Page:Madame de Staël (1887 Bella Duffy).djvu/23

Rh submission peculiar to self-questioning souls. The calm old lady, ensconced in her own peculiar chair, whether in Paris or at St. Ouen, in the midst of the sparkling society to which she had perseveringly fought her way, was disturbed in her serenity by no presage of misfortune.

In point of reputation the most illustrious, and in point of romantic ardour the most fervent, of all Madame Necker's friends, was Buffon. He wrote her some eighty letters full of fervid flattery and genuine, almost passionate affection, to which she responded in the terms of adulation that the old man still held dear. Such incense had once been offered to him in nauseating abundance; now that he was old and lonely it had diminished, and this fact, joined to his unquestionable admiration for Madame Necker, made him all the more easily intoxicated by her praise. Mixed with her high esteem for his genius was a womanly compassion for his bodily sufferings that rendered the tie uniting their two minds a very sweet and charming one. On hearing that his end was near, she hastened to Montbard, where he was residing, and established herself by his bedside, remaining there five days, and courageously soothing the paroxysms of pain that it tortured her own sensitive nature to see.

Perhaps her strong and unconcealed desire that the philosopher should make a Christian end, lent her fortitude to continue the self-imposed task. There is no proof that she directly influenced him in that final declaration of faith by which he scandalised a free-thinking community; but she had often discussed religious questions with him, and deplored his want of a definite creed; consequently, it is possible that her