She had received a liberal
and even learned education from her father, and was as attractive in
person as she was accomplished in mind. "She was beautiful with that
pure virginal beauty which depends on early youth" (Sainte-Beuve). In
1757 she was the talk of Lausanne, and could not appear in an assembly
or at the play without being surrounded by admirers; she was called La
Belle Curchod. Gibbon's curiosity was piqued to see such a prodigy,
and he was smitten with love at first sight. "I found her" he says
"learned without pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sentiment,
and elegant in manners." He was twenty and she seventeen years of age;
no impediment was placed in the way of their meeting; and he was a
frequent guest in her father's house. In fact Gibbon paid his court
with an assiduity which makes an exception in his usually unromantic
nature. "She listened," he says, "to the voice of truth and passion,
and I might presume to hope that I had made some impression on a
virtuous heart." We must remember that this and other rather glowing
passages in his Memoirs were written in his old age, when he had
returned to Lausanne, and when, after a long separation and many
vicissitudes, he and Madame Necker were again thrown together in an
intimacy of friendship which revived old memories.
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