"Christian!"

He continued to advance towards the door.

She made a step forward, picking up her dress as if to pursue him; then suddenly said:

"Well, be it so."

He stopped short and turned round. She was standing before. the open window, her foot upon the narrow stone balcony, with one arm clasping her son ready to bear him into death, the other extended menacingly towards the cowardly deserter. The moon lit up from without this dramatic group.

"To an operetta King, a Queen of tragedy," she said, stern and terrible. "If you do not burn this instant what you have just signed, and swear on the cross that it will never be repeated, your race is ended, crushed, wife and child, there on the

stones."

Such earnestness seemed to inspire her vibrating tone, her splendid figure bent towards the emptiness of space as though to spring, that the King, terrified, dashed forward to stop her. "Frédérique ! "

At the cry of his father, at the quiver of the arm that held him, the child-who was entirely out of the window — thought that all was finished, that they were about to die. He never uttered a word nor a moan; was he not going with his mother? Only, his tiny hands clutched the queen's neck convulsively, and throwing back his head with his fair hair hanging down, the little victim closed his eyes before the appalling horror of the fall.

Christian could no longer resist. The resignation, the courage of this child, who of his future kingly duties already knew the first to die well-overcame him. His heart was bursting. He threw upon the table the crumpled parchment which for a moment he had been nervously holding in his hand, and fell sobbing in an arm-chair. Frédérique, still suspicious, read the deed through from the first line to the very signature, then going up to a candle, she burned it till the flame scorched her fingers, shaking the ashes upon the table; she then left the room, carrying off her son, who was already falling asleep in her arms in his heroically tragic attitude.

Translation of Laura Ensor and E. Bartow.

M

MADAME DU DEFFAND

(MARIE DE VICHY-CHAMROND)

(1697-1780)

ADAME DU DEFFAND is interesting as a personality, a type, and an influence. Living through nearly the whole of the eighteenth century, she assimilated its wealth of new ideas, and was herself a product of the thought-revolution already kindling the spirit of 1789.

She very early showed her mental independence by puzzling questions upon religion. The eloquent Massillon attempted to win her to orthodoxy. But he soon gave up the task, told the Sisters to buy her a catechism, and went off declar

ing her charming. The inefficacy of the

MADAME DU DEFFAND

catechism was proved later, when the precocious girl developed into the graceful, unscrupulous society woman. She was always fascinating to the brightest men. and women of her own and other lands. But the early years of social triumph, when she still had the beautiful eyes admired by Voltaire, are less significant than the nearly thirty years of blindness in the convent of St. Joseph, which after her affliction she made her home. Here she held her famous receptions for the literary and social celebrities of Paris. Here Mademoiselle Lespinasse endured a miserable ten years as her companion, then rebelled against her exactions, and left to establish a rival salon of her own, aided by her devoted D'Alembert. His preference Madame du Deffand never forgave. Henceforth she opposed philosophy, and demanded from her devotees only stimulus and amusement. It was here that Horace Walpole found the "blind old woman" in her tub-like chair, and began the friendship and intellectual flirtation of fifteen years. It proved a great interest in her life, notwithstanding Walpole's dread of ridicule at a suggestion of romance between his middle-aged self and this woman twenty years older.

She was a power in the lives of many famous people, intimate with Madame de Staël, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Madame de Choiseul, the Duchess of Luxembourg, Madame Necker, Hume, Madame de

Genlis. In her salon old creeds were argued down, new ideas disseminated, and bons mots and witty gossip circulated. She has recounted what went on, and explained the reign of clever women in her century. Ignoring her blindness, she lived her life as gayly as she could in visiting, feasting, opera-going, and letter-writing. But even her social supremacy and brilliant correspondence with Voltaire, Walpole, and others, did not satisfy her. She wished to appeal to the heart, and she appealed only to the head. Of all ills she most dreaded ennui, and the very dread of it made her unhappy. She became more and more insufficient to herself, until at eighty-three she died with clear-sighted indifference.

"She was perhaps the wittiest woman who ever lived," says Saintsbury. Hers was an inextinguishable wit, always alert, epigrammatic, enriching the language with proverbial phrases.

During her life Voltaire's science of unbelief and Rousseau's appeal to nature and sentiment were stimulating Europe. For Rousseau, Madame du Deffand had no respect; but Voltaire's philosophy appealed to her egotism. It bade a human being investigate his own puzzles, and seek solution in himself. Madame du Deffand agreed, but failed to find satisfaction in her anxious analysis; she envied believers in God, and longed for illusions, yet allowed herself none. Jealous, exacting, critical, with all the arrogance of the old aristocracy, she was as merciless to herself as to others. « All my judgments have been false and daring and too hasty. never known any one perfectly. recourse?" she cries despairingly.

