We are told that she hated exaggeration in everything; and how could Madame Necker’s heavy flattery have found favor in her eyes? Her delicate _savoir-vivre_, too, that preternaturally subtle sense which supplied the place in her of brilliancy and learning and early education, must have been vexed at Madame Necker’s innocent but everlasting pedantry. We can fancy, however, that she managed, in her imperceptible, noiseless way, to elude all these disturbing manifestations; and then she was doubtless pleased at Madame Necker’s good-humored patience with her scoldings. All Madame Geoffrin’s friends, as we know, had to submit to be scolded; but probably few showed under the infliction the magnanimity of Madame Necker, who must have possessed all the power of 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 ardor the most fervent, of all Madame Necker’s friends, was Buffon. He wrote her some eighty letters full of fervid flatter 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 mere presence may have had some effect upon him at the last. On the brink of the irrevocable, even the pride of controversy may come to be a little thing; and Buffon’s wearied spirit perhaps recoiled from further speculation on the eternal problem of futurity. And to be at one, in that supreme moment, with the pitying woman who had come to solace his final agony, may have weighed with him above the praise and blame over which the grave was to triumph forever.