hes of genuine
pathos. The odes of Theophile are of free and musical movement, his
descriptions of natural beauty are graciously coloured, his judgment
in literary matters was sound and original; but he lacked the patient
workmanship which art demands, and in proclaiming himself on the side
of freedom as against order, he was retrograding from the position
which had been secured for poetry under the leadership of Malherbe.

With social order came the desire for social refinement, and following
the desire for refinement came the prettinesses and affectations of
over-curious elegance. Peace returned to France with the monarchy
of Henri IV., but the Gascon manners of his court were rude. Catherine
de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet, whose mother was a great Roman
lady, and whose father had been French ambassador at Rome, young,
beautiful, delicately nurtured, retired in 1608 from the court, and
a few years later opened her _salon_ of the Hotel de Rambouillet to
such noble and cultivated persons as were willing to be the courtiers
of womanly grace and wit and taste. The rooms were arranged and
decorated for the purposes of pleasure; the _chambre bleue_ became
the sanctuary of polite society, where Arthenice (an anagram for
"Catherine") was the high priestess. To dance, to sing, to touch the
lute was well; to converse with wit and refinement was something more
admirable; the _salon_ became a mart for the exchange of ideas; the
fashion of Spain was added to the fashion of Italy; Platonism,
Petrarchism, Marinism, Gongorism, the spirit of romance and the
daintinesses of learning and of pedantry met and mingled. Hither came
Malherbe, Racan, Chapelain, Vaugelas; at a later time Balzac, Segrais,
Voiture, Godeau; and again, towards the mid-years of the century,
Saint-Evremond and La Rochefoucauld. Here Corneille read his plays
from the _Cid_ to _Rodogune_; here Bossuet, a marvellous boy,
improvised a midnight discourse, and Voiture declared he had never
heard one preach so early or so late.

As Julie d'Angennes and her sister Angelique attained an age to divide
their mother's authority in the _salon_, its sentiment grew
quintessential, and its taste was subtilised well-nigh to inanity.
They censured _Polyeucte_; they found Chapelain's unhappy epic
"perfectly beautiful, but excessively tiresome"; they laid their
heads together over Descartes' _Discours de la Methode_, and
profoundly admired the philosopher; they were enraptured b