I have

To whom then can I have

Sainte-Beuve emphasizes her noblest quality: with all her faults she was true. She lived out her life frankly, boldly, without selfdeception or imposition. So in the entertaining volumes of her letters and pen-portraits of acquaintances, she has left a valuable record. She takes us back a century, and shows not only how people looked and what they did, but how they thought and felt.

DR

TO THE DUCHESSE DE CHOISEUL

PARIS, Sunday, December 28th, 1766.

o you know, dear Grandmama [a pet name], that you are the greatest philosopher that ever lived? Your predecessors spoke equally well, perhaps, but they were less consistent in their conduct. All your reasonings start from the same sentiment, and that makes the perfect accord one always feels between what you say and what you do. I know very well why,

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loving you madly, I am ill at ease with you. It is because I know that you must pity everybody who is unlike yourself. My desire to please you, the brief time that I am permitted with you, and my eagerness to profit by it, all trouble, embarrass, intimidate me and discompose me.

I exaggerate, I utter platitudes; and end by being disgusted with myself, and eager to rectify the impression I may have made upon you.

You wish me to write to M. de Choiseul, and to make my letter pretty and bright. Ah, indeed! I'm the ruler of my own imagination, am I! I depend upon chance. A purpose to do or to say such or such a thing takes away the possibility. I am not in the least like you. I do not hold in my hands the springs of my spirit. However, I will write to M. de Choiseul. I will seize a propitious moment. The surest means of making it come is to feel hurried.

I am sending you an extract from an impertinent little pamphlet entitled 'Letter to the Author of the Justification of Jean Jacques.' You will see how it treats our friend. I am not sure that it should be allowed; whether M. de Choiseul should not talk to M. de Sartines about it. It is for you to decide, dear Grandmama, if it is suitable, and if M. de Choiseul ought to permit licenses so impertinent.

I am dying to see you. In spite of my fear, in spite of my dreads, I am convinced that you love me because I love you.

I

TO MR. CRAWFORD

SUNDAY, March 9th, 1766.

READ your letter to Madame de Forcalquier, or rather I gave it to her to read. I thought from her tone that she liked it, but she will not commit herself. She is more than incomprehensible. The Trinity is not more mysterious. She is composed of systems, which she does not understand herself; great words, great principles, great strains of music, of which nothing remains. However, I am of your opinion, that she is worth more than all my other acquaintances. She agrees that it would be delightful to have you live in this country; but if she were only to see you en passant, it hardly matters whether you came or not; that she has not forgotten you, but that she will forget

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you.

you. Eh! Why shouldn't she forget you? She does not know A hundred speeches of the sort which vex me. They say of people who have too much vivacity that they were put in too hot an oven. They might say of her, on the contrary, that she is underdone. She is the sketch of a beautiful work, but it is not finished. What is certain is, that her sentiments, if she has sentiments, are sincere, and that she does not bore you. I showed her your letter because I thought that would give you pleasure; but be sure that no one in the world, even she, shall see what you write me in future except Niart [her secretary], who as you know is a well.

not

I have just made you a fine promise that I will not show your letters; perhaps I shall never be able to show them. Truly, truly, I am like Madame de Forcalquier, and do not know you!

I spent three hours with Mr. Walpole yesterday, but only half an hour alone with him. Lord George and his wife returned his short call, but your Dr. James stayed there all the time. He is a very gloomy, uninteresting man.

Have you seen Jean Jacques? Is he still in London? Have you seen your father? Imagine yourself tête-à-tête with me in the corner of the fireplace, and answer all my questions, but especially those which concern your health. Have you seen the doctors? Have they ordered you the waters? And tell me too, honestly, if I shall ever see you again. Reflect that you are only twenty-five years old, that I am a hundred, and that it only requires a brief kindness to put pleasure in my life. No, I will not assume the pathetic. Do just what pleases you.

I

TO HORACE WALPOLE

TUESDAY, August 5th, 1766.

HAVE received your letter of July 31st-no number, sheets of different sizes. All these observations mean nothing, unless it is that a person without anything to do or to think occupies herself with puerile things. Indeed, I should do very wrong not to profit by all your lessons, and to persist in the error of believing in friendship, and regarding it as a good; no, no; I renounce my errors, and am absolutely persuaded that of all illusions that is the most dangerous.