LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 \ QiL* \ 5 — 
 
 Chap......... Copyright No* 
 
 Shelt__L\/jb_. 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
BY LEON H. VINCENT 
 
 THE BIBLIOTAPH AND OTHER 
 PEOPLE i2mo, $1.50 
 
 BRIEF STUDIES IN FRENCH SOCI- 
 ETY AND LETTERS IN THE XVII. 
 CENTURY 
 
 I. HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET AND 
 
 the pre'cieuses i6mo, $1.00 
 
 II. THE FRENCH ACA- -v 
 
 DEMY t fo 
 
 III. CORNEILLE C preparation 
 
 IV. MOLIERE J 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
TWO COPIES HhcElVEO, 
 
 Liferarj of eoBgeeefc 
 Qfflee of the 
 
 WAV 7 -I860 
 
 Kegf.t.r of Copyright* 
 
 SECOND COPY, / 
 
 Copyright, 1900, by Leon H. Vincent 
 All rights reserved 
 
 58690 
 
Oo 
 
 To my friend 
 LINDSAY SWIFT 
 
 
4 ' 'o S fr-— —fr 
 CONTENTS 
 
 — h I H— 
 
 i/tfte/ afc Rambouillet, its Mistress and 
 
 its Guests 7 
 
 Z)' £/r/?, Malherbe, and Balzac . 37 
 
 Voiture and Montausier * 55 
 
 Mademoiselle de Scudery and her c &7/- 
 
 ur days'" ........ 71 
 
 77?* Precieuses ....... 87 
 
 -H-VH- 
 
 Conclusion 111 
 
 Bibliographical Note 117 
 
HOTEL 
 
 DE 
 
 RAMBOUILLET 
 
 AND THE 
 
 pr£cieuses 
 
 =S8£= 
 
 JL.N the Musee de Cluny in Paris 
 are to be seen two blocks of granite. 
 They are ' foundation-stones ' of the 
 famous* Hotel de Rambouillet. One 
 bears an inscription to the effect that 
 the mansion of which they were once 
 a part was built by the 'high and 
 
< s ""K^ * 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 powerful lord ' Maitre Charles d'An- 
 gennes, Marquis de Rambouillet and 
 Pisany. Then follows a list of his 
 other titles and offices. He was Vi- 
 dame of Mans, Baron of Chaudulor 
 and of Tallemant, a councillor in the 
 king's council of state, and master of 
 his majesty's wardrobe. The date on 
 the stone is June 26, 1618. 
 
 At the time of the building of this 
 'hotel' the Marquis de Rambouillet 
 was forty-one; the Marquise was eleven 
 years his junior. They had already 
 been married eighteen years. There- 
 fore when Catherine de Vivonne be- 
 came a bride she was but twelve years 
 of age, a child wife indeed. The wed- 
 ding took place in 1600. Wedding 
 customs of the year 1600 differed 
 radically, no doubt, from those of the 
 
AND THE PRECIEUSES 
 
 year 1900. But in one respect wed- 
 dings are much the same : there are 
 always the customary congratulations, 
 the fervent prophecies of a brilliant 
 marital career, and the private asides 
 of cynical questioning and speculation. 
 No one, so far as we know, had the 
 gift of prophecy to the extent of being 
 able to declare on Catherine de Vi- 
 vonne's wedding-day that this young 
 girl, with her 'womanly seriousness, 
 her proud spirit, and her rare genius,' 
 was to reorganize society in behalf of 
 virtue and culture, and that without 
 putting pen to paper she was to make 
 her name an inalienable part of the 
 history of French literature. 
 
 The story has been told many times 
 and by able men. All students know 
 the books of Roederer, Walckenaer, 
 
HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 Demogeot, Cousin, and Livet. I 
 should like by the help of these and 
 other books to 'resume' the chief 
 facts of the history of those splendid 
 decades when Hotel de Rambouillet 
 was in its full glory ; when poetry was 
 thought to be worth while ; when con- 
 versation was an art, and people be- 
 lieved that it made a difference whether 
 one talked well or ill ; when the As- 
 tree of Honore d'Urfe was the most 
 fashionable novel in the whole world; 
 when Corneille read his plays before 
 they were played ; when Bossuet was 
 a boy orator, and improvised a sermon 
 at midnight before the assembled 
 guests, whereof Voiture was led to 
 remark — and few jests hold their own 
 as this has done for two hundred and 
 sixty-five years — that ' he had never 
 
< g '«* 
 
 AND THE PRECIEUSES 
 
 heard any one preach so early or so 
 late. 5 
 
 It will be interesting to note how 
 after more than forty years of social 
 supremacy Hotel de Rambouillet de- 
 clined and its circle was scattered. 
 New societies arose, not to take its 
 place, but to make each a place for 
 itself. The old order changed. What 
 was simple elegance and virtue at 
 Hotel de Rambouillet became osten- 
 tation and prudery in the new salons. 
 Finally the sect of the Precieuses came 
 into existence, and by their affectations 
 made polite society ashamed of being 
 polite. Then came the satirists, and 
 chief among them Moliere, with his 
 sparkling comedy the Precieuses ridi- 
 cules. This play was not an attack 
 upon Hotel de Rambouillet, as we too 
 -+5^ 
 
HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 often assume ; it was an attack upon 
 the bad imitations of a society so gen- 
 uine in its character and so noble in 
 its influence that Moliere himself must 
 have held it in highest esteem. 
 
=Sfc= 
 
 HP 
 
 JL HE Marquise de Rambouillet 
 was that unusual something, a born 
 social leader. There are not many. 
 Very few so-called social leaders re- 
 ally lead — they bribe their followers 
 and do not confess it even to them- 
 selves. ' We dare not trust our wit to 
 make our home pleasant to our friend, 
 so we serve ice-creams,' remarked a 
 philosopher. Of many striking facts 
 concerning Hotel de Rambouillet and 
 its guests this is perhaps the mostnot- 
 ^7^ 
 
<c ag^S 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 able, it was a place where people were 
 not afraid to trust their wit. Two and 
 a half centuries have passed, and many 
 critical and historical facts have been 
 brought to light touching civilization 
 in the seventeenth century, but the 
 idea which dominates all other ideas 
 is that Hotel de Rambouillet stood 
 for the art of conversation. It was a 
 place where men and women met for 
 the interchange of ideas, and the only 
 place where excellence in talk con- 
 ferred social distinction. 
 
 We shall always wonder at the 
 gifts of a woman who could create 
 and hold together such a society. Her 
 success must needs appear almost 
 miraculous to the good people of our 
 day, most of whom would do any- 
 thing rather than face the terrors of 
 
£= 
 
 AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 conversation with nothing to eat. 
 What shrewd woman at this end of 
 the century would risk a potential 
 social success upon anything so frail 
 and intangible as mere talk ? The 
 result of such timidity is that good 
 talk is getting rarer every day. 
 
 Historians credit the Marquise de 
 Rambouillet with having founded the 
 first salon known in France. It is 
 unlikely, however, that when she es- 
 tablished herself in her new Jiome 
 Catherine de Vivonne saw the end 
 from the beginning. And it is even 
 more unlikely that she had a definite 
 conception of what had never before 
 existed. Such an assemblage as 
 gathered about her was a growth. She 
 had the gift of social organization. 
 This gift includes many elements, but 
 •h- 9 •+- 
 
<s — — ffi s 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 among them obviously the power to 
 attract and the power to hold. 
 
 She was an attractive woman. She 
 was well-born, talented, beautiful, and 
 rich. And she was a good woman. 
 This is usually considered plain praise. 
 It suggests homely qualities and dull 
 domesticities. Nevertheless it must 
 stand. This great ' society leader ' 
 was austerely virtuous. Moreover 
 her downright unaffected goodness 
 influenced everybody about her. 
 Without perhaps intending it, she did 
 a most extraordinary thing. In a cor- 
 rupt age she made virtue fashionable. 
 To praise her for this is not to praise 
 superficially ; we must remember how 
 many people are unwilling to accept 
 virtue on less advantageous terms. It 
 - is something to have got such people 
 
 — H 10 +- 
 
<$= 
 
 AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 to realize that it may be good form to 
 keep the Ten Commandments. 
 
 The Marquise de Rambouillet was 
 the daughter of Jean de Vivonne, 
 Marquis de Pisani, who had been 
 French ambassador at the court of 
 Rome. There was Italian blood in 
 her veins. Her maternal grandmother 
 was Clarice Strozzi, a kinswoman of 
 Catharine de Medicis. The Marquise 
 was therefore related to Marie de Me- 
 dicis, wife of Henry IV. She had 
 become the mother of seven children 
 before she was twenty-six. Of her 
 five daughters the most famous was 
 Julie-Lucine, afterwards Duchesse de 
 Montausier. One of the sons died at 
 the age of seven. The other, who 
 inherited . his grandfather's title of 
 Marquis de Pisani, has been described 
 -*- ii +- 
 
HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 as clever, and a sworn enemy of pro- 
 fessional beaux esprits. 
 
 In the first years of her wedded life 
 Catherine de Vivonne took such place 
 at court as the high rank of her own 
 and her husband's family entitled her 
 to. Her physical and moral dainti- 
 ness revolted from the rude manners 
 and licentious intrigue which char- 
 acterized court life under Henry IV. 
 Little by little she began to withdraw. 
 As an excuse for this she could plead 
 the responsibilities of a rapidly increas- 
 ing family. The fact that she no 
 longer went into the great world did 
 not result in making her socially iso- 
 lated. So much of the great world 
 as was really worth knowing began to 
 come to her. Hotel de Rambouillet 
 enjoyed from the first such distinction 
 
 -H- 12-1- 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 as will be necessarily conferred upon 
 a house when its mistress has youth, 
 beauty, wealth, and rank. It seems 
 also to have been a home in our 
 modern sense of the word. The sum 
 total of domestic happiness was great. 
 This alone would serve to differen- 
 tiate its manners from those of the 
 dissolute court. Virtue was hered- 
 itary in the houses of d'Angennes and 
 Vivonne. 'Life at court and life at 
 Hotel de Rambouillet were antipa- 
 thetic,' says Roederer. And he also 
 says that people who frequented both 
 places seemed to change their char- 
 acter when they passed from the one 
 to the other. 
 
 The irreproachable purity of the 
 Marquise de Rambouillet's life has 
 been a most grateful theme to critics 
 
<■ u~--— *^ 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 and historians. They reflect with 
 satisfaction that the distinguished ar- 
 tists in tattle and scandal who flour- 
 ished in the seventeenth century have 
 spared her good name. In all the 
 records of that interesting past there 
 is not one anecdote, or rumor, or hint, 
 which can be construed to her dis- 
 credit. At the present time all this 
 would be taken for granted; but in 
 1630, if one said that a woman was 
 beautiful, it was regarded as a striking 
 and unusual corollary if one were able 
 to add that she was good. 
 
