Newton, gave valuable aid to Voltaire in introducing English
thought into France, and was one of the first women among the
nobility to accept the principles of philosophic deism. "I
confess that she is tyrannical," said Voltaire; "one must talk
about metaphysics, when the temptation is to talk of love. Ovid was
formerly my master; it is now the turn of Locke." She
has been clearly but by no means pleasantly painted for us in the
familiar letters of Mme. de Graffigny, in the rather malicious
sketches of the Marquise de Crequi, and in the still more
strongly outlined portrait or Mme. du Deffand, as a veritable bas
bleu, learned, pedantic, eccentric, and without grace or beauty.
"Imagine a woman tall and hard, with florid complexion, face
sharp, nose pointed--VOILA LA BELLE EMILIE," writes the latter;
"a face with which she was so contented that she spared nothing
to set it off; curls, topknots, precious stones, all are in
profusion . . . She was born with much esprit; the desire of
appearing to have more made her prefer the study of the abstract
sciences to agreeable branches of knowledge; she thought by this
singularity to attain a greater reputation and a decided
superiority over all other women. Madame worked with so much
care to seem what she was not, that no one knew exactly what she
was; even her defects were not natural." "She talks like an
angel"--"she sings divinely"--"our sex ought to erect altars
to her," wrote Mme. de Graffigny during a visit at her chateau.
A few weeks later her tone changed. They had quarreled. Of such
stuff is history made. But she had already given a charming
picture of the life at Cirey.

Mme. du Chatelet plunged into abstractions during the day. In
the evening she was no more the savante, but gave herself up to