terwoven with the best intellectual life of more than two
hundred years. Differing in tone according to the rank, taste, or
character of their leaders, they were rallying points for the most
famous men and women of their time. In these brilliant centers, a new
literature had its birth. Here was found the fine critical sense that
put its stamp on a new poem or a new play. Here ministers were created
and deposed, authors and artists were brought into vogue, and vacant
chairs in the Academie Francaise were filled. Here the great philosophy
of the eighteenth century was cradled. Here sat the arbiters of manners,
the makers of social success. To these high tribunals came, at last,
every aspirant for fame.

It was to the refinement, critical taste, and oral force of a rare
woman, half French and half Italian, that the first literary salons owed
their origin and their distinctive character. In judging of the work of
Mme. De Rambouillet, we have to consider that in the early days of the
seventeenth century knowledge was not diffused as it is today. A new
light was just dawning upon the world, but learning was still locked
in the brains of savants, or in the dusty tomes of languages that were
practically obsolete. Men of letters were dependent upon the favors of
noble but often ignorant patrons, whom they never met on a footing of
equality. The position of women was as inferior as their education,
and the incredible depravity of morals was a sufficient answer to the
oft-repeated fallacy that the purity of the family is best maintained
by feminine seclusion. It is true there were exceptions to this reign
of illiteracy. With the natural disposition to glorify the past, the
writers of the next generation liked to refer to the golden era of the
Valois and the brilliancy of its voluptuous court. Very likely they
exaggerated a little the learning of Marguerite de Navarre, who was said
to understand Latin, Italian, Spanish, even Greek and Hebrew. But
she had rare gifts, wrote religious poems, besides the very secular
"Heptameron" which was not eminently creditable to her refinement, held
independent opinions, and surrounded herself with men of letters. This
little oasis of intellectual light, shadowed as it was with vices,
had its influence, and there were many women in the solitude of remote
chateaux who began to cultivate a love for literature. "The very
women and maidens aspired to this praise and celestial manna of good
learning,"