Mme. Dacier thoroughly appreciated the grandeur of Homer and knew the almost insurmountable difficulties of a translation; therefore, when in 1714 the Iliad appeared in verse (in twelve songs by La Motte-Houdart), preceded by a discourse on Homer, in which the author announced that his aim was to purify and embellish Homer by ridding him “of his barbarian crudeness, his uncivil familiarities, and his great length,” the ire of Mme. Dacier was aroused, and in defence of her god she wrote her famous Des Causes de la Corruption du Gout (Causes of the Corruption of Taste), a long defence of Homer, to which La Motte replied in his Reflexions de la Critique This rekindled the whole controversy, and sides were immediately formed.

Mme. Dacier was not politic; although she sustained her ideas well and displayed much erudition and depth of reason, she is said to have injured her cause by the violence of her polemic.  Her immoderate tone and bitter assaults upon the elegant and discerning favorite only detracted from his opponent’s favor and grace.  Voltaire said:  “You could say that the work of M. de La Motte was that of a woman of esprit, while that of Mme. Dacier was of a homme savant.  He translated the Iliad very poorly, but attacked very well.”  Mme. Dacier’s translation remained a standard for two centuries.  She and her adversary became reconciled at a dinner given by M. de Valincour for the friends of both parties; upon that festive occasion, “they drank to the health of Homer, and all was well.”

Mme. Dacier died in 1720.  “She was a savante only in her study or when with savants; otherwise, she was unaffected and agreeable in conversation, from the character of which one would never have suspected her of knowing more than the average woman.”  She was an incessant worker and had little time for social life; in the evening, after having worked all morning, she received visits from the literary men of France; and, to her credit may it be added, amid all her literary work, she never neglected her domestic and maternal duties.

A woman of an entirely different type from that of Mme. Dacier, one who fitly closes the long series of great and brilliant women of the age of Louis XIV., who only partly resembles them and yet does not quite take on the faded and decadent coloring of the next age, was Mme. de Caylus, the niece of Mme. de Maintenon.  It was she who, partly through compulsion, partly of her own free will, undertook the rearing of the young and beautiful Marthe-Marguerite de Villette.  Mme. de Maintenon was then at the height of her power, and naturally her beautiful, clever, and witty niece was soon overwhelmed by proposals of marriage from the greatest nobles of France.  To one of these, M. de Boufflers, Mme. de Maintenon replied:  “My niece is not a sufficiently good match for you.  However, I am not insensible to the honor you pay me; I shall not give her to you, but in the future I shall consider you my nephew.”