In summer her receptions were first held at the Chateau de Madrid, and, later on, in a chateau at Saint-Ouen; the guests were always called for and returned in carriages supplied by the hostess.  It was in her salon, in 1770, that the plan originated to erect the statue of Voltaire, which is to-day the famous statue of the Palais de l’Institute.

When, during the stirring times before the Revolution, her salon took on a purely political nature, Mme. Necker played a very secondary role.  In 1788 she and her husband were compelled to leave Paris; but being recalled by Louis XVI., Necker managed affairs for thirteen months, after which he retired with Mme. Necker to Coppet, where, in 1794, the latter died.

Mme. Necker never became a thorough Frenchwoman; she always lacked the grace and charm which are the necessary qualifications of a salon leader; intelligence was her most meritorious quality.  Her dinners were apt to become tiresome and to drag.  A very interesting story is told of her by the Marquis de Chastellux, which was reported by Mme. Genlis, one of her intimate friends: 

“Dining at Mme. Necker’s, the marquis was first to arrive, and so early that the hostess was not yet in the salon.  In walking up and down the room, he noticed a small book under Mme. Necker’s chair.  He picked it up and opened it.  It was a blank book, a few of the pages of which had been written upon by Mme. Necker.  Certainly, he would not have read a letter, but, believing to find only a few spiritual thoughts, he read without any scruples.  It contained the plan for the dinner of that day, to which he had been invited, and had been written by Mme. Necker on the previous evening.  It told what she would say to the most prominent of the invited guests.  She wrote:  ’I shall speak to the Chevalier de Chastellux about public felicity and Agatha; to M. d’Angeviller, I shall speak of love; between Marmontel and Guibert I shall raise some literary discussion.’  After reading the note, he hurriedly replaced the book under the chair.  A moment later, a valet entered, saying that madame had left her notebook in the salon.  The dinner was charming for M. de Chastellux, because he had the pleasure of hearing Mme. Necker say, word for word, what she had written in her notebook.”

This woman was ever preoccupied with style, and, throughout her life, retained the solemn, studied, and academic air, as well as the simple, rural, innocent manner and spirit of her early surroundings.  A mere bourgeoise, unaccustomed to elegance or to the manners of French social life, upon entering Parisian society she set her mind to observing, and immediately began to change her provincial ways and to make over her esprit for conversation, for circumstances, and for characters; she adjusted her provincial spirit to that of Paris, thus making of it an entirely new product.  Later on, her salon became the first of the modern political salons, but it was far from reaching the prominence of that of Mme. Geoffrin, whose characteristics were social prudence and strict propriety, while those of Mme. Necker were virtue and goodness.