The International Weekly Miscellany - Volume I, No. 4 | Page 6

Horace Walpole played the same character in this house
which the Swede Creutz had assumed in that of Geoffrin. Deffant and
her Walpole became celebrated throughout Europe by their printed
correspondence, which, on account of its smoothness and emptiness,
like all books written for the great world, found very numerous readers.
Deffant, moreover, like Geoffrin. was faithless to her friends; she
wished indeed to enjoy the most perfect freedom in their society, but
she was unwilling that they should publish abroad this freedom. And
she strongly disapproved of the vehemence with which her friends
assailed the existing order of things.
When she afterward lost a considerable part of her property, and
became blind, she occupied a small dwelling in an ecclesiastical
foundation in Paris, but continued to receive philosophers, poets and
artists in her house; and in order to give a little more life to the
conversation, she invited a young lady whose circumstances were
straitened to be her companion. This was Mademoiselle l'Espinasse.
L'Espinasse was not beautiful, but she was young, amiable, lively, and
more susceptible than we in Germany are accustomed either to allow or
to pardon. Deffant, on the other hand, was witty and intelligent, but old,
bitter, and withal egotistically insensible. The boldest scoffers
assembled around L'Espinasse, and there was afterward formed around
her a circle of her own. Deffant turned day into night, and night into
day. She and the Duchess of Luxembourg, who was inseparable from
her, received learned distinguished personages and foreigners, from six
o'clock in the evening during the greater part of the night.
The importance in which such ladies and such societies were held, not

merely in France but in all Europe, may be judged of from the fact, that
the breach between Deffant and her young companion was treated in
some measure as a public European event. The French minister and
foreign ambassadors took part in it, and the whole literary world felt its
effect. After this breach there were two tone-giving tribunals for the
guidance of public opinion in matters of literature and taste, and their
decisions were circulated by letter over all Europe. Horace Walpole,
Hénault, Montesquieu. Voltaire, whose correspondence with Deffant
has been published in the present century, remained true to her cause.
D'Alembert, whose correspondence with Deffant, as well as that of the
Duchess of Maine, have also been published in our century, went over
to L'Espinasse. This academician, whose name and influence was next
in importance to that of Voltaire, formed the nucleus of a new society
in the house of L'Espinasse, and was grievously tormented by his
inamorata, who pursued one plan of conquest after another when she
saw one scheme of marriage after another fail of success. It appears
from the whole of the transactions and consequences connected with
this breach, however surprising it may be, that this formation of a new
circle in Paris for evening entertainment may be with truth compared to
the institution of a new academy for the promotion of European culture
and refinement. The Duchess of Luxembourg, who continued to be a
firm friend of Deffant, took upon herself to provide suitable apartments
for the society, whilst the minister of the day (the Duc de Choiseul)
prevailed upon the king to grant a pension of no inconsiderable amount
to L'Espinasse.
This new circle was the point of union for all the philosophical
reformers. Here D'Alembert and Diderot led the conversation; and the
renowned head of the political economists, Türgot, who was afterward
minister of state, was a member of this bolder circle of men who
became celebrated and ill-renowned under the name of Encyclopædists.
We shall enter upon a fuller consideration of the tone and taste which
reigned in this assembly, as well as in the society which met in the
house of Holbach, and of the history of the Encyclopædia, in the
following period, and shall only now mention at the conclusion of the
present, and that very slightly, some of the other clever societies of
Parisians who were all in their day celebrated in Europe. It is scarcely

possible for us to judge of the charm which these societies possessed in
the great world. This may be best learned from their own writings and
conversation, a specimen of which may be found in Marmontel's
'Memoirs,' and formed the subject of a conversation between him and
the Duke of Brunswick (who fell at Jena in 1806) and his duchess.
The society of beaux esprits which met at the house of Madame de
Poplinière, in the time of Madame de Tencin, was only short-lived, like
the good fortune of the lady herself. In her house there assembled
members of the great world who were addicted to carousing and
debauchery, and learned men who sought to obtain their favor and
approbation.