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Rh cold, but full of exquisite politeness, supremely elegant in expression, and, without being lively himself, possessed of the delicate art of never quenching liveliness in others; D'Alembert, charming, if frigid, and destined soon to be an object of sentimental interest, because of his inconsolable grief for Mlle. L'Espinasse; the Abbé Raynal, doubtless enchanted to pour into Madame Necker's respectful ears the floods of eloquence for which Frederick the Great laughed at him; these, with Marmontel and Thomas, were almost always present.

A few years earlier the Abbé Galiani, delightful and incorrigible, would also have been seen. This extraordinary little man, political economist, archæologist, mineralogist, diplomatist, and pulcinello, was one of Madame Necker's professed adorers. Everybody liked and admired him; Diderot described him as "a treasure on a rainy day"; Marmontel as "the prettiest little harlequin," with "the head of Macchiavelli"; while, for Madame Geoffrin, he was her petite chose. After so much praise, and from such people, Madame Necker must certainly have accepted him unconditionally; but it would be interesting to know exactly with what air she listened to his impassioned declarations. When eventually restored to his native land—or, as he expressed it, exiled from Paris—he wrote her impudent and characteristic epistles, in which reproaches at her virtue, intimate interrogations regarding her health, and envy of M. Necker's happiness, mingled with inquiries after everybody in the beloved capital, and wails of inconsolable grief at his own departure. "Quel désert que cinquante mille Napolitains!" he exclaims.

Madame Du Deffand was also for a time an