your approbation." "Monsieur," replied Fontenelle, "if I had
been censor when I wrote the 'Histoire des Oracles,' I should have
carefully avoided giving it my approbation." But if the
philosophers finally determined the drift of this learned body,
it was undoubtedly the tact and diplomacy of women which
constituted the most potent factor in the elections which placed
them there. The mantle of authority, so gracefully worn by Mme.
de Lambert, fell upon her successors, Mme. Geoffrin and Mlle. de
Lespinasse, losing none of its prestige. As a rule, the best men
in France were sooner or later enrolled among the Academicians.
If a few missed the honor through failure to enlist the favor of
women, as has been said, and a few better courtiers of less merit
attained it, the modern press has not proved a more judicious
tribunal.


CHAPTER X. THE DUCHESSE DU MAINE
Her Capricious Character--Her Esprit--Mlle. de Launay--Clever
Portrait of Her Mistress--Perpetual Fetes at Sceaux--Voltaire
and the "Divine Emilie"--Dilettante Character of this Salon.

The life of the eighteenth century, with its restlessness, its
love of amusements, its ferment of activities, and its essential
frivolity, finds a more fitting representative in the Duchesse du
Maine, granddaughter of the Grand Conde, and wife of the favorite
son of Louis XIV, and Mme. de Montespan. The transition from the
serene and thoughtful atmosphere which surrounded Mme. de
Lambert, to the tumultuous whirl of existence at Sceaux, was like
passing from the soft light and tranquillity of a summer evening
to the glare and confusion of perpetual fireworks. Of all the