 It has moreover been accounted 
 among the conspicuous merits of this 
 great lady that she never wrote a book 
 or kept a journal. She was an excel- 
 lent talker without being either epi- 
 grammatic or witty. She spoke per- 
 — v 14 -i— 
 
AND THE PRE CIE USES 
 
 fectly Italian, French, and Spanish, 
 and studied Latin in order to be able 
 to read Vergil in the original. Her 
 vivacity was not the sort for the pos- 
 session of which Matthew Arnold so 
 often apologized. The Marquise was 
 4 good to everybody/ Her amuse- 
 ments were those of the women of 
 her time; and on the whole neither 
 more nor less frivolous than the amuse- 
 ments of to-day. She loved beautiful 
 things, said Tallemant de Reaux, who 
 himself loved many things that were 
 not beautiful. 
 
 Hotel de Rambouillet stood in Rue 
 Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre. At the 
 present time the site is occupied by 
 the Grand Magazin du Louvre. One 
 buys dry-goods and millinery where 
 once were welcomed such guests as 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 Malherbe, Corneille, Chapelain, Voi- 
 ture, La Rochefoucauld, and Madame 
 de Sevigne. This is a desolation 
 worse than that of Balclutha. 
 
 The original mansion was the pro- 
 perty of Catherine de Vivonne's fa- 
 ther, and was known as Hotel de 
 Pisani. In 1600 it received the name 
 by which it afterward became famous. 
 Many changes were made in its con- 
 struction from time to time. Once 
 indeed it was almost leveled to the 
 ground, so radical were the projected 
 improvements. The Marquise was 
 her own architect, and dared to change 
 the position of the staircase, which up 
 to her time had held undisputed sway 
 over the best part of a house. She 
 banished it to a corner and built it in 
 an easily ascending curve, — a thing 
 
 — H l6 H— 
 
«= 
 
 AND THE PRiCIEUSES 
 
 no one seems to have thought of doing 
 before, at least in mansions of that 
 sort. The Marquise had that wisdom 
 which is denied to professional archi- 
 tects and given only to women who 
 know what they want. 
 
 She also introduced the custom of 
 having instead of one vast drawing- 
 room, as dreary as it was magnificent, 
 a series of rooms upon the same floor. 
 The guest made his way to the pre- 
 sence of the great lady herself by a 
 succession of ante-chambers, chambers, 
 and cabinets. She seems to have been 
 the first to realize that a room could 
 be decorated in any other color than 
 tan or red. Her particular salon was 
 tapestried in blue velvet. This was 
 an innovation, and people commented 
 upon it. The ' blue room ' was some- 
 -1-17-1- 
 
Ar $*" 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 thing to see. It soon became the 
 focus of that type of refinement and 
 lettered elegance which the Marquise 
 and her friends represented, a refine- 
 ment to be rigidly distinguished from 
 the labored and quintessential preci- 
 osity of forty years afterward. 
 
 From the first this house was de- 
 mocratic. It was impossible that 
 blood should not count for something 
 with a woman * who was both Strozzi 
 and Savelli,' nevertheless other gifts 
 besides those of long descent were 
 welcomed at Hotel de Rambouillet. 
 One saw a great variety of people, 
 noblemen, ladies of high degree, 
 priests, soldiers, courtiers, poets, and 
 novelists, and the occasional adven- 
 turer without whom society could not 
 exist. A high premium was placed 
 
 -H-18-H- 
 
4 -Jg^ 
 
 ^A^D TTZfi PR&CIEUSES 
 
 on wit and learning, though it was 
 hoped that wit and learning would be 
 accompanied by good manners. Men 
 of letters found that here the atmos- 
 phere had a caressing quality which 
 they had never before experienced. 
 They were soothed and comforted 
 thereby. Moreover their reception 
 was so genuinely cordial that it forti- 
 fied their self-respect. When we see 
 the haughty magnificence of bearing 
 with which some of our modern young 
 novelists and poets conduct them- 
 selves, even to the extent of offering 
 us two fingers to shake, it is difficult 
 to realize that there could have been 
 a time when literary powers did not 
 imply a large measure of social dis- 
 tinction. But so it was. Even Vol- 
 taire complained that in his day pro- 
 — j- 19 •+- 
 
«= 
 
 HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 fessional authors were snubbed. Such 
 a complaint would have been better 
 justified in the first third of the sev- 
 enteenth century. The Marquise de 
 Rambouillet did more perhaps than 
 any other one woman to secure for 
 authors the privilege of being received 
 into the ' best society ' on equal terms 
 with the aristocracy. This, to be sure, 
 is not the chief end of literature, but 
 it may be accounted one of the rights 
 of authors considered merely as human 
 beings. The Marquise helped them 
 to establish this right. 
 
 It is a question whether there was 
 to be found in France a hostess so 
 tolerant as was she with respect to the 
 humors and caprices of literary men. 
 She may even have accentuated their 
 peculiarities. We have heard of 
 
 -H- 20+- 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 spoiled children, and some of us, no 
 doubt, have had the pleasure of being 
 such. The world is full of spoiled 
 children. The world is also full of 
 spoiled authors, and the Marquise 
 de Rambouillet was the woman who 
 did a great deal to spoil them. This 
 was partly from kindness of heart, 
 and partly from a genuine respect for 
 letters. Up to her time poets and 
 authors generally held an equivocal 
 position in society. That complete 
 and godlike independence which men 
 like Victor Hugo and Alfred Tenny- 
 son enjoyed was not possible in the 
 first half of the seventeenth century. 
 Most of the poets were attached to 
 one or other of the great houses. 
 They were ; domestics,' though not in 
 the restricted sense in which we now 
 
 -i- 21 4- 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 use that word. A man might have a 
 poet in his house as he might have 
 any highly decorative piece of furni- 
 ture. He would respect both the 
 furniture and the poet for their in- 
 trinsic worth, but his pride would be 
 rooted in the fact that he was the pro- 
 prietor of both. Rcederer gives a 
 list of sixteen poets, all of whom were 
 attached to some royal or noble house. 
 The list includes Clement Marot, 
 Ronsard, Malherbe, Racan, Theophile, 
 Voiture, Sarrazin, and Benserade. 
 Their respective positions were honor- 
 able, no doubt, 'but they were de- 
 pendent.' At Hotel de Rambouillet 
 the poets found themselves released 
 from all personal obligations. The 
 poet was no longer a part of the 
 household equipment of a rich and 
 
 —i- 22 4- 
 
AND THE PRfiCIEUSES 
 
 powerful lord ; he was a man among 
 men. He was able to show his pre- 
 ferences, and to decide by just what 
 nobleman he would consent to be 
 patronized. Better than this he was 
 at liberty to say whether he would 
 consent to be patronized at all, or 
 would elect to live independently. 
 Many poets preferred patronage ; it 
 was comfortable and they were used 
 to it. None the less it is a great 
 thing when men acquire the privilege 
 of being men. For this if for no 
 other reason the various Societies of 
 Authors should build a monument to 
 the Marquise de Rambouillet. 
 
 To mention all the guests distin- 
 guished for birth, genius, and learning 
 who at one time or another were 
 welcomed at Hotel de Rambouillet 
 
«g >M *=j§ ^ 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 would be to compile a society ' blue- 
 book ' and a dictionary of men of 
 letters. The names are suggestive to 
 the student, though uninteresting to 
 the general reader. 
 
 Hotel de Rambouillet was rebuilt 
 in 1618. Reunions had been held, 
 however, at an earlier date. For ex- 
 ample, Armand Duplessis, afterward 
 Cardinal Due de Richelieu, was pre- 
 sented to Madame de Rambouillet's 
 circle in 1615. He was then but 
 twenty years of age. Cospeau was 
 his social sponsor. 
 
 There are three well-defined periods 
 in the life of this salon. The first is 
 the period of formation ; it includes 
 the years between 1620 and 1630. In 
 1620 the Marquise was thirty-two 
 years old and approaching the 'perfect 
 -i- 24 -H- 
 
AND THE PRiCIEUSES 
 
 age ' of thirty-five. I speak of this 
 because I have heard a contemporary 
 say that thirty-five is an age which 
 ' needs to be celebrated as the most 
 charming which a matron reaches and 
 remains at. When a man has the priv- 
 ilege of talking with a woman of thirty- 
 five he may well abandon the society 
 of your raw, incoherent Juliets to the 
 pink-and- white Romeos who like it.' 
 
 Conspicuous among the guests of 
 the first period were the Due de Guise, 
 the Due de la Tremouille, Marechal 
 de Souvre, the Marquis de Vigean, 
 Arnauld d'Andilly, and Chaudebonne, 
 who had the honor of starting Voiture 
 upon his career. Notable among the 
 men of letters were the old poet Mal- 
 herbe, his disciple the Marquis de 
 Racan, and Vaugelas, who was even 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 then making those minute studies of 
 current speech which twenty-seven 
 years later were to be given to the 
 world in his famous Remarks on the 
 French Language. Here, too, were 
 to be seen Gombauld, Balzac, Chape- 
 lain, and Voiture. These last four 
 were young men, all under thirty 
 when this period begins, while Voiture 
 was only twenty-two. Among elect 
 and beautiful women were Charlotte 
 de Montmorency, Princesse de Conde, 
 the Duchesse de la Tremouille, and 
 the young Marquise de Sable. Julie 
 d'Angennes, the loved daughter of the 
 house, was about eighteen, her friend 
 Madelaine de Scudery of the same 
 age. Youth, with all that youth im- 
 plies, was very apparent at Hotel de 
 Rambouillet during this period. 
 -+ 26 -t- 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 The second period, the period of 
 greatest splendor, begins in 1630 and 
 closes about 1638. ' The blue room 
 became a veritable sanctuary of taste, 
 a school where the seventeenth century- 
 obtained its education.' Among the 
 new recruits were the Due d'Enghien, 
 the Due de Montausier, Saint-Evre- 
 mond, La Rochefoucauld, Patru the 
 great forensic orator, and Menage the 
 scholar, celebrated then for his learn- 
 ing, and now because he was the 
 instructor of Madame de Sevigne. 
 Other names, suggestive of various 
 gifts and ambitions, are Mairet, Ro- 
 trou, Conrart, Sarrazin, Godeau, Costar, 
 Benserade, Georges de Scudery, and 
 Scarron. Bossuet's first appearance 
 in this circle was in 1643. The Abbe 
 Cotin began to come about this time, 
 
 -H- 27 H- 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 unconscious that his claim to immor- 
 tality would need to be based on the 
 facts that he was satirized by Boileau 
 and caricatured by Moliere. In 
 marked contrast with him one might 
 mention Pierre Corneille, to whose 
 interest Hotel de Rambouillet was 
 sufficiently devoted, for it took his 
 part against the terrible Richelieu in 
 that sensational quarrel of the Cid. 
 
 There were many brilliant women 
 both from the aristocracy and the 
 middle class. Mademoiselle de Bour- 
 bon-Conde, afterwards Duchesse de 
 Longueville ; also Mademoiselle de 
 Coligny, the future Comtesse de la 
 Suze, she who became a Catholic be- 
 cause her husband was a Protestant, 
 and who (in the language of Queen 
 Christina) separated from him in order 
 
 — b 28 -I— 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 not to see him either in this world or 
 the next. One should also mention 
 Anne de Rohan, Princesse de Gue- 
 mene, and the Comtesse de Maure. 
 Perhaps the most striking figure was 
 Angelique Paulet. They called her 
 8 the beautiful lioness ' because of her 
 magnificent mane of golden hair and 
 the haughtiness of her bearing. To 
 her was first applied a phrase which 
 afterward became famous; it was 
 said that she had ' cheveux d'un blond 
 hardi.' Shall we translate it ' hair of 
 a courageous blonde ' ? It was an 
 ingenious expression intended to mit- 
 igate the brutality of saying that a 
 woman's hair was tinged with red. 
 Mademoiselle Paulet had other gifts 
 besides those of beauty and fine man- 
 ners. She sang and played the lute. 
 -+ 29 -H- 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 As a tribute to the charm of her voice 
 they invented the legend that two 
 nightingales had been found dead (of 
 envy, no doubt) at the edge of a foun- 
 tain where Angelique Paulet had 
 sung. Clearly when the gentlemen 
 of that day set out to pay a compli- 
 ment they succeeded. 
 
