She often shows a sovereign disdain for herself, everybody, and everything.  She arrives at a point in life when she no longer has passion, desire, or even curiosity; she detests life, and dreads death because she does not know that there is another world.  She is not happy enough to do without those whom she scorns, and must therefore seek diversion in the conversation of stupid people, preferring anything to solitude; this refers to the time when her best friends are no more and when she herself is out of her former milieu); she was too old, or lived too long; she belongs to another age.”

By her friends she was called the feminine Voltaire, and the celebrated philosopher and she were drawn together by a very similar habit of mind, although, to her intimates, she scorched Voltaire; but in writing to him she would overwhelm him with compliments, calling him the only orthodox representative of good taste.  In general, she detested philosophers, because their hearts were cold and their minds preoccupied with themselves.

Mme. du Deffand had an inherent passion for simplicity, frankness, justice, and a hatred for deceit and affectation; but, strange as it may seem, her nature required variety in her pleasure—­new people, new pursuits, new amusements, new agitations for her hungry mind; she was too critical to be contented and to put implicit trust in her friends.  An agnostic, always endeavoring to probe into the nature of things, the possession of a personal, living faith was yet the strongest desire of her heart; all her life she longed for the peace that religion affords, but this was denied her, although she had the spiritual assistance of the most famous of the clergy, attended church, had her oratory, her confessor, and faithfully studied the Bible; all was vain—­belief would not come to her.  The marriage tie was not sacred to her, which was the case with many of the French women of the day, but she went further in lacking all reverence for religious ceremony, though she respected the beliefs of others.

She was all wit and intellectuality.  In order to keep her friends from falling under the spell of ennui, she devoted herself to the culinary art, and her suppers became famous for their rare dishes.  “She is an example of the type that was predominant in the time—­one that had lived too much and was dying from excess of knowledge and pleasure; but she sought that which did not exist in that age,—­serenity, peace, faith.  She was passionate, sensitive, and sympathetic, in a cold, heartless, and unfeeling world.  She needed variety; being bored with society, solitude, husband, lovers, herself, nothing remained for her but to await deliverance by death.”  This came to her in 1780.

In matters literary, Mme. du Deffand preserved an absolute liberty and independence of opinion.  She refused to accept the verdicts of the most competent judges; with instinctive attractions and repulsions, she found but few writers that pleased her.  Boileau, Lesage, Chamfort, were her favorites.  She said that Buffon was of an unendurable monotony.  “He knows well what he knows, but he is occupied with beasts only; one must be something of a beast one’s self in order to devote one’s self to such an occupation.”