“Enthusiasm is to conscience what honor is to duty!” wrote Madame de Staël. If you want to read something brand-new about France’s greatest saloniste and manners maven, ask Atlas & Co. for their delightful new small book by Francine du Plessix Gray, which states that Madame de Staël was “The First Modern Woman.”

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Julia Roberts was full of what looked to be genuine enthusiasm the other eve with David Letterman — as sexy, warm, funny and witty as she has ever been. Julia is a real, true star! We’re always sad when she goes quiescent and sticks to her private life, and it’s always a thrill when she re-enters the public eye. (She is out promoting her latest, “Duplicity,” co-starring Clive Owen.)

Dashing and glamorous in a white suit with a gray blouse and high heels, Julia teased Letterman into a pretended froth and shook her long blonde curls, which are now enlivened by a big pink streak in the back. She seemed to be saying the “pink” was a sop to her little girl, but it is her twin son who likes it and says, “Look at my mom’s hair!” when they’re out in the supermarket. Julia scored with the audience by asking if she could be “bleeped” as she told a really profane anecdote about a mysterious fellow actor. The audience went wild!

After taping Letterman, Julia moved back downtown with her entourage and took her family and her intrepid guardian, Marcy Engelman, to eat at Julie and Luke Janklow’s brand-new Greenwich Avenue eatery, called Sweetiepie. Here they created chaos among the new wait staff and Julia, the star, even received a wrong order, quickly corrected. 

Sweetiepie is all glass, glitter, balloons and very good comfort food. Its dashing, white look seems to be a tribute to Luke’s late uncle, flamboyant restaurateur Warner LeRoy, who created both Maxwell’s Plum and Tavern on the Green. Meantime, Luke hasn’t given up his day job as a literary agent in the Janklow/Nesbit firm.

I had the fried chicken, of course, but next time I’m going for the LeRoy salad, the little Caesar, tunamato and silver-dollar pancakes. The drinks sound special – the Roy Rogers, the Shirley Temple or the Sweetiepie made with champagne, St. Germaine and pomegranate juice. 

The waiters at Sweetiepie are cute, even if, when my party arrived, they were still shaken up from serving a gorgeous movie star, her kids, her bodyguards, etc. At the same time, there was a Saudi princess eating in Sweetiepie and she had bodyguards too! It beefed up the joint.

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As I was chowing down with Joe Armstrong and Luke Janklow’s parents, Mort and Linda, I got the lowdown on the literary scene. Mort Janklow laughed at rumors that he is selling his agency and told me all about his famous client, the great David McCullough, and his coming book.

The fabled creator of “John Adams” will next produce a work on the Revolutionary Americans who spent so much time in France, gaining support for the creation of the U.S. of A. Don’t know what it will be titled, but it will deal with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin and others in their heydays in Paris.

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That great, big, beautiful, blonde Tony-winner Christine Ebersole said, after months of appearing onstage in “Grey Gardens,” that she had to be in a straight play for her next venture because she was too exhausted, at that moment, to go on singing in arduous musicals.

So she was cast as Elvira, the ghostly first wife in the reincarnation of Noël Coward’s popular “Blithe Spirit.” And what happens? It is Christine’s fabulous voice we hear warbling Coward lyrics at the entre-acts. This is totally delightful, just about the best part of this remounting on Broadway of a British classic!