 The third period in the life of Hotel 
 de Rambouillet, the period of decline, 
 includes the years between 1648 and 
 1665. At the beginning of this pe- 
 riod occurred the quarrel between the 
 Uranistes and the Jobelins. The 
 point of issue was which of two son- 
 nets was the better, Voiture's sonnet 
 on Uranie or Benserade's sonnet on 
 Job. The discussion was more than 
 animated. I liken it to one of those 
 newspaper contentions, humorous or 
 -+30 4- 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 acrid, with which we are familiar. 
 The occasion may be slight, but the 
 interest and comment are dispropor- 
 tionate, as in the case of the Lady and 
 the Tiger. 
 
 Many causes united to bring about 
 the decline of Hotel de Rambouillet. 
 The marriage of Julie and the death 
 of Voiture made radical changes. 
 The war of the Fronde threw society 
 for the time being into a condition 
 of absolute unrest and disorder. The 
 rise of new circles where pedantry 
 and literary affectation had full swing 
 was not without its effect. Yet amid 
 these conditions Hotel de Rambouillet 
 was sound at heart ; and the names it 
 honored are still honorable, such as 
 Madame de La Fayette and Madame 
 de Sevigne. 
 
 -H-3H- 
 
— <**$ *» 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 Historians have often lamented their 
 inability to give an accurate picture 
 of life in the 'blue room.' We shall 
 never know what it was like. An 
 ancient building can be restored; it 
 is not so easy to restore 6 an obliterated 
 state of society/ There were times 
 when the talk was almost transcen- 
 dental in its perfection. Men used 
 to speak of it in after years with some- 
 thing like awe. Wisdom prevailed 
 and affectation stayed in the back- 
 ground. Chapelain was able to say 
 in 1638: 'They do not talk learnedly 
 but they do talk reasonably, and there 
 is no place in the world where there is 
 more good sense and less pedantry/ 
 
 They used to have parlor lectures 
 or readings. They discussed new 
 works. Sometimes they passed a 
 
<?!= 
 
 AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 judgment which posterity has not 
 confirmed ; but that is no more than 
 critics do nowadays. They consti- 
 tuted themselves a literary tribunal. 
 Authors, whatever they may have 
 pretended to the contrary, stood in 
 honest fear of this tribunal. Hotel 
 de Rambouillet claimed the right to 
 modify and restrict the growth of the 
 French language. There was a fitness 
 in this. These people were of the 
 best blood, the best breeding, and the 
 best literary culture in France. They 
 might have contended that their use 
 of words offered a standard to which 
 the general public would do well to 
 conform. They gave so much time 
 to the question of correct speech that 
 they were ridiculed for it. They 
 could afford the ridicule. In one par- 
 
& 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 tic alar their judgment was to be pre- 
 ferred to that of the mockers without 
 the gate. They had the breadth of 
 view to apprehend the great truth that 
 fine breeding is not limited to man- 
 ners and dress. He is not truly well- 
 bred whose speech lacks breeding. 
 What if they did discuss the ques- 
 tion whether one should say muscardin 
 or muscadin, sarge or serge, Roume or 
 Rome ? These were not the only or 
 the most vital topics of conversation. 
 Roederer answered all that sort of 
 criticism upon the conversation of the 
 4 blue room ' when he said : 6 It is bet- 
 ter to talk about words than about 
 people;' and he made an infinitely 
 suggestive remark when he added : 
 4 The passion for good language ought to 
 be a national fas sion? 
 -+34*- 
 
** §?*"" > 
 
 AND THE PRiClEUSES 
 
 In its attitude on the great question 
 of language, Hotel de Rambouillet 
 offers a marked contrast to society of 
 to-day. The influence of the modern 
 fashionable world is more apparent in 
 manners and dress than in language 
 and literature. Society is well groomed, 
 but its garments are uniformly more 
 attractive than its parts of speech. 
 Why should a woman get her hats 
 from Virot and her adjectives from 
 Chimmie Fadden ? Not all women 
 do, to be sure. Why should any 
 woman, any man, lack in fastidious- 
 ness about the choice of words ? So- 
 ciety ought to be as impeccable in its 
 language as it is in its attire. 
 
 35 
 
4* 
 II 
 
 LET us consider three men of 
 letters whose influence was potent 
 at Hotel de Rambouillet. They are 
 d'Urfe, Malherbe, and Balzac. Only 
 one of the three can be accounted 
 an actual member of the circle, for 
 Balzac was seldom there, and d'Urfe 
 never. 
 
 Honore d'Urfe was the author of a 
 gigantic romance entitled the Astree. 
 It was a continued story written in 
 days when ' continued' meant long con- 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 tinued. We sometimes complain of 
 the novel which runs a year in a 
 monthly magazine. Let us think on 
 our mercies. The admirers of the 
 Astree were expected to read and to 
 wait with a patience unknown to our 
 hurried generation. The first two 
 parts of the romance, comprising 
 more than two thousand pages, were 
 published in 1610. Then the public 
 waited nine years for the third part, 
 and eight years more for another in- 
 stallment. D'Urfe died in 1625, and 
 the fourth part was published by his 
 private secretary, Balthazar Baro, who 
 also added a fifth part, his own work, 
 bringing the story to a conclusion. 
 Therefore between the beginning of 
 the beginning and the end of the end 
 was an interval of not less than sev- 
 
«= 
 
 AND THE PRfiCIEUSES 
 
 cnteen years. Indeed the historians 
 assign for the meditation and writing 
 of this extraordinary book a quarter 
 of a century. 
 
 The Astr'ee is a pastoral romance 
 more or less autobiographical. The 
 hero is a youth by the name of Ce- 
 ladon. His manner of loving made 
 him in the eyes of readers of that day 
 the ideal of constancy. The type has 
 gone out of fashion. A modern 
 French critic hints that one would 
 more easily resign himself to being 
 called a Don Juan than a Celadon. 
 For the constancy which is admira- 
 ble degenerates in Celadon's case 
 into a humble and dog-like fidelity 
 exasperating to the reader. Men 
 have been the slaves of love before 
 and since d'Urfe's time; but they 
 

 HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 have usually shown a healthy and 
 commendable impatience. This vic- 
 tim of beauty's caprice rejoices in his 
 own tortures and ' adores the hand 
 which strikes him/ In his melan- 
 choly, his inactivity, his passionate 
 endurance, Celadon is the prototype 
 of Werther, Rene, and those other 
 handsome young pessimists of fic- 
 tion who suffer so eloquently, but 
 who carefully refrain from doing any- 
 thing lest they mar the edge of their 
 grief. 
 
 The Astr'ee had an enormous success. 
 It became the i code of polite society.' 
 The critics find traces of its influence 
 in the tragedies of Racine, the com- 
 edies of Marivaux, the romances of 
 Prevost, in the writings of J. J. Rous- 
 seau, and even in certain stories of 
 -+ 40-1— 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 George Sand. 1 Morillot declares that 
 nothing is equal to the Astree for pre- 
 senting a complete and accurate pic- 
 ture of the contemporaries of Balzac 
 and Voiture. It is therefore one of 
 the ' sources ' of the history of polite 
 society. These shepherds and shep- 
 herdesses who tend their flocks so grace- 
 fully and pay such ingenious compli- 
 ments to one another bear no relation 
 to Gabriel Oak. On the contrary they 
 are people of high birth wearing the 
 pastoral disguise for their own plea- 
 sure, and as a symbol of that peace and 
 rest for which the world was beginning 
 to yearn. It is a book with a key, 
 and readers were pleased to think 
 
 1 Brunetiere : Manuel, p. 105. Jusserand : 
 Le Roman anglais, p. 17. 
 
 -H-4I H— 
 
HO TEL DE RAMB O UILLE T 
 
 that in spite of the masks and the 
 costumes they recognized eminent 
 men and women of that day. 
 
 The Astree was happy in the class 
 of readers it attracted. The book 
 which could win the undisguised and 
 sometimes unqualified admiration of 
 Saint Francis de Sales, Camus, Patru, 
 Huet, La Fontaine, Boileau, and Ma- 
 dame de Sevigne must have had 
 notable virtues. 
 
 Malherbe was held in high esteem 
 at Hotel de Rambouillet. Like many 
 men who are self-willed, rough of 
 speech, and imperious of manner, he 
 could be courtly and gracious. These 
 robust geniuses are easily controlled 
 by a woman who commands their 
 respect and admiration. Malherbe 
 was civilized in the presence of the 
 -^42-1- 
 
ess ggg ^ 1 ^^ 
 
 AND THE PRMCIEUSES 
 
 Marquise, and his poetry was at all 
 times civilized. 
 
 Malherbe's verse was that of a man 
 who thought much but was seldom 
 inspired. 'He was a poet of the 
 second order,' says Pergameni, ' a poet 
 by reflection rather than by instinct,' 
 one of that class in whom reason takes 
 the place of heart. His writing lacked 
 blood, perhaps; the man himself was 
 altogether human, positive, egoistic, 
 tyrannical. 
 
 He reminds us a little of Dr. John- 
 son. He had Johnson's pungent wit, 
 overbearing manner, frankness of 
 speech, and reverence for authority. 
 He was like Johnson in the want of 
 external correspondence between the 
 poetical product and man who pro- 
 duced. Like him, too, in the way in 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 which he would browbeat and intin> 
 idate his circle of worshipers and 
 pupils. That anecdote has the true 
 Johnsonian flavor which describes 
 Malherbe repeating some verses to 
 Racan and then asking how he liked 
 them. Racan excused himself from 
 giving an opinion : ' I could not 
 understand them, you ate half of the 
 words/ Malherbe, irritated, ex- 
 claimed : ' Mortdieu ! if you make 
 me angry I '11 eat them all. They 
 are mine; since I made them I am 
 able to do what I please with them.' 
 
 That satirical observer Tallemant 
 de Reaux says that Malherbe was the 
 worst reciter in the world, and spoiled 
 his beautiful verses in repeating them. 
 It was hardly possible to understand 
 him on account of the impediment 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 in his speech and the thickness of 
 his voice. ' Besides this he spat at 
 least six times in reciting one stanza 
 of four lines. This is why the Cav- 
 alier Marini said that he had never 
 seen a man so wet nor a poet so 
 dry.' 
 
