"What a little infidel you are, Elsa! "Never, Elsa," he said, more vehementwill you not take my word? There is ly than the occasion appeared to need, really nobody like that. - on my honour."never, since I was born. There is no Will that help you to believe me?" such woman. There never has been there never will be. Never, on my honour, Elsa!"

She started and pointed towards the visitor she would have spoken, but her "Well, you needn't be afraid - you'll tongue felt paralyzed; Max looked and never meet her. She came from nowhere for the second time in his life nearly reI've looked at you so much that I sup-fused to believe his own eyes. Just withpose you have suggested your own opposite. But there that's enough of her."

was the worth now of anything he had | Twelfth until the majority of Louis the ever vowed to her? Gentle as she was, Fourteenth, was harassed and impoverElsa was not one to let herself be trampled ished by foreign and domestic wars, in upon by a rival, even if that rival were a terrupted only for a short period during queen. She drew up her small figure to the latter part of the reign of the great its full height, and, poor little bourgeoise Henry. The hand that is ever upon the though she was, looked steadfastly upon sword-hilt has little cunning for the pen. her magnificent rival, without flinching, Thus we had entered upon our second though her heart felt breaking in two. great literary age ere France had completed her first. While we could boast our Chaucer, Spenser, and the glorious dramatists and poets of the Elizabethan age, France could place beside these only Clement Marot, Ronsard, Malherbe, Regnier, and a few dramatists whose works have long since fallen into deserved oblivion.

As for Max, who knew how little any real woman that could be visible to Elsa had to do with a shadow that was visible to himself alone, he knew not what to think, say, or do. What Elsa must think of it he could dimly guess, and yet it was impossible to explain at the moment, or indeed ever, without appearing to pile Pelions upon Ossas of extravagant perjuries. If he had only taken Elsa into his confidence at first, all might have been well; but it was too late now. He could only stare silently.

Meanwhile the lady herself, whoever she might be, stood gracefully just within the door and smiled graciously.

Henry the Fourth and his great minister, Sully, both essentially soldiers and statesmen, cared little for literature. Marie de Médicis had the Italian love for poetry, but her patronage, confined to the poets of her own nation, exercised a depressing rather than encouraging influ ence upon native genius. Louis the "Herr Max Brendel?" she asked, in a Thirteenth, although he loved the sister voice like the sound of glass bells struck arts of music and painting, liked neither lightly, so sweet, ringing, clear, yet far letters nor men of letters; but in Richeaway did it seem. "Silence gives assent, lieu they found a noble patron, who did does it not? And as nobody answered I far more to elevate the profession, to form supposed I might come in. Forgive me, a standard of good taste, to fix and purify though, if I am one too many. Mademoi- the language, and to encourage the develselle is a model, I suppose? I congratu-opment of literature, than was ever aclate you on finding one so pretty. I

complished by the Grand Monarque who has obtained all the credit.

"I am no model, madame, and it is I The French and English languages, am one too many," broke out poor Elsa, however, developed into their modern the preacher of patience, unable to con- form at about the same period. The potain herself longer in the presence of such ems of Clement Marot (Francis the First) hypocrisy. "Herr Max Brendel in- offer no greater difficulties to the student deed!-as though she, whose portrait he of modern French than do those of Surrey had been a whole month in painting, did to the foreign student of English; the not know her painter's name! Then, fear- same may be said of the works of Reful of breaking down before her rival and gnier, the Juvenal of his nation, although her false lover, she hurried from the room, he is rugged and archaic at times. Ronran home, threw herself on her bed, and sard, however, is frequently unintelligible, moaned. Hitherto she had been a very not so much from archaisms as from neApril of ready tears and smiles- but now ologisms; his diction is an extraordinary the tears came hard, as though their fount-patchwork; when he could not find a ain had been scorched dry.

From Temple Bar. CORNEILLE, AND THE LITERARY SOCIETY OF HIS AGE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "MIRABEAU," ETC. WHILE England, with the accession of Henry the Seventh, entered upon an epoch of peace and ever-increasing prosperity, France, from the time of Louis the

word in his own language to exactly express his meaning, he put in a Greek or a Latin one, not as a quotation, but as an embodiment, while his rhymes are frequently made by the addition of classical terminations. Malherbe may be considered as the first writer of purely modern French. His poems are not very valuable; his one theme is adulation of the great Henry, celebrations of his amatory conquests, and appeals to those ladies who had strength of mind sufficient to resist the royal suitor. But his love of

purisms amounted to monomania. A few
moments before his death he awoke as if
from a deep sleep to reprove his nurse for
an incorrect expression; the priest who
was at his bedside reproached him for
allowing his mind to be distracted at such
a moment by so frivolous a subject.
"No
matter," was his reply, "I will defend
purity of language with my last breath.”
And with those words he died.

of virtue, and of science, for all these things agree there wonderfully; and this rendezvous of all that was most distinguished in merit and condition formed a tribunal which it was necessary to take into account, and the decision of which had a great weight in the world upon the conduct and reputation of the persons of the court and society. (St. Simon: note upon Dangeau.)

noble mind; it was she who corrected the bad manners then prevalent." Yet more distinguished than the marquise was her daughter, celebrated by all the poets of the age in the "Guirlande de Julie." This society was in its highest excellence about 1630, and held supreme sway until the breaking out of the war of the Fronde.

crowded: but what had once been taste and refinement had now degenerated into affectation and absurdity. Imitators had sprung up both in Paris and the provinces, and had brought down a storm of ridicule upon the name of précieuse. †

Even the all-scandalizing Tallemant de Purism was all the rage in France just Réaux writes: "Madame de Rambouillet then, thanks to the society of the Hôtel de was admirable, she was good, gentle, beRambouillet the précieuses, whose in-neficent, modest, warm-hearted, and of a fluence upon the language and literature of their nation has scarcely, perhaps, even yet been duly appreciated. Catherine de Vivonne, an Italian lady of noble family, was married at sixteen to the Marquis de Rambouillet, and in the same year (1600) that Henry the Fourth espoused Marie de Médicis. Of an exquisitely sensitive and refined mind, which had been highly In 1645 Julie's husband, the Marquis de cultivated by an admirable education, and Montausier, being a partisan of the court, brought up amidst a family the purity of found it expedient to quit Paris, taking his whose manners was spotless, the youthful wife with him; the withdrawal of this marquise found the coarse and licentious shining light and the increasing years of court of the French king most uncongenial Madame de Rambouillet gradually brought to her tastes. His pursuit of the Princess about the decadence of this notable assemCondé, the greatest blot upon his charac- bly. At the end of the civil war, however, ter, completed her disgust, more especially Julie returned, and the salons were again as the prince, who had been educated under her father's care, was her personal friend. Retiring altogether from the Louvre, she conceived the idea of creating a circle of her own, to which only those distinguished for elegance of manners and intellectual superiority should be admitted. It is chiefly through Molière's comedy, Paris had never beheld aught so beau-"Les Précieuses Ridicules," which was tiful as her salons; the heavy magnifi- only one of the numerous satires directed cence which then obtained was superseded against it, that the society is known to by an airy lightness, and the all-prevailing the ordinary reader. It is an error to colours of red and tan gave place to the suppose, however, that the dramatist inmore tasteful blue. Spacious apartments, tended to represent under Madelon and lit by windows opening from ceiling to Cathos such ladies as Julie and her mothfloor, led into cool and delicious gardens er, Mesdames de Sévigné, de Hautefort, stretching away among blossoms and foli- de Sablé, de Longueville, de Scudéry, de age far as the eye could reach; hangings Chevreuse, who, however far they may of blue velvet, fringed and trimmed with have carried their ideas of refinement into gold and silver, covered the walls; bas- pedantry and affectation, were highly-edukets of flowers hanging from the ceiling cated and intellectual women. and scattered everywhere, made a per- cieuses Ridicules" was not produced until petual spring; while paintings and other 1659, one year before Madame de Ramworks of the finest art were in glorious bouillet's death, when many of those who profusion. Here, for the first time, the had been the most brilliant ornaments of aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy of her assemblies in their best days had letters mingled upon an equal footing, and the nobility of intellect first received its due appreciation. And here, it may be asserted, was formed the first nucleus of modern society:

The Hôtel de Rambouillet was in Paris a kind of academy of beaux esprits, of gallantry,

66 Les Pré

flower was painted, accompanied by an appropriate This was an album, upon each page of which a madrigal. There were in all nineteen madrigals, each composed by one of the most distinguished poets of the day.

This name was not applied until the decadent days of Rambouillet.

Two words to justify my intentions upon the subject of this comedy. I wish to make it apparent that it keeps everywhere within the limits of honest and permitted satire; that the most excellent things are subject to be copied by vile apes who deserve to be tossed in a blanket; that these vicious imitations of what is most perfect have been at all times matter of comedy; . . . thus the true précieuse would be wrong to take offence when we hold up to ridicule only those who imitate them badly.

