talent and sensibility, she will do as I have done--supply by
address and with sentiment what she does not know; when she
becomes more reasonable, she will learn that for which she has
the most aptitude, and she will learn it very quickly.' She
taught me in my childhood simply to read, but she made me read
much; she taught me to think by making me reason; she taught me
to know men by making me say what I thought of them, and telling
me also the opinion she had formed. She required me to render
her an account of all my movements and all my feelings,
correcting them with so much sweetness and grace that I never
concealed from her anything that I thought or felt; my internal
life was as visible as my external. My education was continual."

The daughter of a valet de chambre of the Duchess of Burgundy,
who gave her a handsome dowry, Marie Therese Rodet became, at
fourteen, the wife of a lieutenant-colonel of the National Guard
and a rich manufacturer of glass. Her husband did not count for
much among the distinguished guests who in later years frequented
her salon, and his part in her life seems to have consisted
mainly in furnishing the money so essential to her success, and
in looking carefully after the interests of the menage. It is
related that some one gave him a history to read, and when he
called for the successive volumes the same one was always
returned to him. Not observing this, he found the work
interesting, but "thought the author repeated a little." He read
across the page a book printed in two columns, remarking that "it
seemed to be very good, but a trifle abstract." One day a
visitor inquired for the white-haired old gentleman who was in
the habit of sitting at the head of the table. "That was my
husband," replied Mme. Geoffrin; "he is dead."