A letter of Walpole to Montagu leaves, on the whole, a splendid picture of her: "I have heard her dispute with all sorts of people, upon all sorts of subjects, and never knew her to be in the wrong. She humbles the learned, sets right their disciples, and finds conversation for everybody. As affectionate as Mme. de Sévigné, she has none of her prejudices, but a more universal taste; and with the most delicate frame, her spirits hurry her through a life of fatigue that would kill me were I to remain here."
The simple furnishings of her apartments, which were very spacious and had been occupied by the famous Mme. de Montespan, stood out in striking contrast to the elegance of her visitors. Here she gathered about her her two lovers, _le Président_ Hénault and Pont de Veyle, besides D'Alembert, Turgot, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Necker, Walpole, the Abbés Barthélemy and Pernetty, the Chevalier de Lisle, de Formant, _le Docteur_ Gatti, Hume, Gibbon, Baron de Gleichen, and many other celebrities, including the Princesses de Beauvau, de Poix, de Talmont, the Duchesses de Choiseul, d'Aiguillon, de Gramont, the Maréchale de Luxembourg, the Marquises de Boufflers and du Châtelet, the Comtesses de Rochefort, de Broglie, de Forcalquier, Mme. Necker, Lady Pembroke, De Lauzun, and many others, all of whom were society leaders. Whenever Mme. du Deffand had a special supper, it was said that Paris was at Mme. du Deffand's.
Her salon, above all others, was the centre of cosmopolitanism, where all great men, foreigners and natives, found means of social intercourse, and where, more than in any other salon, were assembled the great beauties of the day, represented especially by the Countesses de Forcalquier and Choiseul-Beaupré, Duchesse de La Vallière. Gallantry and beauty were found in the Maréchale de Luxembourg and the Comtesse de Boufflers. The philosophical movement of the Encyclopædists and Economists was not encouraged at all. Thus, in Mme. du Deffand's salon, we find neither pure philosophy nor religion, nor the air of pedants and _déclamateurs_; it was a royalist salon without illusion, hence indifferent to all questions. It represented the perfect type of the French model of _esprit de finesse_,--that is, precision,--and its leader possessed a keen insight into human character.