hidden vanity would have led to pretension. But Mme. Geoffrin
was preeminently gifted with that fine social sense which is apt
to be only the fruit of generations of culture. With her it was
innate genius. She was mistress of the amiable art of
suppressing herself, and her vanity assumed the form of a
gracious modesty. "I remain humble, but with dignity," she
writes to a friend; "that is, in depreciating myself I do not
suffer others to depreciate me." She had the instinct of the
artist who knows how to offset the lack of brilliant gifts by the
perfection of details, the modesty that disarms criticism, and a
rare facility in the art of pleasing.

There was an air of refinement and simple elegance in her
personality that commanded respect. Tall and dignified, with her
silvery hair concealed by her coif, she combined a noble presence
with great kindliness of manner. She usually wore somber colors
and fine laces, for which she had great fondness. Her youth was
long past when she came before the world, and that sense of
fitness which always distinguished her led her to accept her age
seriously and to put on its hues. The "dead-leaf mantle" of Mme.
de Maintenon was worn less severely perhaps, but it was worn
without affectation. Diderot gives us a pleasant glimpse of her
at Grandval, where they were dining with Baron d'Holbach. "Mme.
Geoffrin was admirable," he wrote to Mlle. Volland. "I remark
always the noble and quiet taste with which this woman dresses.
She wore today a simple stuff of austere color, with large
sleeves, the smoothest and finest linen, and the most elegant
simplicity throughout."

In her equanimity and her love of repose she was a worthy