 Tallemant gives a handful of such 
 anecdotes which help us to conceive 
 the brusque old poet as vividly as if 
 he had been provided with a Boswell. 
 It was a part of Malherbe's mission 
 to castigate bad versifiers, or at least 
 versifiers whom he considered bad. 
 He went to dine with Desportes, who 
 received him graciously and offered 
 to give him a version of the Psalms 
 which he had just printed. ' Do not 
 trouble/ said Malherbe, ' I have seen 
 them ; your soup is worth more than 
 -+45 -I- 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 your Psalms/ The dinner is said to 
 have been eaten in silence. 
 
 He expressed his opinion of human 
 nature in his characteristic comment 
 on the death of Abel. ' Was n't that 
 a fine debut ! There were only three 
 or four human beings In the world, 
 and they began to kill one another; 
 after that, what was God able to hope 
 from mankind that He should take 
 the trouble to preserve them ? ' 
 
 Malherbe's services to French liter- 
 ature were on the side of restraint, 
 finish, nobility of form, perfection in 
 handling the materials of poetry. He 
 was late in beginning, and he worked 
 with such deliberation that he left but 
 a slender volume of verse. His in- 
 fluence was wide-reaching in his own 
 day, and in this happy age of crum- 
 
 -i- 46 4— 
 
C=s 
 
 AND THE PRiCIEUSES 
 
 bling idols he is secure in his reputa- 
 tion as a seventeenth century classic. 
 Even the gibes of an Arsene Hous- 
 saye cannot affect him much. As an 
 illustration of his willingness to let a 
 poem bide its time and slowly grow 
 into perfection they cite his verses ad- 
 dressed to the first president of Ver- 
 dun. Malherbe wished to console this 
 gentleman for the death of his wife. 
 4 By the time the stanzas were finished 
 the gentleman had been consoled, re- 
 married, and was himself dead' 
 
 In his ill-kept and badly furnished 
 apartments Malherbe presided over a 
 literary circle composed of younger 
 poets who recognized him as the 
 master. The best known of these 
 pupils was Racan, author of the Ber- 
 geries, a more absent-minded gentle- 
 
HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 man than Parson Adams, if the stories 
 told of him be not exaggerations. 
 
 He was 'caught young' by Mal- 
 herbe, who ruled him as an old-time 
 pedagogue might have done, even 
 forbidding his pupil to marry, and 
 criticising his verse with caustic sever- 
 ity. Malherbe kept Racan humble by 
 telling him that a poet was of no more 
 use to his country than a skittles-player, 
 and that if their own verses lived after 
 them they would be praised as men 
 who had been rather clever in arran- 
 ging words in a certain order, but who 
 were on the whole fools to spend their 
 time that way. 
 
 Balzac is usually disposed of by 
 calling him the Malherbe of prose, — 
 a facile kind of criticism made familiar 
 to us in those attempts to explain 
 
 — h 48 H— 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 George Meredith by speaking of him 
 as a prose Browning. He was a rhe- 
 torician, this Jean-Louis Guez de 
 Balzac, who employed the epistolary 
 form as best suited to his literary 
 needs. James Howell read Balzac's 
 letters, and finding them little to his 
 taste, said so in terms which it will 
 be proper not to repeat. We need to 
 read but one of Balzac's grandiose 
 epistles and follow it with a ' familiar 
 letter ' of James Howell to understand 
 how antipathetic the Englishman and 
 the Frenchman were, and that for rea- 
 sons with which racial antagonism had 
 nothing to do. The letters of Balzac 
 are the opposite of familiar. They 
 contain none of the element which 
 gives charm to what in this day are 
 called letters. With us a letter is 
 ^49^ 
 
e= 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 something natural, chatty, unostenta- 
 tious. The sentences are short, the 
 language colloquial. One speaks of 
 the sorrow of breaking in a new cook 
 or a new pair of shoes. Domestic 
 adventures are not tabooed, nor does 
 the writer disdain to give the thrilling 
 history of the last church social. In 
 short, when we speak of a letter we 
 mean the most informal type of liter- 
 ary composition, a thing written with 
 such careless good nature that we are 
 confused at the thought of having it 
 seen by any other eye than that for 
 which it was originally intended. 
 
 When, however, Balzac wrote let- 
 ters he wished them to be seen of men. 
 The letters might be addressed to a 
 great lord or a powerful churchman, 
 but they were meant to be read by 
 
g '"*^ * 
 
 AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 who could appreciate them, and most 
 of all by posterity. For a time Bal- 
 zac's vogue was extraordinary. He 
 was spoken of not merely as the most 
 eloquent man in France, such praise 
 was too reserved and judicial : he was 
 the only eloquent man in France. 
 When he was but twenty-four years 
 of age Perron said of him to CoefFe- 
 teau : ' If he goes on as he has begun, 
 he will be the master of masters/ 
 They were speaking of his literary 
 style. 
 
 It is well to be suspicious of a sev- 
 enteenth century Frenchman when 
 he comes bearing compliments. Two 
 men of letters might be depended 
 upon to exchange verbal caresses 
 whatever they privately thought one 
 of the other. Nevertheless there 
 -j- 51 -h- 
 
* =«*#» 
 
 HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 must have been a measure of sincerity 
 among them. This extract from one 
 of Voiture's letters shows how it was 
 customary to address Balzac. The 
 illustration is all the better for coming 
 from Voiture, who used to spice his 
 compliments with minute touches of 
 malice and irony. ' To-day all men 
 listen to you. No one who under- 
 stands how to read is indifferent. 
 They who are jealous for the honor of 
 this kingdom take no more pains to 
 learn what Monsieur the Marshal de 
 Crequy is doing than to learn what 
 you are doing. And we have more 
 than two generals in the army who do 
 not make so great a sensation with 
 thirty thousand men as do you in your 
 solitude. 5 
 
 Voiture reached the superlative of 
 
 -J- 52H- 
 
AND THE PRiCIEUSES 
 
 panegyric with perfect ease, like the 
 accomplished man of the world that 
 he was. There was nothing to say- 
 more emphatic than this: Balzac was 
 more in the public eye than two gen- 
 erals each with thirty thousand men. 
 
 In the pretty little edition of Les 
 CEuvres diverses du Sieur de Balzac 
 published at Leyden by Jean Elzevier 
 in 1658 will be found four ' discourses,' 
 inscribed to the Marquise de Ram- 
 bouillet. They comprise about sixty 
 pages, and are in part the outcome of 
 conversations which may have taken 
 place in the 'blue room.' One is 
 on the Roman Character, another is 
 the continuation of a talk on Conver- 
 sation among the Romans, the third is 
 on Mecenas, the fourth on Glory. 
 Upon the testimony of these letters 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 Roederer bases his argument for the 
 high intellectual tone of Hotel de 
 Rambouillet. The Marquise was 
 genuinely interested in these themes. 
 The woman who could call out such 
 discourses from the ' grand epistolier 
 de France ' was neither a pedant nor 
 a precieuse. For the discourses do 
 not contain enough of the pedantic to 
 satisfy a blue-stocking, nor enough of 
 affectation to amuse a precieuse. And 
 it would be attributing an excess of 
 vanity to Balzac to suppose that in 
 writing to the Marquise he had no 
 disinterested motive, — that he thought 
 chiefly of the admiring comment which 
 would be called out by the reading 
 of his highly finished essays in that 
 part of the great world whose praise 
 was best worth having. 
 ^54 h_ 
 
Ill 
 
 JE are warned not to think of 
 this great house as a sort of Academy, 
 a mere club of pedants and blue- 
 stockings. It was not that. It was 
 emphatically the gay world, life, so- 
 ciety. Everything was there which 
 the world enjoys, with perhaps a touch 
 of ceremonial reserve hitherto un- 
 known. There might be grave argu- 
 ments over the use of prepositions, or 
 the propriety of admitting a new word 
 to the French language, but there was 
 
4 *^$£«!L =» 
 
 HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 also music and dancing. In a house 
 filled with young people, pleasure will 
 fre_the order of many days. The 
 party for pleasure at Hotel de Ram- 
 bouillet was organized and headed by 
 Vincent Voiture. 
 
 Voiture was what the French call, 
 with untranslatable felicity, un bel 
 esprit; in England they would say 
 a wit. His career shows how demo- 
 cratic Hotel de Rambouillet was, and 
 how entirely amiable qualities atoned 
 for the lack of a grandfather. Voi- 
 ture was of humble birth, the son of a 
 wine-merchant of Amiens, but his 
 gifts carried him to a foremost place 
 in the most cultivated society of his 
 day. Men of highest rank treated 
 him as an equal. He had abundance 
 of animal spirits, and he also had tact, 
 -H-56+- 
 
AND THE PRfiCIEUSES 
 
 suppleness of intellect, humor, a know- 
 ledge of men and women. People 
 admired his cleverness and marveled 
 at his audacity. The Due d'Enghien 
 once said : ' If Voiture were of our 
 rank he would be unendurable. 5 
 When he grew old Voiture became 
 peevish, and was tolerated just as if 
 he had been a lord or a rich uncle. 
 
 Cousin praises Voiture because he 
 was • the first example of a man of 
 letters who lived among the great 
 and still maintained his independence/ 
 The praise would be justly bestowed 
 if it were true that Voiture took the 
 attitude of a professed man of letters. 
 He did not. He trifled at literature. 
 But he trifled with exceeding care, and 
 his works live after him. He wrote 
 letters and poems. He printed no- 
 
*m 
 
 HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 thing during his lifetime. When, after 
 his death, these writings were collected 
 and published in two volumes, people 
 laughed at the title which the literary- 
 executor gave to them — the Works 
 of Vincent Voiture. But every histo- 
 rian of French literature takes them 
 into account. Cousin gives Voiture 
 the credit of being inventor of what 
 we would now call vers de societe. 
 This poet would live if only by virtue 
 of his connection with Hotel de Ram- 
 bouillet. Honors are still done him. 
 Andrew Lang translates him, and Ger- 
 man Gelehrte write theses on his 
 syntax. 
 
 In the Grand Dictionnaire des Pr'e- 
 cieuses Voiture figures under the name 
 of Valere, that is, Valerius. His in- 
 fluence among the little salons was so 
 
 — H 58 -H- 
 
«= 
 
 AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 great that if he showed himself once 
 at a lady's house her reputation as a 
 precieuse was made. 
 
 At Hotel de Rambouillet he ex- 
 erted to the utmost his extraordinary 
 powers of entertainment. He ex- 
 celled in that which we vaguely and 
 helplessly describe as the art of keep- 
 ing things going. A house which 
 was at no time a solemn place was far- 
 ther than ever from solemnity when 
 he was present. Moreover we are in 
 France, and France is gay, and the 
 French are a gay people. We are 
 to take for granted all those things in 
 which youth delights, the fetes, the 
 fancy-dress balls, the collations, the 
 picnics. They loved to travesty my- 
 thological scenes in the ample Pare 
 Rambouillet; this was their way of 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 presenting Gibson tableaux. Half 
 the charm of their comedies and fetes 
 grew out of the improvised character 
 of these things. That genius of the 
 Latin race for doing the right thing at 
 exactly the right time came into play. 
 What our cold Anglo-Saxon tempera- 
 ment would spoil was infinitely light 
 and graceful under their touch. 
 
