The two portraits by Marmontel and Galiani are interesting, as throwing light upon the doings of her salon. Marmontel wrote: "Mme. Necker is very virtuous and instructed, but emphatic and stiff. She does not know Mme. de Sévigné, whom she praises, and only esteems Buffon and Thomas. She calculates all things; she sought men of letters only as trumpets to blow in honor of her husband. He never said a word; that was not very recreating."
Galiani leaves a different impression: "There is not a Friday that I do not go to your house _en esprit_. I arrive, I find you now busy with your headdress, now busy with this duchess. I seat myself at your feet. Thomas quietly suffers, Morellet shows his anger aloud. Grimm and Suard laugh heartily about it, and my dear Comte de Greuze does not notice it. Marmontel finds the example worthy to be imitated, and you, madame, make two of your most beautiful virtues do battle, bashfulness and politeness, and in this suffering you find me a little monster more embarrassing than odious. Dinner is announced. They leave the table and in the café all speak at the same time. M. Necker thinks everything well, bows his head and goes away."
In summer her receptions were first held at the Château de Madrid, and, later on, in a château at Saint-Ouen; the guests were always called for and returned in carriages supplied by the hostess. It was in her salon, in 1770, that the plan originated to erect the statue of Voltaire, which is to-day the famous statue of the _Palais de l'Institute_.
When, during the stirring times before the Revolution, her salon took on a purely political nature, Mme. Necker played a very secondary rôle. In 1788 she and her husband were compelled to leave Paris; but being recalled by Louis XVI., Necker managed affairs for thirteen months, after which he retired with Mme. Necker to Coppet, where, in 1794, the latter died.
Mme. Necker never became a thorough Frenchwoman; she always lacked the grace and charm which are the necessary qualifications of a salon leader; intelligence was her most meritorious quality. Her dinners were apt to become tiresome and to drag. A very interesting story is told of her by the Marquis de Chastellux, which was reported by Mme. Genlis, one of her intimate friends: