tain types of middle-class Parisian life, often animated, exact,
effective in its satire; but the analysis of a petty and commonplace
world needs some relief of beauty or generosity to make its triviality
acceptable, and such relief Furetiere will not afford.

Somewhat apart from this group of satiric tales, yet with a certain
kinship to them, lie the more fantastic satires of that fiery
swashbuckler--"demon des braves"--CYRANO DE BERGERAC (1619-55),
_Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune_, and _Histoire
Comique des Etats et Empires du Soleil_. Cyrano's taste, caught by
the mannerisms of Italy and extravagances of Spain, was execrable.
To his violences of temper he added a reputation for irreligion. His
comedy _Le Pedant Joue_ has the honour of having furnished Moliere
with the most laughable scene of the _Fourberies de Scapin_. The
voyages to the moon and the sun, in which the inhabitants, their
manners, governments, and ideas, are presented, mingle audacities
and caprices of invention with a portion of satiric truth; they lived
in the memories of the creator of Gulliver and the creator of
Micromegas.

CHAPTER II
THE FRENCH ACADEMY--PHILOSOPHY (DESCARTES)--RELIGION (PASCAL)

The French Academy, an organised aristocracy of letters, expressed
the growing sense that anarchy in literature must end, and that
discipline and law must be recognised in things of the mind. It is
one of the glories of RICHELIEU that he perceived that literature
has a public function, and may indeed be regarded as an affair of
the State. His own writings, or those composed under his
direction--memoirs; letters; the _Succincte Narration_, which sets
forth his policy; the _Testament_, which embodies his counsel in
statecraft--belong less to literature than to French history. But
he honoured the literary art; he enjoyed the drama; he devised plots
for plays, and found docile poets--his Society of five--to carry out
his designs.

In 1629 Valentin Conrart, secretary to the King, and one of the
frequenters of the Hotel de Rambouillet, was accustomed to receive
weekly a group of distinguished men of letters and literary amateurs,
who read their manuscripts aloud, discussed the merits of new works,
and considered questions of criticism, grammar, and language.
Tidings of these reunions having reached Richelieu, he proposed that
the society should receive an official status. By the influence of
Chapelain the objections of certain me