 Voiture also had a taste for the 
 kind of joke called practical. For 
 this he has been reproved. Bourciez 
 calls him the enfant terrible of Hotel 
 de Rambouillet. One illustration of 
 his mischievous wit is given in all the 
 books. He encountered on the street 
 a wandering animal-trainer with two 
 dancing bears. He brought all three 
 up stair and through corridor into the 
 room where, on the other side of a 
 — h 60 4- 
 
«= 
 
 AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 large screen, the Marquise and a group 
 of her friends were sitting. One can 
 guess the consternation of this lady 
 when, on hearing a scuffling behind 
 her, she looked around and saw four 
 hairy paws resting on the top of the 
 screen with muzzles laid between them 
 and bearish eyes blinking down upon 
 her. 
 
 Was it in punishment for this jest 
 that the Marquise persuaded Voiture 
 that he was almost losing his mind, 
 or at least becoming an unconscious 
 plagiarist? He used, after the ap- 
 proved custom of the day, to hand his 
 verses about in manuscript. The 
 Marquise had one of his newest poems 
 printed and the leaf bound into 
 a volume. Then she called his at- 
 tention to the extraordinary resem- 
 -t- 61 -*- 
 
«= 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 blance between the two poems. For 
 the moment Voiture was staggered, 
 and fully believed that at the time he 
 was, as he supposed, writing original 
 verse, he must have been remember- 
 ing something he had read. 
 
 Another personage at Hotel de 
 Rambouillet was the Due de Montau- 
 sier. He played as prominent a 
 role as V-oiture, but was so utterly un- 
 like the little poet that the two men 
 form a piquant contrast. 
 
 Montausier made his first appear- 
 ance at Hotel de Rambouillet in 1631. 
 He was then Marquis de Salle, and 
 barely twenty-two years of age. He 
 became enamored of Julie, and later 
 an aspirant for her hand. If it were 
 ever true that a young lady accepted 
 a suitor because all the world spoke 
 
 -H 62 +- 
 
<s= 
 
 AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 well of him, Montausier would have 
 made easy conquest, for he was a man 
 whom no one named unless to praise. 
 This is a little surprising since his 
 virtues were of a rugged and militant 
 sort. The tradition is significant 
 which says that Moliere drew from 
 Montausier some of the finest traits 
 in the character of the Misanthrope. 
 
 Most men who pay court to wo- 
 men expect their reward within a 
 reasonable time. This particular 
 courtship was protracted to thirteen 
 years. It is accounted a phenomenal 
 case in the annals of love-making. 
 We are not, however, to suppose 
 that Montausier spent thirteen years 
 at the lady's feet, breathing amorous 
 sighs, and writing sonnets to her 
 beauty. Some gallants made love in 
 -+63+- 
 
HOTEL DERAMBOUILLET 
 
 this feeble fashion, imitating Celadon 
 in the Astree. Montausier was of 
 more heroic build. He was a soldier. 
 His courting was \ punctuated ' with 
 battles, wounds, and imprisonments. 
 But he returned from the wars with 
 but one thought — to win the hand 
 of Julie d'Angennes. The situation 
 became intense. Everybody wondered 
 how it was going to turn out. The 
 lover was worthy of his mistress, but 
 she wished not to marry. 'He laid 
 siege to the fortress of her affections 
 strictly in accordance with the rules.' 
 All the world, as the French say, be- 
 came absorbed in this interesting 
 drama. The most intimate friends of 
 the Marquise took it upon themselves 
 to speak in Montausier's behalf. Even 
 the great Richelieu brought his in- 
 — *- 64 -i— 
 
4 **$?** 
 
 AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 fluence to bear. The courtship was 
 so long drawn out that there was time 
 for the aspect of French politics to 
 change, and a new minister to come 
 into power ; Mazarin was no less sym- 
 pathetic than his illustrious predeces- 
 sor. Even the Queen spoke for Mon- 
 tausier. The young man himself 
 took one step which meant a good 
 deal in those days; he changed his 
 religion. The house of d'Angennes 
 was Catholic ; Montausier was a Cal- 
 vinist. He embraced the old faith, 
 and observed that it made little differ- 
 ence by which route one went to 
 Heaven. 
 
 Montausier, as I have said, was 
 twenty-two years old when he first 
 saw Julie d'Angennes. He was thirty- 
 five when the marriage took place. 
 ^654- 
 
HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 This was in 1645. The bride was 
 three years older than her husband. 
 
 In 1641 Montausier complimented 
 the lady of his affections with that 
 graceful gift known as the Guirlande 
 de Julie. It was a beautiful folio 
 volume, the leaves of vellum, the 
 binding of red morocco doublee by 
 Le Gascon, and bearing the mono- 
 gram J-L, for Julie-Lucine, both on 
 the outside and inside of the cover. 
 The frontispiece was a ' zephyr' hold- 
 ing in one hand a rose and in the other 
 a garland of twenty-nine flowers. On 
 the succeeding leaves of the volume 
 each flower was painted separately by 
 Robert, and beneath were madrigals 
 inscribed in the hand of the famous 
 calligraphist, Nicholas Jarry. The 
 madrigals were sixty-two in number, 
 —i- 66 -i— 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 Nineteen poets contributed, among 
 them Chapelain, Gombauld, Scudery, 
 Racan, and Conrart. Sixteen of the 
 threescore poems are by Montausier 
 himself. Voiture alone of those whom 
 we should expect to find represented 
 was not of the number. Did the en- 
 fant terrible of Hotel de Rambouillet 
 actually ' pout ' and refuse to play, 
 as Bourciez hints ? In 1855 Cousin 
 was able to thank God in a manner 
 truly French that the Guirlande de 
 Julie was still in existence, a carefully 
 guarded treasure in one of the noble 
 houses of France. It has been upon 
 the market at least once, and then 
 brought the considerable sum of three 
 thousand dollars. That was a hun- 
 dred years ago. One hardly dares to 
 think to what towering height the 
 —1- 67 -«— 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 virtuosi and bibliophiles of to-day 
 might run the price if the Garland 
 were to be brought to the block. 
 
 Historians date the decline of Ho- 
 tel de Rambouillet from Julie's mar- 
 riage. She represented the younger 
 life of the stately house. If the Mar- 
 quise herself could not be called old 
 in 1645', she was at least of middle 
 age ; she had passed her fifty-seventh 
 birthday. For thirty-five years she 
 had presided over a circle whose name 
 is to this day the synonym for refine- 
 ment and culture. During that time 
 other women had learned, partly from 
 her, the art of conducting a salon. 
 Many of these women were gifted 
 and of high social standing. They 
 were able to preside with grace and 
 intelligence. Many of them were of 
 
^iVZ> r#£ PR&CIEUSES 
 
 little culture and possessed only of 
 the imitative faculty. The best they 
 could do was to travesty what they 
 had seen or heard in the fc blue room,' 
 or still worse to travesty what they 
 had not known by experience but 
 only heard about. Between 1645 and 
 1648 a new word 'precieuse 5 began 
 to pass from lip to lip. Without 
 attempting to give an accurate defi- 
 nition to it the public adopted it. 
 They to whom the word was applied 
 accepted it with complacency; they 
 who applied it to others did so with 
 an accent which might mean anything 
 from admiration to contempt. 
 
 '69. 
 
IV 
 
 .HO were the Precieuses % We 
 are usually taught to believe that all 
 the habitual frequenters of the ' blue 
 room ' are to be so accounted. But 
 Roederer, the first historian to have 
 definite ideas on the subject, and the 
 historian who has succeeded in im- 
 posing his ideas on all other writ- 
 ers, says not so. As I understand 
 him, Preciosity may have cradled in 
 the ' blue room,' and the Marquise de 
 Rambouillet will always be reputed 
 -+ 71 •*- 
 
<e= 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 its mother ; but she is not to be held 
 responsible for the later vagaries of 
 her offspring. 
 
 Take the so-called English aes- 
 thetic movement of a few years since. 
 Ruskin was in a way responsible for 
 the whole affair, sun-flowers, knee- 
 breeches, clinging garments, the opera 
 of Patience, all of it. That is to 
 say, he was as much responsible for it 
 as the Marquise de Rambouillet was 
 responsible for the antics of the pre- 
 cieuses. Hotel de Rambouillet had 
 its affectations, but the extravagances 
 which called out the satire of Moliere 
 were devised by the precieuses for 
 their own peculiar enjoyment. Even 
 at the time when Marini, the Nea- 
 politan poet, was her honored guest, 
 he who is thought to represent verbal 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 affectation carried to its extreme, the 
 Marquise remained faithful to Mal- 
 herbe. The poet of law and order 
 was her poet. 
 
 Every good and useful thing has its 
 parody. There is not a patent medi- 
 cine of reputed worth which does not 
 bear upon its label the warning, ' Be- 
 ware of imitations.' 
 
 The salons which came into exist- 
 ence just before and during the de- 
 cline of Hotel de Rambouillet were 
 modeled more or less imperfectly 
 upon it. No woman had the social 
 gifts of the Marquise, no woman could 
 hope to bring together such a number 
 of shining lights. They did what 
 they could. Some did well and some 
 did very ill. In almost every case 
 there was lack of a wholesome re- 
 ^73^ 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 straining force. It was hardly pos- 
 sible to play the fool before the stately 
 Marquise and her daughters, before 
 real wits and real poets; but there 
 was no end to the airs these women 
 put on when they set up, each for 
 herself a petty literary court. 
 
 Four or five of these salons deserve 
 only courteous mention. Such were 
 Hotel d'Albret and Hotel de Riche- 
 lieu, which continued the aristocratic 
 traditions of the 6 blue room.' Hotel 
 d'Albret was a princely mansion where 
 one met the best of society, attracted 
 there by the hospitality of the marshal, 
 his high position, and his genuine 
 love of conversation and letters. 
 Monsieur and Madame de Richelieu 
 had about the same guests that one 
 found at Hotel d'Albret ; for example, 
 -+744- 
 
<s= 
 
 AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 Madame de Scarron was often to be 
 seen at these houses. They were 
 spoken of as copies, and in a way 
 continuations, of Hotel de Rambou- 
 illet. But they lacked a Voiture, by 
 whose vivacity and wit their reputa- 
 tion might be carried down to pos- 
 terity. 1 
 
 Other circles of distinction were 
 those of Mademoiselle de Montpen- 
 sier, the daughter of Gaston, Due d'Or- 
 leans, the lady general of the Fronde, 
 now living in splendid ' disgrace ' at 
 the Luxembourg; of Madame de 
 Longueville, Madame de Sable, and 
 Madame de La Fayette. The world 
 is indebted to two of these women 
 
 1 Rcederer : Memoir e sur la Societe polie, chap, 
 xiii. 
 
 ^75^ 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 for their share in the Maxims of 
 La Rochefoucauld. The Marquise 
 de Sable wrote maxims. So did the 
 members of her circle. At this house, 
 whose attractions were sufficient to 
 bring Arnauld and Pascal, the con- 
 versation turned on high and serious 
 themes, metaphysics, theology, physi- 
 cal science, grammar. How vital the 
 question of correct speech was held to 
 be we know from a little book on the 
 art of translation written by the gen- 
 tleman who called himself Sieur de 
 Lestang, and dedicated to Madame 
 de Sable. ' I know,' he says, ' that the 
 masters of our language consult you 
 in their doubts, make you the arbi- 
 tress of their differences, and submit 
 to your decisions. In truth you are 
 the person who best knows all the 
 -j- 76+- 
 
AND THE PRE CIE USES 
 
 laws and rules of discourse, who best 
 knows how to utter sentiments and 
 ideas with grace and clarity, who 
 best knows how to employ those 
 happy forms of expression at once 
 ingenious, charming, and characteris- 
 tically French. In short, you are the 
 one who best knows all those myster- 
 ies and delicacies of style of which 
 Monsieur de Vaugelas speaks/ 
 
 The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld 
 as they appeared in their earliest form 
 represent the genius of their author 
 plus the influence of Madame de 
 Sable. In their later and less cynical 
 form is to be perceived a measure of 
 the humanizing and generous influ- 
 ence of Madame de La Fayette. One 
 may not speak lightly of the tastes, 
 manners, or occupations of any one 
 ^77^ 
 
I "^ 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 of these * ruelles of the second order/ 
 There must have been much that was 
 admirable in the life there, since it 
 compelled the admiration of Huet, 
 La Fontaine, La Rochefoucauld, and 
 Madame de Sevigne. 
 
