietly playing with institutions and liberties, perhaps as dangerously as when Mesdames de Tencin, Pompadour, Geoffrin, Deffant, Poplinière and L'Espinasse assembled the destinies nightly in their drawing rooms.
Geoffrin was an intellectual authority, a sort of minister to society, and her salon was the great centre and rendezvous, a veritable institution of the eighteenth century.
In the evening a larger company assembled without ceremony. A popular man of letters, so inclined, might dine Monday and Wednesday with Mme. Geoffrin, Tuesday with Mme. Helvetius, Friday with Mme.
Deffant brought together at her house all those persons whom Voltaire visited when he was in Paris; among these the President Hénault, and, at a later period of which we now speak, D'Alembert attracted to this circle distinguished foreigners and Frenchmen, who made any pretensions to culture and education. Deffant assumed quite a different tone among the learned from that of Geoffrin.
Marmontel is therefore honest enough to admit that he and his friends, as well as Madame Geoffrin herself, were accustomed to make a full parade when foreign princes, ministers, and celebrated men or women dined at the house. On such occasions especially, Madame Geoffrin displayed all the charms of her mind, and called to us, "now let us be agreeable."
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