“It was almost impossible to imagine a countenance of greater benignity than that of Madame du Deffand; she was a complete specimen, both in person and costume, of venerable beauty; and as the abbé gazed upon her, he _felt_ that there was no longer ridicule in the platonic love of Horace Walpole, or in the enthusiastic passion of her later admirers. She had been, as you are aware, totally blind for many years, and this infirmity, instead of being a disfigurement, as might be imagined, seemed to increase the mild placidity of her features almost to beatitude. At the moment of young Talleyrand’s approach, she was still under the influence of the delight which his boyish retort had inspired, and, as soon as he was seated, she bade him recount the story, which he was fain to do, and, aided by her encouragement and the applause of the circle, he told it with so much _verve_ and good-humour, that his success was complete. He was welcomed among the _coterie_ as a kindred spirit, and from that hour was considered an acquisition to that choice ‘circle.’ He was thus thrown at once into the midst of the society of _gens-de-lettres_ of that epoch, the most brilliant ever registered in the annals of the world. The schoolboy pun of Talleyrand is forgotten now—lost amid the more sterling wit of the many _bon-mots_ and trite aphorisms to which he has given utterance, and which have become popular in every country. Not so the _naïve_ exclamation of Madame du Deffand upon the occasion, when she learned the fright and sudden retreat of Philidor. ‘That man was born a _fool_,’ said she; ‘nothing but his _genius_ saves him!’
“It is by the multiplicity of anecdotes of this nature that the prince has the power of conveying the listener, at a single bound, back to the eighteenth century. The absence of all passion, or, what is more probable, the great command he has acquired over it, gives a greater interest to his recitals than any I have ever experienced while reading the best written memoirs. I have heard from another quarter of the judgment of the prince’s character pronounced by the blind woman on that very same evening, and which, if true, ought to stamp her fame as a physiognomist beyond compare. After having passed her hand slowly over the features of the young abbé, as was her wont when any stranger was presented to her notice, she exclaimed, ‘_Allez, jeune homme._ Nature has been lavish of her gifts, and your own foresight will render you independent of those of fortune.’