 The most spectacular of these 
 lesser coteries was that of Madeleine 
 de Scudery. Brunetiere is sneering in 
 his tone when he speaks of this lady : 
 'Cette pauvre Sapho,' he says. She 
 had many admirable qualities, though 
 it seems extravagant to call her, as 
 M. Barthelemy does, 'the most re- 
 markable figure of the seventeenth 
 century/ She composed romances of 
 a length unknown to the feeble read- 
 ers of our day. Every story was in 
 ten volumes when it was not in more ; 
 and every volume was a quarto. At 
 
 — H 78 H — 
 
AND THE PRiCIEUSES 
 
 first glance one would incline to say 
 that a single romance by Madeleine 
 de Scudery contained almost as much 
 ' reading matter ' as all the Waverley 
 novels taken together. She was the 
 most pitiless writer of fiction that the 
 world has ever known. Even M. 
 Barthelemy admits that her romances 
 seem long and monotonous to us. 
 
 It is beyond belief that her books 
 were ever read — at least that they 
 were ever read through. The fasci- 
 nation they exercised was in part due 
 to the fact that under classical names 
 were to be recognized notable con- 
 temporaries. People read the Grand 
 Cyrus in order to see themselves as 
 Madeleine de Scudery saw them. 
 The manners, events, ideas were of 
 their own day, and not of some vague 
 -+79-*- 
 
<s= 
 
 HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 past as they pretended to be. The 
 characters have been identified. Vic- 
 tor Cousin devoted two volumes 
 comprising nearly a thousand pages 
 to an interpretation of French society 
 in the seventeenth century according 
 to the Grand Cyrus. Mandane is 
 the Duchesse de Longueville; Cyrus 
 is the great Conde; Cleomire is the 
 Marquise de Rambouillet ; Angelique 
 Paulet is Elise ; and so on. 
 
 The romance of Clelie has for 
 frontispiece a remarkable map designed 
 by Mademoiselle de Scudery to illus- 
 trate the progress of the 'great pas- 
 sion.' It is a map of the Kingdom 
 of Tenderness. Here are pleasant 
 valleys, hills and plains, villages and 
 cities. There is a well-defined road 
 which lovers may travel. They 
 -H-80+- 
 
AND THE PRE CIE USES 
 
 wander along the shore of the Lake 
 of Indifference and presently come to 
 the town of Respect. Then they 
 pass through a number of villages 
 such as Love-letter, Letter-gallant, 
 Pretty-verses, Complaisance, Submis- 
 sion, Little Attentions, Assiduity, 
 Eagerness, Sensibility. In this way 
 one fell in love according to Made- 
 moiselle de Scudery. On her map 
 there was also a perfidious river called 
 Inclination, perfidious because it led 
 to the Ocean Dangerous. All this sen- 
 timental rubbish was highly esteemed 
 in the year 1656, not alone by the 
 precieuses, but by people of taste and 
 judgment as well; and a grave and 
 learned body of men, the French 
 Academy, bestowed on ' La Scuderi ' 
 the Balzac prize of Eloquence. 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 In Alfred de Vigny's historical ro- 
 mance of Cinq-Mars is a scene at the 
 house of Marion de Lorme where are 
 gathered together among numerous 
 gallants and fine gentlemen certain 
 men of letters, Corneille, young Moli- 
 ere, Georges de Scudery, the brother 
 of Madeleine, also Descartes, two or 
 three members of the Academy, and, 
 of all men, John Milton ! Georges de 
 Scudery has a map of the Kingdom 
 of Tenderness which he explains to 
 an admiring group. Young Poque- 
 lin professes not to find the wit of the 
 ' carte de Tendre ' very interesting, is 
 snubbed into silence, and consoles 
 himself by meditating the Prkieuses 
 ridicules. Later in the evening Mil- 
 ton recites from Paradise Lost to the 
 satisfaction of a few of his auditors 
 -j- 82+- 
 
4 *Z^-= 
 
 AND THE PRiCIEUSES 
 
 and to the dismay of the majority. 
 The scene is not entirely convincing. 
 There are too many distinguished 
 men on the stage at the same time. 
 The effect is exaggerated and theat- 
 rical. Undoubtedly the episode is 
 best judged from a point of view quite 
 other than that which an Englishman 
 or an American would naturally take. 
 Alfred de Vigny's motive is none the 
 less suggestive ; he wishes to contrast 
 the product of the salons and coteries 
 with that greater literature which is 
 independent of fashion and unaffected 
 by the caprices of society. 
 
 When a woman is plain she may 
 be praised for some virtue which is 
 superior to good looks. The critic 
 who described Madeleine de Scudery 
 as a ' homely old maid ' was generous 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 enough to add that she was ' good.' 
 She was a very amiable woman and 
 had been cordially received at Hotel 
 de Rambouillet. That she got many 
 of her ideas there is indisputable ; it 
 is not so easy to believe, as some 
 writers would have us believe, that 
 she represented the pure tradition of 
 the ' blue room ' of Arthenice. 
 
 She began to hold her famous 
 6 Saturdays' some time between 1645 
 and 1650. Her house became the 
 ■ normal school ' of precieuses of the 
 thorough-going sort. Wherein it dif- 
 fered from that more splendid school 
 of manners at Hotel de Rambouillet 
 is clearly explained by Cousin. At 
 the older house the circle was largely 
 aristocratic, distinguished by fine blood 
 as well as by fine breeding. If the 
 —1-84-1— 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 conversation was of literature, that did 
 not preclude other themes. ' They 
 talked of everything, of war, of reli- 
 gion, of politics.' The influence which 
 emanated from this society was far- 
 reaching because the matters there dis- 
 cussed were of varied interest, not con- 
 fined to belles-lettres. On the other 
 hand the ' Saturdays ' were out and out 
 literary, and therefore apt to be afflicted 
 with that malaise which is always 
 apparent if a number of people with 
 ' literary leanings ' get together. The 
 salon of Mademoiselle de Scudery 
 had its better and its worse state, to 
 be sure, but the general tendency 
 was in the direction of preciosity 
 pure and simple. Moreover the so- 
 ciety was mixed. A few members of 
 the elite came from time to time, 
 
 — H 85 -I — 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 but the ' Saturdays ' as a whole lacked 
 distinction. 
 
 Cousin makes this comparison. At 
 Hotel de Rambouillet men and wo- 
 men sought to express noble things 
 in a simple manner ; at the ' Satur- 
 days ' they seemed to be trying to utter 
 unimportant things in a manner both 
 strained and pretentious. 
 
 86- 
 
V 
 
 T 
 
 JLHE small salons increased in 
 number. The frequenters thereof 
 multiplied. The new word ' precieuse ' 
 began to be used in a restricted sense. 
 The word was not so used until about 
 thirteen years after the great period of 
 Hotel de Rambouillet. 
 
 How marked the contrast was be- 
 tween the older house and the new 
 salons becomes clear when we note 
 the themes of conversation among the 
 precieuses. For example, they dis- 
 -+87+- 
 
 \S 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 cussed the great question whether 
 history should be preferred to romance, 
 or romance to history. Being new 
 women, they were agitated over the 
 question how much liberty it was 
 woman's right to enjoy. Some took 
 the ground that if husbands were sus- 
 picious, then it was the privilege of 
 wives to give them a reason for sus- 
 picion. One may guess accurately 
 how such a topic would have been 
 received at Hotel de Rambouillet ! 
 They mingled all kinds of diverse in- 
 terests in a manner truly grotesque. 
 They prepared a manual of conversa- 
 tion. They dressed dolls with a view 
 to studying the effect of the new 
 fashions which they proposed to in- 
 troduce. They conversed in a manner 
 so alambiquee that it ended like the 
 ^88+- 
 
<n «**$ *» 
 
 AND THE PR&C1EUSES 
 
 meeting of a Browning society — no 
 one of them could understand the 
 others. They made impromptus and 
 madrigals. In short, they did all 
 sorts of things, no one of which would 
 they have dared to do at Hotel de 
 Rambouillet. Yet in many instances 
 they seemed to have learned their les- 
 son of the older house. But the dig- 
 nity, the ceremonial repression which 
 the Marquise herself exercised together 
 with her own personal sweetness and 
 good sense — all these elements were 
 lacking. 
 
 They annexed, though they can 
 hardly be said to have conquered, the 
 entire kingdom of knowledge. Some 
 were philosophical. A precieuse who 
 had lost a friend by death gave a dis- 
 quisition on grief. She maintained the 
 —1-89-1— 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 interesting thesis that the chief purpose 
 of grief is to help one to live over again 
 all the pleasure one has enjoyed with 
 the lost friend. Others took the 
 homely position that the object of 
 grief is to make one miserable. Ma- 
 demoiselle Dupre, an acquaintance of 
 Mademoiselle de Scudery, became 
 passionately addicted to the philosophy 
 of Descartes. She interpreted it to 
 her friends, though it is quite possible 
 that her interpretation of Cartesianism 
 belongs in the same category with 
 Mrs. Montague's 'defense' of Shake- 
 speare. Her ambitions were duly re- 
 cognized, however, and in her par- 
 ticular circle she was called 'La 
 Cartesienne.' 
 
 Some of the precieuses were enthu- 
 siastic over ^physical science. They 
 — v 90 «*- 
 
■ <s lrt ^^ 
 
 AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 could readily be induced to leave it 
 and talk literature. For example, 
 Was Corneille to be preferred to Ben- 
 serade? And might not Chapelain 
 be preferred to either ? 
 
 They were perhaps most active over 
 questions of grammar and rhetoric. 
 They invented many new phrases and 
 expressions to the eternal laughter of 
 outsiders, and to their own supreme 
 content. Not a few of these phrases 
 survive to this day and are accounted 
 good French. On the other hand, 
 with this passion for neologisms, they 
 seem really to have striven for that 
 happy medium between the slipshod 
 and the pompous and extravagant type 
 of speech. At least ' they made a 
 solemn vow that in conversation they 
 would aim in purity of style at the 
 -+91+- 
 
HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 rooting out of words in questionable 
 taste, and they proclaimed unending 
 war against pedants and provincials.' 
 
