Madame Hocquart[405] and Madame de Vintimille[406] came to the meetings in the Rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg. Madame de Vintimille, one of the women of olden time, of whom few remain, went into the world and brought us news of what was going on: I asked her if people were "still building cities." The descriptions of little scandals upon which she entered with a poignant but inoffensive raillery made us the more heartily appreciate our own security. Madame de Vintimille had been sung, together with her sister, by M. de La Harpe. Her language was guarded, her character restrained, her wit acquired; she had lived with Mesdames de Chevreuse[407], de Longueville, de La Vallière, de Maintenon[408], with Madame Geoffrin[409] and Madame du Defiant[410]. She blended well with a company whose charm depended upon the variety of its wits and the combination of their different values. Madame Hocquart had been fondly loved by Madame de Beaumont's brother[411], who had occupied himself with the lady of his thoughts to the very scaffold, as Aubiac had gone to the gallows kissing a sleeve of soft blue velvet which remained to him from the favours of Margaret of Valois[412]. [Sidenote: Who are no more.] Never again will there assemble under the same roof so many distinguished persons belonging to different ranks and of different destinies, able to talk of the commonest as of the loftiest things: a simplicity of speech which came not from poverty but from choice. It is perhaps the last company in which the French genius of olden time has appeared. Among the new French will not be found that urbanity which is the fruit of education, and which was transformed by long usage into aptness of character. What has become of that company? Make plans, bring friends together: you but prepare for yourself an eternal mourning! Madame de Beaumont is no more, Joubert is no more, Chênedollé is no more, Madame de Vintimille is no more. I used to visit M. Joubert at Villeneuve during the vintage; I walked with him on the Yonne Hills; he picked mushrooms in the copses, and I yellow saffron in the fields. We talked of everything, and particularly of our friend Madame de Beaumont, for ever absent; we recalled the memory of our former hopes. At night we returned to Villeneuve, a town surrounded by broken-down walls, of the time of Philip Augustus[413], and by half-razed towers, from above which rose the smoke from the vintagers' hearths. Joubert showed me, in the distance from the hill, a sandy path among the woods which he used to take when going to see his neighbour, who hid herself at the Château de Passy during the Terror.