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Updated: June 18, 2025
At the age of about thirty-four, Mme. du Deffand returned to a kind of regular life, and, in time, won a reputation for esprit, regained her honorable friends and established for herself a kind of accepted authority. Thus, when she opened a salon in 1742, she was able to attract a brilliant company, which became famous after 1749, when she took apartments in the Convent Saint-Joseph.
Authoress, governess of Louis-Philippe, councillor of Bonaparte, her success as a social leader established her reputation and places her in the file of great women, although she was not a salon leader such as Mme. Geoffrin or Mme. du Deffand. She was born in 1746, and at a very early age showed a remarkable talent for music, but her general education was much neglected.
"Nowhere was conversation more lively, more brilliant, or better regulated," writes Marmontel.. . "It was not with fashionable nonsense and vanity that every day during four hours, without languor or pause, she knew how to make herself interesting to a circle of sensible people." Caraccioli went from her salon one evening to sup with Mme. du Deffand.
Shoulders are of no age les épaules sont la vraie fontaine de jouvence pour les jolies femmes. 'You are such a witty creature, Seraphine, Fifine. You ought to be a descendant of that wicked old Madame du Deffand. Rilboche, give Madame some more chartreuse.
To a certain extent, the same was true of Mme. de Staël, but she was still physically healthy and young enough to enjoy life and the realization of that which she had so long desired—an ideal affection. In the case of Mme. du Deffand, the soul was willing, but the body failed.
It was remarked that he lost much of his prestige, and that his society which had been so brilliant, became infinitely more miscellaneous and infinitely less agreeable after the death of the friend whose tact and finesse had so well served his ambition. Not long after leaving Mme. du Deffand she met the Marquis de Mora, a son of the Spanish ambassador, who became a constant habitue of her salon.
That spirit, or malady, which penetrated and ruled almost every creature in the eighteenth century found its most notable victim in Marie de Vichy-Chamrond—Mme. du Deffand. She, so to speak, yawned out her life in a blasé society without faith or ideal.
Linked by birth with the oldest of the nobility, allied by intellect with the most distinguished in the world of letters, Mme. du Deffand appropriated the best in thought, while retaining the spirit of an elegant and refined social life.
Clairon, the actress in vogue, recites the roles of Phedre and Agrippine, Lekain reads Voltaire, and Goldoni a comedy of his own, which the hostess finds tiresome. New books, new plays, the last song, the latest word of the philosophers all are talked about, eulogized, or dismissed with a sarcasm. The wit of Mme. du Deffand is feared, but it fascinates.
A Romantic Career Companion of Mme. du Deffand Rival Salons Association with the Encyclopedists D'Alembert A Heart Tragedy Impassioned Letters A Type Unique in her Age
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