Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/597

 but it never was an individual power, like that of Madame Du Deffand, or of the Maréchale de Luxembourg. Over her husband, she always possessed great influence. Her virtues and noble character inspired him with a feeling akin to veneration. He was not wholly guided by her counsels, but he respected her opinions as those of a high-minded being, whom all the surrounding folly and corruption could not draw down from her sphere of holy purity. If Madame Necker was loved and esteemed by her husband, she may be said to have almost idolized him; and her passionate attachment probably increased .the feelings of vanity and self-importance of which Necker has often been accused. This exclusive devotedness caused some wonder amongst the friends of the minister and his wife; for seldom had these sceptical philosophers witnessed a conjugal union so strict and uncompromising, and yet so touching in its very severity.

When Necker became, in 1776, Director-General of the Finances, his wife resolved that the influence her husband's official position gave her should not be employed in procuring unmerited favours for flatterers or parasites. She placed before herself the far more noble object of alleviating misfortune, and pointing out to her reforming husband some of the innumerable abuses which then existed in every department of the state. One of her first attempts was to overthrow the lottery. She pressed the point on Necker's attention; but, though he shared her convictions, he had not the power of destroying this great evil: he did, however, all he could to moderate its excesses. The prisons and hospitals of Paris greatly occupied the attention of Madame Necker during the five years of her husband's power. Her devotedness to the cause of humanity was admirable, and shone with double lustre amidst the heartless selfishness of the surrounding world. She once happened to learn that a certain Count of Lautrec had been imprisoned in a dungeon of the fortress of Ham for twenty-eight years! and that the unhappy captive now scarcely seemed to belong to human kind. A feeling of deep compassion seized her heart. To liberate a state prisoner was more than her influence could command, but she resolved to lighten, if possible, his load of misery. She set out for Ham, and succeeded in obtaining a sight of M. de Lautrec. She found a miserable-looking man, lying listlessly on the straw of his dungeon, scarcely clothed with a few tattered rags, and surrounded by rats and reptiles. Madame Necker soothed his fixed and sullen despair with promises of speedy relief; nor did she depart until she had kept her word, and seen M. de Lautrec removed to an abode where, if still a prisoner, he might at least spend in peace the few days left him by the tyranny of his oppressors.

Acts of individual benevolence were not, however, the only object of the minister's wife. Notwithstanding the munificence of her private charities, she aimed none the less to effect general good. Considerable ameliorations were introduced by her in the condition of the hospitals of Paris. She entered, with unwearied patience, into the most minute details of their actual administration, and, with admirable ingenuity, rectified errors or suggested improvements. Her aim was to effect a greater amount of good with the same capital, which she now saw so grossly squandered and misapplied. The reforms which she thus introduced were both important and severe. She sacrificed almost the whole of her time to this praiseworthy task,