Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/435

1789.] Necker's reputation was not a little advanced by the dinners and entertainments which he gave to the most distinguished men in Paris, including the new school of literati and philosophers, and in which his charming and intellectual wife, who was, like himself, a native of Switzerland, made his company very attractive.



Madame Necker, who had been the object of the attachment of Gibbon, the historian, when living at Lausanne, was herself an authoress, having written "Reflections on Divorce," and other things; and by the additional attractions of their more celebrated daughter, Madame de Stäel, the Neckers were raised to a wonderful reputation for ability of one kind or another. Ambitious of the fame of a great financier, M. Necker seized the opportunity, after the retirement of Target and the failure of Clugny, to present to the bewildered Maurepas a scheme for rescuing the finances from their gigantic difficulties.