scenery changed as well as the actors. A more elegant world
assembled at the suppers. The Marquise took pleasure in
receiving people who were agreeable to each other. Her tone,
however, did not vary, and she preached la belle galanterie to
some who went a little beyond it. I was of the two parties; I
dogmatized in the morning and sang in the evening." The two
eminent Greek Scholars, La Motte and Mme. Dacier, held spirited
discussions on the merits of Homer, which came near ending in
permanent ill-feeling, but the amiable hostess gave a dinner for
them, "they drank to the health of the poet, and all was
forgotten." The war between the partizans of the old and the new
was as lively then as it is today. "La Motte and Fontenelle
prefer the moderns," said the caustic Mme. du Deffand; "but the
ancients are dead, and the moderns are themselves." The names of
Sainte-Aulaire, de Sacy, Mairan, President Henault, and others
equally scholarly and witty, suffice to indicate the quality of
the conversation, which treated lightly and gracefully of the
most serious things. The Duchesse du Maine and her clever
companion, Mlle. de Launay were often among the guests; also the
beautiful and brilliant Mme. de Caylus, a niece of Mme. de
Maintenon, whom some poetical critic has styled "the last flower
of the seventeenth century." Sainte-Aulaire, tired of the
perpetual excitement at Sceaux, characterized this salon by a
witty quatrain:

Je suis las de l'esprit, il me met en courroux,
Il me renverse la cervelle;
Lambert, je viens chercher un asile chez vous,
Entre La Motte et Fontenelle.