nd
English works.

[243] The learned editor of Tallemant des Reaux calls her Marie
Hortense. She also wrote verses and plays. There were many other romance
writers of the period now forgotten, or remembered only for other
things, such as the Abbe d'Aubignac.

[244] I cannot boast of an intimate or exhaustive acquaintance with the
'heroic' romances; but I have taken care to satisfy myself of the
accuracy of the statements in the text.

[245] Ed. Dillaye. 2 vols. Paris, 1881.

[246] The full title is _Histoire Comique des Etats de la Lune et du
Soleil_. Cyrano's works have been edited by P. L. Jacob. 2 vols. Paris,
1858.

[247] Ed. Colombey. Paris, 1877.

[248] Ed. Jannet. 2 vols. Paris, 1878.

[249] Ed. Garnier. Paris, 1864.

[250] Madame de la Fayette also wrote _La Comtesse de Tende_, and
interesting Memoirs of Henrietta of England. _Zaide_ was published under
the name of Segrais, who was a _nouvelle_-writer of no great merit,
though a pleasant poet.

[251] See H. Bonhomme, _Le Cabinet des Fees_.

[252] Ed. Lefevre. Paris, 1875. Ed. Lang. Oxford, 1888.

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORIANS, MEMOIR-WRITERS, LETTER-WRITERS.

Although the seventeenth century did not witness the acceptance in
France of what may be called a philosophical conception of history, and
though few or none of the regular histories of the time (with the
exception of that of Mezeray) hold high rank as literature, no period
was more fruitful in memoirs, letters, and separate historical sketches
of the first merit. The names of Madame de Sevigne, of the Cardinal de
Retz, of La Rochefoucauld, and at the extreme end of the period of Saint
Simon, rank among those of the most original writers of France, while
the historical essay has rarely assumed a more thoroughly literary form
than in the short sketches of Retz, Sarrasin, and others. The subject of
the present chapter may, therefore, be divided into four parts, the
historians properly so called (the least interesting of the four), the
historical essayists, the memoir-writers, and the letter-writers, with
an appendix of erudite cultivators of historical science and of
miscellaneous authors of historical gossip and other matters.

[Sidenote: General Historians. Mezeray.]

[253]It is said not unfrequently that the only historical work of this
particular period, combining magnitude of subject with elevation and
originality of thought and literary excellence of expression, is
Bossuet's disco