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Updated: June 18, 2025
Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle Lady Sarah Bunbury The Duke of Grafton Carlisle, Charles Fox, and the Hollands abroad Current events Card-playing A dinner at Crawford's Lady Bolingbroke Almack's The Duke of Bedford Lord Clive The Nabobs Corporation of Oxford sell the representation of the borough Madame du Deffand Publication of Horace Walpole's "Historic Doubts on Richard the Third" Newmarket London Society Gambling at the Clubs A post promised to Selwyn Elections A purchase of wine Vauxhall.
Hare, who, less well-born, had risen by his wit and talents to a place among the cleverest men of the time, "the Hare with many friends," as he was called by the Duchess of Gordon. Frederick, Earl of Carlisle and Crawford, the "petit Craufurt" of Mme. du Deffand; and chief of all was Charles Fox, who to Selwyn was incomprehensible.
Madame du Deffand, whose hôtel in the Rue des Quatre Fils still exists, welcomed Voltaire, D'Alembert, Montesquieu and the Encyclopedists. In the street, the great open-air salon of the people, was a feverish going to and fro.
She is not deaf or blind or any of those annoying things, and she sits bolt-upright in her chair, and her face is not very wrinkled more like fine, old, white kid. Her hair is arranged with such a chic; it is white, but she always has it a little powdered as well, and she wears such becoming caps, rather like the pictures of Madame du Deffand.
Horace Walpole, who met her during his first visit to Paris, and before his intimacy with Mme. du Deffand had colored his opinions, has left a valuable pen-portrait of Mme. Geoffrin. In a letter to Gray, in 1766, he writes: "Mme.
Characteristics of the Eighteenth Century Its Epicurean Philosophy Anecdote of Mme. du Deffand the Salon an Engine of Political Power Great Influence of Women Salons Defined Literary Dinners Etiquette of the Salons An Exotic on American Soil.
It was only in 1919, owing to what I had almost called a fortunate illness, that I took to reading Cicero's Letters and came under an enchantment greater than that cast even by Walpole, Madame de Sévigné, or Madame du Deffand. For forty years I was kept in ignorance of a book which painted the great world of Rome with a touch more intimate than even that of St. Simon.
He was a correspondent of David Hume and of Mme. du Deffand, who always referred to him affectionately as "Mon petit Crauford"; in a letter in which she urges her desire that he should become more intimate with Horace Walpole, she writes, "Vous etes melancholique, et lui est gai; tout l'amuse et tout vous ennuie." Crawford was called the Fish at Eton, a name which clung to him throughout life.
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.
Her sarcastic wit, her clear intelligence, and her rare conversational gifts added a tone of individuality that placed her salon at the head of the social centers of the time in brilliancy and in esprit. In this group of wits, LITTERATEURS, philosophers, statesmen, churchmen, diplomats, and men of rank, Mme. du Deffand herself is always the most striking figure.
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