a
worthy example of strength of mind, firmness of will, purity, and
womanliness. M. du Bled says:

"Port-Royal was the enterprise of the middle-class aristocracy of
France; you can see here an anticipated attempt of a sort of superior
third estate to govern for itself in the Church and to establish a
religion not Roman, not aristocratic and of the court, not devout
in the manner of the simple people, but freer from vain images and
ceremonies, and freer, also, as to the temporal in the face of worldly
authority--a sober, austere, independent religion which would have
truly founded a Gallican reform. The illusion was in thinking that
they could continue to exist in Rome--that Richelieu and Louis XIV.
would tolerate the boldness of this attempt."

A celebrated woman of the seventeenth century, one who really belongs
to the circle of Mme. de Longueville and Mme. de La Fayette, but who
early in life, like Mme. de Longueville, devoted herself to religion
and retired to live at Port-Royal, and is therefore more intimately
associated with the religious movement, was Mme. de Sable, a type of
the social-religious woman.

Mme. de Sable is a heroine of Cousin, whom we closely follow in this
account of her career. According to that writer, she is a type of the
purely social woman, a woman who did less for herself than for others,
in aiding whom she took delight, a woman who was the inspiration of
many writers and many works.

Mlle. de Souvre married the wealthy Marquis of Sable, of the house of
Montmorency, of whom little is known. He soon abandoned her; and she,
most unhappy over unworthy rivals, fell very ill, retired from society
for a time, and then reappeared; her career as a society woman then
began. At an early age, by force of her decided taste for the high
form of Spanish gallantry, then so much in vogue, and her inclination
to all things intellectual, she became one of the leaders of the
Hotel de Rambouillet. She, Mmes. de Sevigne, de Longueville, and de La
Fayette formed that circle of women who idealized friendship.

Within a few years she lost her father, husband, two of her brothers,
and her second son; and after putting her financial affairs into
order, she and her friend, the Countess of Maure, took up their
quarters at the famous Place Royale; there they decided to devote
their lives to letters, and there assembled their friends, men and
women, regardless of rank or party, personal merit being the only
means