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Updated: May 8, 2025
The learned and free-thinking baron was agreeable, kind, rich, and lavish in his hospitality, but without pretension. "He was a man simply simple," said Mme. Geoffrin.
Geoffrin and Mme. d'Epinay; the beauty of Lady Pembroke is commented on, the charm of Lady Sarah Bunbury analysed, Lady Grenville eulogised.
"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.
The Duc de Choiseul procured her a pension, and Mme. Geoffrin gave her an annuity. She carried with her a strong following of eminent men from the salon of Mme. du Deffand, among whom was d'Alembert, who remained faithful and devoted to the end.
Geoffrin was an apt pupil in the arts of diplomacy, and the key to her remarkable social success may be found in her ready assimilation of the worldly wisdom of her sage counselor. But to this she added a far kinder heart and a more estimable character. Of all the women who presided over famous salons, Mme. Geoffrin had perhaps the least claim to intellectual preeminence.
We have already remarked that no prince, minister, or distinguished man of all Europe came to Paris who did not visit Madame Geoffrin, and think it an honor to be invited to her house, because he there found united all that was exclusively called talent in Europe. Kaunitz also, who was then only a courtier in Versailles, came to Madame Geoffrin's parties.
Men who talked, and women who added enthusiasm, were alike unconscious of the dynamic force of the material with which they were playing. Of the salons which at this period had a European reputation, the most noted were those of Mme. du Deffand, Mlle. de Lespinasse, and Mme. Geoffrin.
Calm, reposeful, charitable, without affectation or pretension, but not untouched by ennui, the malady of her time, she held her position to the end of a long life which closed in 1777. "Alas," said d'Alembert, who had been in the habit of spending his mornings with Mlle. de Lespinasse until her death, and his evenings with Mme. Geoffrin, "I have neither evenings nor mornings left."
Marmontel also says, that the aged Madame de Tencin had guessed quite correctly the intentions of Madame Geoffrin, when she said, that she merely came to her house so often in order to see what part of her inventory she could afterward make useful. Madame Geoffrin became celebrated all over Europe, merely by devoting a portion of her income and of her time to the reception of clever society.
Holbach for a whole quarter of a century had regular dinner-parties on Sundays, which are celebrated in the history of atheism. All those were invited, who were too bold and too out-spoken for Geoffrin; and even D'Alembert also at a later period withdrew from their society.
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