h was at the culmination of its glory in 1630, and did
not become quite extinct until 1648, when the troubles of the Fronde
commencing, its _habitues_ were dispersed or absorbed by political
interests. The presiding genius of this _salon_, the Marquise de
Rambouillet, was the very model of the woman who can act as anamalgam to
the most incongruous elements; beautiful, but not preoccupied by
coquetry, or passion; an enthusiastic admirer of talent, but with no
pretensions to talent on her own part; exquisitely refined in language
and manners, but warm and generous withal; not given to entertain her
guests with her own compositions, or to paralyze them by her universal
knowledge. She had once _meant_ to learn Latin, but had been prevented
by an illness; perhaps she was all the better acquainted with Italian and
Spanish productions, which, in default of a national literature, were
then the intellectual pabulum of all cultivated persons in France who are
unable to read the classics. In her mild, agreeable presence was
accomplished that blending of the high-toned chivalry of Spain with the
caustic wit and refined irony of Italy, which issued in the creation of a
new standard of taste--the combination of the utmost exaltation in
sentiment with the utmost simplicity of language. Women are peculiarly
fitted to further such a combination--first, from their greater tendency
to mingle affection and imagination with passion, and thus subtilize it
into sentiment; and next, from that dread of what overtaxes their
intellectual energies, either by difficulty, or monotony, which gives
them an instinctive fondness for lightness of treatment and airiness of
expression, thus making them cut short all prolixity and reject all
heaviness. When these womanly characteristics were brought into
conversational contact with the materials furnished by such minds as
those of Richelieu, Corneille, the Great Conde, Balzac, and Bossuet, it
is no wonder that the result was something piquant and charming. Those
famous _habitues_ of the Hotel de Rambouillet did not, apparently, first
lay themselves out to entertain the ladies with grimacing "small-talk,"
and then take each other by the sword-knot to discuss matters of real
interest in a corner; they rather sought to present their best ideas in
the guise most acceptable to intelligent and accomplished women. And the
conversation was not of literature only: war, politics, religion, the
lightest details o