Rousseau's Dog by David Edmonds Page A

Ollivier’s painting, commissioned by Conti in 1766,
English Tea, in the Room of Four Mirrors, at the Temple, with All the Court of the Prince de Conti.
Chaperoned by his father on his second European tour, the young Mozart is giving a recital. Her salon was in the grand style, an eclectic mix of high nobility, writers, and thinkers, including Hume, Gustav III of Sweden, Grimm, and d’Alembert. On Fridays, she entertained a chosen few—again including Hume—in her own house.
    Beautiful, clever, she was the
adulée
of many and the jealous target of some. Her taste for letters gave her another nickname, “Learned Minerva.” Walpole had reservations. “She is two women, the upper and the lower. I need not tell you that the lower is gallant, and still has pretensions. The upper is very sensible, too, and has a measured eloquence that is just and pleasing—but all is spoiled by an unrelaxed attention to applause. You would think she was always sitting for her picture to herbiographer.” Mme du Deffand pronounced her
drôle,
having damned her with faint praise:
    Her good qualities, for she has several, result from the emptiness of her character and from the slight impression that everything around her makes on her. … She is occupied solely with herself and not with others. She is like a flute that pronounces laws and delivers oracles, in a voice so pretty and a manner so sweet.
    Mme de Boufflers did indeed devise moral maxims. She hung a copy of her “Rule of Life” on her bedroom wall. It was a litany of eighteenth-century manners and included: “In conduct, simplicity and reason; in appearance, propriety and decency; in manners, propriety and decorum; in actions, justice and generosity; in the use of wealth, economy and liberality; in conversation, clearness, truth, precision; in adversity, courage and pride; in prosperity, modesty and moderation; in society, charm, ease, courteousness; in domestic life, integrity and kindness without familiarity; to sacrifice everything for tranquillity of soul; to permit oneself only innocent railleries, which cannot wound.” She did not expect her friends to flout these standards.
    Madame de Boufflers opened contact with Rousseau in 1758. She was staying with Mme de Luxembourg at Montmorency and asked Rousseau if she could see him. In the
Confessions,
he records: “I sent the conventional reply, but I did not stir.” He then relishes his developing romantic attachment to her: “If I did not commit the foolishness of becoming [Conti’s] rival, I narrowly escaped doing so. … She was beautiful and still young. … I was nearly caught. I think that she saw it. … But for this once, I was sensible. … Having perceived the emotion she caused me, Mme de Boufflers could also see that I had triumphed over it.”
    Her dealings with Hume went back to March 1761, when she had taken the initiative in writing to him. “I dare only add that in all theproducts of your pen, you show yourself a perfect philosopher, a statesman, an historian of genius, an enlightened political scientist, a true patriot.” Thus began a correspondence that lasted until his death. In a letter eighteen months after opening communication, she offered a description of herself approaching forty.
    A great part of my youth is over. Some delicacy in features, mildness and decency in countenance, are the only exterior advantages, I can boast of. And as for interior, common sense, improved a little, by early good reading, are all I possess. [My English is confined but] if I am intitled [sic] to some elegancy I owe it to the repeated readings of your admirable works.
    Their correspondence took on a passionate note, though it is possible that Hume misread its significance for her. An editor of Walpole’s letters points out that in prerevolutionary Paris, a woman of fashion passed through well-delineated states. “When young she