be reckoned with in every political change in Europe, women were
everywhere the power behind the throne. No movement was carried
through without them. "They form a kind of republic," said
Montesquieu, "whose members, always active, aid and serve one
another. It is a new state within a state; and whoever observes
the action of those in power, if he does not know the women who
govern them, is like a man who sees the action of a machine but
does not know its secret springs." Mme. de Tenein advised
Marmontel, before all things, to cultivate the society of women,
if he wished to succeed. It is said that both Diderot and
Thomas, two of the most brilliant thinkers of their time, failed
of the fame they merited, through their neglect to court the
favor of women. Bolingbroke, then an exile in Paris, with a few
others, formed a club of men for the discussion of literary and
political questions. While it lasted it was never mentioned by
women. It was quietly ignored. Cardinal Fleury considered it
dangerous to the State, and suppressed it. At the same time, in
the salon of Mme. de Tenein, the leaders of French thought were
safely maturing the theories which Montesquieu set forth in his
"Esprit des Lois," the first open attack on absolute monarchy, the
forerunner of Rousseau, and the germ of the Revolution.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

But the salons were far from being centers of "plain living and
high thinking." "Supper is one of the four ends of man," said
Mme. du Deffand; and it must be admitted that the great doctrine
of human equality was rather luxuriously cradled. The supreme
science of the Frenchwomen was a knowledge of men. Understanding
their tastes, their ambitions, their interests, their vanities,