 They brought about a radical 
 change in spelling. They decided to 
 abolish the superfluous letters from 
 such words as teste, hostel, tousjours, 
 goust, and the like. Such changes as 
 they made still hold good. To this 
 day people spell these words tete, 
 hotel, toujours, gout. Rcederer quotes 
 from Somaize a list of one hundred 
 and thirty-four words, nearly all of 
 which owe their present spelling to 
 the influence of the precieuses. This 
 is an interesting fact, for we have it 
 on the authority of Tallemant that 
 some of the precieuses never learned 
 to spell at all. 
 
 The truth is, preciosity includes so 
 
 -H-92-I- 
 
AND THE PRiCIEUSES 
 
 many contradictory elements that it is 
 difficult to characterize it. One would 
 suppose from the attitude of hostile 
 critics that it was a deadly sin to be 
 a precieuse. Whether it was or not 
 seems really to have depended upon 
 the kind of precieuse one was. There 
 were many varieties, some neither 
 admirable nor the reverse, some quite 
 ridiculous. To this last class belonged 
 such women as Madelon and Cathos 
 in the play. In fact, to call a woman 
 a precieuse was to be indefinite. 
 There must be a qualifying adjective. 
 The lady might be a precieuse illustre, 
 or a precieuse grande, or simply a 
 precieuse ridicule ; and it was a long 
 way from first to last. The chief de- 
 fect of preciosity as it showed itself 
 in ruelles of the second and third 
 
< tr S" 
 
 HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 order was its glorifications of trifles. 
 These people loved to play at literary- 
 games, but they had no great care for 
 literature. They delighted in mere 
 bagatelles, such as enigmas and sonnets 
 to a lady's eyebrow. We are appalled 
 at the sight of Dean Swift spending 
 his final melancholy days in writing 
 conundrums ; it was the last infirmity 
 of a mind which if not noble had at 
 least noble qualities. But what shall 
 we say when a whole society of intel- 
 ligent men and women give them- 
 selves up to such frivolities? And 
 one is astonished to see with how 
 grave a face they carried on their 
 elaborate fooling. There must have 
 been a few who would gladly have 
 broken away from bagatelles, whether 
 literary or conversational, in order to 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 introduce more wholesome influence. 
 The courage was lacking. The pun- 
 ishment for taking one's ease in these 
 charming courts was that one con- 
 formed to what appeared to be the 
 chief source of their charm. A man 
 might know that he was stifling the 
 higher and more rugged qualities of 
 literature, but he conformed just the 
 same. 
 
 This bright, artificial world had its 
 historiographer. His name was So- 
 maize. He holds a place in the an- 
 nals of literature not because he was 
 a writer, but because he made a Dic- 
 tionary of the Precieuses, containing 
 pen-portraits, comments on their phi- 
 losophy, and a collection of their 
 phrases and circumlocutions. There 
 were two editions of the dictionary, — 
 -+95+~ 
 
HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 one little and one big. The c grand ' 
 dictionary gives the names of seven 
 hundred recognized precieuses, never 
 the real name, to be sure, but a classi- 
 cal counterpart which was understood 
 by the elect. 
 
 Somaize defends the precieuses, or 
 at least seems to do so. He combats 
 the popular error that a precieuse is a 
 woman at least forty-five years old, 
 plain, and opposed to matrimony. It 
 is a mistake also to suppose that the 
 possession of wit alone entitles wo- 
 men to be called precieuses. Only 
 they may be so designated who busy 
 themselves in writing or in correcting 
 the writing of others, who lay stress 
 upon the reading of romances, and 
 above all, who invent ways of speak- 
 ing which are bizarre in their novelty 
 -h 96 H- 
 
<■ -gQ£ s 
 
 ^ATZ) r#£ PR&CIEUSES 
 
 and unusual in their significance. 
 Somaize says that it was one of the 
 doctrines of the precieuses that a 
 thought was of no value when it 
 could be understood by all the world ; 
 they held themselves under obligation 
 to speak otherwise than do common 
 people, so that their ideas might be 
 grasped only by those who have men- 
 tal powers above the vulgar. Thus 
 he accounts for their efforts to destroy 
 the old language and substitute for it 
 one that is not only new, but peculiar 
 to themselves. 
 
 If you were a genuine precieuse 
 you had two names, one the name 
 which your parents gave you, the 
 other a poetical name, — nom de Par- 
 nasse. This seems foolish, but is not 
 so foolish as it seems. I do not speak 
 
«s 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 by the card, but I take it the custom 
 partly originated in the need to have 
 a more euphonious word for poetry 
 than is offered in the average proper 
 name. And we all know that privi- 
 leges are accorded poets which are 
 denied to commercial travelers. Lan- 
 dor addressed a poem to ' Ianthe.' 
 This was not the young lady's name ; 
 she was a Miss Jones. But one can- 
 not use that sort of name in poetry 
 any more than he can E. Mandeville 
 Stubbs or M. Pett Mudge. To be 
 sure Wordsworth did it, but he failed 
 to establish the practice as a universal 
 poetic custom. It is a mere question 
 of euphony. Wilkinson sounds harsh 
 in poetry, yet the ear hears with de- 
 light such phrases as 'Sidney's sister 
 Pembroke's mother.' Those words 
 -1-98 -K- 
 
AND THE PR&C1EUSES 
 
 were not without grace long before 
 they acquired the meaning which we 
 attach to them. 
 
 Moreover this renaming of people 
 is an innocent sophistication which 
 has the sanction of antiquity. It pre- 
 vails in all literature of a certain age. 
 Men were never themselves, but al- 
 ways somebody else, and the most 
 fashionable of gentlemen and ladies 
 loved to think that they were shep- 
 herds and shepherdesses. Shake- 
 speare does not speak of Marlowe as 
 the ' late Christopher Marlowe,' or as 
 the ' distinguished playwright and 
 poet who has so recently died,' but 
 calls him ' shepherd.' Malherbe re- 
 christened the Marquise de Ram- 
 bouillet Arthenice, an anagram on 
 Catherine. This fact has disturbed 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 some critics like the readable Paul 
 Albert, for example, who calls Hotel 
 de Rambouillet a ' hot-house ' in 
 which were nursed exotic plants 
 brought from Italy and Spain, plants 
 of no particular use except to show 
 Frenchmen what queer literary flora 
 was produced in foreign lands. 
 
 Preciosity is after all only a matter 
 of degree. It is well to be refined ; 
 the sin of the precieuses consisted in 
 refining upon refinement until spon- 
 taneity and naturalness were entirely 
 lost. Take that question of the 
 choice of words. At Hotel de Ram- 
 bouillet it seemed best to avoid cer- 
 tain words and to substitute circum- 
 locutions. There is no harm in this. 
 Let language be made as pliant as 
 possible. But let this flexibility be 
 
 -h IOO -H- 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 obtained by legitimate means, and let 
 good sense reign in the deliberations 
 of the self-appointed judges. If it be 
 a sin to use a circumlocution instead 
 of a plain term, then are all men sin- 
 ners. We should be lenient towards 
 those who use words to conceal 
 thoughts : still more towards those 
 who use words to express with re- 
 straint a thought which otherwise 
 might come with dismaying blunt- 
 ness. For example, there are certain 
 vigorous old English words which 
 we rarely utter. It is not because 
 they are coarse or indecent, but be- 
 cause they are definite and positive. 
 Such words are entirely reputable 
 and more than expressive. No feel- 
 ing of prejudice attaches to them 
 when they occur in the Scripture les- 
 -+ 101 -*- 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 son, or are met with in literature of a 
 robust type like the plays of Shake- 
 speare or the novels of Fielding. For 
 conversational purposes they may be 
 said to have disappeared. 
 
 The reason may be in part this. 
 The public classifies words for itself, 
 with little heed to the classification of 
 grammarians and philologists. The 
 public takes many words and puts 
 them in either of two categories, out- 
 of-door words and drawing-room 
 words. Moreover it is not always 
 thought a virtue to bring out-of-door 
 expressions into the drawing-room. 
 It may be daring and ' original/ but 
 as a matter of taste it is as if an oars- 
 man, to show his originality and in- 
 dependence, were to go out to dine 
 in the costume in which he had been 
 
 -f- 102 -I- 
 
AND THE PRECIS USES 
 
 rowing in his shell. People admit 
 that there are ranks or orders of words, 
 admit it by their practice even when 
 they do not theorize about it. The 
 proof lies in the fact that they inva- 
 riably suppress certain words and use 
 an equivalent. 
 
 Such suppression is not in itself 
 madness, but that way the madness 
 of preciosity lies. If we habitually 
 use a synonym which is rather worse 
 than the word supplanted, if we strain 
 at gnats and swallow camels, we de- 
 monstrate anew that the spirit of pre- 
 ciosity is still potent. Indeed the 
 precieuses are not dead; male and 
 female they still exist. The modern 
 spirit manifests itself in a hundred 
 ways. Sometimes it runs to deca- 
 dent prose and verse in the effort to 
 -+103*- 
 
HOTEL DE RJMBOUILLET 
 
 be striking. Sometimes it prompts 
 to the printing of books on paper 
 which might have been made to wrap 
 steaks in, and the illustration of one's 
 poetic ideas by means of decorations 
 rather less intelligible than an ordi- 
 nary nightmare. Sometimes it finds 
 its highest joy in being published in 
 an edition so ' limited ' that after the 
 personal friends have been supplied 
 the volume is at once catalogued as 
 'scarce and out of print.' There is 
 nothing reprehensible in being out of 
 print ; most books are rather better so. 
 But when the first edition of Poems, 
 chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, published 
 at Kilmarnock, became scarce and 
 out of print, it was for reasons un- 
 known to amateurs of preciosity. 
 In these and similar matters we are 
 -h 104-1- 
 
^VZ> r#£ PR&CIEUSES 
 
 taught to believe that good sense and 
 good taste prevailed at Hotel de 
 Rambouillet. The testimony of 
 Chapelain, already quoted, is conclu- 
 sive. Other and quite as good testi- 
 mony is not wanting. In the outer 
 circles of preciosity, however, it was 
 quite otherwise. A thoroughgoing 
 precieuse, to whom words were rather 
 more important than ideas, would not 
 speak of her ears ; she would say the 
 gates of my understanding ; she would 
 speak of night as the mother of silence, 
 war as the mother of discord ; a hat 
 was not a hat, it was the defer of the 
 weather (1'afFronteur des temps) ; chairs 
 were the indisp ens able s of conversation ; 
 and tears were the pearls of Iris : no 
 one shed tears, he shed pearls. Teeth 
 were the furniture of the mouth ; a ser- 
 -*• 105-1- 
 
I? B,^r s v,, 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 geant of police was the bad angel of 
 criminals; a mirror was known as a 
 painter of supreme fidelity ; and soup 
 masqueraded under the phrase, the 
 harmony of two elements. 
 
 These and similar expressions to the 
 number of several hundred were col- 
 lected by Somaize from the lips of 
 people who used them, or from the 
 letters and romances of the time, and 
 are to be found in his Grand Diction- 
 naire des Pretieuses. A scientific clas- 
 sification of them is given in the 
 fourth volume of the Histoire de la 
 Langue et de la Litterature fran^aise^ 
 now publishing under the editorial 
 direction of that distinguished scholar, 
 M. Petit de Julleville. The malady 
 was widespread. Moliere himself was 
 not wholly able to escape it. Nei- 
 -+ 106 +- 
 
AND THE PR&CIEUSES 
 
 ther was Corneille. In much the 
 same way Shakespeare dropped into 
 occasional Euphuistic forms even 
 when he was not laughing at Eu- 
 phuism. 
 
