The women of the salons, and other French portraits . worst side of that great eighteenth centuryas Madame dEpinay. In her one sees its sublime self-deceit, after which all sin is easy. She had in fullmeasure its charm, its cleverness, and its folly; its finetalk and its mean practice; its feeling for beauty andtruth, and its windy sentimentalism, which led awayfrom both. From her rooms came a hot air feverishwith debate. Here it was always candle-light, with nocold clear morning to search the shams. Here everywoman was in love with the wrong man, and every manin love with the wrong woman. The
The women of the salons, and other French portraits . worst side of that great eighteenth centuryas Madame dEpinay. In her one sees its sublime self-deceit, after which all sin is easy. She had in fullmeasure its charm, its cleverness, and its folly; its finetalk and its mean practice; its feeling for beauty andtruth, and its windy sentimentalism, which led awayfrom both. From her rooms came a hot air feverishwith debate. Here it was always candle-light, with nocold clear morning to search the shams. Here everywoman was in love with the wrong man, and every manin love with the wrong woman. The worst crime wasforgivable if the sinner sinned wittily. And out of herportrait the presiding genius of this little world looksdown the century with the falsest smiling face thatever woman had. For Madame dEpinay was light toher soul. As she was also the friend of the great men ofa famous age, listened to Voltaire, Grimm, Galiani,Diderot, Duclos, Holbach, Rousseau, and wrote memoirsto record what she had heard, she has no slight claimon ( fla cuz/rrte ^y f y// / /ts/ // . MADAME DfiPINAY 63 Louise Florence Petronville dEsclavelles was born in1726. Her father was governor of Valenciennes, andlived there with his wife and child until his Madame brought up the little Louise to Parisfor an education ; gave her M. dAffry as a tutor (Louiseattached herself to him with a charming childishaffection), and returned herself to Valenciennes, leavingthe little daughter to be brought up, with a largeparty of cousins, by her Aunt and Uncle Bellegarde. Judiciousness does not seem to have been the dis-tinguishing feature of Louises early training. MadamedEsclavelles was a severe, righteous woman—hard andfast rules and sharp punishments. She inspired in thelittle girl the fear which is but too prone to protectitself by white lies. When Louise had been long amarried woman, she was still in no small awe of hermother, nay, had, up to the time of Madames death—though she
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectwomen, bookyear1901
