If we take a rapid view of French literature, from the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, down to the Revolution, we are dazzled by the record of brilliant and celebrated women, who protected or cultivated letters, and obtained the homage of men of talent. There was Ninon; and there was Madame de Rambouillet; the one _galante_, the other _precieuse_. One had her St. Evremond; the other her Voiture. Madame de Sabliere protected La Fontaine; Madame de Montespan protected Moliere; Madame de Maintenon protected Racine. It was all patronage and protection on one side, and dependance and servility on the other. Then we have the _intrigante_ Madame de Tencin;[137] the good-natured, but rather _bornee_ Madame de Geoffrin; the Duchesse de Maine, who held a little court of _bel esprits_ and small poets at Sceaux, and is best known as the patroness of Mademoiselle de Launay. Madame d'Epinay, the _amie_ of Grimm, and the patroness of Rousseau; the clever, selfish, witty, ever _ennuyee_, never _ennuyeuse_ Madame du Deffand; the ardent, talented Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, who would certainly have been a poetess, if she had not been a philosopheress and a Frenchwoman: Madame Neckar, the patroness of Marmontel and Thomas:--_e tutte quante_. If we look over the light French literature of those times, we find an inconceivable heap of _vers galans_, and _jolis couplets_, licentious songs, pretty, well-turned compliments, and most graceful badinage; but we can discover the names of only two distinguished women, who have the slightest pretensions to a poetical celebrity, derived from the genius, the attachment, and the fame of their lovers. These were Madame du Chatelet, Voltaire's "Immortelle Emilie:" and Madame d'Houdetot, the Doris of Saint-Lambert. Gabrielle-Emilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, was the daughter of the Baron de Breteuil, and born in 1706. At an early age she was taken from her convent, and married to the Marquis du Chatelet; and her life seems thenceforward to have been divided between two passions, or rather two pursuits rarely combined,--love, and geometry. Her tutor in both is said to have been the famous mathematician Clairaut; and between them they rendered geometry so much the fashion at one time, that all the women, who were distinguished either for rank or beauty, thought it indispensable to have a geometrician in their train. The "Poetes de Societe" hid for a while their diminished heads, or were obliged to study geometry _pour se mettre a la mode_.[138] Her friendship with Voltaire began to take a serious aspect, when she was about eight-and-twenty, and he was about forty; he is said to have succeeded that _roue par excellence_, the Duc de Richelieu, in her favour.