The wits of the day launched many a shaft of satire against it,
as they had against the Hotel de Rambouillet a century earlier;
but it was an intellectual center of great influence, and was
regarded as the sanctuary of old manners as well as the asylum of
new liberties. Its decorous character gave it the epithet of
"very respectable;" but this eminently respectable company, which
represented the purest taste of the time, often included Adrienne
Lecouvreur, who was much more remarkable for talent than for
respectability. We have a direct glimpse of it through the pen
of d'Artenson:

"I have just met with a very grievous loss in the death of the
Marquise de Lambert" (he writes in 1733). "For fifteen years I
have been one of her special friends, and she has done me the
favor of inviting me to her house, where it is an honor to be
received. I dined there regularly on Wednesday, which was one of
her days . . . . . She was rich, and made a good and amiable use
of her wealth, for the benefit of her friends, and above all for
the unfortunate. A pupil of Bachaumont, having frequented only
the society of people of the world, and of the highest
intelligence, she knew no other passion than a constant and
platonic tenderness."

The quality of character and intellect which gave Mme. de Lambert
so marked an influence, we find in her own thoughts on a great
variety of subjects. She gives us the impression of a woman
altogether sensible and judicious, but not without a certain
artificial tone. Her well-considered philosophy of life had an
evident groundwork of ambition and worldly wisdom, which appears
always in her advice to her children. She counsels her son to