present century.

[Sidenote: The Heroic Romances.]

D'Urfe belonged as much to the sixteenth as to the seventeenth century,
though the _Astree_ was the work of the latter part of his life, and was
indeed left unfinished by him. It was shortly afterwards, under the
influence chiefly of the growing fancy for literary _coteries_, that the
heroic romance properly so called was born. This was usually a narration
of vast length, in which sometimes the heroes and heroines of classical
antiquity, sometimes personages due more or less to the author's
imagination, were conducted through a more than Amadis-like series of
trials and adventures, with interludes and a general setting of
high-flown gallantry. This latter possessed a complete jargon of its
own, and (though the hypothesis of its power over the classical French
drama is for the most part exaggerated) continued to exercise a vast
influence on literature and on society, even after Moliere had poured on
its chief practitioners and advocates the undying mockery of his
_Precieuses Ridicules_. There were three prominent authors in this
style, Mademoiselle de Scudery, La Calprenede, and Gomberville.
Mademoiselle de Scudery, known in the _coterie_ nomenclature of the time
as 'Sapho,' was the sister of Georges de Scudery, and a woman of
considerable talent and more considerable industry. Madeleine de Scudery
was born at Havre in 1607, and died at Paris in 1701, her life thus
covering nearly the whole of the century of which she was one of the
most conspicuous literary figures. She had no beauty--indeed she was
very ugly--but the eccentric military and literary reputation of her
brother and her own talents made her the centre and head of an important
_coterie_ in the capital. Her romances, the earliest of which was
_Ibrahim_, were published under her brother's name, but their
authorship was well known. She was extremely accomplished, not merely in
the accomplishments of a blue-stocking but in art, and even in
housewifery. After her series of romances was finished she published
many volumes, chiefly condensed or extracted from them, containing
_Conversations_ of the moral kind, which attracted attention from some
persons who had not condescended to the romances themselves. It ought
never to be forgotten that among the most fervent admirers of her books
and of their fellows was Madame de Sevigne, who was certainly almost as
acute in literary criticism as she was skilful in literary