Marie-Thérèse Rodet, Madame GEOFFRIN Lot n° 21

(1699-1777) woman of letters and friend of the philosophers, she had one of the most famous salons of her time. L.A., July 29, 1767, to MARMONTEL "de l'académie françoise, aux eaux d'Aix la Chapelle"; 2 1/2 pages in-4, address. Rare and very beautiful friendly letter to MARMONTEL, notably about his philosophical novel Bélisaire that she hated. She first deplores, in an amusing way, Mrs. Marmontel's dental troubles: "I am very surprised that a fluction beast - for of all the inconveniences, it is the most stupid - comes, and goes, without one knowing why [...] I am very surprised that she thought of approaching the most beautiful teeth that have been, that are, and that will ever be. Not only are they delightful to see, in the place where they live, but they are a monument that must pass to posterity", etc... She embraces "this beautiful lady who possesses this precious jewel, but really my neighbor you have also become a kind of jewel. One will say, the princes and princesses saw it and admired it, and one will say all of suitte, it is so much better for them "... With the reading of her last letter, she is full of pride by applying to herself " the proverb which says, that good fame, is worth more than gilded belt. You know my neighbor that I am not golden, neither inside nor outside. My soul and my mind are a pretty little gray, white, like my dresses. But I say - and I have friends too. And I deserve them by the feelings I have for them. It is these feelings that make me hate Belisarius, but hate death. Nothing could oblige me to read it again. What I am telling you here is a furious contrast with all that the prince and the princess [the future tsar Paul I and his wife Sophie-Dorothée de Wurtemberg, Maria Feodorovna] have told you, and what the empress [CATHERINE II] of Russia has written to you, and the Wansvittem [Gottfried van SWIETEN]"... Marmontel's portrait of the hereditary princess enchanted him: "One had said to me that she was very ugly and even more sullen, and consequently the prince could not smile at her. If on the contrary she is such as you tell me, they will be happy together, and will make their children happy... which is the height of Happiness"... She evokes to finish various persons who are at the waters and whom she asks Marmontel to greet for her: the marquise of Rochechouart, the archbishop of Cambrai (Mgr de Choiseul-Stainville), the Polish lords Rzewuski...