 When preciosity reached the coun- 
 try towns it became more ridiculous 
 than ever, and fell quite naturally 
 under the lash of the satirist. Mo- 
 liere is believed to have tried the ef- 
 fect of the Precieuses ridicules in the 
 provinces before he produced it in 
 Paris. There were so many pre- 
 cieuses in Lyons that Somaize de- 
 voted twenty-eight pages to them in 
 an appendix to the Dictionnaire. 
 They were to be found at Bordeaux, 
 at Aix, at Poitiers, at Aries, and at 
 Montpellier. In the Voyage de Cha- 
 pelle et de Bachaumont is an account 
 
 -H- IO7 *- 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 of a visit to a gathering of country 
 precieuses, the very type which Mo- 
 liere must often have encountered 
 during his years of provincial travel. 
 Chapelle describes their affected and 
 pretentious airs. He satirizes their 
 tawdry rhetoric, and turns them into 
 ridicule by making them talk of the 
 4 divine beauty ' of Mademoiselle de 
 Scudery, and speak of Pellisson as an 
 Adonis. When one of these ladies 
 referred to D'Assoucy as a member 
 of the French Academy, Chapelle de- 
 clares that he and his companions 
 were seized with so irresistible a desire 
 to laugh that they were obliged to 
 leave the room and leave the house ; 
 they went back to their inn to have 
 their laugh out at leisure. 
 
 There was abundant material for 
 -*• 108-1- 
 
=a 
 
 AND THE PRfiCIEUSES 
 
 satire in the externals of preciosity, 
 as may be learned by reading Livet's 
 account of a ' morning ' at the house 
 of some representative blue-stock- 
 ing. These people lived comic opera 
 and did n't know it. One would 
 like to have seen such a gathering, 
 the high-priestess throned upon her 
 couch, the spaces on either side of 
 the bed (the ruelles) filled with ladies 
 and gallants, the fluttering of fans and 
 feathers, the rustle and gleam of satin 
 and silk, the little beribboned canes 
 which they waved incessantly while 
 they talked; the talk itself, infinitely 
 clever in some cases and infinitely 
 absurd in others ; the flourishes and 
 bows, the compliments and witti- 
 cisms; and then the general serenity 
 which filled every breast, the con- 
 
 -I- 109 4- 
 
 V 
 
HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 sciousness that no vulgar sound could 
 mar the turn of a verse or the climax 
 of an apostrophe, for the door-knocker 
 was carefully muffled. 
 
 no- 
 
VI 
 
 HP 
 
 JlfcHE Marquise de Rambouillet 
 died in 1665. For some time before 
 her death the salon had been but a 
 shadow of its former self. The mem- 
 ory of the great days survived, but 
 the great days were no longer pos- 
 sible. New ideas had begun to 
 mould the literature of the seven- 
 teenth century. Preciosity was not 
 annihilated by Moliere's attack, but 
 more than ever it became a reproach 
 and a byword. The latter-day pre- 
 -+ 111 4- 
 
HOTEL BE RAMBOVILLET 
 
 cieuses had the name but not the 
 power. They might summon spirits 
 from the vasty deep, but the only 
 response was the irreverent laughter of 
 spectators. 
 
 That preciosity had many virtues 
 cannot be denied. It was exceeding 
 picturesque also ; and picturesque- 
 ness alone is a virtue for which we 
 ought to be grateful. The pages 
 which contain its history are among 
 the most fascinating in the annals of 
 French literature. The Marquise 
 was in many ways a great woman. 
 She was admirable in her own day, 
 she is admirable in ours. It was no 
 small accomplishment to have had 
 a refining influence upon one's day 
 and generation. It was no little or 
 unworthy thing to have retained 
 
 -I- II2-H- 
 
AND THE PRfiCIEUSES 
 
 one's social supremacy through so 
 many years, and by entirely legiti- 
 mate methods. Historians have ex- 
 aggerated the intellectual frivolity of 
 Hotel de Rambouillet. After all it 
 seems less culpable to be frivolous 
 over words and ideas than over cards; 
 and if it is a question of ultimate 
 idiocy, charades are no worse than 
 dancing. Let us not exaggerate the 
 significance of trifles. Incredible as 
 it may appear, I have seen human 
 beings playing hjalma ; the men were 
 college-graduates and the women 
 belonged to clubs. If, then, we are 
 inclined to laugh at a society which 
 could divide into two hostile camps 
 on the question which of two sonnets 
 was the better, we may take comfort 
 in the compensating thought that 
 
a ltdr $ ^ 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 
 
 these people actually knew a sonnet 
 when they saw one. 
 
 The statement may be hard to 
 prove, but without doubt the circle 
 of Hotel de Rambouillet better de- 
 serves our respect than the best so- 
 ciety of any favorite centre at the 
 present day. It was the misfortune 
 of Hotel de Rambouillet to have out- 
 lived its usefulness. But that may 
 happen to any man, any woman, any 
 organization. It was also its misfor- 
 tune to have been imitated, and badly 
 imitated. Yet the genuine is none 
 the less genuine because the spurious 
 exists. ' Hotel de Rambouillet has its 
 place, and that a great place in the 
 history of the seventeenth century. 
 It was the incomparable vestibule of 
 modern culture. The men of that 
 
 1 
 
AND THE PR^CIEUSES 
 
 generation had no reason to regret 
 that they had frequented the "blue 
 room " of Arthenice. Some no doubt 
 learned affectation, but more learned 
 to think delicately, and all to speak 
 well/ 
 
 115. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 
 NOTE 
 
 1 HIS sketch of Hotel de Rambouillet 
 will serve no real purpose unless it stimu- 
 lates the reader to consult a few, at least, 
 of the many books and essays in which 
 French critical scholarship and genius have 
 interpreted the history of seventeenth cen- 
 tury literature. Larroumet well says that 
 one might make a small library out of the 
 books devoted to the societe precieuse. 
 The following bibliography is for the use 
 of c gentle ' readers ; it is not addressed to 
 -+ 117 -t- 
 
> ^ — ^^ g 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 literary specialists or professional bibliogra- 
 phers. 
 
 Having in mind, therefore, the amateur 
 of good books rather than the pundit, I 
 have grouped the materials relating to 
 Hotel de Rambouillet and the Precieuses 
 thus : — 
 
 First : The more or less condensed no- 
 tices to be found in manuals of French 
 literature. These works are inexpensive 
 and accessible. They present the subject 
 in epitome. 
 
 i . Lanson (Gustave), Histoire de la Lit- 
 terature frangaise. Paris, Hachette, 1898, 
 
 PP- 3 68 -39!- 
 
 2. Lintilhac (Eugene), Litterature fran- 
 
 faise. Paris, Andre fils, 1895. Deuxieme 
 partie, pp. 9-16. 
 
 3. Brunettere (Ferdinand), Manuel de 
 V histoire de la Litter ature frangaise. Paris, 
 Delagrave, 1898, pp. 106-130. 
 
 -+ 118 +- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 Each of the above-named books is rich 
 in bibliographical references. 
 
 4. Geruzez (Eugene), Histoire de la Lit- 
 terature fran^aise. Paris, Didier, 1869, pp. 
 35-63. 
 
 5. Albert (Paul), Litter ature fran^aise 
 des origines a la fin du XVI e Steele. Paris, 
 Hachette, 1881, pp. 387-404. 
 
 6. Pergameni (Hermann), Histoire ge- 
 nerate de la Litterature fran$aise. Paris, 
 Alcan, 1889, PP- 209-213. 
 
 Second : Extended accounts and mono- 
 graphs. 
 
 1. Petit de Julie ville (L.), Histoire de 
 la Langue et de la Litterature fran$aise. 
 Paris, Colin, 1897. Vol. IV., chapters 1, 
 2, and 7. 
 
 This magnificent work is being written 
 by collaboration. The chapters in ques- 
 tion are by Petit de Julleville, Bourciez, 
 
 -+ 119 «?- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 and Morillot. Excellent bibliographies at 
 the end of each chapter. 
 ■. 2. Demogeot (Jacques), Tableau de la 
 Litter ature fran^aise au XVII e Steele avant 
 Corneille et Descartes. Paris, Hachette, 
 1859, PP- 205-300. 
 
 3. Li vet (Ch.-L.), Precieux et Pr'ecieuses, 
 caracteres et mceurs litter aires du XVII e 
 Siecle. Paris, Didier, 1859. 
 
 4. Rcederer (P. L.), Memoire pour servir 
 a Vhistoire de la Societe polie en France. 
 Paris, Didot, 1835. 
 
 Privately printed and expensive. Mod- 
 est Parisian booksellers will sometimes part 
 with the volume for ten dollars. There is 
 a copy in the Boston Public Library. 
 
 5. Cousin (Victor), La Societe fran$aise 
 au XVII e Siecle d'apres la Grand Cyrus. 
 Paris, Perrin, 1886, two vols. — La Jeu- 
 nesse de Mme. de Longueville. Paris, Perrin, 
 1897. — Mme. de Sable, Paris, Didier, 1882. 
 
 -+ 120 H- 
 
€= 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 6. Brunetifere (F.), Etudes Critiques, 
 deuxieme serie : La Societe precieuse, a 
 review of La Jeunesse de Flechier by the 
 Abbe Fabre. 
 
 In this essay Brunetiere makes his often 
 quoted distinction between the esprit gau- 
 lois and the esprit precieux. 
 
 7. Larroumet (Gustave), Notice histo- 
 rique sur les Precieuses ridicules. Paris, Gar- 
 nier. 
 
 This book should be in the hands of all 
 students. The eighty pages of introduction 
 are in the highest degree suggestive and 
 informing. 
 
 8. Crane (Thomas Frederick), La Soci- 
 ete fran$aise au XVII e Siecle. New York, 
 Putnam, 1889. 
 
 Contains a large and carefully selected 
 
 group of passages relating to Hotel de 
 
 Rambouillet, nearly all from contemporary 
 
 writers. There are copious notes, an intro- 
 
 -+ 121 -j- 
 
j^ tT"" 1 ■> 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 duction of thirty-four pages, a bibliography, 
 and a reproduction of the c Carte du 
 Tendre.' 
 
 g. Breitinger (H.), Jus neuern Litter a- 
 turen. Zurich, 1879, pp. 1-54. Der 
 Salon Rambouillet und seine culturgeschicht- 
 liche Bedeutung. 
 
 10. Colombey (Emile), Ruelles, Salons^ 
 et Cabarets. Paris, Dentu, 1892. 
 
 This list does not begin to exhaust the 
 number of critical and historical studies. 
 The reader who consults these will have 
 no difficulty in getting track of what he 
 wants. The numerous passages scattered 
 through the various writings of Sainte- 
 Beuve should be read. 
 
 Third : Direct sources, among which 
 are : — 
 
 1. Tallemant de R6aux : Les Histori- 
 ettes, 3 e edition, De Monmerque et Paulin 
 Paris. Paris, Techener, 1862, six vols. 
 -+ 122 H- 
 
1900