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You have been present at the salon of Madame de Tencin. You know her Grace the Duchesse de Falari, recently Madame d'Artague? Mademoiselle de Caylus you know very well, and of course also Mademoiselle Aïssé, la belle Circassienne But what? Diable! Have you too gone mad? Come, is the sight of my guest too much for you also, Monsieur L'as?"
Upon each New Year's Day, in commemoration of Mme. de Tencin, she sent each Wednesday guest a velvet cap. As she passed through Vienna, Joseph II. received her, and the Empress Maria entertained her at dinner.
Among all the great salons, that of Mme. de Tencin was the only one in which gambling was indulged in on a wholesale scale; fortunes changed hands every evening, a large part of the gains always falling to the lot of the hostess, as a sort of "rake off."
It was those presided over by women of lesser rank and more catholic sympathies, of whom Voltaire aptly said that "the decline of their beauty revealed the dawn of their intellect;" women who had the talent, tact, and address to gather about them a circle of distinguished men who have crowned them with a luminous ray from their own immortality. The names of Mme. de Lambert, Mme. de Tencin, Mme.
What heart revelations, what pictures of contemporary life, were lost in the eight large volumes of his letters which were destroyed at her death! While Mme. de Tencin studied men and affairs, Mme. du Chatelet studied books. One was mistress of the arts of diplomacy, gentle but intriguing, ambitious, always courting society and shunning solitude.
She had neither the knowledge, the mind, nor the humility of Madame de Tencin, which the latter at least affected toward the close of her life; she was cold, egotistical, calculating, and brought into her circle nothing more than order, tact and female delicacy.
Aisse, the beautiful Circassian, with the lustrous, dark, Oriental eyes, who was brought from Constantinople in infancy by the French envoy, and left as a precious heritage to Mme. de Ferriol, the intriguing sister of Mme. de Tencin, and her worthy counterpart, if not in talent, in the faults that darkened their common womanhood.
Though the regent counted his sweethearts by scores, he dismissed the one with the same air of interest as he welcomed the other, and indeed ended by retaining all as his friends. "Madame de Tencin, in admiration there can be no degrees," said he. "In love there can be no rank."
Mme. de Tencin exerted an immense influence upon the men of her circle, especially socially; for example, she married the wealthy M. de La Popelinière to Mlle. Dancourt. She was one of the few really consummate diplomats; later on, she became less associated with intrigues, and gave lessons in current diplomacy, with which she was perfectly familiar.
"One day as he was, in the capacity of simple courtier, escorting the king, who was on his way to the Council, his Majesty said to him, "Marshal, come in; we are going to hold a council," and pointed to a place at his left, Cardinal Tencin being on his right. "This new minister does not please our secretaries of state.
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