Deffand, Marie, Marquise du, a woman of society, famed for her wit and gallantry; corresponded with the eminent philosophes of the time, in particular Voltaire, as well as with Horace Walpole; her letters are specially brilliant, and display great shrewdness; she is characterised by Prof. Saintsbury as “the typical French lady of the eighteenth century”; she became blind in 1753, but retained her relish for society, though at length she entered a monastery, where she died (1697‒1780).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Defender of the Faith * Defoe, Daniel