passed away. Molière, in his preface to the | forth that love was the ruling passion of comedy, says: the world, that woman was the queen absolute, and man her subject and slave, who should be eager at any sacrifice to perform her lightest behests, and consider himself well rewarded for a life of devotion if the fair one deigned to cast a smile upon him. Love was supposed to be purely platonic and to desire nothing beyond the society of the beloved one and an interchange of sentiments, while its highest delights were supposed to be contained in a mutual analysis and description of the subtlest traits of each other's The Hôtel de Rambouillet in its best passion. Perhaps at the end of a dozen - Montausier had to wait fourteen days was recognized as the supreme tri- years bunal of taste and authority in all affairs before the fair Julie rewarded his devoappertaining to literature and gallantry; tion the lady bestowed upon him her every poet of repute read his productions faded charms. But the précieuse prein its salons before giving them to the tended to regard marriage with great disworld; the readings originated discussions gust. The lover was to pass through a upon the merits and demerits of the sub- long probation before he dared even to conjects, which were criticised with a minute- fess his tendresse, and then the confession ness that would be pronounced absurdly must be drawn from him only by accident trivial in this age of free and easy compo- and not by design; after that several sition. There was not a word in the lan- years must elapse before he ventured to guage which was not put upon its trial,kiss her hand. In the first part of "Cléargued for and against, with the view of lie" Madame de Scudéry introduced ultimately banishing it forever from polite her celebrated carte du tendre, or lovelips and pens, or of retaining it in that chart. La tendresse was supposed to superfine vocabulary used by the illumi- arise from three causes -esteem, gratinati. Yet even literature and lexicography tude, and inclination- and were second in importance to the codifi- chart we have the river of Inclination, cation of the laws of gallantry, for in that having upon its right bank the village of lay the mission of the précieuses. Love- Jolis-vers, and of Epitres-galantes, upon making, if so strong a word can be applied to so cold and formal a business, was reduced to a series of rules, any infringement of which was punished by expulsion from the society. These rules were chiefly taken from the romances of Madame de Scudéry,* upon which the précieuses formed their manners and sentiments. Their fundamental doctrine set

No modern reader could possibly get through one out of the ten volumes of sentimental conversations that make up the greater part of "Le Grand Cyrus," or" Clélie," the most celebrated works of that lady; the former, however, will always be interesting to the literary student since under fictitious names he will find there minute portraits of Madame de Rambouillet and her associates, descriptions of the hôtel and the manners of its habitués; the couleur de rose is over all, but the outlines are faithful. Madame de Scudéry, however, was not the originator of these "romans de longue haleine," as they have been called, as the "Astree" of the Marquis d'Urfey, a pastoral as full of allegories as "The Fairy Queen," preceded them by some years; Röderer, however, the historian of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, is of opinion that for some reason not apparent "Astrée" was not received by the précieuses. It is a curious phenomenon that one of the most licentious ages of the modern world should have produced these impossible platonic idealizations, while the literature of this more chaste nineteenth century is saturated with sensuousness. Is it that our sentiments and actions are always at variance?

upon

the

Molière has admirably hit off these extravagances in his "Précieuses Ridicules," in the scene where

Madelon describes to her father the correct fashion in which a lover should make his advances. "First," she

says, "he ought to see in the church, or on the promenade, or at some public ceremony the person with whom he is to fall in love, or to be conducted to her house as by fatality by some relation or friend, and to come away pensive and melancholy. He conceals for a time his passion for the beloved object, but pays her several visits, when he never fails to introduce a question of gallantry which exercises the mind of the assembly. The day of the declaration arrives, which ought to take place in some garden walk at a little distance from the company; and that declaration is followed by a prompt anger which appears in our blushes, and which for a time banishes the lover from our presence. He afterwards finds means to appease us, to insensibly accustom us to the discourse of his passion, and to draw from us that confession which causes so much pain. After that come the adventurers, rivals who cross a settled inclination, persecutions of fathers, jealousies arising out of false appearances, complaints, despairs, abductions and what follows. This is the way affairs are managed in the polite world, and these are the rules which in proper gallantry cannot be dispensed with." (Scene 5.)

+ The first volume of "Clélie" did not appear until 1654, the last not until 1660, the year of Madame de Rambouillet's death, a period during which the purisms of the précieuses had reached their highest point of absurdity. This was the epoch of Madame de Scudéry's Saturday afternoon, réunions which now rivalled, if they did not surpass, those of the marquise and her daughter.

the left those of Complaisance, of Petits- | bouillet, who had been christened CatheSoins, and of Assiduités; farther on were rine, was known as Arthenice, an anagram the hamlets of Légèreté and Oubli, with discovered by Voiture. Elaborate perithe lake of Indifference. One route con- phrases were used to describe the most ducted to the district of Abandon and simple things, and common words were Perfidie; and so on to the town of Ten- never employed even to express the most dre, to arrive at which it was necessary to common ideas. besiege the village of Billets-galants, to force the hamlet of Billets-doux, and to seize upon the château of Petits-Soins.