The life of the time is seen in many memoirs, and in the correspondence of many distinguished persons, both men and women. Among the former the _Memoires_ of Mdlle. Delaunay, afterwards Mme. de Staal (1684-1750) are remarkable for the vein of melancholy, subdued by irony, underlying a style which is formed for fine and clear exactness. The Duchesse du Maine's lady-in-waiting, daughter of a poor painter, but educated with care, drew delicately in her literary art with an etcher's tool, and her hand was controlled by a spirit which had in it something of the Stoic. The _Souvenirs_ of Mme. de Caylus (1673-1729), niece of Mme. de Maintenon--"jamais de creature plus seduisante," says Saint-Simon--give pictures of the court, charming in their naivete, grace, and mirth. Mme. d'Epinay, designing to tell the story of her own life, disguised as a piece of fiction, became in her _Memoires_ the chronicler of the manners of her time. The society of the _salons_ and the men of letters is depicted in the Memoirs of Marmontel. These are but examples from an abundant literature constantly augmented to the days of Mme. de Campan and Mme. Roland. The general aspect of the social world in the mid-century is presented by the historian Duclos (1704-1772) in his _Considerations sur les Moeurs de ce Siecle_, and with reparation for his previous neglect of the part played in society by women in his _Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire du XVIIIe Siecle_. As much or more may be learnt from the letter-writers as from the writers of memoirs. If Voltaire did not take the first place by his correspondence, so vast, so luminous, so comprehensive, it might justly be assigned to his friend Mme. du Deffand (1697-1780), whose lucid intelligence perceived everything, whose disabused heart seemed detached until old age from all that most interested her understanding. For clear good sense we turn to the Marquise de Lambert, for bourgeois worth and kindliness to Mme. Geoffrin, for passion which kindles the page to Mdlle. de Lespinasse, for sensibility and romance ripening to political ardour and strenuous convictions to Mme. Roland. Among the philosophers Diderot pours the torrent, clear or turbid, of his genius into his correspondence with affluent improvisation; D'Alembert is grave, temperate, lucid; the Abbe Galiani, the little Machiavel--"a pantomime from head to foot," said Diderot--the gay Neapolitan punchinello, given the freedom of Paris, that "capital of curiosity," is at once wit, cynic, thinker, scholar, and buffoon. These, again, are but examples from an epistolary swarm.