At the age of about thirty-four, Mme. du Deffand returned to a kind of regular life, and, in time, won a reputation for esprit, regained her honorable friends and established for herself a kind of accepted authority.  Thus, when she opened a salon in 1742, she was able to attract a brilliant company, which became famous after 1749, when she took apartments in the Convent Saint-Joseph.  Here wit and polished manners, taste, vivacity, and good sense were the requisites; literature, politics, and philosophy were not tolerated, but “sparkling bons mots, glancing epigrams, witty verses, were the avenues to social success.”

Until her dotage this woman, who, from a natural selfishness and lack of sympathy, was incapable of loving with the characteristic ardor of the women of her time, by knowing how to inspire love in others, controlled and held near her the famous men and women of her age.  When she began to realize the calamity of her failing sight, which was probably due to her general state of restlessness and the resultant physical decay, she received, as companion, a relative, Mlle. de Lespinasse, who undertook the most difficult, disagreeable, and ungrateful task of waiting on the marquise.  As Mme. du Deffand arose in time to receive at six, mademoiselle soon announced to the friends that she herself would be visible at an earlier hour.  Thus, it happened that Marmontel, Turgot, Condorcet, and d’Alembert regularly assembled in mademoiselle’s room—­a proceeding which soon led to a rupture between the two women and a breach between Mme. du Deffand and d’Alembert.  The marquise was therefore left alone, blind, but too proud to tolerate pity, yet by her conversation retaining her power of fascination.  It was about this time that Horace Walpole became connected with her life.  Upon the death of Mme. Geoffrin, she, hearing of the imposing ceremonies and funeral orations, exclaimed:  Voila bien du bruit pour une omelette au lard. [A great ado about a lard omelet!] Her latter years were dragged out most miserably, being marked by a singular feverishness and unavailing efforts toward the acceptance of some faith.  Her death, in 1780, finally brought her relief.

The career of Mme. du Deffand actually began as early as 1730, when she opened her establishment on the Rue de Beaune, at the time that she became attached to the president Henault, who presided over her salon for more than thirty years.  The famous salon Du Deffand at the Convent Saint-Joseph was not opened until 1749; there she was very particular as to those whom she received, and access to her salon was a matter of difficulty.  Grimm was never received, and Diderot was present but once.  The conversation was always intellectual, and whenever she tired of French vivacity, she would spend an evening with Mme. Necker.

A letter of Walpole to Montagu leaves, on the whole, a splendid picture of her:  “I have heard her dispute with all sorts of people, upon all sorts of subjects, and never knew her to be in the wrong.  She humbles the learned, sets right their disciples, and finds conversation for everybody.  As affectionate as Mme. de Sevigne, she has none of her prejudices, but a more universal taste; and with the most delicate frame, her spirits hurry her through a life of fatigue that would kill me were I to remain here.”